The Everlasting Drawback Of Immortality

Chapters

Tales Of The Past
Arens' Story
Cry Of The Bloodmoon
Motivation
Journey To Chrysalis
Clearing Under Attack
Splitting Up
Negotiations
Coming Back
Discord
Grapefruit-juice
Insanity
Auto-Spells
Training The Elements
Doing The Impossible
Combining Elements
Decisions
The Council
Duel
Everything Went Better Than Expected
Nifret
Battle Review
Crystals & Caves
The Last Days
The Last Battle
Oran, the traveler
Plans Of The Future
Finding Help
Under Canterlot
Sequel Time

Tales Of The Past

The room was silent. The ponies could not comprehend what the princess just said. Why should somepony want to die? That is simply unnatural! Such thoughts flew through their minds while they waited for someone to speak up and break the oppressive silence filling the room with its’ foul taste.

The concept of death is, of course, nothing new for the accumulated ponies in the room, but they never heard of someone wanting their own death. Equestria is a harmonious and peaceful land, where everypony gets their chance to redeem themselves of any errors they might have done in the past. On top of that, there are nearly no homeless and poor since the princess looks over everypony and wants them to have a life filled with joy.

“I am very sorry princess if I may sound disrespectful, but what do you mean exactly? You can not possibly mean that somepony wants to die.” Rarity just hoped that this didn’t sound disrespectful.

“I’m sorry Rarity, but that is exactly the case.”

“But why? Why would anypony want to die?” This time it was Dash.

“I do not know, my dear Rainbow Dash. Even I do not know everything about Oran. The only things I know about him, are those that he told me a thousand years ago.”

There it was again, the oppressing silence seemingly oozing the air itself that surrounded the ponies in the room. Nopony wanted to ask the question that wandered through everyponys mind right now. The princess said she did not want to say it in this conversation, but it was just too important. Twilight grabbed all the courage in her and asked the Princess.

“Princess Celestia?” Celestia looked to her student. “I think we all have the same question on our mind. We just need to know. Please tell us what happened a thousand years ago.”

The empress of the sun slowly inhaled a deep breath and released it after some time, and while she looked down to the table she just said: ”I am very sorry, but these are things that nopony should know if not completely necessary.”

“But Princess, we need to know what happened to perceive his power. How am I able to form a plan to stop him if we do not know anything about him?” Twilight had a desperate look on her face.

The princess thought several tens of seconds about this. The events were horrible on that day, and she did not want to burden her little ponies with the knowledge of the worst event that ever transpired in their world, but on the other hoof, they needed to know what he was capable of.

“I am sure that this knowledge is essential to your success, but I am still not willing to corrupt innocent minds with tales of a war.” She drew another deep breath. “But even if I am still not willing, I know that you need it. So I have decided that I will only reveal this to Twilight since she is the pony that is forming your plan. I hope you others will forgive me for my protectiveness. “

“O-Oh princess. You do not need to be s-sorry for us. I think we can manage.” The shy Pegasus said something for the first time on this table. Pinkie Pie just sat on her haunches the whole time, having a long flat mane going along the left side of her face.

The princess nodded her head and looked to the group of ponies. “Well then, I hope that this revelation did not weaken the power of your appetite.” They collectively looked at their food, and after some time looked to Celestia and slowly shook their heads.

“I think the best thing you can do now is to eat your food and strengthen your vitality while I tell Twilight of the thousand year old events in the next room.” Looking down at the nodding Twilight, Celestia decided to stand up and leave the table, but not before she could hear Pinkie Pie say something.

“Princess.” Celestia turned around to look at Pinkie Pie.

“Yes, Pinkie Pie?” Pinkie waited a little but reluctantly said her question.

“If the thing he wants is to die. Then does this mean *gulp* does this mean we have to kill him?”

The empress of the sun just shook her head. “No, Pinkie. We ponies of Equestria do not believe in killing. We do not kill anypony. It does not matter what he did, what he does and what he will do. Even if, Discord comes back and turns the world into a wheel of eternal chaos, we still will not kill him. In this case, we just need to find another way to drive Oran away from our planet.”

Pinkie with tears in her eyes but with a relatively happy smile plastered on her lips, just nodded to the princess and looked at her food. Reluctantly, she took the fork and moved it around her food in an attempt to distract her of the matter currently at hoof. Princess Celestia turned away from Pinkie and gestured Twilight to follow her to the next room.

Twilight complied and followed the princess to a private little room. It wasn’t any bigger than her own bedroom in her library. The floor changed from majestic marble to comfortable red carpet and the walls from white stone to warm wood. There was a desk stacked with papers and quills, and on the other side of the room was a fireplace. This was the old study of Twilight before she went to Ponyville.

Both of the ponies sat down at the fireplace, on some cushions. “It has been a long time since we last talked in this room.” Celestia looked at her student with a warm smile. Then she chuckled a little bit. “I remember when I waited here for you to talk about the anamorphic spells, but you were nowhere to be seen.”

“Oh Princess please. That story is embarrassing.” Twilight blushed a little.

“I do not know what you mean. You looked so adorable when you came running in here with your by ash blackened mane. What did you say, was the reason why your mane as full of ash? Ah right now I remember. You said you tried to light a candle on fire with your own magic and it just overreacted.”

Twilights’ blush was now nearly as red as the pink sunset from the day before. “Yes, I overcompensated for control with more magical energy. I thought ‘if I can’t control my magic enough to produce fire, then I just need to use enough magic to force the candle to burn’. It wasn’t one of my brightest moments, when the candle exploded into the air and landed on my head.”

Celestia giggled and nuzzled Twilight on the cheek. “But at least you were not hurt, my dear student.” Twilight also giggled a little. “Well, I think we should talk about our upcoming war.” Celestia hesitated. “I really do not want to tell you of the war from the past Millennium, but it seems I have no other choice.” While looking in the eyes of her information-hungry student Celestia started her story.

Exactly 1001 years before yesterday, Luna and I were at the pinnacle of our power. We defeated King Sombra. We banished Discord, and we did many other feats that a normal pony would be unable to perform. On top of that, we had the Elements Of Harmony. We thought no one could best us in combat, magic or in any form of competition.

At one day, while I was holding day court, I heard that somepony wanted an audience with me. The guardspony told me that he meant ‘that it would influence the future of whole Equus’. I dismissed that phrase as just some pointless rambling of some madpony, but I still wanted to see who said this. So I allowed him to enter. The one who entered was no other than Oran.

I never saw anything quite like him. He walked on two legs, wore clothes and had a enormous red sword strapped on his back. After I asked what he was, he just answered with “I am just a traveler.” Naturally I asked him back from where he travelled from. He nonchalantly answered “From the multiverse.”

Now Twilight, I am sure that you know what the multiverse is, but let me please just explain it exactly. We have our ponies. These ponies live together in families. Families live together in villages, well at least most of the time. Villages form a land. Lands form a world. A world is a planet. Planets form a star-system. Star-systems form a galaxy, and in the end, all galaxies combined form the universe.

The universe represents our time, our space and also our dimension. But what if there is more than just one universe, with other times, other kinds of space and another dimension? If we put all the different universes together into one being, then we have the multiverse. There are many different kinds of living beings, worlds and physical rules in many different universes. There may be worlds without magic, worlds with more magic or worlds with some kind of magic we can not understand, in comparison to our well known Equus.

Till that time I never heard of anypony being capable of traveling the multiverse. We couldn’t even travel in our star-system. So how can somepony just walk into my throne room and exclaim that he travels the multiverse. It was unheard of. I did of course dismiss this… pony… as a madpony.

Not a while later, he told me that Equus has five years to prepare itself with a war against him. I was enraged. How could he even think about challenging the immortal being that rules over Equestria. You do not need to look at me like that Twilight Sparkle, I really was this arrogant at that time. I did not show it, but I thought I was better than every other being in the world, except my sister.

I didn’t want to be informal so I just gulped down my rage and asked him, what he would gain from a war with us. What he then told me was something I never heard before. He told me that he travels through the multiverse to find a world, with beings capable of besting him in combat. He travels through every world, wages war with it, all for the sake of being bested in battle.

I calmly asked what would happen if he would find a world with forces stronger than him.

“Well, then I can finally put my journey to rest and finally succumb the sweet embrace of the eternal sleep.”

I couldn’t perceive what he told me. He wanted to die? Why? As I thought about what he said, he just turned around, looked at the door and told me: “I am waiting atop of Mount Dragonborn. If you have any Questions, you can come to me and ask. I won’t attack anyone in the next five years except when I am getting attacked myself. I wish you luck Princess Celestia.”

By the way, did you know why we called the mountain Mount Dragonborn? No? This is actually a funny story. You remember the mountain with the dragon that you and your friends asked to leave? That is Mount Dragonborn. We called it this because this once was the home of a dragon and at some time, some madpony walked up the mountain, went to the dragon, and shouted at it till it left.

He called himself the Dragonborn, and the story was so funny, that it spread all over Equestria. After one week, everypony started calling the mountain Mount Dragonborn, but back to the topic now.

After he said that he waited at the peak of the mountain, I just dismissed him as a power-hungry madpony. Oh, if I wouldn’t have done that, maybe things wouldn’t have turned out this disastrous.

I told Luna about him, and we both had a good laugh about his stupidity, but we still remembered him and the date he said, he would return.

Five years later, he started moving from the mountain straight to Canterlot. I took myself some free-time to look at the spectacle that my guards would give me when they subdue this madpony. I sent three Pegasi-guards to stop him. The Pegasi complied and flew straight at him. The next thing I saw were the halved remains of my guards. He just took his sword and slices right through the guards without remorse or hesitation.

To say I was stunned would be an understatement. He just killed three of my guards without even changing the pace of his “stroll”. I instantly sent every single guard I had straight at him. He slaughtered every single one of them. Every slash a dead guard. Every movement accompanied by the sickly symphony of genocide and never once has he slowed down or sped up from his seemingly casual stroll.

I was terrified. How could I underestimate him that much and send all my guards to their deaths? I eventually calmed down after some time. I flew straight in his path. For the first time in my eternal life, I felt the evil touch of hate in my being. How could he destroy the lives of my guards and their families?

I gathered all my magical power and anger and released everything in one gigantic beam of pure solar energy. My beam hit him right in the chest. He didn’t even attempt to dodge it. The only thing I managed to do, with all of my power, was to slow his stroll down to a stop. After some time, he shook his head and just said: ”A remarkable amount of power. With some ten-thousand years of training, you may be able to damage me.”

How could this be? How was he able to brush my power off, as if I was throwing a little stone at him? I panicked. Everything I had I threw at him. Nothing worked. Luna started helping me, but it made no difference. Eventually we powered ourselves out, but even if we failed, we still had one last ace up our sleeves.

Luna teleported to the elements’ chamber and brought them right to me. We powered up and concentrated on the positive emotions that the elements need to feed on, in order to activate their power. After we finished, powering up the elements, they shot a gigantic rainbow-beam at Oran. I will never forget what happened afterwards.

Oran held up his hand, and just when the beam was about to hit him, he just waved it, and the beam dispersed. I was in a state of panic. We did everything in our power to stop him, and we didn’t even manage to scratch him. I just slumped down and gave up. This had to be a dream. How was some stranger that I never met before, able to withstand everything we threw at him with such ease?

Luna told me that we can’t give up no matter what. She told me that we need to stand up for Equestria that we are the only ones with the power to stop him. I looked at my sister and smiled to her. We could not give up now!

I stood up and just when I was on my feet, a sword cut through Luna and parted her head from the rest of her body. Oran just killed Luna.

Now Twilight, I think I need to explain to you the three classes of immortality.

The first class is the class, Luna and I belong to. It means we are immortal to disease and age. We can still be killed by injury.

The second class is the reincarnating immortal. That is when somepony can die, but is able to invade a new body as a ghost and reincarnate into it.

The last class is the true immortal. This is a somewhat theoretical class because we never saw a true immortal. Oran was not one of them. He is like Luna and I, an immortal that can not be brought down by disease or age, but can be stopped with injury. As I said, Luna was no true immortal, so she was killed by Oran on the spot.

I couldn’t understand what happened. My sister died? Oran did not give me time to even try to comprehend what just happened. He picked me up by my horn, cut off both of my hind legs, and pulled me all the way to Everfree Castle. I know this sounds brutal, but that is what happened.

When we arrived, he jumped on top of the highest tower and levitated me up to him. Everything that happened until then, was nothing compared to what he did afterwards. He took again hold of my horn, pulled me up and made me watch over my land, with all of my subjects.

“Look at all this. This is what will pay for your arrogance!” With that said he straightened his arm and made one wide motion with it. Then there was silence. I did hear nothing for about 30 seconds, but after those 30 seconds, I heard something. I heard crying, screaming and screeching.

All my little ponies, all of them started screaming in pain and agony. Everypony ran through the streets as if their insides were on fire. It was unbearable. I couldn’t watch it. I wanted to turn away, but he made me watch it. With his magic, he opened my eyes and turned my head back to my dying city.

After about three minutes, everything has gone quiet again. Every pony in Equestria was dead. Bodies of mothers protecting their children from the unknown horror were lying on the ground. My whole kingdom just died.

I could not take this anymore. I started crying and screaming. It was all over. Everything was dead, and it was my entire fault. All just because of my ignorance and arrogance. I hated myself. While I was crying, I didn’t notice that I started bleeding out. I got sleepier and sleepier. The only thing that I wanted to do now was sleep.

“Remember what happened today. The next visitor may not be as merciful as me.” Was the last thing I heard before I drifted into the sweet embrace of death. On this day, every pony in Equestria died.

I did not know how much time passed, but at some point I started waking up again. I looked around and saw that I was atop of Everfree Castle. Recalling what happened, I instantly looked back at my legs and saw that I was unscathed. My hind legs were back.

Reluctantly I stood up and looked around. There still were the dead bodies of my little ponies on the floor. I was the only one that survived. Why was I the one? Why not anypone else? I fell back into screaming and crying again. Why was the one who was at fault the one who survived?

At some time, my sadness started turning into hate. I hated Oran for what he did. I hated myself for not being able to stop him. I hated Luna for not being powerful enough. I hated my subjects for what they put me through when they died. I started hating everything, and there was only one thing I wanted to do now. Everything shall burn down.

I straightened myself and began putting magic into the sun. Everything in the world needed to be burnt down so that I do not need to be reminded by my failure. I didn’t notice that my sister flew to me and started talking. What I also didn’t see where the jerking and moving bodies of all the ponies on the streets. I was just too blinded by my hate.

Just when I was ready to unleash a gigantic solar flare on Equus, my hate suddenly disappeared. Everything left me, and I suddenly could think clearly again. I aborted my spell and looked around. There she was. Luna held her horn to my head and absorbed all the hatred I felt.

I did not know how or why, but she did it. I will never forget what she then told me.

“Sister, no matter what you need to do to save Equestria. I will always love you.” She said this with tears flowing down her eyes. Then she started changing. Armor appeared where there was none before and she started laughing menacingly. Nightmare Moon was born and all because of my inability to control my emotions.

I was exhausted from my spell. I couldn’t stop Nightmare Moon, and again I was useless. At this point, everypony was alive and standing again. They all looked up at us. Their loved princess of the sun and the laughing evil beside her. I looked down at my ponies and realized that, just like Luna, they all were alive and healthy again. I did not know why, but they just were alive again, and I knew that I could not let them down.

I could not fail, not again. I summoned the Elements Of Harmony to my side and used them to banish my sister into the moon. After the deed was done, everypony started cheering for me, but I just lost my sister. The pain I felt deep inside, was nearly unbearable. At this day, I let everypony in Equestria down, and I knew that I needed to redeem myself. So I made it my goal to be the best ruler possible.

I thought this all could have been a mass-induced-dream, but this was not the case. My scientists told me that everypony in Equestria died, stayed dead for about eleven hours and got resurrected. I do not know how this was possible, but even the halved guards from the war were healthy as if nothing happened.

I also found a stone with the inscription “1001” in my bedchamber. It was obvious, that this stone was from Oran. It should remind me of my failure. Sadly, I thought wrong. This stone shouldn’t remind me of my failure, it told me when Oran will come back to Equestria. From this day forth, I did everything I could, to make Equestria the most harmonious land in all of Equus and every day I hoped that at one time, I will see Luna again.

Arens' Story

“So you are telling us that you are Orans’ apprentice?” Twilight asked. The human biped just walked around the hall and looked at the walls and windows. It seemed almost like he-

“Don’t ignore me!” Hearing that, he turned around and looked down at the lavender unicorn that was apparently speaking to him.

“Oh, did you say something?” He asked with a crooked eyebrow. Even though, Twilight was upset, she quickly composed herself again and asked in a friendly tone.

“I asked, are you really Orans’ apprentice?” The biped has a bewildered look on his face.

“Well, I did say that, didn’t I? By the way, how much time do we have left?” He started walking to a window and looked out to Canterlot. “Never mind that, are you sure this castle can hold itself on the mountain?” Celestia looked rather confused. Wasn’t it obvious that the castle holds itself on the side of the mountain through magic? Nevertheless, Celestia still wanted to ask him something.

“You were torn away from your dimension, came into contact with a sentient species you haven’t met before and the only thing you ask yourself is, how can this castle hold itself on the mountain?” The biped just rolled his eyes.

“Well excuse me, if not everyone is comfortable with the creepy principle of magic. Damn magic, how does it work?” The biped spotted that Twilight prepared herself for a lecture about magic. “I know how magic works! I am just not comfortable with it. It’s like drinking something to get you stronger, but you don’t know what’s in there. I don’t like that feeling. It just feels unnatural.” Twilight couldn’t believe what she heard.

“Unnatural? But everypony is born with magic. How can it feel unnatural?”

“Everypony? Really? Did you just say ‘everypony’?” Twilight was a little dumbfounded.

“Well yeah. What’s wrong with it?” The biped put two fingers to the bridge of his nose and squeezed. Then he groaned.

“Every world, which I visited, always said ‘everyone’. So why is it everypony?” Another obvious question thought Celestia.

“Well, we all are ponies right?” The biped just facepalmed.

“Nevermind. So how much time do we have until the old man attacks?” He started walking around the room again. Twilight still couldn’t believe how uncaring the new arrival seemed, but she still answered.

“Four years and ten and a half months.” And again the biped had a bewildered look on his face.

“One and a half month? You needed one and a half month to summon me?” Luna looked happily at the arrival.

“Yeah, fast isn’t it?” The visitor looked enraged.

“Fast? FAST? How can you call six weeks fast?” The ponies were taken aback by his outburst. One of the guards walked up to him.

“Who do you think you are talking to?” Before he could continue, he was interrupted by the visitor.

“Princess Luna of the moon, co-ruler of Equestria.” He just stated simply. Luna couldn’t believe what she heard. How can somepony from another dimension know about her?

“How can you know me?” She walked up to the visitor.

“Oran told me about this world when I last saw him. How long ago was that? Eeehhh… I think about 350 years. So quite recently.”

“Recently? Even for me, 350 years are not what I call recently.”

“Well no wonder, you look quite young.” Luna just chuckled.

“Well, don't let my appearance deceive your eyes. My actual age is 5447.” The Elements Of Harmony seemed perplexed. They knew that their princesses were old, but over 5000 years? That seemed impossible. Twilight walked up to Celestia.

“Are you really that old?” Celestia chuckled.

“Well I am 5448, but in Lunas’ case, yes.”

Suddenly a table from the side of the room flew incredibly fast to the side of the visitor, who instantly punched it with his fist in outrage. “Damnit!” Then he summoned a chair and sat down while holding his head with both hands. The ponies backed away and the visitor just continued holding his head. Celestia was the first who was able to calm down and went to him.

“Why are you so angry? Is there a problem?” The visitor looked at her, closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“Really nothing against you, but I’m just disappointed.”

“Disappointed? Disappointed of what exactly?” She asked him with a caring voice. He sighed again.

“It’s just that he told me 350 years ago that you and Luna have much talent and may be able to damage him at one time. I shouldn’t have interpreted things. I thought he meant that you were nearly able to damage him, but I see now that he really only meant potential. It would be impossible for someone of your age to scratch him already.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me, if I am mistaken, but that really sounded like if you were older than me.” He just waved a dismissive hand.

“Older than 5000 years? Seriously, I only see immortals YOUNGER than 5000 years every several millennia, and now I see two at once. The most I meet are between their 100,000s and 200,000s.” They couldn’t believe what they just heard. Their goddesses were only children in his eyes. Celestia who quickly regained her composure asked again.

“So, how old are you then?” He just turned his head to her with a bored look on his face.

“Me? I’m somewhere around 380,000 years. Give it a couple of millennia plus or minus.”

“WHAT?” Everypony exclaimed.

“Ow! Not so loud. These halls have a mean echo.” He groaned. Celestia just stood dumbfounded there and didn’t know what to do. Finally, she asked again.

“Did you just say 380,000?” The visitor just raised an eyebrow.

“What’s wrong with you lot? You almost sound as if you never met someone from another dimension before.” While the other five Elements Of Harmony just stood there with hanging jaws, Twilight walked up to the visitor and said something in a quiet shy voice.

“Well, we didn’t. Oran is the only one we ever met that came from there.” Now it was the bipeds’ time to dislodge his jaw.

“Wait, I didn’t mean that literally, but did you really just say that you never met someone from the multiverse?” Twilight nodded and the visitor began laughing. “I never thought I would see a raw-world again.” He said in between laughing fits. This time Rarity walked up to him.

“Excuse me, but what is a raw-world?” He smiled happily and answered her.

“Well, what we call a raw-world, is a world that has no experience in interdimensional travel. It is something really rare. The last time I saw a raw-world was about 150,000 years ago. Oh when I was just 130,000 years old.” He smiled warmly while he remembered these years. “Ah, good times. I was so young and stupid, it’s unbelievable.” He just chuckled. Suddenly he stood up from his chair.

“Well then. Enough small-talk. Time for introductions.” He performed a formal bow. “My name is Aren, apprentice of Oran and substitute-hero. At your service.” Celestia walked forward and also performed a slight bow.

“I am princess Celestia of Equestria. The ruler of this land.”

“My name is princess Luna of Equestria, and I am the co-ruler.” He shook both their hooves.

“I am Twilight Sparkle, student under princess Celestia.”

“Hello I am Pinkie Pie, and I am so happy to see you, because I am always happy when I meet a new pony and when I meet t-“ The orange hoof in her mouth stopping her from continuing.

“Name’s Applejack. Nice ta meet ya.” She shook his hand furiously, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Hi, I’m Rainbow Dash. Coolest and most awesome flyer in all of Equestria.”

“My name’s Rarity. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Everypony in the room looked expectantly at the shy yellow pegasus. After it was obvious that she wouldn’t come out of her own, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and pulled her out of her protective hideout that was behind princess Celestia. Aren looked at the shy pony and crouched so he could look her in the eyes at the same height.

“Hi, my name’s Aren. Who are you?” She said something, but it was too quiet to understand.

“Ah Fluttershy, nice to meet you.” The elements looked baffled.

“Wait, you could understand her?” Aren only blinked.

“Yeah, you can’t?” Then he facepalmed. “Ah shit, I always forget that not every being is immortal. Twilight, was it?” She nodded. “You should know that I have a passive spell, which perceives and evaluates every sound in a certain radius that could be interpreted as talking. It’s nothing special. Nearly everyone has that.” Twilight shook her head.

“I never heard of such a spell before.” Arens’ eyes widened.

“Wait, in what magical or technological age are you right now?” This question was directed to Celestia.

“I don’t know if this is of any use, but if you need to know, I will tell you. Currently we are in the trigonometric age.” Aren sighed.

“Judging by the name, you discovered trigonometric spells about, let’s say, 500 years ago, and you are now testing the boundaries of said spells?” Celestia was surprised. That was a exceptionally good summary of what they were currently researching, and she nodded.

“Yeah, then you will make contact with the multiverse in about one to three millennia, but I think we are trailing off from our original topic. So what do you know about Oran and what are your plans?” He nonchalantly asked the princess of the sun. She was a little taken aback by the sudden change of topics.

“Well I can tell you everything we discovered, when we are in a safer and more private area.” Aren facepalmed.

“Forget it, that sentence alone reveals that you know nothing about him.” He waved dismissively. Twilight, still suppressing the anger swelling inside her, because of his informal behavior, asked him curiously.

“What do you mean?” Aren turned to Twilight.

“The fact that you think you can talk in any area without Oran hearing everything, shows me that you don’t know anything about him.” Luna walked up to him.

“What do you mean? Are you suggesting that he hears everything we say, no matter where we are?” Aren nodded.

“Of course, the spell combination called ‘omnipresence’ is not hard to use. Even I can use it if I concentrate hard enough.” He looked around at the disbelieving faces of the ponies. “Well judging by your faces, you either don’t believe me, or you never heard of the combination.” Then he facepalmed. “ Of course you never heard of it. You didn’t even have contact with the multiverse. Sorry for my lack of understanding. Want me to explain the spell combo?”

“I think it would help us understand.” Celestia told him.

“Well, ok then. The omnipresence spell combination is, like the name says, a combination of spells that allows the user to have omnipresence over some part of the world. Your concentration defines how wide the area is you have omnipresence over. Omnipresence, for those who don’t know what that is, means that you hear every word talked and see every action performed by any living sentient being.”

“About 50% of every world I visited had at least one guy that can use and sustain that spell for an extended period of time. In those worlds are no wars, no rebellions and no big battles, because the spellcaster knows of everything that happens there and can interfere before it even begins.”

“This can be bad and good. If the spellcaster is a loving king that cares about his subjects, then it is positive since he can hear every quiet problem in the kingdom and can solve it. Now if, the caster is some evil overlord, well… you’re doomed unless the good guys have also one capable of using the spell.”

“Now for something really interesting. If we have two opponents, both being able to perform the spell to spy on the other one, what do you think will happen? Well doesn’t matter I’ll tell you anyway. Both leaders know the plans of the opposing one. If one makes a plan, the other creates a counter plan, which will then be counterplaned, as well. This could go on into infinity, but since that is way too tiresome, there is just one tactic that you could use in that war.”

“A simple frontal attack without any hidden intentions. In the end, the side with the stronger power will win. Now the omnipresence spell consist of 473 different spells, that all have to be performed and sustained at the same time. Only few can use it, like I said 50% of all worlds have one, and there are nearly no ones, that can use it subconsciously. I can only use 350 of them subconsciously. Now who do you think can do all of them subconsciously?”

He looked at the faces of the realizing ponies. “Yes, you’re correct. It’s Oran.” Celestia walked up to Aren with a disbelieving look in her eyes.

“I’m not sure if I can believe this.” Aren just sighed and looked to his left at some empty point in the room.

“Old man, I am helping your enemies here, so would you please prove it to them, so I can start planning on our battle with you? It’s in your own interest.” Nothing happened. They waited several seconds, but just when Celestia wanted to talk to Aren again, a bolt of lightning flew through the skylight and impacted in the center of the hall. The ponies shielded their eyes from the blinding light.

“You called, Aren?” Oran asked annoyed. The ponies couldn’t believe their eyes. Oran just impacted right into the princess’ throne room. Just like that. Just like it was an everyday thing for him. Aren didn’t even look in his direction; instead he summoned a book titled ‘Strategies for dimensions in the trigonometric age’ and began to read.

“Hey, old man. What did you do in the last 350 years? Normally every second world comes up with the brilliant plan to summon me.” Oran sighed.

“Well, excuse me if I want to take a nap from time to time. The feeling to not have slept for some millennia does get quite annoying at some point.” Aren sighed and closed the book. Then he walked up to Oran and looked back to the ponies. With an estimating look, he asked Oran.

“So what do you think?” Oran just raised his arm and pointed his index finger at Luna.

“1347,” Then he pointed at Celestia. “1735,” Aren let out a long whistle.

“That’s impressive, for someone in their first few millenia.” Oran nodded. Then he pointed at Twilight. “584.”

“How old is she?”

“22” Oran answered. Aren made a double take.

“Wait, are you serious? She has a power of 584 crunox and you tell me that she is only 22 years old?” Oran nodded again. Aren couldn’t believe it. Someone with that power at the age of 22. That’s unreal, but there was still one more thing he wanted to know.

“Say old man, what’s with that crown thing on her head and those necklaces on the others? I sense some strong power coming from them.” Oran examined the crown in his hand. Twilight saw the crown in Orans’ hand and looked up to her head. Her crown was gone. She didn’t even notice it vanishing.

“Hmm.” Oran hummed for a while, but then he smiled. “Well well well. I think this world will be very interesting.” Aren looked at his mentor.

“So, how much?” Oran chuckled.

“5960.”

“WHAT?!” Aren screamed. “That’s a new record.” Then he sighed. “And I thought this would be just another filler world." Oran looked to his apprentice with a smirk.

“Well not only that. This world harbors two more immortals. The one called Discord has a power of 2347, and if the queen of the, so called, changelings gets powered up to maximum, she can go up to around 2100, too.” Aren couldn’t believe what he heard.

“If this is all true, then this one, out of all I visited, may have the best chance.” Oran nodded. “Say old man, since they are still a raw-world, wouldn’t it be appropriate to cut them some slack?” Oran raised an eyebrow.

“What do you suggest?”

“Well they needed six weeks to get me here. How about you delay your battle for that time? So we begin anew with the five years from now.” Oran thought about this and then shrugged.

“Sure, why not. I hope you train them exceptionally good. I have high hopes for them.” Aren nodded.

“Of course, you can count on me.” Oran smirked.

“Good, well if there are no further questions, I’m back at Mount Dragonborn.” Just when he wanted to leave, Aren stopped him. Oran looked back at the eyes of his apprentice.

“Say old man. You’re not giving them the asshole-treatment, are you?” His mentor just sighed.

“I need to, or else they won’t use everything against me.” Aren looked at the floor.

“Yes, I understand.” Then Oran vanished. Aren just continued looking at the floor. Celestia looked at the Elements Of Harmony.

“I think it’s better if you now go to your rooms. Twilight could you remain here with me?” Celestia used a spell and all the necklaces and the crown that somehow was on Twilights’ head again, vanished. The five friends nodded and walked out of the throne room. Luna, Celestia, and Twilight looked at Aren, who still looked at the floor.

“Aren, you need to tell us what just happened.” He just sighed and complied.

“As you surely know, that was Oran, my master. After we exchanged greetings, I asked him of a power reading of all of you. Of course, he only judged your magical power, since every soldier can see that none of you, have any experience in real combat. Those numbers he mentioned were based on your magical reserves only.”

“Since I am sure that you don’t know about this either, I’ll explain this to you. To perform magic, you need magical reserves and control. The magical reserves are practically your muscles, and your control is the way you move them. A 100% control of your magic is nearly impossible.”

“He gave me the numbers you would achieve when you would have 100% control, which you don’t. I think you are able to control about 80% of your magic. It’s easy to get up to 75%. Nearly every mortal is able to do that, but at that point it gets harder and harder to gain control. You normally reach 80% in your second 10.000s, but since you seem exceptionally gifted, you have it already.”

“To go further up from there will be pure terror. To give you a comparison, I got to 80% when I was 4000 years old. Now I am at 87%, and it will just get harder from here on out. The highest I ever saw, aside from the old man, was 93%. That was an ice-titan. Big as a mountain and he had a magical power of around 4300. He was the old record holder. Now these artifacts you have here are the new record holder, and since they are artifacts and no sentient beings, they have 100% control.”

Aren sighed. “Sadly it’s not enough. They may be able to damage Oran to some scale, but they alone won’t stop him, but don’t worry, that’s why I am here. I worked with weaker worlds against Oran. There are other ways to win a fight.” Celestia didn’t look convinced.

“You told me that strategies are useless against ponies, who are able to use the omnipresence spell. So how are there other ways?” Aren just smirked.

“Celestia, Oran may see your tactics now, but he doesn’t want to play a card game in which he sees the cards of his opponents. He thinks that this spoils the fun. He wants nothing more, than to be bested in combat. So he discards everything in a battle that seems unfair. So before the battle starts, he casts a spell on himself that makes him forget about any tactic his enemies created.” Celestia shook her head.

“Why? Why does he want to be beaten so badly, that he restrains himself?” Aren sighed.

“Tell me Celestia, When you read every book, talked to every kind of person, did everything you can imagine doing, what will you do then? What will you do, when your world is a perfect utopia for everyone and no one needs you as its' leader anymore. When there is nothing left to do, what will you do then?” He looked at Celestia. She looked at the ground.

“I don’t know. I never thought about this.”

“I can tell you what you will do. Nothing. If you already did everything and no one needs you anymore, then you have nothing left to do. Where mortals wait for their death, you continue on living until eternity. What point does it have to play a game, of which you already know the winner? What purpose has living if you have nothing to achieve anymore? Of course, you search for the next thing to do.”

“I was at this point. I was the strongest in my world. I lived everyday doing nothing. No one was able to beat me, until a certain someone visited us. I lost against him, but for me personally, this was a good thing. I finally found something I can do. Something I did not achieve yet. I wanted to become as powerful as Oran.”

“At that time, Oran wasn’t declaring war at every world he visits. He was a traveling hero. Traveling through the multiverse, beating up bad guys and telling stories about other dimensions. When he saw my talent and the fire in my eyes, he accepted me as his apprentice. Together we then traveled to many different universes and helped many lands. No one was able to lay even a hand on Oran.”

“We helped them just for the good feeling we always felt when we did something heroic.” Aren paused and looked at the floor. “But then, It happened. I was 110.000 at the time. At that time, Oran managed to do it. He did something that no one in the whole multiverse was able to do before. He managed to control 100% of his magic.”

“He was the first ever to be able to achieve 100%. There were theories of what would happen if someone would be able to get 100% control. No theory predicted what really happened. When he reached 100%, he was suddenly able to break the laws of the universe. You might ask, what I mean with that.”

“It’s quite easy. He could do everything, and I really mean everything. Whatever you can simply think of, he can do it. If he wants, he can destroy a world with a thought, then recreate it from anew. He could multiply himself, and I don’t mean simple cloning. He could create himself again. He could change mortals to immortals. If he wanted, he could also be able to become the first true immortal. He could create a body that would be absolutely immortal, but he didn’t do it. Do you know why?”

“Because being able to do everything, makes everything worthless. What feeling of achievement do you feel, when you destroy an ancient evil that you can wipe out of existence with a mere thought? What did he have left? Nothing. He had everything. Every law of nature was under him. He could even create new absolute laws of nature for all the universes. So what was left to do?”

“He won the game of life. He got 100% in life and when you get everything at a game, what do you do? You end it. But he also thought ‘How does this sound if the strongest man in the multiverse just kills himself?’ So he decided against killing himself. That just sounds stupid. So he decided that he doesn’t fight for the good anymore.”

“The bad guys in every dimension, always, fight alone and never ask the good guys for help, and since there was no single being as strong as him, he decided that it would be better if multiple beings join each other and fight against him in unison. This way there was still a chance for him to be bested. So he started declaring war against the good guys.”

“The good guys always ask for help. So if, he attacks the good guys, the good guys will ask the bad guys for help, and in the most situations the bad guys comply. Oh by the way, he will not use his ‘godpowers’. He wants to fight fair and square with only his fighting strength he gained through his millions of years of training.”

“So basically, your enemy right now, is a being that fights with normal spells and physical strength. Just like us.” Aren finally finished his story. Celestia pondered about this for some time.

“So what he did with the crown of the element of magic, was that his, so called, godpower?” Aren nodded.

“Yes. He decided that he had the crown in his hand the entire time. He didn’t just teleport it to him. Ever since the moment, he decided that the crown was in his hand, it was there, but like I said, he won’t use that in a battle.” Celestia thought about this for a while.

“Tell me, how old is Oran?” Aren scratched his head.

“Something around 25 million years.” Celestias eyes widened. 25 million years. That just sounded unreal. Then a thought occurred to her.

“Say, would you be able to overpower him at some time.” Aren nodded.

“He told me that my talent surpasses his.”

“Did he also tell you, when you will probably do it?” Another nod.

“He thinks that I will be ready to fight on nearly equal terms in about 10 million years. I personally think I need at least 15 million.” Celestias’ ears dropped.

“I have another question. He judged us earlier based on our magical reserves, but he didn't mention yours. Could you please tell me?” Aren sighed.

“I think you don’t understand. The magical resources are not important in a fight. You might as well have millions of crunox, and you won’t scratch Oran. What’s the point of a planet shattering blast if it does not hit, or if you are dead before you can use it? The important thing is battle experience. I could be killed by a kid with a butter knife if it hits me often enough. The reserves just show you your possibilities.”

Celestia looked at the ground. Somewhere in the discussion she realized that even if she might be more than thousand years old, she still doesn’t know anything about actual battle. It was always enough to blast the enemies with her magic or use the elements, but what Aren said makes sense and Oran proved it when he just dispersed the beam of the elements. Aren sighed.

“You know, magical reserves grow, the older you get, and the more control you get over your magic. If your control gets better, your magic follows and grows stronger too. That’s why I whistled when I heard about your magical talent. This tells me that you have a lot of control for your age.” Celestia grinned somewhat happily. Aren grinned to.

“You know, I don’t want to be the party-pooper right now. If you really want to know, my magical power is right now at around 3420.” He grinned even wider. “Still nothing compared to your Elements Of Harmony or Oran.” Celestias’ ears perked up.

“You just mentioned Oran. How much does he have?” Aren sighed.

“Do you really want to know that?” Celestia reluctantly nodded.

“Now keep in mind. The magical power is not important in a fight. It does not matter how much he has if we get him by surprise or with an unavoidable attack we can win this, do you understand me?” Celestia nodded again.

“Good. Then don’t get discouraged by the following number.” Aren sighed.

“It’s over 9000.”

Author's Note

Now i hope that i didn't shatter your image of Oran, but that's what i had intended since the beginning.

I didn't want him as just some evil guy. I think there are no evil people, there are just people with their own opinion.

but i am still afraid that many people think worse of my story, because of the seemingly carefreeness of Oran and Aren, but you also have to undertand that they both know each other for a long time and for them it's just another game, while it's everything for Equestria.

Cry Of The Bloodmoon

There only was silence. Celestia did not say anything after what she just heard. ‘Over 9000?
There’s no way that can be right, can it? But on the other hoof, he also told me things that are even more incredible. Maybe everything he said is true, but if that’s the case, then how can we even think about standing a chance against him?’ Aren looked at the troubled eyes of Celestia.

“Like I said, this changes nothing. His magical power is no problem yet. The first thing we need to be able to do is to get him to begin using his magic. If we don’t have a brilliant plan, we won’t even get him to use his magic.” Celestia crooked an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Did Oran use any sort of spell while fighting you a thousand years ago?” Celestia thought.

“Well he used two. The first one was a shieldspell that blocked mine and Lunas’ beam. The second one was, when he waved his hand to disperse the beam of the elements.” Aren sighed.

“Say Celestia, were the Elements Of Harmony always this strong, like today?” She shook her head.

“No. At that time, only Luna and I used the elements. I think the bond, the current holders of the Elements share strengthened them.”

“That’s what I thought. He could not possibly disperse an attack with a power of nearly 6000 crunox. You should not get disheartened by what I now say. He didn’t use a single spell against you.” Celestia shook her head.

“That is impossible. You said yourself that if you get hit enough you get damaged. So how could he not have been damage by our rays if it weren’t for some kind of shield spell?” Aren sighed.

“He did not use any shield spell. Let me explain this to you. When you have a pony, and you always throw a ball at the same spot on its’ back, what will happen to that spot?” Celestia pondered over this.

“Well it would harden to ease the…” Celestias’ eyes widened. No, that couldn’t be. Aren noticed it and just sighed.

“So you figured it out huh? Yeah he just has that kind of resilience against magic. You know everyone in the multiverse is all like ‘Oh magic is so good. Magic is so great. Damn magic deals so much damage. Hey let’s only use magic in fight. It is so much more effective in a battle.’ Yeah this can be true, but if everyone uses it and you have 25 million years on your ass, then you build some kind of resistance to it.”

“With other words, he can withstand any magical attack with a power of under 2800.” He looked at Celestia. She just looked as if she didn’t believe him, but then shook her head.

“But what about the beam of the elements? Do you want to tell me, this is no spell too?” Aren nodded. “But how?” Aren sighed and pointed with a finger to Celestia. Then he gathered energy and shot a small beam at Celestia. Celestia, having contact with magic every day, unconsciously strengthened her resolve and looked at the beam. The beam dispersed.

“That’s how.” Aren just said. Celestia thought for a moment and then it came to her. If you get attacked by a weak spell, you can strengthen your will and the will itself will act like a shield against magic. If you get hit by a dangerous blast, you are able to weaken the damage you receive, but if a weaker blast races towards the target it already disperses by the shield your will creates around your body. Celestia looked at the ground.

“So he didn’t use magic at all against Luna and I?” Aren nodded.

“It’s like I said, the important thing is your capability and experience in battle. Magic is just a nice extra. Do you want to know something interesting? Your guards stood a better chance against him than you because you only used magic, while your guards attacked him physically.”

“If they would have hit him, he would get damaged like every other guy. Remember this for the future. If you see someone that does not receive damage through magic, run to him and attack him. Thrust your horn at him for example. Everything’s better than an attack that does no damage.” Luna and Twilight looked at each other. They did not involve themselves in the discussion.

They just seemed out of place, but they did not want to pass on the opportunity to learn something new. Just like Celestia, they learned a lot. Everything Aren said sounded plausible, and they realized this. They were absorbing the new information like sponges. Celestia shook her head.

If he did not even use his magic against me, how will we able to win if he starts using it?” Aren smirked.

“If he starts using his magic, we loose. There is absolutely no way to beat the old man if he uses his magic, but don’t worry. We have spells for that.” He winked at Celestia. She brightened up. Now Twilight walked up to him.

“Mister Aren?” Aren winced.

“Did you just call me ‘mister’ Aren?” Twilight looked down at the floor.

“Well you are pretty old. I was not sure how to address you. I’m sorry if I seemed informal.” She drew circles with her hoof. Aren just waved a hand dismissively.

“Don’t sweat it. Just call me Aren. I hate being called mister since it always seems so tense when someone calls me that. So what did you want to ask me?” He looked at Twilight, who raised her head.

“Well, you said that you will help us in the battle against Oran and that you will also train us, right?” Aren nodded. Twilight looked at the ground and she blushed a little. “Does this also include you training us in magic?”

“No.” Twilight looked sad.

“Could I ask why?” Aren sighed.

“I would train you in magic, but it’s against the ML, that means multiversal law. It is forbidden to show spells to worlds that are clearly not advanced enough. I bet you want to know why.” Twilight reluctantly nodded.

“If you show a spell to someone of a world that does not have this spell already, you risk destroying the balance of the world. Imagine if I showed this, how did you call her? Ah right Chrysalis. Imagine if I show this Chrysalis the omnipresence spell combination. What would she do? From what I heard she is quite evil.”

“I can tell you what she will do. She will use it and attack Canterlot. You won’t be able to do anything since she always knows what’s happening. Then she banishes or kills your rulers, and enslaves your ponies. Then she might do a mistake and kill too many ponies and the ponies go extinct. Then her changelings can’t feed on the ponies anymore and starve to death.”

“And looky here, just because I have shown one spellcombination two of the main species of the world are dead. Even a lesser spell, like one that uses a new kind of forming magic, would throw the technological and magical level of the people of the land far into the future. I just can’t teach you magic. The only thing I can do is tell you what’s possible, but not how to do it.” Twilight sighed. She hoped that she could get information on new kinds of magic, but she still seemed determined.

“Can you maybe make an exception for us?” Aren sighed and shook his head.

“You don’t understand. If I would be able to tell you, I would, but it is impossible. Do you know the one who created and enforced those laws?” Twilight shook her head. “Oran. We saw to many worlds in disarray, because of some guy that showed off his magic. So he used his godpowers to enfore the ML on every dimension.”

“If someone tells a world a spell for which it’s not ready for, it just won’t happen. Yeah I know that sounds complicated, let me rephrase that. Do you remember the time Oran had your crown in his hand?” Twilight nodded. “That is what happened. He decided that the crown was in his hand, and it was. Now if, someone tells you of a spell, he just doesn’t. I can even show you. Let me tell you about the omnipresence spell.” There was silence. Twilight looked at Aren confused.

“So?”

“That’s it. I want to tell you and I feel no restraint. I feel like I can tell you whatever I want, but I just don’t say it.” Twilight looked even more confused. Aren saw this and sighed. “Alright it’s better if you get some first hand experience, or in your case first hoof.” He grabbed one of Twilights’ hoof and before Twilight or any other pony in the room could react they both vanished.

They both reappeared at a green vale. It looked like Equestria, but there were other plants. Plants which Twilight never saw. There were some gray things talking to each other not 10 meters away from the both visitors. They looked just like piles of slime.

“Where am I? What happened?” Twilight began to panic. Suddenly Aren whistled her over to the gray blobs. She reluctantly complied.

“See these things? They are called graknarks. They are a race that will probably never have the mental capacity to visit the multiverse. Their anatomy just doesn’t allow for them to get that much intelligence, but they still can speak. Go ahead and tell them about a teleportation spell, and don’t worry about language barriers. I used a translationspell.”

Twilight first didn’t know what to do, but decided to walk over to them. The gray blobs looked at her in confusion.

“Are you one of those knarbark?” Twilight was confused and just smiled nervously.

“Eh hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle.” She looked at the confused blobs. “Do you want to know about how to teleport with magic?” The blobs looked even more confused.

“Tele-pot what is that?” Twilight inhaled a breath and began to explain.

Nothing happened. She couldn’t say it. She tried to, but it just did not happen. It didn’t feel like she has no power over herself. It also didn’t feel like something is hindering her in doing it. She just doesn’t say it. She decided to say it, but she just didn’t do it and there seemed to be no problem with that. Confused she walked back to Aren.

“Understand it now?” he asked. She looked to the floor and shook her head. Aren just smirked.

“Twilight, could you please flap your wings?” Now it was her time to be confused.

“What wings? I don’t have any.” Arens’ smirk got wider.

“Right, and does that bother you that you can’t flap your nonexistent wings?”

“Well no, I mean I am not able to…” Then her eyes widened, and she finally realized what he meant. Not being able to tell those beings of teleportation just was like to do something you were just not able to do. Like in her case, flap her wings. It was natural that she couldn’t flap them since she doesn’t have any. This is the same thing that happened when she wanted to talk about teleportation. She was not able to since it just seemed natural that she couldn’t.

“It seems like you finally got it.” She nodded. “Brilliant isn’t it?” She nodded again. This kind of power seemed unreal.

“Say Aren.”

“What is it?”

“Isn’t it dangerous to use power of that magnitude? I mean if Oran affects the whole multiverse with a spell of this strength, then isn’t he endangering the balance?” Aren shook his head.

“The answer to this question is quite easy. Just when he decides that it is impossible to tell them about futuristic spells, the also decided that this won’t endanger the balance. If he wanted, he could just go to a damaged world with a destroyed balance, decide that the balance was not destroyed, and it then just wasn’t. It’s not that he decides something and the universe does. It’s that he decides, and the universe is. It’s really hard to grasp this, but that’s how it is.” Suddenly one of the bushes rustled.

“Eh Aren? Can we go back?” Aren nodded, and they both vanished again and reappeared in the throne room again.

“Twilight, what happened? Where were you?” Celestia ran up to her student. Twilight walked to her mentor.

“Aren took me to another dimension and explained some things to me.” Celestia nuzzled her student.

“Are you alright?” Twilight sighed and looked at the floor.

“Yes princess. It’s just a disappointment that we won’t be able to learn magic from Aren.”

“It’s ok Twilight. We will find a way to win against Oran.” They both embraced each other in a hug. In the meantime, Aren walked up to Luna.

“Is this normal that they greet each other like they didn’t meet in ages? I mean, we were only 5 minutes away.” Luna looked over to Celestia and nodded.

“They share a special bond.” They waited some more seconds until Aren lost his patience.

“Alright, alright! How about you guys go to sleep while Celestia and I talk a little about what we will do in order to defeat Oran?” They looked at each other.

“Do you want me to keep you company, dear sister?” Celestia shook her head.

“It’s quite alright, Luna. I think I can manage.” Luna nodded and nudged Twilight to come with her. With a last wave, they saw each other off. Celestia walked up to Aren and nodded.

“So what was your plan before I got here?” Aren asked Celestia.

“Well, we planned to first get as much help as possible. Queen Chrysalis and Discord were our options in this matter.” Suddenly there were words in the air.

“1. Win Chrysalis and Discord over.” Celestia was impressed by this spell. She did not know how it functioned, but it seemed quite useful to just write something in the air.

“Continue.” Aren remarked.

“Well next, we wanted to train the bearers of the Elements Of Harmony, the guards and us immortals in combat.” Aren nodded and added the points to his list.

“And finally, we will, based on our acquired skills, form a battle plan and perfect it.” Aren nodded again.

“Sounds good. I think we can keep it that way.” Then he waved with his hand. Suddenly the writing in the air moved in the tactical chamber, where Twilight and Celestia talked earlier. On top of that, about 100 parchments, with the list impregnated in them, fell to the ground. Aren levitated them over to him and handed them to Celestia.

“Here are 100 copies of the list. Give them to whoever needs them.” Celestia nodded and teleported them to some warehouse.

“Well then.” He stood up from the chair, Celestia didn’t notice he was sitting in, clapped in his hands and stretched his muscles.

“When do you want to go and ask Chrysalis?” He asked while stretching his right Triceps. Celestia pondered about this for some seconds.

“I’ll try and arrange a meeting with her in a week or two.” Aren got down and started stretching his left leg.

“Well alright. I think I should not accompany you in meeting Chrysalis. Bad guys feel kinda threatened when I am walking around the good guys and switch to stubborn-mode, but I can accompany for the journey if there are dangerous things in this world. Well who knows, maybe I can give you a lesson in combat on the way.”

“That would be wonderful.” Aren nodded while he was doing some push-ups.

“Is it okay if I train your guards first thing tomorrow?” Celestia was not sure if she could trust someone she just met an hour ago.

“Well to be honest. I don’t know if I can trust you.” She thought a while. “But I think if I can watch you while you train them, I could allow it.” She smiled warmly at Aren, who just shrugged.

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, then it’s decided.” Celestia began walking to the door, but then she got the urge to ask him something.

“Say Aren, is there really no way for you to teach somepony in magic?” Aren just shook his head.

“The only way would be, to take someone as my apprentice, and I do not plan to take any apprentices yet.” Celestia hummed.

“So if someone would want to be your apprentice you could teach him about magic?” Aren nodded.

“But get this idea out of your head. I don’t want any apprentices, and on top of that, they need to be immortal anyway, and I do not think that any of you would want to leave your kingdom behind, just to follow me around the multiverse and beat up some stinky bad guys.” Celestia needed to chuckle a little, but nodded.

“Aren, I will prepare a room for you in the castle, come to me la-“

“You don’t need to. I don’t sleep, and if I need a room for myself, I just go to my homedimension and walk into my own room in my own castle.”

“Well if you are sure, ok. I will be going to my bedchambers, and I think we will see each other in the morning, when you will look at my guards. I wish you a wonderful night.” Celestia smiled.

“Yeah, good night.” Celestia walked up to the gates and the guards opened them. Just before, Celestia walked out of them, she made one last glance to Aren.

He was gone. She ran back into the room and looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Deciding that he probably won’t do something stupid, she continued on her way to her bedchambers while thinking about the training he will put her guards through tomorrow. It can’t be that different from their own, can it?

There were murmurs everywhere in the hall. The gathered guards all talked with each other. ‘Why does the princess want every guard in the castle to gather here in the hall? Is there some kind of emergency?’

The hall went quiet when the princess of the sun and a biped creature walked up to the throne. Some quiet whispers could be heard when the human leaned himself against the side of the throne in a nonchalant manner.

“Could you please stop looking so disrespectful in front of my guards?” She exclaimed through closed teeth, so only Aren could hear her. He groaned silently and straightened himself. Celestia waited until the hall was perfectly quiet.

“My royal guards, let me first calm your nerves, through saying that we are not threatened right now.” Some of the guards let out a long sigh they withheld. “The reason why I let you all assemble here today is that I have an announcement to make.” Celestia gestured for Aren to walk to the front, and he complied.

“This is high-general Aren from Magenia. For those of you who don’t know, Magenia is a country far far away from Equestria. I was visiting Magenia some decades ago, and in my visit I noticed that their military is far more advanced than ours. I asked the king of Magenia if he would share some of his military secrets with Equestria, and he happily accepted.” She was lying like a pro.

“The king of Magenia then ordered his high-general to come to Equestria to train the guards for five years, and I am happy to tell you that the time has finally arrived for him to train you, my guards. I wish for every guard, to be at the training camp at exactly 1000 today so he can begin. I will over watch the training personally, and I hope that we can show high-general Aren our capabilities to their fullest. That is all from my side.”

With that said she made way for Aren, who should also say something. He walked to the front and spoke up.

“Royal guards of Equestria, I only have one thing to say to you. Only attend the training when you are prepared to be pushed to the absolute limit. Only attend my training when you have no problem with crossing the border of death and coming back because that is what I will do to you, but those of you who will succeed in my training will belong to the strongest kinds of soldiers this world has ever seen. I say it again. Do not attend the training if you are not ready to die for your princesses!” He finished talking and walked out of the room.

There still were some whispers around the room, but they died down when the guards dispersed and continued with their daily activities. For the rest of the morning, nearly all guards only talked about the training they will receive.

Celestia overlooked the training grounds from her balcony. Besides her was king Shining Armor and on the other side was Luna. They were worried about their guards. It was not every day that they let their guards get trained by someone that had over 100,000 years of battle experience. They just hoped that the training wasn’t so brutal he made it out to be.

All the guards stood unmoving at their respected positions. Aren walked around and inspected them. Not every guard showed up to the training, but the attendance was still at over 90%.

‘Well after todays’ training this will probably fall to 20%.’ Aren thought and sighed after he finished his thought. Then he straightened himself and spoke up.

“Guards! From today on, while you are on the training grounds, I have your lives in my hand.” He walked to one of the captains. “If I want, I can take your heart, pull it out and eat it as a nice snack.” Aren smiled to show his carnivore-teeth. The captain shuddered, but did his best to hold his composure. Aren started circling the guards like a predator. He did not say anything while doing that. He just walked around and watched them with open eyes.

The guards got nervous. Somewhere deep inside, their instincts told them to run away. They told them that they are prey and that a predator is circling them. Their instincts just shouted at them to run for their lives.

“If you want to leave my training just raise your hoof. I will then allow you to leave the training grounds, but don’t expect to come back later to continue the training. As soon as you leave, you won’t be able to come back. And what I tell you now, is the absolute truth about what will happen now. You will all die. Now if you want to leave the training, go ahead. Any volunteers?” No one raised their hoof.

“Good then we will begin training. Guards! Align yourself at the west-side of the training camp.” They reluctantly complied and walked over there. They still felt nervous around him. When they were all at their respective spots, Aren nodded and spoke up again.

“Now all of you, COME AT ME!” The guards looked confused. Aren raised an eyebrow. “Was I not clear enough? I want all of you to attack me with the intend to kill me!” They nervously shuffled around.

“I SAID ATTACK!” his voice was even louder, than Lunas’ royal Canterlot voice. It sounded like the sky itself was speaking. Suddenly everything went dark. Storm clouds blocked out every ray of the sun, and they began to produce lightning at an incredible rate. Loud thunder cracked through the skies and lightning impacted with the ground around Aren. Every bolt of lightning provided enough light to let the guards see the seemingly red glowing eyes of the human.

“ATTACK!” He screamed even louder than before and the scream was accompanied with eight lightning bolts striking down around the training ground. The guards were full in panic. They could not think rational anymore. The only thing they wanted to do was stop this, and there was only one way to stop it. They need to kill the human. Everyone screamed in panic as they ran towards Aren, who just licked his teeth while showing a malicious grin.

Celestia and Luna felt this feeling before. It was the same feeling they felt while battling against Oran, but it was not that strong at that time. Oran was modest and never showed any bloodlust. When they looked at Aren they felt his bloodlust, his need to kill, to slice, to murder and on top of that they could practically taste the magical power that was hanging in the air. They both finally realized how much stronger Aren is in comparison to them.

The guards ran at Aren with tears running down their eyes, because of the enormous fear they felt inside. With terrified expressions on their faces, they took their weapons and attacked Aren. The first guard that attacked Aren was picked up by his head.

‘Let’s begin training.’ He thought to himself. After placing a second hand on the other side of the head, Aren dug with his fingers into the skull of the guard who just screamed. The others could only watch in horror as Aren tore the guards’ head in half, blood spilling all over him. The guards and the princesses were terrified. Aren let the remains of the guard fall to the ground and began to lick along his blood-smeared right arm.

It was too much. They couldn’t handle this. All the guards turned around and began to flee from the training ground while screaming in horror. As soon as they reached the edge of the training ground, they bumped against an invisible wall. The unicorns tried to use their magic to disperse it, but it was just not possible.

Celestia and Luna who have finally regained their composure stood up and flew to the training grounds, but got stopped by the invisible wall. They also tried to get through it, but it was just impossible. This wall was obviously created with magic that was far more advanced than theirs. The only thing they could do was watch.

Aren walked slowly to the guards with the malicious grin. “You can’t escape. I said your lives are in my hands while you are here. The only possibility to survive is to kill me.” Aren levitated the remains of the dead guard to his side and bit a large part of bloody meat out of his torso. The guards shivered and covered their head with their hooves. Suddenly one of them got levitated away to the side of Aren.

“Attack me!” he ordered. The guards were frozen in fear. Suddenly the flying guard began to scream in a bloodcurdling manner. The sound was unbearable. “ATTACK ME!” The guards slowly stood up, and readied their weapons while shivering. Then they ran at him while screaming in terror. Aren just widened his smile and threw the screaming guard at them. Before the guard impacted with the soldiers, he had exploded, and a shower of blood and gore soaked the guards.

The guards did not stop running. They were too terrified. There was only one thing to do. Kill him. Their spears all were pointed at Aren while they planned to overrun him. Aren evaded every thrust and tore apart guard after guard until there were only ten guards left. Aren lifted all the dead guards into the air and impaled them with their own spears. Then he rammed the spears into the floor and let the corpses of the dead guards hang from their weapons.

The remaining guards just ran at him and got slaughtered. Celestia and Luna saw all this. They began crying a long time ago. They had to watch, their guards getting slaughtered in the most brutal of ways. They didn’t want to see it, but they just couldn’t avert their eyes. The last ten guards didn’t last long, and then all were dead.

The corpse of every guard was being demonstrated in an inhuman way and amidst all the corpses was a maliciously smiling human.

Author's Note

Yep. I hope i didn't overdo it. oO

Motivation

They couldn’t believe what they had seen. The entirety of their royal guards was slaughtered by someone who claimed to be their ally. Why did he do that? How could he do that?

“You monster!” Aren looked away from his nicely displayed corpses and looked at Celestia with a raised eyebrow.

“Monster? Here I go and train your guards, and you call me monster? I thought you wanted me to train them.” Celestias’ eyes widened.

“Train them? TRAIN THEM? You killed them!” She mostly screamed at him.

“Whoa whoa whoa, hold down your horses there, princess. This is all part of the training.” He clapped in his hands, and all the corpses began to get cracks along their torso. Another clap followed, and every corpse turned to ash. With another clap, all the ashes moved to one single spot and formed a giant pile of ash.

Yet another clap later, all the ash spread again and formed multiple small piles. With another clap, this one louder than the ones before, the piles began to shiver. Slowly, from every pile of ash, something began to rise out of it. After a while, it was possible to recognize what exactly was rising out of them. Pony souls flew out of the ashes and began to randomly fly around the training ground.

Aren raised his arms and moved them in a circular motion. The souls followed the motion and began flying in one giant circle. He moved his arms for around 10 more seconds and then stopped. After some seconds waiting he moved his arms to the sky and the souls began to follow the motion. Finally he slammed his hands into the ground and the souls impacted with the piles of ashes with a loud bang.

Where the piles of ashes laid, were now the guards. They stood there with a confused look on their faces. Celestia felt relieved. Her guards were alive again. The guards looked around, and all their gazes stopped at the still bloody Aren. All of them went as far away as possible, which was not tremendously far since there still was the wall around the training ground.

Aren clapped once again, but this time just for the reason to get their attention. “Alright, I think introductions are over. Now let’s get over to your scores.” Suddenly, writing was hovering in the air at one side of the training ground.

‘1. Purple Edge – Score: 2’

‘2. White Side – Score: 1’

‘2. Broad Anatomy – Score: 1’

‘2. Sprinkle Break – Score: 1’

…

‘3. Black Shield - Score: 0’

Most of the guards still were terrified. They saw the scoreboard and all of them had the same question on their mind. One pegasus-day-guard with a purple coat, an extremely long tail and abnormally long wings stepped forward and asked with a shivering voice.

“Per-Permission to-to ask a question-tion, high-general?” Aren raised an eyebrow.

“You can call me Aren and yes go ahead.” Aren turned to the other guards. “That also counts for the rest of you. You do not need to ask for my permission to talk to me. Just ask away.” He then turned to the purple guard. “So, what do you want to know?” The purple guard nervously shuffled around.

“I wanted to know why everyone is at second place while I am at first.” Aren looked over to the scoreboard.

“Well the reason why is that you were the first one to attack.” Then he turned around to the guards and sighed. ‘Why am I always so muddle-headed?’

“I better first explain the scores and why there are so many second places. Alright, listen up. What I did some minutes ago was testing your capabilities in fight. I fought with all of you in order to see how capable you are while being under severe fear for your life. The results were not very convincing.”

“The only thing you did was charge forward. No tactic, no battle skills. The only thing you did was charging and hoping that you hit me with your spears per chance. On top of that, you needed to be reminded multiple times to attack. The scores I gave every one of you just show how good you can fight. My scoreboard ranges from 0 to 100. 0 means that you haven’t even fought, and 100 means that you are one of the best fighters a mortal can be. Of course, nearly no one ever gets to 100 points.”

“The reason why Black Shield is the last place is just that he couldn’t fight with me since I needed one guard as a motivator to get the rest of you to attack. So if, I wouldn’t have needed a motivator, he would probably be on second place too. The reason why Purple Edge is at place 1 is solely based on the fact that he was the first to attack. Nothing else.”

The guards looked at the floor. It was obvious that they had no chance in hell to win against their opponent, but giving them 1 out of 100 points is just too degrading. The purple guard walked back to the other ones. A white unicorn walked forward.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Aren sighed.

“You also don’t need my permission to speak freely. Just talk like you are not on duty. It’s easier this way.” The guard nodded.

“Judged by your scoreboard, we are not even better than civilians. This can not be accurate. We are trained in combat and civilians not, so how can it be possible to say that we are equally capable in combat?”

“I am not judging your skill and knowledge about fight. I am judging you by what I have seen, and the only thing I saw was a bunch of scared ponies that fought like civilians. Blinded by fear and just out of instinct. You just fought like a normal civilian. I didn’t even need to use my magic, my legs and not even my weapon.”

“I even changed my fighting style to an animalistic one. So the only thing you did was fighting an unarmed animal with a full 90 man group of armed guards and you lost. So don’t you dare tell me anything about battle capabilities.” The white unicorn was enraged. His pride was just too big to accept what he has just been told.

“Sir, I can not acc-“ He got interrupted by a thick lightning bolt that transformed his body into ash. The other guards moved back by the sudden burst of energy that came out of the humans’ hand. Aren turned to the guards.

“That’s what happens if someone starts to complain to me. You can give criticism, and you can ask me about the training, but I do not want to hear complaining just because you’re butt hurt understood?” The guards hastily nodded, not wanting to receive the fury of their trainer.

Aren flicked with his fingers and the dead guard suddenly lived again. “The next thing is information for all of you, including the princesses. It is impossible to stay dead in here. I build some kind of shield around the training grounds and everyone that dies in here will be automatically resurrected after 15 minutes. I just decided to make it myself, to speed things up a little.”

“That said, I will now open the barrier so you can go out and in again. Training will commence in two hours. I will say it again. You do not have to participate in my training if you do not want to. If you don’t want to, just don’t come back here again. There will be no consequences for guards that don’t want to participate, but remember those of you that manage to go through my training will far outclass any warrior you have ever seen on this world. Dismissed.”

Aren turned around and began walking to the castle. Celestia quickly followed him.

“AREN! I need to talk to you. NOW!” He turned around.

“Yes?” Celestia gritted her teeth.

“How can you be so barbaric to my guards? They did not deserve this, this, bestiality.” Aren sighed.

“Listen, when you want to train soldiers as hard as possible, and you don’t have a medic, then you let them spar and tell them what they did wrong. If you have a medic, you let them duel, heal them and then tell them what they did wrong. And if you have the ability to resurrect them, you let them fight to the death, resurrect them and tell them what they did wrong. It’s just logical.”

“Yes, but that does not explain your brutal ways.” Aren shook his head.

“That was necessary. First, I was a stranger in their eyes and deep down nearly every one of them thought ‘yeah just talk. We don’t need your training’. I had to SHOW them how badly they needed. All the talking in the world wouldn’t have convinced them.”

“Second, I needed them to go into a state of panic so I could test how good they are trained. Very well trained soldiers have the battle-movements implemented in their subconscious, so even if they can’t think clearly, they still move like they were trained to. This was not the case with your guards, but I wasn’t expecting that since your world is peaceful.”

“Third, I needed to test their motivation to continue on with my training. I don’t want any guards falling out in the middle of training. So I showed them now what they can expect of it. Those who can’t handle the little death I have sown wouldn’t be able to become first-grade soldiers in any way.”

“Fourth, I needed to let them experience severe fear so that when they fight for their lives later on, they will be able to control themselves since they experienced worse fear once. As you see, I have my reasons.” Celestia sighed.

“But was this really necessary? Did it need to be that brutal?” Aren now sighed too.

“Do you want me to train your guards or not?” Celestia looked him into the eyes.

“If it means that you continue being that sadistic to them, then no.” Aren shrugged.

“Alright, they are your guards. If you don’t want me to train them, then I won’t. Have it your way.” Celestia made a double-turn.

“Wait. You didn’t complain about it? You didn’t say anything against it?” Aren turned around, moved to Celestia and looked her deep into the eyes.

“Now it would be very smart of you to pay attention to what I say. I do not need to help you. I can leave this world whenever I want. I offer you five years of my life to train you and your guards and if you do not want them, then I see no reason in trying to convince you.” He turned away from Celestia. “Now if you’ll excuse me, it seems like I am not needed here.”

He flicked with his hand.

“No, Wait-“, but he was already gone. She couldn’t believe what just happened. The greatest hope of winning this war vanished. Celestia looked at the ground. ‘No this was the right decision. No one deserves to get killed. Even if it is just for training purpose. We just need to train them ourselves.’

Celestia walked back to her cushion in front of the training ground and waited for the guards to return so she can tell them that the human won’t train them anymore. She waited nearly two hours. The first guards began to come back to the training area. Then even more came. Celestia could not believe her eyes. On the training grounds were now 74 guards. She thought that maybe a maximum of 10 would want to continue this barbaric training.

Nonetheless, she stood up from her cushion and clopped on the floor to get every guards attention.

“My royal guards, I am very sorry about what happened. I did not know to what extend high-general Aren would go. Rest assured, I have sent high-general Aren away for what he did today. I can not apologize enough, for what he did to you, but I, at least, can grant you one week of leave so you can recover from the ordeal that transpired today.”

The guards moved nervously around. They weren’t cheering in happiness, and they also were not sighing in relief like Celestia predicted. Celestia just looked at them and didn’t know what the matte was. Then one of the guards, the one called Purple Edge, walked to the front of the guards.

“Princess, am I allowed to talk freely?” Princess Celestia nodded.

“Go ahead.” The guard sighed.

“I think I speak for everypony present here when I say that we deeply regret the leave of high-general Aren.” Celestia looked confused. “We wanted to continue our training under him and looked forward to it. It’s a shame that he needed to be sent away.” Celestia looked baffled at the remaining guards.

“Is that true?” the guards nodded. She couldn’t understand it. How could they even consider continuing this barbaric training, but nonetheless they wanted to continue. She regained her composure.

“Why, my dear guards, would you want to continue with this training?” Purple Edge looked sadly in her eyes.

“Because we need it, your majesty.” He stopped for a second but continued. “All of us realized just how much more we have to learn in order to be the best guards possible. I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror when I know that I didn’t do my best. That’s why I want to continue my training under him. So that I will be able to be the best guard I possibly can.” He saluted and the rest of the guards followed.

Then she realized it. He did not force them into the training. He told them everyone beforehand that they will die, and they did not leave. He also reminded them multiple times that they are not entitled to participate in his training. They weren’t the helpless ponies, Celestia thought they were. She didn’t need to stand up for them because they were perfectly capable of standing up themselves.

‘And because I could not let my guards handle themselves, I drove away our best hope in winning this war. How could I forget the reason why I have guards? They are here so they can protect the ponies and me, not the other way around.’

“Are you sure you don’t want to let them continue their training?” A voice to her right exclaimed. She turned her head to the side and spotted Aren leaning against a wall. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry, but she couldn’t look weak in front of her subjects.

“Would you still consider training my guards?” He smirked.

“Only if they want to.” He looked over to the guards whom all saluted before him and sighed. He began to laugh. “Seems like I’ve got my work cut out for me. To the training grounds with you!” They nodded and began walking. Before he could follow, he got stopped by Celestia. She looked at him.

“Listen Aren, I am so-“

“You don’t have to be. It was also my fault. I often forget that you are still very young since you act so motherly around everyone. I am sorry for that.” He smiled warmly and wanted to walk away, but got stopped again. “What is it?”

“I also wanted to tell you something else. Thank you for helping out Equestria. I know that you don’t have to and that you can always leave. That’s why I am so thankful.” He waved a hand dismissively.

“Don’t sweat it. Now I really need to go. The guards are waiting.” He jumped away and landed in the middle of the training grounds. “Alright listen up, the key to holding your composure is to…” He continued talking to the guards while Celestia talked to someone else.

“How can you let him stay in Equestira after what he did? He should rot in the dungeons for what he did.” Luna exclaimed angrily whereupon Celestia sighed.

“Luna, we can’t decide for our subjects how they live their life. He never forced them into training. They can always stop. They are all old enough to decide for their own.” Luna just shook her head.

“That does not justify the way he trains them. They are driven by their duty to participate in that. They can’t think clearly. You need to stop this!” Luna had a point. They only did go through this, because of their honor and jobs. Should she stop the training? But her guards all wanted it.

“On top of that,” Luna continued, “let’s think realistically about this. What can some mortal guards achieve against an evil god, like Oran.” She was right. What point was it to train them? Oran could wipe them out in mere seconds, but she still didn’t want to abort the training.

“Luna, how about we wait until he is finished today and then we talk to him, alright?” Luna didn’t look satisfied but nodded. They waited several hours and watched the training. It had a clear course. He ordered them to attack. Then he slaughtered every one of them. Revived them and then told them what they could do better. After that, one hour of training followed, where everyone focused on erasing their mistakes in battle. After the hour training, the cycle began anew. In total, three cycles were made until he ended training.

When the guards began to disperse, Celestia called Aren over. He complied. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes, my sister an-“ She got interrupted by an angry Luna.

“How DARE you kill our guards in that manner?” Aren slightly taken aback by the sudden outburst sighed.

“Luna, I nee-“

“That’s princess Luna for you.” Oh, now it’s on.

“Oh, we are playing that game? Well two can participate in that.” He performed a very elegant looking bow. “If I may be allowed to introduce myself with my full title. I am centurion, general, champion of Nidgar, champion of Rifnork, champion of Rotburg, Champion of Narzur,” He began naming all the titles he had earned himself, while adventuring through the multiverse. It needed nearly five full minutes for him to come to his name. “monch, professor professor professor doctor doctor doctor Wilhelm Adrian Quintus Aren, king of Artifica, Mohlba, Thronburg, Silva, Wondra and Brulga. Pleased to make your acquaintance princess Luna of Equestria.”

Luna was taken aback by the sheer amount of titles Aren earned and sighed in defeat.

“Alright if it must be, you can call me Luna, but now.” The angry frown reappeared again. “How dare you handle our guards in that manner?”

“Well princess Luna, I trained the guards to my best abilities. Is there something to your disliking, princess Luna of Equestria?” He asked in a VERY polite and cold manner.

“Something to my disliking? You killed our guards!”

“And I resurrected them after that, so where lay the problem, princess Luna of Equestria?” Luna groaned.

“The problem is that you killed them in the first place. Witnessing a death can have severe consequences for the mind.” Aren gestured to some guards who still were on the training ground, training on their own accord.

“Do these guards look like traumatized ponies?” Luna shook her head violently.

“No, but that has nothing to do with what I meant. Killing is wrong.” Aren raised an eyebrow.

“Says who?” Luna was taken aback a little.

“Law.”

“So you mean yourself.” Luna looked confused.

“You, princess Luna of Equestria, and Celestia are the rulers of the land and, therefore, you made the rules. So you want me to stop, just because you said so. Don’t start talking like that.”

“But the possible damage-“

“Is possible, but not real. Look at your guards! The possibility is there, that they get mentally scared by this, but they are not. Do you punish your servants when they lose their balance and throw the tray with tea on the floor, because of the POSSIBILITY that someone could slip on the tray and break its’ neck? The fact remains that there IS no damage done.” Luna shook her head again and looked back into his eyes.

“You can not guarantee that!”

“No, I can not, but I can assure you that this is not my first time, training some guards. I’ve wasted more time teaching, than you living.”

“How dare you talking down to me like I am just a filly.”

“Because you are just a filly!” Luna gasped. “You are here in this world, separated from the big mean multiverse out there, and rule over it. You don’t have any experience about what lurks out there. You never were there and never saw how other worlds handle their soldiers. Trust me when I say that I am very reserved in terms of brutality here.”

Luna began grinding with her teeth. Celestia walked between the two.

“Now now. I think we should restrain ourselves or this might get out of hoof.” She smiled warmly.

“NO! I wanted to say this for a time now. I can not stand for him running around and doing as if he is better than us. We ruled this land for many generations, and suddenly he comes and tells us that we are nothing compared to the rest of the multiverse. I will not stand for this.” Celestia placed a hoof on Lunas’ shoulder.

“Luna, please…” She threw the hoof away.

“NO! NO ‘Luna please’. I have enough of that! If you don’t do anything about him, then I will.” She began focusing all her power into her horn. Celestia realized what she had planned.

“NO LUNA! DON’T!” Too late. Luna released the purple beam of pure magical energy on Aren. Aren didn’t waste any time and began to let his right hand glow in a warm orange and held his hand right against the beam. When the beam made contact with his arm, it began to vanish. After Luna poured all her anger into the beam, she slowly stopped and looked to Aren.

“How do you like that?” She exclaimed while looking at him. Aren just stood there with a purple flame hovering over his opened hand. Luna couldn’t believe it. He didn’t even have a scratch on him. She gritted her teeth.

“Look at you. Firing a beam of pure magical energy and expecting it to damage anyone. You could have poured enough into that beam to destroy a whole galaxy, and it would still not change a single thing. See that purple flame in my hand? That is your beam. I molded it into a new form, and now it’s mine. You would have known that if you knew at least something about magical combat. I could teach you about such stuff, and we would stand a way bigger chance against Oran, but your stubbornness makes this impossible.”

“If I would comply with you and stop training the guards, we would stand no chance against Oran. And the reason for me not being able to do it? Your stubbornness.” He turned around and slowly walked to the castle gate. Before he went in it, he looked back to Luna and said one last thing.

“In the end, you are just a kid.”

Author's Note

Yep, hope you liked it.

Just a sidenote. i'm back to working at the 01.02.13, so the updates won't be as frequently as before.

Journey To Chrysalis

The training of the guards went smoothly for the next two weeks. The guards were now able to fight with Aren without getting slaughtered instantly. One fight even lasted more than five minutes. In the course of the two weeks, four more guards left the training, but the rest of them seemed to be able to put up with the severe cases of sudden death.

With Celestias’ consent, Aren was able to continue with the training, even though Luna used everything in her power to stop the training from commencing. She even forbade her night guards to participate in the training. Originally, the night guards were scheduled to begin training one week after the day guards since the first week is the most influential and Aren needs to take much time for the first week.

Originally it was planned, that he trains the day guards one week and then the night guards a week. After the two weeks, it was intended to get the two groups together in one big one and commence training in that big one, but since circumstance changed the plan, Aren just trained the day guards.

Somewhere in the last week, Celestia was able to contact Chrysalis, and they both agreed on a date for an audience in her kingdom. King Shining Armor took over night court three days prior to this one, just like Blueblood. The citizens of Equestria were outraged when they heard that their immortal princesses would step down from their throne for some time, but Celestia was able to lie her way out of the situation.

In the end, there was no revolution. Celestia even promised that they both would take court back if the substitutes were not able to handle it. Unsurprisingly, Shining Armor could handle night court, as if he did this his whole life. Blueblood was not faring that well since the majority of Equestria thought he was a snob, but if they would look past their prejudices they would realize that he handled day court pretty well.

Luna and Aren tried to not talk to each other over the two weeks, because every time they did they started arguing. Aren would say that it was imperative that he trains the guards and Luna would say that she won’t allow her guards to be handled like that. Then one of the two would just leave with the reasoning, ‘I don’t have time for this’.

And so the time for departure to the Changeling Wastelands arrived.

“And why do we have to accompany the princesses on this journey?” Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Because of our awesome power and because we are the most dependable of ponies.” Rainbow Dash boasted while flying around and punching the air.

“Oh, I just hope we don’t get into danger.” Fluttershy crouched down on the floor and began shivering until she felt a hoof touch her shoulders.

“Don’t worry darling. I am most certain that our safety for this whole ordeal is guaranteed. You have nothing to worry about.” Rarity reasoned while she held her head high.

Rainbow tapped her hoof on the stone floor of the platform where the Pegasi land and start. They were all waiting for the same thing.

“Urgh, where’s Twilight? We’ve been waiting for foreeeeever.”

“Ya know that she’s with tha Princesses and that one guy from tha, ehm mulviterse?” Rarity sighed.

“It’s multiverse darling, and his name is Aren.” Rainbow went between the two.

“But why is only Twilight with the Princesses and that guy? What’s with us?” They all looked at some extremely entertaining stones at the floor until Pinkie Pie spoke up.

“Isn’t it obvious? They are planning a farewell party for us” She raised her hooves into the air while the others groaned. Rainbow spoke up again.

“Twilight is not our leader. So why can’t we also talk with the princesses or this, how was his name, guy?” Applejack placed a comforting hoof on Rainbows’ back.

“His name’s Aren and ta be honest with ya R.D., I don’t know why we can’t join them.” Just then the gates opened and out were walking two alicorns and one human. The night blue alicorn and the human were separated by the while alicorn.

“They are still on each others throats, what a surprise.” Rainbow exclaimed with a heavy undertone of sarcasm. Closely behind the two alicorns and the human, was a lavender unicorn.

“Hello everypony, what did I miss?” She exclaimed with a forced smile. Her friends looked at her with an asking glance.

“Oh nothing really darling, we ju-“ She got aborted by a cyan Pegasus flying up to Twilight.

“What did YOU miss? It’s more like, what did WE miss.” Twilight raised an eyebrow while Rainbow Dash showed Twilight an accusing hoof. “Why are only you talking with the princesses?” Twilight sighed.

“I need to talk with them because it is proven that the more ponies are in a room in a discussion, the harder it is to get to a real conclusion.” She exclaimed with one highly held hoof. Her friends looked unimpressed, except Pinkie Pie who only smiled for no reason. One pony looked especially skeptical.

“Ah can tell that that was a lie.” Applejack narrowed her eyes at Twilight, who started sweating profusely while holding an over forced smile. Her friends looked at her expectantly until she crumbled under their gazes and sighed.

“It’s just that I don’t want you to get involved in these conversations since they are very boring and at some points quite brutal.” Fluttershy shivered at the last bit.

“W-W-What do y-you mean with, *gulp* quite bru-brutal?”

“I mean we are talking about, strategies, expected counts of casualties and about *gulp* hypothetical sacrifices. In short, we are talking about war.” She looked to the floor. “I just don’t want you to go through the trouble I am going through.” Her friends looked at her with a sorry gaze.

“Ah’m mighty sorry Twi. Ah didn’t know that ya just wanted ta protect us.” After everypony hadmade their apologies, they all engaged in one giant group hug. The two alicorns were looking at them with a warm heart while the human looked at the treasure he harvested while searching inside of his nose with his finger out of boredom. Deciding that the treasure wasn’t worth the attention, he flicked it away at some random guard that passed by. He wasn’t even suspecting a thing.

“Yeah, can we go now?” Aren exclaimed obviously sounding bored. Everyone present looked at him with a disapproving gaze. “What?” Everyone continued with their disapproving gaze. “Alright you can take as long as you like.” Aren told them while folding his arms. Everyone sighed.

“No, it’s alright. The atmosphere is gone.” Twilight exclaimed with another sigh while she started climbing into a chariot, being pulled by two Pegasi. All the other ponies followed her while looking disapprovingly at the human. Aren looked over to Celestia who just sighed and walked to a second chariot. Luna just puffed, raised her head and walked over to the same chariot. They both waited for the confused looking Aren.

Before Aren decided to walk over to the chariot in which the two Alicorns sat, he looked at Luna who was nearly growling at him. Yep, he can’t take this one. So he walked over to the chariot that contained the elements. When Aren started walking to the chariot, Celestia quizzically raised an eyebrow and looked at her sister who just smiled innocently at her.

When Aren came to the chariot with the Elements, he got welcomed by three disapproving, two smiling and one scared gaze. ‘Yeah, won’t be able to take that one either… Seriously what did I do to them?’

“Oh hey Aren, do you want to fly with us?” Twilight exclaimed happily. She got used to the human pretty quickly, and they both build up a foundation of friendship over the last two weeks. Even though, he couldn’t tell Twilight how to use the spells, he could still tell her of what is possible and of the cultures of other dimensions. She practically interrogated him about everything that she could possibly think of.

Aren thought about it, but his decision was taken from him when he looked at the eyes of Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity. “Ehm, no I think I’ll fly myself.” He said nervously while looking at the third chariot who was full with guards. When Twilight turned around to look at what he was looking at, she just saw the three happy smiles of her three friends.

He sighed and opened one side of his coat. Pulling out four flasks with different colors. One red, one purple, one white and one black. He held the flasks up and looked at the chariot with the six friends.

“What’s your most favorite color out of all of these?” He asked with a smile. The six ponies looked confused, but every one of them pointed at a different bottle. Rarity pointed at the white one, Twilight at the purple one, Rainbow at the black one, Pinkie at the red one, Fluttershy at the white one and Applejack at the red one.

“So red or white huh? I personally like the red one a little more so I take that one.” The ponies, still confused by what he said, looked at him expectantly. Aren put the three other flasks back into his coat and put the remaining red one into his right hand. Then he squeezed his hand shut so that the flask broke. The ponies gasped when they saw that, but they stopped when the dust in Arens’ hand began flying around. The dust settled on the backside of Aren where it took up a form of wings. When the dust settled, everypony gasped when they saw the red feathered wings on Arens’ back. He smirked back at the ponies.

“Yeah, I think that’s sufficient enough.” He said as he jumped up and started flying. The Pegasi with their three chariots followed. The five hour long flight began.

“*pant* *pant* get back here!” Aren screamed at the tried to follow the much faster flying chariots. They didn’t hear him, or better said they didn’t want to hear him. The four Pegasi who were pulling the chariots were night guards and Luna made it exceedingly obvious that she does want to get to the Changeling Wasteland as fast as possible.

“*pant* *pant* Oh god, how could I even think about keeping up with natural born flyers? I SAID WAIT UP!” he shouted at them, but it only seemed that they sped up. He looked at the backside of the chariot and couldn’t believe what he saw. There sat Luna smiling mischievously at him. Oh it is on now!

With a smile, Aren vanished from the face of Equestria and reappeared in his home dimension in his stalls. He walked through the uncountable mounts he had at his castle. “No, No, No, Not that one either.” He continued walking down the path of the stalls and came to one isolated cell. “Oh yes, that one.” With a smirk, he walked into the stall.

“Luna, where is Aren?” Celestia asked while searching around the skies.

“Oh, didn’t he mention something about eh, doing something in his castle?” She nervously grinned. Celestia hummed.

“Hmm, I don’t remember about him telling something like that. Are you sure he said that Luna?” Luna just laughed nervously.

“Oh of course.” She smiled nervously. Celestia thought that Luna acted a little suspicious but let it slide.

“Well I hope he finishes his business quickly, because we only have four more hours of flight.” She said with a sigh and went back to reading her book.

Another hour later Celestia got nervous. ‘Where is Aren?’ She turned to her still smiling sister.

“Luna, are you sure Aren went back to his dimension?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well of course, where else would he be?” She asked still smiling. Celestia wasn’t buying that.

“How do you even know that? As far as I know, you two don’t talk much.” Lunas’ smile faded but reappeared again.

“Oh we don’t? Are you sure about that?” Celestia narrowed her eyes.

“Yes, I am quite sure of that. In fact I’m sure that you haven’t talked at all in the last three days.” Luna laughed nervously, but stopped. “Luna, where is he?” Luna looked down and drew circles with her hoof.

“I might have seen that he couldn’t keep up with us and I might have told my guards to fly a little faster.” Celestia couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Luna, he doesn’t know where the wastelands are and he could also be in danger! You know how dangerous and big the Everfree Forest is.” Celestia told her sister with a tone of disapproval. Luna just rolled her eyes.

“Oh come on now. Did you forget how ‘tough’ he is and how unbeatable? I am sure that he can handle it.” She practically spat out the word tough. Celestia shook her head.

“I know that you don’t see eye to eye, but that is no reason for you to abandon him at one of the most dangerous places in all of Equus. He is still a guest in our world.” She told Luna with authority. Luna just sighed.

“Alright, I’ll tell the guards to slow down.” Just when she went to the front of the chariot to tell her friends she felt something strange. Celestia apparently also felt this strange feeling and turned around. They both looked back at the horizon. They both could see something quite far away. They couldn’t recognize what it was but apparently it was getting bigger by the second. Then they realized something. That thing wasn’t getting bigger, it just moved at an extremely fast speed.

“EVADE TO THE LEFT!” Luna shouted to her guards who through their training instantly complied and made a sharp turn to the left. This was not one second to early because the thing bolted through the gap of the two chariots with an unreal speed. They still couldn’t recognize what it was. It was just too fast. When they looked at the thing that just overhauled their chariots, they heard four loud booms in fast succession. Every boom shaking the chariots a little.

After the shaking stopped, Luna and Celestia looked at the thing that bolted through them. It was a five meter (15 feet) long extremely thin kind of black scaled bird. It had a slim body like Discords, but had no legs, but instead of them, it had six pairs of long slender wings that flapped in a wave motion. Its’ head had a exceedingly long and thin beak that made it look like a spear. They never saw anything like it.

The bird-thing turned away from them and showed its’ back, where they could see a patch of scales that had an other color than the rest of its’ body. The bird flew slowly back to the chariot and halted besides it.

“Oops, sorry didn’t see you there. I’m still not used to flying a Stormbreaker.” A remarkably familiar voice exclaimed from the back of the bird. They looked closer at the batch of mismatching scales and could see that they were, in fact, just some kind of suit for the person on its’ back. Luna got mad.

“What do you think you’re doing? You could’ve made us crash! Are you out of your mind?” She practically screamed at Aren.

“Well this wouldn’t have happened, if you wouldn’t have left me behind.” He countered. Luna gritted her teeth and just looked back at one of her books. Celestia who finally regained her composure asked Aren something.

“What is this creature you are riding on?” Aren raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, this one? That’s a Stormbreaker. The fastest things I have ever seen. They are able to fly with their six pairs of wings and their nearly nonexistent weight with an incredible speed. Their strong magic strengthens their wingpower even more. The max speed it can put out is something, not even I dare to try.” He smiled.

“How fast were you going before?” Aren hummed.

“Between Mach four and five. You can’t believe the Gs’ this thing puts on your body.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“I am not familiar with the phrase ‘Mach’ and ‘Gs’. Could you explain them please?”

“Of course! You know when you fly faster than the speed of sound?” Celestia nodded. “Yeah that is one mach. So mach four means that I flied four times faster than sound and Gs are called the times of which you feel your weight in pressure. If the floor suddenly starts to move upwards, you feel like you are heavier right? If it would feel like you weight double your normal amount, then your body feels the power of two Gs.”

Celestias’ jaw dropped. “But how can you still be alive then?” Aren just snickered and pointed with one of his scale encased fingers to his body.

“What do you think this thing is for? I could not possibly hold myself on a Stormbreaker if it weren’t for this masterpiece of engineering. So how long do we have to keep flying?” He asked no one in particular.

“Now longer than before, because we have to make a stop at the forest floor. It seems like one of the wheels got damaged, when SOMEPONY flew at us.” One of the guards looked accusingly at Aren, who just smiled nervously.

“Ehe he… oops?” At the other side sat a cyan Pegasus with a wide smile and stars in her eyes.

“SO AWESOME!”

They began their decent and landed at a clearing. The wheel certainly was damaged, and the guard said that it would probably take about 20 minutes until the repairs were finished. They all looked accusingly at Aren when they heard that, and he just apologized again. When he got down from his mount, he let it fly away.

“Aren’t you afraid that it will fly away?” Twilight asked him.

“Oh no. You need to become friends with one in order to ride one, and this is no fast process. After years of sharing kindness we became friends, and he will always come back to me when I need him.” He said confidently. Twilight just nodded while she observed the in circles flying thing. Aren grinned.

“It seems like he found his prey.” Before Twilight could ask what he meant, she saw the Stormbreaker flying far away and then turning around. After it turned around it accelerated to an unreal speed and dived into the treetops of the forest. One second later, a loud painful screech was heard. Twilight knew that roar.

“Was that a Manticore?” She asked. Aren just shrugged.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, is dead. Stormbreakers are carnivores. They fly around a forest and search for any kind of big creatures. When they found their target, they fly away until they have enough run-up and then burst right through their targets with their spear-like beaks. That normally kills their prey.” Twilight nodded fascinated. She sucked up that knowledge like a sponge.

Just then the Stormbreaker came back and landed near Aren. “What? You already finished there? That can’t be.” He exclaimed while looking to his companion.

“What kind of meat do they normally eat?” She asked.

“Well normally the-“ He got aborted by a scream from Rarity, which was followed up by a big boom. They turned around and saw her flying towards Aren who barely caught her. Aren just looked down at the terrified face of her and asked.

“What happened?” Rarity just pointed a hoof at one of the chariots which lay crushed on the floor. Besides it was another crushed chariot. The thing that did the crushing was a gigantic scorpion. It was seven meters long without its’ tail and had two huge pincers. And it, well looked like a scorpion. Twilight gasped.

“That’s a converett.” Aren raised an eyebrow.

“Who?”

“A converett. Those are one of the biggest scorpions in Equus. I read about them in books, but I never saw one in real life before.” They saw the scorpion mashing down on the two empty chariots. While Aren pondered about, what evolutionary process those things were created by, he heard the loud voice of Princess Celestia.

“Everypony evacuate while the guards and I buy you some time.” Aren raised an eyebrow. What are they so worried about? It’s just a scorpion. The guards formed a formation around the scorpion that Aren never saw before, but before the scorpion could do anything it flew to the side against some trees which were now pretty damaged. It screeched one loud time and then stopped moving.

“Yeah remember when you asked me what a Stormbreaker normally eats? They normally eat big insects and well.” He pointed at the dead scorpion that was being devoured by the bird. The other ponies just stood there and didn’t know what to make out of this situation. It was just way to anticlimactic to handle.

“Ehm, excuse me.” Aren turned around to see the white unicorn mare looking at him. “Ehm, I just wanted to thank you for catching me, before I hit the ground. I wouldn’t have known what to do to get that dirt out of my mane.” Aren raised an eyebrow. She got nearly squashed and the thing bothering her most is her hair? He shook is head.

“No problem, now what do we do with the destroyed chariots?” He asked the approaching Princess Celestia. She still looked at the strange bird, but answered him.

“Well, we have only one chariot left, and it is not enough to accommodate everypony that can’t fly.”

“Can’t we just build new ones?” Celestia shook her head.

“We can maybe create something remotely similar than a chariot, but we don’t have the equipment to perform the enchantments those things need in order to fly.”

“So we can’t continue?” Celestia nodded. Aren pondered about this for a moment but then got an idea.

“No worries. I got this. I’ll just fly to our destination and create a port-platform.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“What’s a port-platform?” Aren looked smirking at her.

“Pretty simple stuff actually. You know when you teleport yourself and stuff? A port-platform uses the magic out of the environment, and when you step into it, it ports you to the other platform. So what I’ll do, I create one here and create one at that wasteland. Simple enough, right?” Celestia thought for a second about this, but then nodded.

Aren nodded two and just slammed his right hand at a patch of grass, which then transformed into a quadratic platform out of dirt. Then he whistled once, and his mount landed besides him. He mounted up and looked at Celestia.

“So where is that wasteland?” he asked while adjusting his helmet.

“It’s in that direction.” She pointed her hoof at the direction. “It’s a big wasteland that kind of reminds one of a desert. You really can’t miss it. Just create the platform at the border of the wasteland.”

“Alright, then till later!” he exclaimed while shooting to the sky with his mount. When Aren was gone, Celestia looked at the group of ponies that talked with each other. She looked around a little more and came over two yellow eyes. She blinked once, and the eyes were gone.

‘I must be imagining things.’ She looked around more. ‘But what is this feeling of uneasiness?’

Author's Note

Gotta start working again tomorrow. So my update-ratio might not be as frequently as now.

I don't have all day anymore to write a new chapter.^^

Clearing Under Attack

“I win again!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed after beating Twilight for the approximately tenth time in tic-tac-toe. She looked at the upset unicorn in front of her. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure you will win the next one.” Pinkie told her with a cheerful smile. Looking up at Pinkie, Twilight groaned once.

‘That was the seventh time she said that. How can she keep on winning in tic-tac-toe even though, logic says that I can’t loose with my strategy. How does she keep doing that?’ Twilight groaned again. ’This makes no sense!’ Just when she began to start another round, Princess Celestia walked over to the two.

“Hello Twilight, Pinkie.” Nodding at the two while she spoke their respective names. “How have you fared so far?” She looked down at the tic-tac-toe games that were scribbled into the floor. “Ah I see. Who is winning?” The answer was pretty obvious by the temper the two had. Nonetheless, Celestia was bored and had to kill some time. On top of that, she also needed to distract herself by this feeling of being watched.

“Me, me, I am winning!” Pinkie shouted happily while bouncing all over the place. Twilight sighed and Celestia saw that her student wasn’t that enthusiastic as normally. She lowered her head to Twilight.

“You are also feeling watched, aren’t you?” She asked quietly so no one can hear them. Twilights’ ears perked up, and she looked around to see if no one were spying on them. Deciding that it would be safe she answered.

“Yes. It feels as if something is just waiting to pounce on our backs. I don’t like this.” While she said that, she slowly looked around the forests at the edge of the clearing. She could see nothing dangerous. It was quiet. Very quiet. Normally at least some birds would make their mating calls or a slight movement in the bushes could be heard, but right now it was silent, except for the conversations of the others.

“Princess, I definitely do not like this eerie feeling.” The Empress of the sun looked around the clearing and slowly nodded.

“I think it’s the best if we inform the others. At the beginning, I thought that my paranoia maybe got the best of me, but if you are feeling this too then I am quite sure that I wasn’t mistaken with feeling threatened.” Twilight nodded and stood up from her haunches. “And Twilight. Don’t make any hasty movements. Any sort of jump or run could make whatever is watching us attack.”

Twilight nodded again before she slowly started to make her way to Applejack and Rarity while the princess walked to her guards.

“And then I said ‘Oh please, I had bigger ones than yours.’” Rarity said while holding back her giggle. Applejack looked kind of confused. “She was infuriated because I insulted her hat. It wasn’t exactly little, but I really made bigger ones myself.” The farm pony could not understand, what was funny about ponies arguing about their hats. She wanted to ask about the reason why she insulted her hat, when she saw Twilight walking to them.

“Hey there, Twi. We were just talking about some ponies in Canterlot. What were ya’ll up to?” Twilight looked around again before she lowered her head to the two conversing ponies.
“The Princess thinks we are being watched.” The mares crooked an eyebrow and looked around the ponies until their eyes fell on the purple day guard, who suddenly had quite the interest in a stone he found.

“Oh do you mean that guard, darling? Oh please, everypony noticed that he is eying me the whole time.” Rarity exclaimed while lifting her mane with one of her hooves. While Rarity was showing off her mane, Twilight just shook her head.

“No Rarity. This is not what I meant. I mean we are being watched by somepony or something that has darker intentions than asking us out on a date.” Applejack understood what Twilight meant and looked around the clearing while still keeping a calm exterior. Rarity raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever do you mean, Twilight?” Twilight got closer to Rarity.

“I mean somepony is trying to attack us.” Rarity gasped extremely. Now there was no way that not everypony in the whole clearing knew that something was amiss. If whatever is watching them sees the nervousness in his prey, it could get motivated to attack. Twilight just hoped that this wouldn’t happen.

“Rarity you need to act inconspicuous or else they might come to the idea to attack before their prey gets to formulate an escape plan.” Rarity wanted to point out Twilights’ rude tone, but decided against it since there were more serious things right now, than chewing out Twilight. So she just nodded and looked back at Applejack.

“Applejack, did I ever tell you about how I met Jet Set and Upper Crust? It’s a rather embarrassing moment, I won’t deny that.” Applejack looked confused. How could she talk about something like that in such a dangerous situation? She nudged closer to Rarity.

“I think we have bigger problems right now, Rare.” Rarity rolled her eyes.

“We should act inconspicuous, isn’t that what Twilight said? So why do we not just continue our conversation?” Applejack pondered about this for a second, but understood quickly what Rarity meant.

“Oh no Rarity, tell me more about it.” She said this with a way to forced voice. Well she was the element of honesty. It was understandable that she couldn’t lie like a pro. Twilight listened to their conversation and then made her way to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. While she walked over, Celestia just arrived at the guards that were talking without worries. When she got closer, the guards all made a quick glance at her and simultaneously nodded. Celestia was a little taken aback by their informality.

“I am very sorry for the rudeness, your highness, but we are currently being watched by at least a dozen Timberwolves.” One of the guards said with a hushed voice. Now she was genuinely taken aback. Not only did her guards know about the threat, but also what was watching them and how many there were.

“How did you know?” Celestia asked in a quiet tone. The guard whom she was talking to nodded to his left to a purple Pegasus-guard.
“This one here saw a pair of yellow eyes in a bush. Our two unicorns then proceeded to use their aura-vision to check for enemies. That’s when we found out about their numbers and what they were.” He simply explained. Celestia was impressed by their intuition.

“Say, what is this aura-vision you just mentioned.” The guard looked surprised at the princess. She didn’t know about a spell they could perform? Nonetheless, he answered.

“Aura-vision is a spell that Aren, sorry High-general Aren showed us how to perform. It basically changes our normal physical vision into a, he called it, soul vision. We only see silhouettes of weak magical entities. Creatures with a stronger magical strength are being shown as shining orbs. It’s actually quite an easy spell to use.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“I thought High-general Aren wasn’t able to, I’m sorry, wasn’t allowed to teach spells to Equestrians?” She asked her guards. The guards looked nervously around.

“Didn’t you know, your highness? He took us in as, he called it, M-apprentices. He said that this was the only way for us, being able to learn magic from him. I don’t know what that means, but he said that this won’t hinder us in fulfilling our duty. It’s just a formality, he told us.” Celestia accepted this for now, but made a mental note to get answers from the human the next time she sees him.

“What is your plan for dealing with those wolves?” Celestia asked with a whisper.

“Continue like this until High-general Aren comes back with the port-platform. Hopefully we do not need to use Plan B.” He exclaimed and Celestia quickly followed up with the question what Plan B is. “Well Plan B is to defend ourselves against the onslaught. With luck, we don’t need that one.”

The plan was not perfect, but it was a good one for the time they had to plan a strategy. Just when Celestia asked another question at the guard, she heard rapidly flapping wings behind her. She turned around, and her heart nearly stopped. There in the air, flapping her wings, was none other than Rainbow Dash, posing like she wanted to fight in a ring.

“Come out you punks! I’ll beat you to a-“ Just before she could finish her sentence, she got enveloped by a purple glow and was instantly pulled down to earth, by a lavender unicorn. Every guard looked nervously around, but nothing happened. Celestia was also paying attention to her surroundings, but nothing seemed to move. Absolutely nothing. And then it happened.

Suddenly about five Timberwolves jumped out of the forest and were running at Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow saw them coming and barreled away. She didn’t think this action through because Fluttershy was frozen with fear on the floor, with pupils as big as a sand pebble. Just when one of the Timberwolves pounced at Fluttershy, a purple barrier was around Fluttershy.

Fluttershy totally forgot about Twilight, who was still with them. With a loud thunk, the Timberwolf bounced of the barrier, which let Twilight wince a little. The other Timberwolves, who were not occupied with Twilights’ shield, were running around them and straight at the rest of the elements. Applejack quickly stood before Rarity since the white mare didn’t seem to have any defensive spells.
Applejack prepared herself to deliver an apple tree-shattering kick to one of the approaching Timberwolves, but didn’t know that this was not the first time for the predators to hunt equines. Applejack bucked out hard, but seemed to hit nothing but air. Not being prepared for the nonexistent resistance, she fell down on her abdomen. Just when she wanted to get up, she felt a stinging pain in her left hind-leg.

She turned her head around and saw how one of the wolves had bitten down on her leg. Not only was the bite itself painful enough, but he also decided to pull her away from the white mare behind her. Applejack turned to Rarity and her eyes widened like never before.

“RARITY! Behind you!” Behind Rarity stood the other Timberwolf that ran to them. He sneaked around Applejack and wanted to attack from behind. Rarity couldn’t turn around fully before a strong bite pierced her neck. Applejack couldn’t believe what she saw. Her friend was assaulted by a Timberwolf. She thought she had lost her, but then she realized that it hasn’t bitten down on her neck only. It has bitten down on her neck AND her left fore-leg, which was now between its’ jaws.

That meant her neck was not broken. There still was hope for her. Applejack felt another tug at her legs and saw that the wolf continued to pull her further away from the clearing. While watching her friend nearly getting killed, she totally forgot about her own predicament. She turned around, so she was lying on her back and kicked with her other hind-hoof directly on the snout of the wolf, who yelped shortly after. While yelping, he lost the grip of his prey and opened his mouth.

Quickly going back on her belly, she pulled herself back into the clearing with her remaining three legs. The apparently broken leg was being dragged on the floor and hurt indescribably. She looked up and saw the Timberwolf running away with Rarity in its’ mouth. “RARITY!” Applejack shouted, but had to cough shortly after, because of a cloud of dust and smoke that got in her lung.

Just before, the Timberwolf vanished into the thicket of the forest, he got slammed away by Princess Celestia who ran into it. She held Rarity with her telekinesis while she was ramming into the wolf. The short flight of the wolf got abruptly ended by the presence of a broad oak. The wolf shattered into many tiny twigs and leafes when he impacted.

Celestia looked at Rarity closer and saw that she was still alive, barely. She levitated her fast into the last remaining chariot and closed the door behind it. She was safe there. Celestia turned around to the guards and saw that they still were fighting against the main body of the enemy pack. Many pieces of wood were thrown around and also three corpses of the guards littered the floor. To her surprise, every dead guard was a night-guard.

There were three Timberwolves remaining from the main body of around eight. One of the day guards’ unicorns used his magic on the floor, which quickly shifted into a cuboid that rose from the floor and slammed into a timberwolf practically destroying it. Another Pegasus-guard flew straight at another wolf, but before he got into the reach of its’ snout, he stopped his descent and threw himself over the wolf.

Landing behind it, he released a fierce buck that threw the Timberwolf at the ground. Two earth-pony-guards quickly saw their chances and bucked the Timberwolf into oblivion. The remaining last one of the Timberwolves was fighting a purple Pegasus-guard that was flying low above the ground. The guard shot up and took a run-up. When he was prepared, he shot straight at the Timberwolf.

The wolf wanted to bite at him when he was in reach, but an orange glow engulfed the Pegasus, and he was violently jerked to the side and shortly after the Timberwolf felt a fierce pain in his side. While the guard was flying down, one of the unicorns engulfed him in his telekinetic field and changed his course and angle, so the Pegasus slammed with the power of his dive right into the side of the Timberwolf, shattering it to pieces.

That Celestia was impressed by this show would be an understatement. She never saw her guards fighting like that. What did that human do to them in those two weeks? At the other side of the field, Twilight was still holding up her barrier. The Timberwolf was biting at it violently and with every bite she felt a searing pain going through her head, but she couldn’t give up. Not if that meant Fluttershys’ death.

Fluttershy still in panic: “T-T-Twilight?”

“No time right now.” Twilight exclaimed while being under tremendous pain caused by the onslaught.

“B-B-But Twilight, c-c-can’t y-you just us-use your ma-ma-magic against i-it?” Twilight shook her head.

“No. Timberwolves are magical beings, and they absorb every form of raw magic. If I *slam* ARGH. If I use any magic against it, it will just absorb it and get stronger.” Twilight held on to her barrier, but before the Timberwolf could strike once again, it was thrown to the side by a pegasus flying straight in it. Not long afterwards, the wolf got squashed by a group of guards.

Twilight could finally loosen up a bit and release the barrier she was holding up for far too long. Before she fell into unconsciousness, she heard a loud cry. “HELP!”

Applejack was not faring well. She was still crawling away from the last remaining timberwolf. It was gaining ground tremendously and just when Applejack thought it would all be over, the Timberwolf got slammed to the side by a dark blue blur. Opening her eyes, she turned around and saw the princess of the night.

“THY FOUL CREATURE, SHALT NOT BE ATTACKING OUR LITTLE PONIES!” she shouted with her royal Canterlot voice. Before the wolf got up, she had charged her horn and shot a moonbeam at the wolf.

“NO!” Celestia screamed from the other side of the clearing to Luna, but it was too late. The beam already hit its’ target. When the beam hit the wolf, he just stumbled a little, but then began to glow a dark blue. The wolf let out a loud howl while Luna looked dumbfounded at the still living Timberwolf.

“How can it still live?” She asked mostly herself.

“Luna! Timberwolves absorb magic, don’t you know that?” Celestia exclaimed with a hint of anger in her voice. Luna raised an eyebrow.

“What’s a Timberwolf?” And then it hit Celestia. Luna was 1000 years on the moon and the Timberwolves only started appearing around 700 years ago. Of course, she couldn’t know about them. She was only back for around a year and still hadn’t caught up on every change in history, including the Timberwolves.

Celestia looked at the howling Timberwolf. ‘This will be an enormous problem’ she thought as the remains of the dead Timberwolves began to fly straight at it. It piled up to a big pile and out of the pile was a new Timberwolf formed. Being nearly ten meters long, it looked around the group of now gathered ponies.

To say that the current situation was disastrous would be an understatement. It roared a loud roar and the trees shivered under the might of the roar. Then it suddenly started to cry in pain. Celestia looked up to see that the purple Pegasus-guard threw sticks at the Timberwolf that were ignited by a unicorn while flying to the wolf.

Slowly the wolf began to ignite. Just when there seemed to be some hope, it roared again, and all the fire on its’ body was extinguished. Celestia knew that this was not just a simple roar. It was a scream, accompanied by a wave of magic. Celestia could do nothing. The only thing she could use as her weapon was her magic, but this was blocked by the Timberwolfs’ ability to absorb it. ‘If only Aren was here. He would know what to do.’

The guards did not give up as fast as Celestia and continued to throw burning wood at the humongous wolf. Whenever the wolf tried to swish at one of the Pegasi, the Pegasus got jerked to the side by one of the unicorns. The wolf growled again, and the fire was also extinguished again. Celestia looked to the side and saw that the chariot, in which Rarity was, was being filled with wood.

Before she shouted at them, she noticed that Rarity already was placed at some tree. The Timberwolf had enough and used a concentrated roar to push one of the Pegasi out of the air. It looked like a fly flew into a leaf blower. The Pegasus shot away and impacted with a tree, shattering his back.

When the wolf looked triumphantly at his kill, it didn’t notice the other Pegasi being gone. When he turned around and didn’t notice them, it searched the skies for them but hasn’t found anyone. And suddenly there was a humongous pain. The chariot that was filled with wood was burning furiously and just got slammed into the Timberwolf. Not only did the weight of that thing damage his side, it also enflamed the part where it hit it.

It shattered at the impact, but it was worth it. With another scream, it extinguished the fire again. Celestia still looked awed by the motivation her guards were showing, but then she noticed something.

“Wait a minute. Is it getting smaller?” Luna looked quizzically at Celestia but turned her gaze at the gigantic wolf. It really got smaller. It was now maybe seven meters long, but how can that be? And then she knew what the plan of the guards was. The guards wanted to lit it on fire, not because they wanted to damage it, no, they wanted it to use up its’ magic with its’ roar.

The wolf also noticed that it was using way too much energy. It quickly searched around and found the unconscious Twilight lying on the ground. It ran at her but slammed into a force field. Celestia groaned in pain, when the wolf slammed into her barrier. The wolf was in a rage, it needed power, NOW! It practically assaulted the barrier like there was no tomorrow. Celestia having more magic than normal unicorns, was able to hold up the barrier for a long time, but it crumbled eventually under the unrelenting attacks of the wolf.

The Timberwolf didn’t care that it was on fire again, by all the annoying Pegasi flying around it. He just wanted to eat that unicorn. Just when it pounced at Twilight, the unicorn got scooped up by a dark blue alicorn and was flown away by her. It quickly followed the flying path of the alicorn and released a focused roar at her. Luna got hit directly and shot away from the clearing.

“LUNA! TWILIGHT!” Celestia screamed with horror. She flew after them, but couldn’t reach them due to her still being dizzy. Her magical energy was exhausted, and she couldn’t even perform the simplest of spells. She could only watch as her two most important ponies flew straight at a big oak. And then they vanished.

Instead of Luna and Twilight flying at the Oak, was now a red earth-pony. The red guard slammed hoof first into the oak, but could withstand greater injury due to him being an earth-pony and his strong leg muscles. After impacting with the tree, he fell down to the floor where he was caught by one of the Pegasi-guards. Celestia looked around for Luna and Twilight and found them in the middle of the guards.

She thought about it for a second, but then realized what brilliant plan her guards used. Since a teleport-spell also transfers kinetic energy, it would have just thrown the two at something different hard. So they used a swap-spell. With the swap-spell, it is possible to swap multiple living beings with one or more other creatures. The kinetic energy doesn’t get transported and rather transferred. The other party that gets swapped in their place receives the kinetic energy.

So they took their strongest guard and swapped him with Luna and Twilight because he could handle himself smashing into a tree, while Twilight and Luna couldn’t. Celestia was impressed that her guards were able to calculate such plans while being under such stress. Being impressed by her guards, Celestia totally forgot about the still living Timberwolf. When she turned around to look at it, she could only see a big maw that was about to bite down on her.

She saw her live flashing by her and prepared herself for the pain that would most certainly come, but it never came. Instead of feeling pain, she heard the wolf screaming out in pain and agony. She opened her eyes and looked up at the wolf with wide eyes. There was that purple guard again, but he held something. He held a spear in his hooves, but the spear was not normal. The spear was burning fiercely, but that was also not everything. The tip of the burning spear was currently located in the former right eye of the wolf.

The wolf cried loud and with that the guard was flung back violently. And also this time the guard vanished, but in his stead was nothing this time. Celestia couldn’t even start to look around before she heard a loud thump. Changing her gaze to the reason of the sound, she saw a pile of one Pegasus and three earth-ponies. Apparently they teleported him and placed three strong guards at the path he will most likely fly into.

Celestia heard another growl, but this time instead of turning around, she instantly took flight. She looked back and realized that, she would be most likely dead if she hadn’t flown away. Suddenly there was a loud boom, but the wolf didn’t budge. ‘What made that noise?’ she thought and looked at one of the legs of the wolf. Apparently Pinkie Pie has shot her party cannon at the paw of the wolf. It wasn’t very effective. It turned to Pinkie and bit down hard.

“PINKIE PIE!” Celestia screamed, but she quickly saw that the pink mare was bouncing around on the other side of the clearing like nothing happened. Not wanting to try to understand the pink riddle, Celestia flew to her guards. They were winning apparently since the wolf was now only half his original size, but she also noticed that her guards were exhausted. This fight could go either way.

The wolf suddenly turned around and bit down on a big tree. It bit and ripped and chewed down as hard as it could. ‘What is it doing?’ Celestia thought. The wolf continued to bite the treetop off and when it had it in its' mouth. He swallowed and after that bit down on the trunk and now Celestia knew what it planned.

It is known that Timberwolves could also eat wood. Since they are not so bulky, they only ate some branches, but since this one was so powerful, it could eat a whole tree. “STOP IT!” The guards nodded while the remaining elements looked bewildered at Celestias’ outburst. The guards flew at it and threw more fire, but the wolf didn’t seem to care. It only continued to eat, and when it finished the whole tree, it closed its' eyes and suddenly some kind of resin oozed out of its' shell.

Normally, resin would be flammable, but since it was filled with magic, it couldn’t burn. It turned around swished at the earth-pony and unicorn guards. They couldn’t react fast enough and got all thrown to the side. All of them impacting on something with a loud bang. Most of them were dead, some only had a few broken bones, but one was clear. They couldn’t fight anymore.

The Pegasi guards flew away from it, apparently to help their guard friends. The Timberwolf turned around and looked at the bunch of defenseless ponies. Just then a massive explosion erupted around the wolf. It was so loud that Celestia could only hear static in her ears, and when the Shockwave arrived, it got stopped by an invisible wall.

When the smoke cleared, the Timberwolf was still standing, but it was damaged badly. Before it knew what happened it was already over. A black blur passed near the head of the Timberwolf and shortly after, the head fell down to the ground and splattered into pieces. The body followed. The blur landed, and Celestia could see what it was.

It was Aren on top of his Stormbreaker with a readied sword. He looked at the remains of the Timberwolf and fired one solid long beam of fire at it. He fired for about 20 seconds, after which there was no more wood left.

“Don’t want that bastard regenerating.” He just muttered to himself. Looking around the battlefield he sighed. “Why does this have to happen when I’m not around?” He saw the ponies watching him with wide eyes. “What?” And then the cheer broke out. Everyone thought they would be dead by the end of this, but they lived. The happy moment was only short-lived.

The death of their partners, friends, and guards pulled the ponies back into depression. Rainbow Dash looked around the battlefield and then spotted something horrible. “RARITY!” She screamed while flying to the tree where Rarity was. The remaining friends followed, except for Twilight who was unconscious and Applejack, who could barely move with her torn leg. When they arrived, they could hear heavy breathing. Fluttershy looked at Rarity but then backed away due to all the blood. Rainbow got to Rarity. “Rarity! Everything will be fine. Don’t worry. The princesses are here, we will be able to save you.” She exclaimed with tears in her eyes.

Rarity slowly opened her eyes with a sleepy look in them. “Rainbow *pant* Dash, you don’t *pant* need *pant* to worry about *pant* me. I will be fine.” She slowly said between pants. Her friends looked terrified. Rarity was slowly closing her eyes again. Rainbow got into panic-mode.

“NO! NO Rarity you can’t die! SOMEPONY HELP!” She screamed out. Celestia and some guards walked up to them. As soon as Celestia saw Raritys’ state she averted her gaze. Rainbow got down on her knees and wrapped her hooves around Celestias’ legs.

“You must do something! You can save her, right?” She begged with a forced smile. Celestia averted Rainbows’ eyes and shook her head. Fluttershy who was sobbing at the background now fully cried. Pinkie joined her with her straight mane. Slowly Aren came to them.

“You can’t save her?” He asked with a neutral tone. Celestia shook her head.

“But you can revive her right?” Aren looked away but answered with a grim undertone.

“No, I can’t revive anyone outside of a resurrection field.” Celestia looked at the ground and also began crying. She had hoped that he would be able to at least resurrect her. He went down on one knee and looked at Rarity. He slowly picked up her chin and looked into her eyes.

Rarity just looked in his eyes and smiled knowingly. She knew that she wouldn’t survive that bite for much longer. She had maybe a few minutes left, but nothing more. Everything was silent, except for the crying ponies. They all stopped crying when they looked at the human. ‘Maybe he can do something?’ They all thought. Now it was perfectly quiet.

Aren looked back at the expectant gazes of the ponies. The tear filled sad gazes. There was no doubt, Rarity was loved by everyone. He looked back into her eyes. She truly was an innocent creature. She shouldn’t have died in a battle. Aren sighed and stood up. He walked away from her, but before he passed the ponies he turned around and gritted his head with his right hand.

Suddenly he started screaming in agony. He screamed so loud that everypony had to lay down their ears. His screaming continued and he started gripping his head with his second hand. Slowly he pulled his right hand away and screamed even louder than before. In his right hand was something deep blue like the Ocean.

He paused a second with the screaming, but continued when he started pulling again. After a while, the thing he pulled out began to stretch. It got longer and longer until with one final loud scream it snapped. Aren was now on one knee and held something transparent in his hand. It looked like a blue fire. He stood up and walked back to Rarity.

When he bent down he looked one last time in her eye and put the fire in his hand at her heart. It went in her, and she slowly drifted off to sleep. Aren walked this time through the ponies, and to some tents that the guards have built. He turned around one last time.

“I gave her half my soul. She will survive.” With that said he went into the tent.

Author's Note

Finally my first fighting scene, where one party was not totally overpowered. Let's see if we get more of those^^

Splitting Up

“We are gathered here today, to honour our fellow guards that have fallen in their fight to protect the ones they have sworn to protect. Against all odds, they threw themselves sacrificially into battle to defend these ponies here, including me. They showed strength, determination, and originality.” Celestia said sadly while standing before seven graves. Three of them were night guards and four of them day guards.

Nearly every Element Of Harmony shed tears for every one of the deceased guards, except for Rarity who still was asleep in one tent. Raritys’ wounds were healing at an abnormal rate and a Pegasus guard with some knowledge in medicine told everypony that she will surely survive. Every earth-pony and Pegasi guard that survived the mighty swish of the Timberwolf Prime also looked down at the graves. One peculiar purple Pegasus looked down at one specific grave and muttered to himself.

“First-Lieutenant Red Strife. I would have never thought that you would leave the world before me.” He lowered his head and let one tear fall to the ground. “You were always there for me when I was new in the guards. You showed me how to fight and how to handle things. I will miss you.” He saluted once.

“You had a strong bond with First-Lieutenant Red Strife, am I right?” He heard a warm voice speaking from behind him. He knew whom it was.

“Yes, your majesty. He was a very important pony to me and also a fantastic officer. He was one of those who could have made it to the top… if they had the time.” He swished over his wet eyes and looked determined at Princess Celestia. “But this is no time to mourn over the dead, as a guard. We need to keep strong for the ones that have not yet seen much death.”

He saluted once and walked back over to the other guards while Celestia looked at him with a happy smile. ‘Yes he could have gotten to the top, just like you.’ She thought silently while she also walked away from the grave. She looked around and counted the ponies. Four healthy civilians, two badly injured civilians, one badly injured Pegasus night guard, two badly injured earth-pony day guards, one exhausted unicorn day guard and two Pegasi day guards, one injured the other one healthy and her sister.

She realized that apart from Rarity, one other being was amiss at the funeral. Aren was missing. If she remembered correctly, he wasn’t seen since he went into one of the tents three hours ago. ‘He should have attended the funeral since he trained four of them.’ Celestia thought quietly. Of course, she knew that he saw many deaths in his life, but that was no reason to stay away from a funeral.

“What happened?” She heard somepony asking. Turning around, Celestia saw Rarity standing outside her tent, looking at the graves.

“RARITY!” her friends nearly screamed and ran to her to engulf her in one giant group hug. Rarity just looked baffled.

“Girls, not that I have anything against a show of affection, but what prêt ell is the reason for this?” She asked in between giggles. Her friends just continued to embrace her.

“Oh Rarity. Ah thought ya were gone when that Timberwolf got ya. Ah am just so happy *sob* that ya’ll are still here.” When Applejack said that, Rarity remembered the bite of the Timberwolf and she touched her neck that was still bandaged. She winced a little when she touched her. This made her friends back away because they thought that they put her in pain with their hug.

“Oh I am so sorry, d-does it still hurt?” Fluttershy asked with saddened eyes. Her friends all looked at her with hopeful gazes and Rarity couldn’t feel warmer under all the affection she was receiving.

“Oh please girls, I am alright. It just hurts a little. *gasp* Applejack! How is your leg?” She asked quickly turning to Applejack who was just raising an eyebrow, but answered quickly.

“Mah Leg is fine, Rares. It’s just broken, nothing especially new for me.” Rarity sighed in relief and then she looked over at the graves and felt a pain in her stomach. Turning to her friends he asked.

“Who is buried there?” Her friends looked at each other with worried eyes. Finally, Twilight spoke up.

“You don’t remember?” Rarity just shook her head with shocked eyes. Has she forgotten something? What happened?

“No, Twilight. The last thing I remember is seeing Applejack being bitten in the leg. Then I turned around and then nothing. The next thing I remember is waking up in that tent.” The eyes were now genuinely worried. Rarity looked around them. “Could you please tell me, what happened after that?” They slowly nodded to each other and let Rainbow tell the tale since Pinkie speaks too much and Fluttershy doesn’t want attention directed to her.

“Well I could see everything pretty clearly from the skies. When you turned around, you were bitten by a Timberwolf at the neck.” Rarity touched her neck again and winced again. “Before he could drag you away to the forest, Princess Celestia smashed into him, and he fell into pieces. She then dragged you over to the last chariot.” She gestured at the utterly destroyed remains of the chariot.

“While this happened… something… on the other side of the clearing happened and one Timberwolf suddenly grew to like 100 hoofstrides. The guards fought the monster in an epic battle. Somewhere in the battle you ended up at some tree while the guards used the chariot to fight against him. It looked like we would win, but then he ate a tree and everything looked like, our last hour has arrived.”

“Then this hu-mehn-guy came and obliterated the wolf into million pieces. When we looked around and saw your body we-“ She couldn’t continue, because of the tears that now suddenly formed in her eyes. Rarity looked nervously at the teary eyes of her friends.

“It couldn’t have been that badly,” She asked with a forced happy tone while her friends still averted her gaze. “Right?” Fluttershy just turned around and ran away, since she didn’t want to hear the tale again. The remaining friends could understand her. None of them wanted to hear it again. Applejack was the first to speak again.

“When Ah saw you with all that blood, Ah thought you wouldn’t make it.” Rarity couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It couldn’t have been that bad, could it? “Ah just held ya in mah hooves and told ya’ll that everything would be fine, but Ah knew that ya wouldn’t make it. Ah looked in yer eyes and saw that ya have accepted to…” She couldn’t continue due to her breaking in tears. Rarity didn’t know how to feel. It just felt strange.

“So then how did I… you know… survive?” She asked the group. Twilight answered relatively quickly.

“The Princess said that apparently Aren healed you.” The human? Why would he do something like that even though she wasn’t exceedingly polite to him? “She told me that he started to scream fiercely and that he pulled something out of his head. He said that this was half of his soul and then he gave it to you so that you could survive.” Rarity looked down at her body and inspected it.

“So you mean he put his… soul into me?” Twilight nodded.

“Part of it, yes.” She still looked at her body, but then turned to her friends.

“So what does this mean to me? Could this have bad consequences?” She asked her friends who had confused stares on them. Twilight looked at the floor.

“Actually, we don’t know. I was unconscious at that time.” She answered, and Rarity looked at the rest of them who just shook their heads.

“We were just so happy to see ya survive that we totally forgot to ask him.” Rarity looked around the clearing.

“Say where it this hu- er Aren? I want to thank him for what he did to me.” The gathered friends looked around, but couldn’t spot him.

“The last time I saw him, he went into that tent over there.” Pinkie pointed her hoof at a pretty sizeable military tent.

“Thank you Pinkie. I’ll be back as soon as possible.” With that said she walked to the tent. When she stopped at the entrance, she realized that there was no door to knock.

“Helloho, Sir Aren?” No answer. “May I come in please? It’s Rarity.” Still no answer, but she waited a little longer. “Alright, I’ll come in if it’s ok.” Still not hearing an answer, Rarity went into the tent and saw the human sitting in a chair, clutching his head with both hands, backside turned to her.

“Sir Aren, there you are. I just wanted to… Sir Aren?” She got closer when he didn’t react. While walking closer, she asked. “Sir Aren? Are you alright?” Still no reaction. When she walked around him, she saw that his eyes were closed while holding onto his head. He seemed to be asleep.

“Sir Aren? Hello?” She said while being close to him. “Sir Aren, wake up!” Still nothing. Rarity held up one hoof and poke at one elbow of him. The elbow slipped to the side, and Aren lost his hold. He fell to his right. Rarity seeing the human falling on her, quickly moved back and saw how he impacted with the floor face first.

She looked down at the still not moving human and did the first thing that came to her mind. She screamed her lungs out. Suddenly the tent flaps opened and every pony in the clearing rushed in. When they saw him, they all gasped. There was blood coming out from under his head. Princess Celestia quickly walked over to him and gently turned him around to see where the blood was coming from.

They all gasped again when they saw the awkwardly bent nose. This was also the origin of all this blood. “He probably broke his nose, when he fell on the floor.” Celestia said analytically and turned to Rarity. “Did you see how he fell?” Rarity couldn’t react. There was just too much going on in her head.

‘Is he dead? Is it my fault? Why did I have to nudge his elbow?’ Such thoughts flew through her head at an amazing rate.

“RARITY!” Rarity winced and turned to Celestia. “Did you see how he fell?” she just asked gently. Rarity began to cry.

“I just wanted to thank him. I didn’t want this to happen. It was not my fault!” She said while hyperventilating. Celestia got to Rarity and placed one hoof at her shoulder.

“Rarity, you need to calm down. This is not your fault. Just tell us what happened.” She gently said to her while nuzzling her head. Rarity slowly calmed down and could form sentences again.

“Well I-I-I just came in here and wanted to-to thank him. Then I saw him sitting at a table while clutching his head. I walked over to him, but he wouldn’t react, so I just nudged him in the side, and he fell over to the *sniff* to the floor.” Celestia just continued to soothe Rarity.

“Shhh everything is alright. This is not your fault.” Then she turned to her sister. “Luna, can you look into his dreams?” Luna crooked her eyebrows to show that she didn’t want to. She couldn’t stand that arrogant human. “Luna please.” Celestia told her after some waiting. Luna looked at him and sighed silently. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem, sister.” Luna closed her eyes, and a soft glow surrounded her horn. This continued on for several seconds. Then the horn stopped glowing, and Luna opened her eyes. She looked at her sister and shook her head. “I am sorry Tia, but he doesn’t dream. I think he’s in a coma.” The eyes of Celestia widened and she began levitating the human gently.

“Then there is no time to waste. We must get him to Canterlot immediately.” She got stopped by her sister.

“But how? All of our chariots are destroyed.” Celestia cursed silently under her breath. How could she forget about the destroyed chariots?

“Then I need to fly him myself.” She moved around her sister.

“But Tia. You need to go to Queen Chrysalis!” Celestia turned around.

“Then you go.”

“But who looks after the camp with the many injured guards then?” She again cursed under her breath. She knew that second-lieutenant Purple Edge was a remarkable fighter, but he alone can’t defend a group of injured guards, but she also knew that he wouldn’t be strong enough to fly Aren to Canterlot. She needed to sacrifice one of the three things. Either Aren or the camp or the audience. She waited and pondered about this. It was no easy decision.

“Princess, Fluttershy said she has an idea.” Suddenly every eye turned to the shy yellow Pegasus. Rainbow pushed her to the front.

“Yes, Fluttershy?” Celestia asked warmly. The shy Pegasus just hid behind her mane and shivered, but then spoke in a quiet voice.

“Maybe Arens’ friend cou-could fly him to-to Canterlot.” His friend? What was she talking ab- and then Celestia knew what she meant. The Stormbreaker. It could carry Aren while the last remaining guard could accompany him. So Luna would be able to defend the camp while Celestia and the elements would meet Chrysalis. Celestia looked at Fluttershy with a maternal smile.

“That is a wonderful idea, Fluttershy.” Celestia levitated him out to the open and searched around for the animal, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Is there a problem, your majesty?” Purple Edge asked just arriving at the tent.

“Yes, High-general Aren is in a deep coma, and we need him to get to Canterlot immediately. We will search for his pet, and you are to escort him and his pet to Canterlot to a hospital.” Purple Edge looked at Aren and nodded dutifully while saluting. They both searched around the clearing but couldn’t find it.

Suddenly they heard a loud whistle from behind their backs. It apparently came from Applejack. Before they could ask why she whistled, a sudden gust of wind made their heads turn to it. It was the Stormbreaker just hovering above the ground looking at its’ master. Suddenly it turned to Celestia, and she could feel anger in its’ eyes, but before it could do anything a yellow shy Pegasus flew to it.

“Shh, everything is alright.” The gaze of the Stormbreaker turned to Fluttershy. “We didn’t hurt him. The one who whistled is my friend Applejack because we need you to bring him to Canterlot. You know, he’s very sick, and we can not help him here.” The Stormbreaker looked back at its’ master and then back to Fluttershy. “Thank you and please be gentle.”

Fluttershy hovered down to Celestia. “You can lay him on his back. He will carry him.” Celestia sighed in relief and floated Arens’ body gently to the Stormbreakers’ back. Purple Edge readied himself to follow the animal, but it didn’t start. It just looked at the purple guard.

“He wants you to climb on his back, if that’s ok with you.” Fluttershy told him. The guard just looked at the animal, but decided to comply and climbed on its’ back behind Aren. The Stormbreaker then looked at Celestia expectantly. Celestia didn’t know what it wanted.

“Ehm Princess?” Celestia looked down at Fluttershy. “I don’t know why, bu-but he asks you to lend him some magic, if that’s alright.” Celestia raised an eyebrow at the animal. Maybe it was smarter than she thought. Nonetheless, she did it. She casted a little beam of magic that hit the Animal. When she used up the planned amount of magic, the bird let out a high-pitched screech, and suddenly, three different kinds of barriers were around Aren and Purple Edge.

‘It can use magic?’ Celestia thought impressed, but before she could ask, the Stormbreaker suddenly started off like it got shot out of a cannon. It instantly sped up even more and soon multiple booms were heard. It was unmistakably flying even faster than before. ‘Oh I just hope they will be alright.’

Purple Edge was totally frightened by the velocity he was moving, but somehow he didn’t feel any gravity pull or any wind passing by. ‘Maybe those barriers block that off.’ He thought. He looked down at the ground, and his heart made a stop. They were moving faster than he thought.

“If this keeps up, we are in Canterlot in not even five minutes.” He mostly talked to himself. After three minutes, they arrived at Canterlot, and the Stormbreaker gently landed on the platforms for chariots. The guards quickly rushed to it, not knowing what it is, but the guard spoke up.

“Second-Lieutenant Purple Edge. High-General Aren needs medical attention immediately. He currently has a broken nose and is in a deep coma.” He dutifully exclaimed. The guards complied and ran into the city to arrange a medical transport. Not long afterwards, a chariot in white, landed besides them, and Aren was levitated onto it. The Stormbreaker took off and flew back to the Everfree Forest to do whatever it wanted to do.

“We also need at least two medical transporters and two chariots to be sent to a clearing to area A-79 in the Everfree Forest. There has been an attack and many guards, and civilians are injured and deceased. I will guide the transporters to the area.”

“Yes sir!” The guards exclaimed with a salute and ran into the castle. Some minutes later, the wanted transporters came, and Purple Edge started away while they were following.

20 Minutes earlier.

The Stormbreaker bolted away, and Celestia looked after it. She just hoped that everything will be alright. Just when she turned around Twilight came out of the tent.

“Princess, we found something on the table.” She levitated a little red sphere to the princess. Celestia overtook the levitation and looked at the sphere.

“What is this?” She asked her student, who just levitated a little piece of parchment to her.

“I don’t know, but this was beside it.” Celestia looked at it and began to read.

Celestia,

Use this if you are not able to convince Chrysalis.

Aren

She looked over to the sphere again. ‘He still thought about us, even when he was this damaged.’ A small smile appeared on Celestias’ face. Determined she used a spell and a little black void appeared before her. Twilight looked at it with big eyes. She knew that spell, but she wasn’t able to use it because it was way too hard.

“Is that a pocket-dimension?” Celestia smirked at Twilight.

“I’m proud that you know what this is my most faithful student. Yes, this is a pocket-dimension. I am pretty sure that you also know exactly, what a pocket dimension is, right Twilight?” Twilight nodded with enthusiasm.

“A pocket-dimension is a little dimension a magician can create to store items so you can access them from everywhere in the world.” Twilight smiled once. “To open up a gateway to a pocket dimension is not difficult, but pocket dimensions are bound to a single entity. The reason why so few unicorns are able to use one is, because of the difficulty to create the dimension in the first place.”

Celestia smiled and nodded once to her student. “A wonderful explanation.” She exclaimed warmly while putting the two items into her pocket dimension. When they were safely stored, she closed the gateway and went back into the tent. She looked around and saw everypony staring down at the bloody stain at the floor.

It just looked out of place in the clean tent. When she entered the ponies looked up at Celestia. “Aren is in safe hooves and will make it back to Canterlot, but that does not mean that we should head back too.” She looked around the eyes of the relieved ponies. “We will continue our journey in around 20 minutes. High-general Aren placed the port-platform just outside the tent, and we should be able to use it to get to the Changeling Wastelands.

Everypony nodded while some of the guards, that were able to, saluted. “The injured guards will be staying here with my sister while the Elements Of Harmony and I continue on our journey. Any questions?” Nopony seems to have any. “Then I will wait at the platform in around 15 minutes.” She smiled warmly at the gathered ponies and went outside.

The next 15 minutes were not terribly eventful. Celestia talked with some guards, about how they are faring and if their injuries are hurting while the elements talked with each other, mainly with Rarity. Some of the guards made themselves comfortable in the tents and others helped Luna on the lookout for danger.

When the time passed, all of the six friends gathered around the platform. The friends looked at the platform and had some nervous glances on them.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Rarity asked the princess.

“Well I never heard of that spell, but I am pretty sure that Aren wouldn’t do anything to harm us. We should trust him.” Everypony slowly nodded, but no one wanted to be the first to enter.

“Well I trust Aren.” Said a motivated Twilight that stepped forward. When she stood on the platform nothing happened. She hopped around, but nothing changed. “It-“ And suddenly she was gone. The ponies got startled by the sudden vanishing of their favorite purple unicorn. They nervously glanced at the platform.
“I trust sir Aren, too.” Said Rarity and also stepped on the platform. Again nothing happened. “Why-“ and she also vanished. The ponies weren’t startled this time.

“I think the platform activates itself via voice. I think if I go on top of it and say something, I will teleport to the destination.” After saying this, she walked on the platform. “Port!” She said but nothing happened. The ponies lifted their eyebrows. Celestia began blushing, but before she walked out of the platform she vanished.

After this, the remaining ponies did the same and also vanished in the same manner. The last one who went through the portal was Rainbow Dash since she didn’t want to let Fluttershy have the opportunity to back out. When she was in the platform, she looked around and suddenly there was a light and the scenery changed to a desert.

Well it wasn’t entirely a desert. It looked more like a normal plane, just without the grass and with cracks going through the ground. Simply put, it looked like farmland while a drought. In front of her were the other ponies, but they were not alone. Some changelings were also present. Rainbow Dash saw them and instantly flew up to one.

“Hey, what are you doing to my friends?” she asked in a loud voice. The changeling she was screaming at, raised an eyebrow, but before it could answer, somepony else spoke up.

“Rainbow Dash! These are our escorts. They will bring us to Chrysalis.” Twilight said with an exhorting voice.

“That’s Queen Chrysalis for you.” Said one of the changelings. Twilight lowered her head a little in an apologetic bow.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect.” The changeling huffed once and looked around the group.

“Are these all of you?” He directed this question at Celestia.

“Yes, I think we are complete.” She said with a warm smile. The changeling nodded and gestured with one hoof to a direction. After some time, the ponies complied and began walking in that direction. They walked for about ten minutes until they came to a divide. It was rather deep and dark, and they couldn’t see the bottom.

“This way!” The changeling said and showed to a path that led down to the divide. Reluctantly they followed the changeling down the path. It took another five minutes until they arrived at the bottom. It was uncommonly dark, and they couldn’t actually see anything that was further away than two meters.

Suddenly something like an earthquake happened and the ponies felt the vibrations going through their bodies. And then they saw it. A wall moved up and behind the wall was a tunnel. It emanated a green glow, which pulsated in a tactful pulse. The changeling walked into it.

“Welcome to the hive.”

Negotiations

“I have never seen anything quite like that.” Twilight exclaimed in awe. The pulsating green light shone through the corridor as it came from everywhere. The walls didn’t glow, but it seemed like they were. Even though, everything was black, it was still remarkably easy to see where someone was going.

“I know what you feel, Twilight. I was only here twice before.” Celestia said with a warm tone. They were being escorted through the tunnel until they came to something.

“EEEWWHH what is that? It looks simply horrid.” Rarity exclaimed while looking at the new substance that covered the walls and the floor. It looked like a black pulsating mush and felt like someone would walk through a bowel. The flesh, that adjourned the walls, was covered in a substance that can only be called a slushy transparent slime. “I will not walk on something this atrocious!” Rarity stated simply with a huff.

One of the changeling guards walked up to her. “Don’t you dare insult our hive.” He talked to her with narrowed eyes. “It is our home. When we were in Canterlot, we didn’t tell you how disgustingly cold and stony it was.” He started to walk away, but not before he could say one last thing. “Don’t be so disgustingly disrespectful.”

‘Even though I might have made a mistake in insulting your home, doesn’t mean that you must address me with such disrespect.’ She thought to herself and looked back to the fleshy floor. Reluctantly she placed a hoof on the slime and felt that it was warm and moist. The feeling alone would make her gag if she wouldn’t have the composure of a proper lady. Slowly she began to walk on the gooey surface, and every time she took a step that was accompanied by a slimy splash noise, felt like she would loose the control over her gag-reflex in record time.

A.J. wasn’t seriously disturbed by it and Pinkie Pie just simply jumped around, exclaiming that it felt like a trampoline. Rainbow Dash tapped the slime carefully but then just said “Cool!”. Fluttershy first didn’t want to lay a hoof on it, but was convinced quickly. Whenever some steam, gas, or goo came out of the walls, she let out a quiet eep and would trot away. Twilight seemed to be fascinated by it.

“How does it work?” She asked one of the guards, who just groaned but answered.

“It’s a parasite that also, like us, feeds on emotions. For us feeding it, it provides us with heat and comfort. It also has the ability to contact other changelings through nerve strands.” They passed through a corridor. There were fleshy openings at some points and one time one of them opened, and a changeling came out of it.

“That, what you see there, are the doors to the barracks and rooms of the other changelings. We live there and sleep there. Now back to the mail system. Every changelinghouse has a unique recognition signal that the hive knows. So if, I wanted to inform our queen of your arrival, I just need to go to my house and tell the goo there, where I want my message to be delivered to. It then latches on the target and inserts its' nerve strands in the holes in our legs, and we receive the message.”

“That’s impressive. It sounds like you have a very advanced society.” Twilight exclaimed while being impressed. The changeling turned around and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“What else? Did you think you were attacked by some tribal inbreeds?” Twilight slowly started to get nervous.

“N-No. It’s just… more advanced than I thought.” Shaking its’ head on Twilights’ answer, the changeling turned around and began to lead the group further into the hive. After some time, they arrived in a big hall.

“This is the gathering hall. It is the center of our hive, and from here on out, you can choose wherever to go. Shops, infirmaries, and inns are all accessible through here.”

“Wait, you have shops and inns?” Twilight quickly asked.

“Well of course, we are not the only changeling hive. Our society is much like yours. We have our main hive, which is this one, and many little hives all around the world and yes I mean the world, not Equestria. If we would count every changeling, we would outnumber you ponies by at least 20 to 1.” The guard spoke with a hint of smugness in his voice.

“But this should not be of concern since we are not here to start a war.” Celestia said, you guessed right, with a warm smile. Now they were in front of a big opening with four guards guarding it.

“This is Princess Celestia and” he looked at the group of ponies. “some other ponies. They have an appointment with our Queen.” The guards looked at the group of ponies and scanned them for weapons. When they didn’t find any, they stepped aside and let the group pass. They were now again in a high and long hallway. Celestia lowered her head to the Elements Of Harmony.

“Listen closely. We are in the territory of another empire, and we should act accordingly. Even if, the face you will see in here is not to your liking, we need to stay polite, and we can not be disrespectful. One slip up and it could cost Equestria dearly.” Celestia said with authority. All the ponies nodded and looked to the front. Now, they could see a humongous opening and behind it, was a massive hall.

It didn’t actually look different than the rest of the hive, but its’ size was simply on another level. At the end of the hall, was a mountain of that fleshy stuff that was on the floor. On top of the fleshy mountain sat a changeling with a familiar face. Upon seeing her guests, Chrysalis showed a smug smile and didn’t try to hide it. Here they were, the ones that destroyed her dream. The beings that stopped her carefully planned invasion in Canterlot.

Here they all stood, in her throne room, in her hive, in her land surrounded by thousands of her children. How could the day get any better for her? How could they be so foolish as to even think about going into enemy territory without any kind of security? Celestia walked to the front and made a short bow, to pay her respect to the emperor of the lands. The ponies followed and bowed too, except for one mare.

“Rainbow Dash, get down.” Applejack hissed through closed teeth. The queen of Changelings raised an eyebrow and seemed to have an irritated look on her face. Finally, Twilight used her magic to pull the mare down into a forced bow. She knew that this was disrespectful, but the preventing of a war with the Changelings was more important than the mares’ stubbornness. Rainbow fought the magic at the beginning, but accepted it while gritting her teeth.
‘Why do I have to bow to the one that nearly destroyed Canterlot? I should be up there so I can show her what happens if somepony attacks my friends.’ She thought angrily. Chrysalis chuckled a little.

“My my my, what do I owe the visit to, Princess Celestia?” She practically spat out the word Princess. Celestia looked Chrysalis in the eyes but didn’t say anything at the beginning. This was the hardest part, to acknowledge that they needed help from their enemies. It felt like she would forfeit some of her honor. “Well? I’m waiting.” Chrysalis muttered irritated. It’s now or never.

“Equestria needs your help.” Celestia stated matter-of- factly. Chrysalis suddenly raised both her eyebrows in a bewildered expression. Even though, she felt the need to utter the classic phrase ‘What?’ she didn’t say it and instead just smiled. Here are her enemies. Not only in the most favourable spot on the planet, but also begging for help. She felt powerful. It felt as if she could just crush them.

“Well, doesn’t that sound serious?” The sarcasm was laid on thick. She walked back to her throne and sat down. “What kind of help do you need?” She wanted to savor this as long as possible before she would destroy Celestia and the Elements Of Harmony. “What do you need? Jewels? Changelings for your experiments? Emotional energy? Tell me Celestia.” She asked with a satisfied tone in her voice.

That satisfied sound made Celestia feel even worse. She felt miserable enough about having to crawl to her enemy and beg for help, but no, the queen also enjoyed it. Celestia knew that Chrysalis knew that she has the power in this and that she loved it. Nonetheless, she needed to contain her anger for the smug Queen. “We need your powers for a battle that will happen in five years time.”

“A battle?” Chrysalis crooked an eyebrow. “Against whom?” This got interesting. She would have never thought that Equestria would want her help in a battle.

“A little over thousand years ago, a being from the multiverse called Oran came to my lands. He fought against my ponies, and we lost gravely against him. He then proceeded to cause very much damage to my little ponies and vanished after that. About two months ago, he returned to Equestria to attack us again. He gave us five years to prepare for the war against him. Equestria can’t win alone against him, that’s why I am asking you to assist us in this matter.”

Chrysalis pondered about this for a while. Something sounded familiar. She looked back to Celestia and asked. “When exactly did he fight against you ponies?” Celestia thought for a second.

“About 1001 years and 3 months ago. I don’t have the exact date.” Chrysalis eyes widened.

“If what you have said holds truth, then he also affected my fellow Changelings.” Celestia looked shocked.

“How?” She just simply asked.

“Around that time at one day, everyling, including me, seemed to have randomly died at the same time. Surprisingly, after about ten hours later, everyling was alive again.” The Elements Of Harmony couldn’t believe what they heard. Every Changeling died at the same time and got revived? Was this the same fate Equestria has befallen at that time? Everypony looked at Twilight, and she reluctantly nodded to her friends.

Now it was understandable why she didn’t want to tell them. This was just horrible. How can somepony kill everything and still sleep well at night? They didn’t even want to hear the details of how he was able to do it and why he did it. Chrysalis looked confused, but still answered.

“We don’t know how, but are we right in the assumption that he was the cause of those events?” She asked with an unrecognizable emotion. Celestia simply nodded. “Where does he currently reside?” Now it was Celestias’ time to look confused.

“He currently sits on the mountaintop of Mount Dragonborn, but can I ask why you want to know that?” Chrysalis didn’t answer and just made a hissing sound. Not a second later, a changeling guard barreled into the throne room and saluted before its’ Queen.

“Assemble all the Changeling warriors and tell General Hatebinder to start an attack on Mount Dragonborn. The target is some form of powerful entity. I think you should know, when you see it.” The guard saluted and ran out of the throne room. Celestias’ eyes widened.

“NO! You can’t attack him. He will kill everypony that you send at him. Pull them back before you loose half your hive!” She nearly screamed at the Queen who just laughed maniacally.

“Oh Celestia. I can’t believe your ignorance. Do you really think, us changelings are this weak, to be brought down by a simple entity? I only used a quarter of my army to attack Canterlot. You should know that we can not be stopped.” She continued to laugh.

“Yeah, we saw that when you got shot out of Canterlot.” Hissed some cyan Pegasus. Every eye in the room shot to Rainbow in shock.

“Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed in a dead serious tone. Rainbow Dash just crossed her front-legs and looked away. She won’t let herself get downgraded this much from that bug freak. To everyponys’ surprise, the Queen of Changelings just laughed.

“Well it seems like we have quite a feisty one here, but let’s forget about that.” She turned to Celestia. “As you see, I just sent my help, happy?” She asked the last word with a hint of seduction.

“We don’t need your army. We need you!” Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “Your armies will get slaughtered. Every single one of them. To fight Oran, we need your power, the power of an immortal being.” Chrysalis smiled again.

“Well, you failed to acquire it. I won’t leave my throne to take part in some petty battle just for some ponies.” Celestia shook her head.

“Please it is very important. If Oran wins, not only my ponies, but from what I’ve heard also your Changelings are in great danger. We need your help!” She shouted in desperation. For a second, it looked like Chrysalis would genuinely care and would consider this, but only for a second.

“The problem is already taken care of. My armies are on their way to eliminate this… Oran. So there should be no problem.” She smugly explained.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? All your Changelings will die. Your armies will get wiped out. Pull them back! I don’t want to see unnecessary deaths. You need to listen to me when I say that your armies won-“

“ENOUGH! I had it with your disrespectfulness. You come here into my empire, in my throne room and tell me how I have to handle my own land.” She calmed down again but had a mischievous smile on her lips. “Now, how about you stay for dinner?” Celestia realized what Chrysalis said and instantly summoned her pocket dimension and pulled out a red sphere.

“And what is-“ She instantly stopped to speak when she felt something. That sphere. It emanated love in enormous proportions. How could this be possible? “What is that?” She asked in an entranced voice. The ponies looked around and realized that they didn’t know. Aren never told them what this thing does.

“We actually don’t know. A very powerful being gave it to us and told us that we should offer it to you if you don’t want to help us.” Celestia wanted to keep secret that they have Orans’ disciple in their care. She didn’t want Chrysalis to attack Canterlot while he was in a coma.

“Well what speaks against me just taking it and throwing you in a dungeon?” That was a good question, Celestia realized. It seems like there was no other option left. She opened the pocket-dimension again, and five certain necklaces and one big-crown-thingy came out of it. When they came out, they got instantly blasted away by a green beam that was fired from the queen.

“Foolish ponies. Did you really think of me to be so ignorant that you would be able to surprise me with the Elements Of Harmony? I knew from the beginning that you won’t come to me completely harmless.” While she said that, the elements hit a wall and when they fell to the floor, got picked up by Changelings who brought the elements to Chrysalis. She laughed like a maniac and walked down from her throne while her changeling army surrounded the group of ponies.

“Well, that’s a shame.” She looked down at the sphere. “Now let’s see what’s in there.” When she used her levitation spell on the object, it suddenly got bright and red dust came out of the sphere. The red dust flew in the air and formed something. The ponies recognized the form.

“Well, it seems like we have a problem here, don’t we?” Aren asked the group of ponies. They just stood there with open jaws. When they composed themselves again, they looked worried. Twilight said something first.

“Aren, should you be up? You should still rest. Nopony can get out of coma and be fit for battle in two hours.” Aren just put a finger in his ear and drilled a little out of boredom.

“So I am in a coma huh? Why?” The ponies looked again confused.

“Well you were, up until now. Don’t you remember? You said you shared your soul with Rarity and then you fell into a coma.” Aren just looked worried and sighed.
“I did that again? Well doesn’t concern me.” He stated in a somewhat happy tone. Twilight shook her head.

“Doesn’t concern you? But you are Aren.” He looked troubled.

“Well yes and no.” Now they are confused again. “I am Aren, but not the real Aren. Before I went on the journey with you, I made a replication of myself and enchanted that sphere with it. The replication is a copy of my consciousness and acts like me but has no real power. In short, I am not your Aren, and I can only speak.”

Then he turned around and saw the Queen, who was obviously confused by what happened. “So you are Queen Chrysalis.” He looked at her from hoof to head. “Just like I imagined. Black bug thing that looks evil. Nothing special. All you emotion-eaters look somewhat the same.” He said while turning around shrugging.

Chrysalis was taken aback. How could he act so nonchalantly around her? “What do you think you’re doing? Show more respect you fool.” Suddenly the copy of Aren got close to her face and looked her deep in the eyes.

“Listen here, bitch. If I would be really here, I would threaten you with destroying your entire hive and burning down all that is important to you. I would grind your flesh until you would beg me to let you help me. Then I would hunt down every single one of your colonies and burn them to the ground until nothing else but ash remains.” He had an enraged look in his eyes. Chrysalis was taken aback by the sudden aggression and even felt fear for an exceedingly short time.

Suddenly he went back and shrugged. “But I am not here, so instead I bribe you. See this sphere?” The copy had the sphere in his hand. “This is the most expensive emotion-eater-gem I could find. It should give you enough emotional energy for your hive for around seven years. Imagine seven years without hunting for food. Just walking to the gem and sucking on the nearly endless well of love that is imbedded into it.”

Chrysalis who regained her composure now smiled. “And what hinders me to just take it?” she asked smugly. Aren smirked too.

“Try it. Try to feed on it. You won’t be able to unless I allow it.” Queen Chrysalis looked a little angry but tried it nonetheless. She lowered her horn down to the sphere and tried to feed of it. She could feel the love that was stored in there. Like a perfectly cooked stake, it was in front of her. She sucked, but nothing happened. She tried again but still nothing happened.

“Got a Problem?” Aren asked with the cockiest smirk he can muster. He whirled around Chrysalis with his ethereal body. “So do you accept to help us?” Chrysalis smiled again.

“The problem is already taken care of. I sent my armies to deal with this Oran. Mount Dragonborn isn’t far from here. My armies will start their attack in about two hours, and then everything is done for.” Aren raised an eyebrow.

“You sent your army?” he pointed with his right index finger at the Queen. “Yeah, they will be dead shortly after they arrive. Oran doesn’t take kindly to interruptions during his five year pause.” Chrysalis got furious. How could that fool underestimate her armies? Suddenly she got an idea. She lowered her head and began to dispel the enchantments on the sphere. It should be possible to feed on it if the enchantments are cancelled.

She closed her eyes and looked at the enchantments. When she saw them, she gasped. There were thousands of chains intertwined in each other. Every single chain was at least connected to three different ones. The best protectionspell she knew only mustered about a hundred chains, and to dispel it, you need to cast the right spell for every chain for getting it to disappear. When every chain is gone, the enchantment vanishes.

She didn’t even know as many spells as there were chains. There was no point in even trying to break this. She opened her eyes and looked at the interested Aren.

“Seriously, if you were able to crack those we two would be enough to handle Oran, but it seems like you can’t.” He began swimming around her with his ethereal body. “So what’s your answer?” The Queen grinded her teeth, but there was still one last thing she could do. Twilight suddenly got enveloped in a green glow and got levitated over to the queen.

“Give me that sphere, or this one dies.” Her friends gasped, and Celestia looked like she was in fear. “You can choose. Either these ponies live, or they die.” Aren looked at her and began to chuckle.

“Really? That trick? You couldn’t believe how often I saw that one. Look there are only three ways this can go. First, I give you the gem now. Then you will capture them and feed of them eternally. Second, I don’t give it to you. Then you will kill them, and I won’t give it to you because I don’t have anything to loose anymore. Third, you accept. We can leave, and you get the gem. Make your choice.” Chrysalis chuckled.

“Oh are you sure? Should I set an example?” She lowered her teeth to Twilights’ neck and bit down a little, so she was only bleeding a little stream. Aren had an expectant look in his eyes.

“Do go ahead, but go through with this. Either you kill everyone or no one. You won’t get that gem if you kill even one. I can promise that.” The elements and Celestia were shocked by his coldness. How can he throw away one of his friends? Twilight looked equally shocked. Chrysalis still looked into his eyes. After a minute, she let go of Twilight, who then ran back to her friends.

“Alright, you win. I will help you, but I don’t see the reason in it since my army will slay Oran.” She trotted to her throne and looked to the worried ponies. “You can wait at the inn. When my victorious army comes back, I will call for you.” She waved a dismissive hoof and the guards cleared the exits.

“Come, my little ponies. We should go.” Celestia said with a worried face. She didn’t want to stay here any longer, than she needed. The ponies followed with haste and let the queen and the gem stay alone in the throne room. When they were in an inn, they took the room that was reserved for them and walked in. When they closed it, they let out a withheld sigh.

“That. Was. So. Awesome!” Rainbows eyes sparkled. “Did you see his guts? No matter what Chrysalis did, he nev-“

“RAINBOW DASH!” Celestia shouted at Rainbow Dash, who instantly winced.

“That was not awesome! He played with our lives. What if Queen Chrysalis wouldn’t have listened to him and would have harmed Twilight? Would it still have been awesome?” She looked at Rainbow Dash rather angrily. Rainbow looked at the ground and sighed.

“No…” Celestia walked over to Twilight.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” She asked while placing a comforting hoof on her back. Twilight looked sadly into Celestias’ eyes and sighed.

“Yes, I’ll be fine.” She looked to the side with a pained expression. “I just wouldn’t have thought that he would play with our lives like that. So many things could have gone wrong. We could have been killed” The other elements winced by that word. They were not used to hear it in a conversation, unlike Twilight.

She looked at the ground. “I trusted him.” With tears in her eyes, she began to start sobbing. Celestia seeing this wrapped a wing around Twilight, who leaned in on her mentor. Her friends had uncomfortable looks in their eyes, everyone except one.

“I don’t think that was Aren.” Everypony turned to Rarity. “This can’t be the same pony that gave half his soul for me.” She shook her head. “I am also sure, that I never saw him this vulgar and how he threatened Chrysalis. That can’t be the real him.” Everypony thought about this in silence.

“Yeah, none of my friends could be such a grumpy-old-grumpy-mean-mean-meanie-pants. It’s just not like him.” Pinkie exclaimed while bouncing around the room. Everypony lightened up after this and made their acknowledgement in this matter. Everypony but one.

“I am really not sure if this is true.” Everyone turned to Twilight. “I talked a lot with him over the last two weeks, and I don’t know if that is his real self or not. He always helps everypony, but only if this benefits the strength of the army. He is very friendly to me and others that respect him, but he never said anything emotional like ‘I like you’ or ‘I’m worried about you’. It’s just strange.” Twilight looked at a spot in the wall.

Rarity walked up to her. “Well you can believe that, but I will trust in him. He wouldn’t have saved me while sacrificing himself like that if he wouldn’t be a gentlecolt.” Twilight smiled at Rarity.

“Maybe you’re right. I think I’m just overanalyzing things.” Everypony then made a group hug.

“Now, I think we should rest.” Said Celestia with a warm smile.

3 Hours later.

Everypony was playing a board-game, which the princess had in her pocket-dimension, when suddenly a Changeling came into the room.

“Our Queen wants to see you in the throne room immediately.” Then he walked back out. The ponies threw some worried glanced at each other and started walking to the throne room. On their way there, they passed a changeling with a red scar across his eyes. Judging by its’ looks he was extraordinarily high ranking. When they arrived in the throne hall, they bowed slightly and then waited for the reason why Chrysalis wanted them in here.

“You are arriving at the perfect time. General Hatebinder just wanted to tell me of the success of his mission.” She looked at one of her guards. “Let him in.” She ordered. The Changeling saluted and said something to the guards. Shortly after, the Changeling with the red scar entered and saluted.

“So I take it, we won?” Asked Chrysalis with a satisfied smirk.

“No.” Chrysalis perked up at that.

“What do you mean ’no’?” The general looked at her in an unreadable expression.

“Shall I make my report right now?” He asked. The Queen brought one of her hoofs up to her fore-head and rested on it while groaning.

“Go ahead.” She waved a dismissive hoof.

“Yes, your majesty.” He began to tell his tale.

Our armies arrived around three hours after our departure. We were around 800 Changelings in numbers. When we saw the mountain, we separated and searched it. Not long after, one of the groups said that they found a biped at the mountain top and that they never saw anything like it. You said we would know when we saw him, and that certainly seemed quite unique.

We gathered again and prepared ourselves for the battle. I walked up to the biped and told him that he will be executed due to your orders. He just said that we should not throw our lives away. He said that we still could turn back. I thought he was just trying to save his own hide.

I gave the order to attack, and the troops flew at him. Suddenly I was back over the forest around the mountain, about one kilometer distance. I didn’t know what happened and flew back to the mountain, but I stopped when I saw what happened. None of my troops were moving. It was as if they were frozen in the air. Suddenly the biped stood up, and lightning shot out of his palm.

I never saw that much lightning. There were hundreds, no thousands of lightning bolts coming out of it, destroying everything in a hundred meters in diameter. While releasing lightning, he then made a 360° and exterminated every single soldier with the lightning. I never saw such a demonstration of power. I then saw that it would be pointless to continue this battle alone and flew back to the hive.

Chrysalis’ face wasn’t visible. Her hoof was at her fore-head, and she was looking to the left. Nothing was heard. Even if, they didn’t like the Changelings, they still felt terribly sorry for them. How can that monster kill 800 living beings without hesitation? It was just not understandable.

“You can go now, Hatebinder.” Chrysalis said this slowly with a raspy voice. The general saluted and went out of the throne hall. The only sound audible were the steps of the general leaving the hall. When he left, absolute silence returned. This lasted several minutes until.

“I will prepare a new Queen that will rule this hive. I will come to Canterlot in around six months. It would be better if you now go.” She said this slowly again with the raspy voice and threw the Elements Of Harmony to the group. The ponies slowly left the room, before they were out of hearing range, they heard a silent whimper from behind them.

The ponies got escorted to the wasteland and started their journey back. When the ponies left the hive, the sphere that was still with Queen Chrysalis suddenly started glowing in a soft purple. The crying Chrysalis picked it up and sucked on the love between the sobs.

She needed that, because there was nothing else that showed her love…

Author's Note

The purpose for the holes in their feet finally revealed. *gasp*

Coming Back

The journey back to Canterlot wasn’t terribly eventful. The ponies left the hive behind and made their way to the port-platform. They also didn’t talk that much, since the weight of what Oran just did, hadn’t disappeared yet. Celestia was the first one to go through the teleporter. When she arrived at the other side, she got greeted by a certain night blue alicorn.

“Tia! Thank the moon, you’re back. How did it go?” She asked with an excited smile, which slowly faded away when she saw the sad frown on her sisters’ face. “Don’t tell me, that she refused.” Luna looked shocked, but that calmed down when Celestia slowly shook her head.

“No, Luna she accepted. She said that she will be coming to Canterlot in six months.” Celestia sighed. Her sister looked worried.

“Sister, what’s the matter? Why do you look so worried if she accepted?” Luna asked with a caring voice and Celestia just shook her head.

“It’s nothing Luna. It’s just that some things happened back there that unsettled me.” Luna got closer to her sister and nuzzled her gently on the side of the head.

“Tell me, Tia. What happened?” Celestia slowly told Luna about the events that have transpired. The Elements Of Harmony settled down at the leftover tents. All the injured guards were gone, but the tents were still fully built. On the other side of the tent, were two chariots that waited there for their passengers.

“Where are the injured guards?” Twilight walked up to one of the chariot-puller.

“They were brought to Canterlot, Ma’am.” He briefly explained. Twilight sighed silently.

‘At least they are alright.’ She thought to herself while walking over to the tent, where her friends were. When she entered, her friends were packing up the things they had left in the tent before they went to the hive.

“HE SAID WHAT?!” they suddenly heard Luna scream from out of the tent. A collective sigh escaped the ponies in the tent. They tried to forget what happened in the hive, but that reminded them again. While the elements were busy packing their things, Celestia continued to tell Luna of what happened.

“And then he killed all 800 Changelings.” She made a pause for the information to sink in, but continued afterwards. “When Chrysalis heard that, she looked devastated. Even if, I don’t like her, I still felt deeply sorry. No race should go through something like this. She just told us that she agreed our terms and that she would come in six months. Then she gave us the Elements Of Harmony back, and we left the hive.”

Luna looked shocked. “I still can’t believe this.” Celestia nodded.

“It’s hard to imagine someone killing that many beings, I know.” Luna looked at Celestia with an ‘are you serious?’ expression and shook her head.

“I didn’t mean that. It was expectable that Oran wouldn’t let them live. What I am so shocked about, is how Aren played with your lives. How could he even think about getting you and the Elements Of Harmony into danger?” Luna looked enraged. “I knew that he meant trouble.” Celestia looked down at the grass.
“Luna, even if he played with our lives. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“If it wouldn’t be for him, we would still have all of our guards. We would never have to camp in this clearing. If it wouldn’t be for him, we would have gone in there with a group full of guards.” Celestia sighed after Lunas’ rant. Everything she said was right. It was Arens’ fault that the wheel of the chariot got damaged in the first place.

“Yes, you’re right, but I don’t think that the guards would have made any difference with thousands of Changelings surrounding us.”

“Didn’t you see how they fought? I’m pretty sure that they would have made a difference.” Celestia shook her head.

“But if we wouldn’t have Aren, they weren’t that well trained either.” Luna groaned.

“Why do you still have to protect him after what he did?” Celestia looked down and pondered about this for a while. This reminded her of the time when Luna and Aren argued about the training of the guards. Their first argument. Suddenly she realized something.

“He didn’t” She said silently. Luna raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t quite hear you there, sister.”

“He didn’t do it.” Luna looked confused.

“Excuse me? What do you mean with ‘he didn’t do it’?” She enquired.

“It was not him, who endangered our lives. It was his copy.” Luna wasn’t sure what to make of this. “Imagine this, if somepony uses the mirror-pond and their clone hurts somepony, then we can’t punish the original one for the crime, but we can punish him for the clone. This is the same. We can’t judge him, for what the enchantment did.” Luna groaned. Celestia was right, it’s impossible to punish the original for something that the clone did.

There was a monumental discussion some thousands of years ago about crimes committed with the mirror pond. One side would say that it would be impossible to pass judgment over somepony whose clone committed a crime. The other side said that since the mirror pond creates an exact copy of the original, that the original would do the same thing.

The discussion lasted over several years since both sides had valid points in the argument. So in the end it was decided that the usage of the mirror pond alone is illegal. If somepony would still use it, they receive heavy consequences in the form of a stay in the dungeon for a while. After a long time, nopony remembered the mirror pond and the law for it wasn’t relevant anymore. So in the end, the law got dismissed, because if somepony reads through the law book and finds something about the mirror pond, it could talk with other ponies about it and the mirror pond would be known again.

When Pinkie Pie used it some months ago, the princesses also remembered about the mirror pond again. After the situation had cleared, Celestia ordered the blockage of the passage to the pond. Pinkie Pie didn’t receive punishment because she couldn’t know what would happen. Celestia turned to Luna with relief showing in her face. “We can’t punish him for thinking about us. He bought that sphere and he also enchanted it, so he could still help us. It’s just like the discussion that you had with him after the first training session. A lot could have gone wrong, but nothing did.” Luna didn’t look happy.

“Even if nothing went wrong, he still endangered you and the Elements Of Harmony. Do you want him to get away just like that? He needs to receive punishment for what he did!” Celestia also didn’t look pleased anymore.

“For what he did? He gave half his soul for somepony, which didn’t even like him. He went comatose after that. Don’t you think that, this is punishment enough?” Her voice didn’t sound calm anymore.

“Because it was his fault to begin with. He is the reason why we got attacked.” Celestia shook her had.

“He couldn’t have known that we would be attacked. He also couldn’t know that we had to split after the scorpion attacked. If he wouldn’t have needed to go alone to make the platforms, he would have been with us the entire time, and nopony would have died.” She sighed. Getting angry at Luna wouldn’t achieve a thing, except drive them apart. “It was just a chain of unlucky mistakes. Nopony could have anticipated what would happen.”

Luna also sighed. She didn’t want to get angry at her sister. It wasn’t her fault. It was all Arens’ fault. She would do something about him, but first she had to convince Celestia of it. But now was not the time. Enough happened today, and she didn’t want to put Celestia through more than it was needed.

“I am sorry, sister, for talking to you like this.” Luna looked to the floor. Celestia just chuckled a little.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, sister. I didn’t act any better. I am also very sorry.” Celestia used her wings to hug Luna, who replied with her own wings and hug. The sisters embraced each other for a long time before they parted.

“I think it’s time to leave the camp, sister.” Celestia exclaimed with a warm smile back on her lips. Luna looked at her sister and nodded her head. Just when they wanted to go to the tent where the six friends resided, exactly those ponies walked out of it, bags packed. Twilight was the first to come out and looked at Celestia.

“We’re ready to leave.” She said with a motivated look. It seemed like something in that tent happened that made her mood go up. Celestia looked pleased at her student.

“It seems like you were able to get something of your happiness back. Tell me, what did happen in there, that you seem happy again?” Twilight looked a little nervous and laughed forcefully.

“Well, we talked about things, and I just thought that I shouldn’t think about Aren so much. I just decided that it would be better to talk to him first-hoof, before I start to judge him based on something he didn’t do.” She sighed once. “Of course it still hurts, but I got over it. We did get the assistance of Queen Chrysalis after all.” She smiled nervously. It was apparent that she was not entirely alright. There was something else.

‘But it doesn’t matter what happened, as long as Twilight is alright again.’ Celestia thought to herself. She nodded to her student. “That’s good, Twilight.” She looked over to the chariots. “You and your friends should take the right one. Just climb aboard when you are ready.” Twilight looked over to her friends and together, they went to the chariots.

Celestia walked up to Luna, and they both went to their chariot. When everypony was aboard, the chariots started their flight to Canterlot. Everypony seemed to have overcome the stress they were put through. In the journey back to Canterlot, they talked exactly like in the journey away from Canterlot, but everyone had the same plan. ‘I need to talk to Aren, after this.’

“Welcome back to Canterlot, Princesses.” A certain Purple pegasus guard said with duty while saluting. The princess looked at her guard and smiled.

“Second-Lieutenant Purple Edge. Nice to see that you made it back, safely. How was the journey?” Celestia asked nicely. The guard answered quickly.

“The journey back was uneventful. It took us approximately five minutes to come to Canterlot.” Celestia made a double take at this.

“Five minutes? How fast were you flying?”

“The normal speed of a chariot lies on approximately 400 hoofsters, per hour. If we made the journey to the clearing in three hours, It means that we are about 1200 hoofsters away from the Clearing. If I made it back in five minutes, it means that we were flying at around…” He made a pause to calculate. “Something around 14.400 hoofsters.” Celestias’ eyes widened.

“14.000 hoofsters? That sounds unreal. How were you able to handle the gravity and the wind resistance?”

“I am not sure, your majesty. I didn’t feel a thing. I think that those barriers might have something to do with this.”

‘I never heard of barriers that are able to block gravity. This animal truly is smart.’ She looked at the guard. “Where is High-General Aren?”

“High-General Aren was brought to Canterlot Hospital and is currently stationed in the emergency.”

“Is he alright?” Celestia asked worried.

“His condition isn’t worse than before, but since we don’t know anything about, why he is in this condition, we can’t guarantee anything. The only thing the doctors can do is giving him life support. We also don’t know when he will wake up.” The guard paused a second. “Or If he will wake up.” He looked to the ground.

Celestia looked at the ground. That’s right, it wasn’t sure if he would even wake up. ‘Wait a moment. What did the copy of him tell us in the hive?’

‘I did that again?’
‘Right he said that this was not the first time, and if he woke up from all the times before, then he will most surely wake up this time too.’ Celestia got a smirk on her face. “I think we can scratch the if. He will surely wake up. It’s just a matter of time. Until then, he has to be replaced.” Purple Edge crooked an eyebrow and started shuffling nervously.

Celestia noticed this. “Is there something you want to tell me?” The guard looked even more nervous than before.

“Permission to speak freely?” He asked, and the Princess nodded. “I don’t know anyone that could replace High-General Aren in training.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“I’m listening.”

He shuffled again. “Well, we never made that much progress in that short time. On top of that, it feels like I really belong to a team. We all stand up together, to fight an overpowered foe. Ponies that were fighting with each other before, are now the best friends. Everypony has the same goal, and I think.” He made a short pause. After he didn’t continue, the princess got impatient.

“Yes?” The guard shuffled further, but then sighed.

“I think our normal training doesn’t cut it.” Celestia was a little taken aback.

“Why do you think?”

“You saw how we acted on the first training session. I don’t like to admit it, but we really fought like civilians. It’s just… What point has training if you forget about it in the situation you are training for?” He asked Celestia, who thought about this for a while.

“You make a valid point, Second-Lieutenant.” She walked around him and up to the gates of the castle. Before she went in, she turned around. “I will consider your point, when I make my decision.” With that said, she walked into the castle. Purple Edge let out a long and loud sigh. After this, he fell down and began hyperventilating.

“I shouldn’t have been this disrespectful towards the princess. She could have had me suspended for this.” He looked with wide eyes to his hooves. “I just hope this doesn’t come back to bite me.”

The guards were all gathered in the throne hall. It is two days after the return of the princesses.

“What do you think, do they want this time?” asked a green unicorn his purple pegasus neighbor.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s about training?” He shrugged. The unicorn nodded.

“Could be. Somepony needs to replace Aren while he is incapable of training us.” Then the princess of the sun walked to the front, to her throne. Every guard in the hall saluted before their goddess. With a hoof, Celestia showed her guards to ease, and the guards complied by standing comfortably.

“My dear royal guards. You have surely all already heard about the circumstances, concerning High-General Aren. As you already know, he is comatose and somepony needs to continue training you until he is deemed fit to return. Concerning your substitute-training, I have already found a worthy replacement.” The guards shuffled nervously.

“I have heard, that you don’t think that your old training is sufficient enough, and I took that into consideration.” She made a little pause. “Since no instructor partook in the training, I think that no normal instructor is sufficient enough, for this special training. So I decided to pick a pony that was part of training, to be your new instructor.”

‘Oh no. I knew that I would regret that. I need to get out of here.’ Thought Purple Edge. He slowly submerged like a submarine and made his way into the crowd behind him. Nearly at the door he heard it.

“So I want a certain guard to step forward.”

‘Oh damn, I’m too late.’

“First-Lieutenant White Side. Could you please step forward?” The purple guard stopped in his tracks.

‘Did she just say White Side? Man I’m lucky.’ With a sigh he moved back to his old spot in the crowd. The Princess spoke again.

“White Side. I deem you fit to be the co-instructor for training.” White Side saluted.

“It would be an honor your majesty.” He said dutifully.

‘White Side is a good guard. I really am happy for him.’ Purple Edge sighed silently, and the guards applauded until the princess held up her hoof to tell the guards to be quiet once again.

“As the main-instructor I currently only deem one pony fit. Second Lieutenant Purple Edge, would you step forward please?” His eyes widened, and he cursed silently under his breath.

‘DAMNIT!’ Slowly he walked forward and raised his hoof.

“It would be an honor your majesty.” He sighed inwardly. ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ After the applause died down, Celestia had one more thing to say.

“I have one last announcement. Second-Lieutenant Purple Edge has shown extraordinary potential in battle, and I think that the rank of a Second-Lieutenant doesn’t fit him. So I decided to promote him, to the rank of a Captain.” There were slight murmurs in the crowd. Yes, he was good in battle, but that does not mean that he deserved to get promoted two times. On top of that, he will instruct them in training. Can he do that?

After some reluctance, the ponies slowly applauded. It was clear that they were not sure about this decision. The Princess dismissed every guard and many guards looked at the purple pegasus with discomfort. Why him?

“Seems like we have a lot to plan, captain.” White Side walked up to his side. Purple Edge looked at him and sighed.

“Yes, seems like I have a lot of work to do.”

Author's Note

Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but i really couldn't fill in more without going to the next stage of the story.

Discord

„Five months! It has been five months. Are you certain that he will wake up?” Luna looked dubiously at her sister, who just sighed.

“I know, Luna.” Her voice was unusually loud, but she calmed down quickly. “I’m sorry for that, Luna. I am just worried. Queen Chrysalis will come in one month, and we have not yet talked to Discord. I wanted to wait with that until Aren wakes up, but it seems like we have to change our plans.” Celestia looked down at the floor.

“Aren, Aren, Aren. Do you even realize how much you rely on him?” Luna asked. “What’s with the time before he came? We managed to rule our land for 4000 years without him. Why do we have to rely on him now?” Celestia pondered about this for a while.

‘Do I really rely on him that much?’ After a while, she realized that Luna was right. At nearly every decision, which has to do with the upcoming battle, she always wished that Aren was here. Why? She was able to rule over the land for multiple thousand years without him. It was not like there were no problems. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra. They were able to vanquish all these threats without his help.

Why does she feel so uncertain suddenly? Wait, it’s not suddenly. She always felt uncertain about her decisions. Every time, her subjects had a problem, she always questioned her own decisions. ‘What if I decided wrongly? What if it would have been better to take the other solution?’ Always the self-doubt. Luna looked worried to her sister. She didn’t think that the last sentence would silence her, this effectively.

“Sister, is something wrong?” She asked with folded ears. Celestia sighed once.

“You know, sister. I was always uncertain about my decision. What if I made the wrong one? The consequences could be dire if the situation is bad enough.” Luna looked at her sister for a while, but then began to chuckle. Her sister was confused by the sudden change in mood.

“I think, I know the problem. You have just too much responsibility, for one pony. One pony alone can’t take this without a pause. I think you simply need a vacation.” Celestia didn’t look convinced.

“Are you sure?” Luna chuckled again.

“It’s normal to doubt yourself if you made a decision that affects something very dear to you. If I had to decide, what you would have to do for the rest of your life, I would always ask myself if I did the right thing. It’s what makes a leader to a great leader.” She got closer to her sister. “It’s what makes you, you.” And again a giggle from her. “I couldn’t imagine a Celestia that decides everything on a whim.”

Celestia also chuckled a little. “I think you’re right, Luna. This also explains why I rely on Aren so much.” Luna raised an eyebrow. She’s talking of him, again. “It’s because he seems to know what he’s doing. Every time he does something, it seems like he has a plan. He looks so confident in his decision. I think that’s the reason why I relied on him so heavily.”

“His confidence made it seem like nothing could go wrong. I think deep inside, I just gave him all the responsibility, so that I could live without worry. I didn’t see that this is exactly the same thing that my subjects do. They come to me if they don’t know what to do. They trust in my judgment, and no matter what I decide, it always seems like the right one to them. They think I’m infallible. It’s just so hard to always be the highest instance. Having no one higher than you, that could give you advice. Always needing to decide it alone.” Celestia sighed, and for a short time, it seemed like she had tears in her eyes.

Luna embraced her. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped.” Celestia returned the embrace and stayed silent for a while but answered in the end.

“I thought I could handle it. I thought that I would be able to rule the majority of the land alone. By the sun, was I wrong. I should have come to you earlier.” They stayed embraced for a long time. When they parted, Luna spoke up.

“So, what about Aren? Have you finally realized that we don’t need him?” Celestia shook her head.

“Luna, I understand that you don’t like him, but I won’t throw him out of Equestria. But you are right in one point. We do not NEED him, but this is no reason to deny his help. We need to do our best to protect our land. I could not look myself in the eyes anymore, when I know that I didn’t do my best to protect my subjects.” Luna sighed. She wasn’t able to convince her sister to banish Aren, but she got a step closer.

“That’s alright, sister. As long as he doesn’t cause too much damage, I think I can manage to have him around.” Celestia smiled again.

“I’m happy to hear that, Luna.” And then she sighed. “I think I shouldn’t rely on him that much. It’s nice to have some help, but I shouldn’t put all of my responsibility on him.” Celestia got up. “I think it’s time to take the responsibility back in my hooves.” She got up and walked to the door. “I think we have a certain somepony to ask for assistance.”

Lunas’ eyes widened. “You don’t mean…” She looked in Celestias’ eyes and saw that she was right. “We can’t ask him now. We haven’t prepared.” Celestia just chuckled.

“Oh don’t worry. I didn’t plan to ask him unprepared.” Suddenly she summoned a parchment and a feather. “I just send Twilight a message, and she will be here in no time at all.” She scribbled down on the parchment and then sent it, by burning it. “Good she should be here in about-“ Suddenly a purple light appeared in the middle of the room and a lavender unicorn came out.

“You said you need me, Princess?” The worried unicorn said. Celestia looked at her sister and chuckled a little.

“Yes, I would like you to gather your friends and come to the sculpture-garden. We will speak with Discord.” Twilight had a shocked expression on her face. That suddenly? Regaining her composure, she nodded fast.

“I will do as you ask, Princess.” Then she vanished again with a teleportation-spell. Celestia and Luna made their way to the sculpture-garden, and there they waited for some minutes and talked a little about different things and finally the six friends arrived.

“Hello, my little ponies. I’m glad you could come.” The six ponies made a short bow. Celestia told them that they didn’t need to bow in her presence, since they see each other nearly every day. The six friends walked up to her and looked around. Sculptures wherever they looked. A pony with a flag that resembles victory. Three fillies that played with each other. Two dueling stallions. Even sculptures from plants were among them. Didn’t seem to make any sense in a sculpture-garden surrounded by real plants.

And then they saw it. The statue they looked for. The horror stricken face of the creature made them remember the hard times they had while fighting him. Forgetting yourself is extremely serious, and it leaves unpleasant memories. It’s not easy to forget being manipulated into being the opposite of oneself.

And now they had to ask this fiend for help. It just didn’t seem right. The Princess suddenly used a spell, and out of nowhere the Elements Of Harmony appeared and landed on their necks/heads. Then the Princess turned to Discord. “Everypony ready?” The Elements nodded.

“Sister, I think I don’t want to see him right now.” Luna said slowly. Celestia looked at her sister with a sympathetic smile.

“I know, what he did to you, and I understand that you don’t want to see him.” She walked closer to Luna. “You don’t need to be here. We can manage our own.” Luna smiled a little.

“Thank you, sister. I appreciate that.” With that said, she turned around and walked into the castle. The six friends didn’t know what the two royal alicorns meant, but it was something they didn’t want to ask about. Luna and Celestia seemed sad about something that had to do with Discord. Well it’s not like he did ever do anything good.

Celestia looked at the six friends and saw that they were ready. She just hoped that the presence of the Elements Of Harmony would keep him contained. ‘Well, here goes nothing.’ Celestia started using her spell to release Discord. It was a difficult spell. Breaking the prison of something, that was sealed away by something as powerful as the elements, would naturally be exceedingly hard.

After a short while, cracks began to appear on the statue. A pulse could be heard, and its’ chest began to illuminate in the tact of the pulse. Suddenly there was a dark laugh, but Celestia couldn’t go back now. She decided that she would release Discord, and there’s no going back now. With a last blast, the stone exploded and out of them flew an asymmetric being and shot into the sky.

“YYYYEEEESS!” Discord screamed while fireworks were exploding behind him. Suddenly he morphed to a train and drove through the air on a rainbow trail. The train then drove into a cloud and then transformed into a seed that embedded itself in it. A tree then started growing out of it. When the tree reached its’ peak, it started to sprout fruits of glasses with chocolate milk.

Behind the tree, Discord stepped forward and picked a fruit and began to drink it. When he finished drinking the glass around the chocolate milk, he took the chocolate milk and flew down to the garden, beside the place he stood for such a long time. He made a hole, put the stiff chocolate milk into it and buried it with dirt. He then patted on the ground on top of it.

“Now you need to grow big and strong.” Suddenly a tree sprouted out, but instead of chocolate milk glasses, it sprouted yellow beans with hairs growing out of them. Discord just groaned and turned to the serious looking Celestia. “You never know what tree comes out of a chocolate milk seed.” With a little chuckle, he got closer and snipped with a hand and suddenly all the ponies were sitting on a chair. In front of them was a humongous table filled with random fruits and salads.

“Could you inform me of the events that have transpired?” He asked slowly with a particularly snobbish voice while wearing a tuxedo, a monocle and a top-hat while drinking a glass of rainbow juice. Suddenly he started spitting flames but then cooled down. “Spicy, just like I like it.” He told the ponies with a smile while holding his glass.

The ponies still looked as serious as a father who just heard a joke about his dead child. When they didn’t answer him, he just sighed and drank again from his rainbow juice, which was now suddenly tomato juice. “Well, how about you tell me how you came to the brilliant idea to free me? Judging by your efforts you made the last time to capture me, I thought that you would want me to be in stone forever.”

Celestia sighed. This was always the hardest part. “Discord…” She slowly started. “We need your help.” Suddenly Discord put one of his eagle-claws into his ear and drilled in it. After he pulled his claw out, he had a plate with vanilla-pudding and a spoon on his hand. “Excuse me, could you repeat that. I seemed to have something in my ear.” He asked while putting the pudding down.

Celestia sighed. “I asked for your help, Discord.” Discord shook his head violently.

“Oh I’m sorry Celestia, but I simply couldn’t hear you over the two thousand years of stone imprisonment that shouts at me to just end your life. Could you repeat that again?” He leaned back and played with his two “hands”. Suddenly Celestia stood up and smashed her forehooves on the table, which then transformed into scared dogs that started running away.

“Stop with the games, Discord. You heard me.” Discord just shook his head while saying ‘tsk tsk tsk.’

“Now look at what you did. Do you know how hard it is to get those dogs to stay still?” He stood up from his chair and walked around while smiling. “Well, I could always take the easy way…” He turned around. “BUT I DON’T TURN CREATURES INTO STONE!” He suddenly screamed extremely loud.

The ponies winced at the random outburst. They never saw Discord this furious. “I rather die, than go back into stone imprisonment. Being fully conscious for thousands of years. Never able to blink or change your view. Always the same view. The 2348 leaves on that tree, with the 187 wrinkles of the bark. The 46,125 plants of grass. Not being able to move, just forever seeing the same thing. I can’t even sleep while imprisoned.”

“Then you come to me, after over two thousand years. After you put me through the cruelest thing possible and then you say that you want me to help you? Give me one reason why I should help you, after what you did to me.” He looked absolutely livid. Celestia didn’t even flinch, in comparison to the elements.

They knew that they needed to stop Discord when he was running wild, but they didn’t realize what they put him through with their actions. Even if he ran wild and made the lives of everypony bad, he still didn’t deserve to be put into 2000 years of complete static. Now Celestia opened her mouth and said something.
“It was necessary to stop you. I agree with you that the method was not the fairest, but we had no other choice. It’s either you receiving unfair punishment or my subjects feel sorrow for the rest of their lives. It’s an obvious choice. Like I always say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Celestia walked closer to Discord. “And I would do it again if you go out of control again.” Discord just smirked.

“Well that’s all nice and stuff, but I still didn’t hear a reason for me to help you now.” He pointed with his index-claw(?) at Celestia.

“Because if you don’t help us, everypony will die in about 4 ½ years.” Discord raised an eyebrow.

“Who would kill every pony in Equestria?” He asked.

“His name is Oran, and he comes from the multiverse. He said that in about 4 ½ years, he will attack us and trust me when I tell you, that he has the ability to do it. He did it once before about 1001 years ago. He slaughtered my guards and made me look at my subjects dying horrible deaths.” Five of the six friends looked shocked. They heard in the changeling-hive that everypony died, but they didn’t hear the details. Celestia then realized that there still were the Elements Of Harmony and that they heard everything.

She cursed silently under her breath. How could she forget them? Discord looked impressed, but still smirked. “That’s a very nice story, but you still didn’t give me a reason to help you.” Celestia looked confused.

“But I just did.” Discord started laughing, but composed himself pretty fast again.

“Oh no, dear Celestia, you didn’t. You tell me that he will kill all of YOUR ponies. I don’t see how this concerns me.” Celestia shook her head and stomped down with one of her hooves.

“Don’t you have any remorse? How can you just look away, when a whole species dies?” Discord just shrugged.

“Well if this species is responsible for me going through the worst time in my immortal life, then I have no problem with this.” Celestia looked taken aback. She knew that Discord was the spirit of chaos, but she didn’t think that he wouldn’t even care in the slightest about the ponies. He never killed one of them. That was why she thought that he would, at least, care in some way.

Celestia slowly shook her head. “Discord…” She slowly began with a sorrowful voice. “What happened to you?” Discord just turned around and looked at her with a crooked eyebrow. “You were not always like this. Why did you start to have fun on other ponies’ expenses?” Discord just shrugged again.

“Ponies change, Celestia. Not everything stays as you want it to be.” He just slowly stated with a hint of anger in his voice.

“That’s not you! Yes, ponies change, but you changed too much. You were chivalrous, friendly and honorable. Luna once asked you for a beautiful flower, and you flew into the world. When you realized, that you didn’t know what flower she wanted, you flew through the whole world and picked one piece of every kind of flower in the world.” Celestia smiled a little at the memory.

“I also remember the time, when you made a little moon out of the most expensive jewels you could find. You worked years on that spell, and when you finished it, you made Luna a little moon. I never saw her, this happy before in my life.” She looked up at him. “She still has it in her room, and whenever she looks at it, she feels sorrow.”

The ponies giggled. They couldn’t imagine Discord being this romantic. Discord just looked disgusted. “Oh, gag. Stop reminding me of that mushy stuff. You know exactly that this is all in the past, and my statement still stands. I won’t help a species that imprisoned me for thousands of years.” Celestia looked kind of devastated.

“That’s not the fault of the ponies.” She shook her head and looked with teary eyes into Discords’ eyes. “If somepony is at fault for your unfair treatment, then it is I. You can’t punish the ponies for something they didn’t do. If you have to punish somepony, then punish me.” Discord raised an eyebrow in interest, and the ponies gasped. Twilight instantly ran to Celestia.

“Princess, you can’t do that! You can’t sacrifice yourself for something that was necessary to be done.” Twilight looked teary eyed. “We need you, Princess.” She looked up at her mentor, who just looked back at her student with a pained expression and engulfed her in an embrace with her wings.

“Twilight, I know that you don’t want this, but if sacrificing myself saves my subjects, then it is a deal I would accept anytime.” Tears were now running down Celestias’ cheeks. “I would give my life if it means that my subjects get to live to see another day.” The other ponies looked pained and also had teary eyes. Fluttershy was being patted on her back by Rarity and Rainbow Dash looked away with a pained expression. Applejack had her hat over her face, and Pinkie Pie just looked down at the floor with her flat mane.

Celestia broke the embrace with Twilight, who now had a shocked expression on her face. She gritted Celestias’ legs. “NO! You can’t go! We need you!” Celestia looked down at her student, and it felt like her heart broke. Why does this little pony have to go through so many hardships? If anypony in the world would have earned to live a life without any problems, it would be her. She got forced into partaking of the planning of the war. She heard all the details of the war with Oran. She saw death in the Everfree Forest, and she will see much more death in 4 ½ years.

A mortal mare couldn’t possibly take this much hardship and be okay with it. And now her life-long mentor would leave her behind. How did she deserve that? Celestia used her magic to pull Twilight away from her legs and levitated her over to her friends.

Walking up to Discord she began to talk. “If you help us against Oran, You can do whatever you want with me, after the battle.” She looked up at the smirking Discord. “BUT I want you to promise to me that you leave Equestria after this, and let my little ponies live a normal life.”

Discord first didn’t react, but then he began slowly to laugh. His laugh got louder and louder until he was laughing like a maniac. He made a fist with his claws and pulled them to his beck, and when it arrived there, an explosion erupted behind him. “YES! FINALLY JUSTICE!” He then began to laugh again, but this time calmed down pretty quickly. Walking to Celestia with a smile he chuckled a little again.

“I’ll accept your terms, Celestia.” Celestia looked relieved, but the ponies were now full out crying. They lost their Princess just now. It felt like a doctor would come to tell you that one of your family was diagnosed with cancer and would die in 4 ½ years. How could Discord be so happy about this? How could he not be moved by such a demonstration of sacrifice and love?

Discord chuckled a little. “Well then, I’ll go back to my old room in the castle. You know where you can find me, and like I promised, I won’t harm a soul while I’m here. Until later… Tia.” He smirked at the last word and then poppet out of existence. Probably teleporting to his old room. When he was gone, Celestia broke down to her knees and began to weep. She cried for many reasons. For once she sacrificed her life, and she also wept about how different Discord was. How could he change so much?

Twilight instantly ran to Celestia and embraced her in a hug while crying furiously. The other ponies soon followed, and for the first time in their life, they shared a group hug with Celestia, who just continued to be overwhelmed by her feelings. They stood like this for several minutes until the princess calmed down again. She looked down at the ponies with a sad smile.

“Thank you. I really needed that.” The ponies just looked teary eyed at their princess.

“Do you really need to go, Princess?” Pinkie Pie asked slowly. Celestias’ expression changed to pained again.

“I am very sorry Pinkie, but I won’t go back on my word, but don’t fret. I am still here right now, am I not?” She asked with a smile back on her lips. Pinkie looked up at her and slowly nodded while wishing away the moisture in her eyes.

“Right!” Then her mane got poofy again. “And I will make certain that these last four years will be the best in your life!” She stated motivated. The other ones also slowly calmed down, everyone except for Twilight. They slowly made their way out of the sculpture garden, and then life continued.

Discord held his word and didn’t disturb anypony while he stayed at the castle. Discord and Luna never talked to each other, and whenever they saw each other they just pretended they didn’t. The six ponies continued their lives and lived like every other day, with the exception of Pinkie Pie who made triple the amounts of parties and always invited Celestia to them. She actually held her word and did her best to make the last four years for her, the best in her life.

And like this, another month passed, and it was time for Chrysalis to arrive. When she arrived, she got greeted by Celestia. Chrysalis seemed to have changed a bit. She wasn’t the arrogant Queen anymore. She seemed more like a quiet, thankful Queen now, and she seemed more cooperative. When they arrived at the strategy-planning-room, three other beings were in there. Princess Luna, Discord, and Twilight Sparkle. Celestia showed Queen Chrysalis her seat and she went to her own one. She looked around everyone in the room, and a small smile crept on her face.

“It seems like everypony is here.” Then she looked over to Chrysalis, who was eyeing Discord strangely. Discord seeing this, flew over to her, suddenly wearing a tuxedo with top-hat, and landing besides her.

“Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, I believe we haven’t met yet. Delighted to make your acquaintance.” Chrysalis just crooked an eyebrow, when discord made a polite bow.

“I am Chrysalis. Former Queen of the Changelings.” They both shook their… appendages… and now Celestia said something.

“Former Queen?” Chrysalis looked to Celestia with an unimpressed look.

“Well I need someling to rule over my Changelings while I’m not there, so I raised a new Queen.” Then she began to smirk. “I will just go back, devour her and be Queen again in four years. This is not the first time I did something like that.” Celestia, Luna, and Twilight looked a little disgusted by this but didn’t make a comment.

“Now, since everypony is here, I can finally conclude that the first phase of our plan is officially over.” She looked over to Twilight, who checked a point on her checklist. “Now we begin with phase two.” She looked worried around the gathered immortals. “Some of you may not like this part, but it is necessary.” She took a breath. “We need to be trained in battle.” Chrysalis and Discord both looked with an ‘are-you-serious?’ expression at Celestia.

“Did you just say training?” Discord asked with a raised eyebrow. Chrysalis just shook her head.

“We have here the combined power of the whole planet, and you want us to train?” She also asked with a raised eyebrow. Celestia sighed. She knew that they won’t accept this so easily.

“Luna and I fought against him over a thousand years ago. We even used the Elements Of Harmony against him. We couldn’t even make a scratch. He resisted every spell we used against him, and he dispersed the beam of the elements. We didn’t know how he did it, but we know now, because of his apprentice that currently helps us to prepare the fight against him.” Discord and Chrysalis looked again confused.

“His apprentice?” Discord asked. “Who’s that and why didn’t I meet him already?”

“His name is Aren, and we called for him six months ago. He showed us how Oran was able to disperse the beam of the elements, and he also showed us that we still need training. He showed us that power in a battle isn’t worth anything if you don’t know how to use it in one.” Chrysalis shook her head in disbelief.

“Power in battle is worthless? I don’t believe this.” Celestia sighed again.

“Two months ago, I battled against the guards that were trained by him in a sparring fight. I don’t like to say this, but I lost against three mortal guards in a fight. None of them even unicorns. They were two earth-ponies and one pegasus. I didn’t even hold back. That’s when I realized that we need to be trained in combat. If I even loose against three trained mortals, then I can’t imagine how I would fare against an immortal, who was trained in combat.” Chrysalis and Discord looked impressed but were still not convinced.

“Then why haven’t I met this apprentice of Oran?” Discord asked.

“He is currently in a coma. He was in it for nearly six months, and we don’t know when he will wake up.” Celestia changed her expression to a smile. “But I have a substitute for him.” She turned to the guards. “Let him in please.” The guard saluted and opened the door. In walked a purple pegasus captain.

“This is Purple Edge. He was the guard with the best scores in Arens’ training, and he also handled the training of the guards for the past five months. He is the only one that-“

“Can is say something, Princess? It’s pretty important.” She got aborted by Purple Edge. A little taken aback by the sudden intrusion, she nodded.

“I quit.” Celestia shook her head.

“What did you say?”

“I quit. I won’t train anypony anymore.” Celestia was shocked. What now?

“Could you please tell me, why you quit?” She wanted to know at least the reason.

“Because he doesn’t need to train anyone anymore.” A voice from the hallway came.

‘Could it be?’ Celestia thought and looked to the hallway. Her expression changed to happiness, just like Twilights, and Lunas’ to annoyance, while Chrysalis looked like she just remembered something and Discord just confused. In walked a certain human with an apple in his hand. When he entered, he took a bit from it.

“Hi, name’s Aren. I’m Orans’ apprentice.” He looked around the room and noticed Chrysalis. “I bet you are the Queen of the Changelings.” He inspected her from head to hoof. “Yep definitely an emotion-eater.” Then he changed his gaze to Discord, and he raised an eyebrow. His expression looked like one of confusion and, could it be, worry. He then looked at Celestia.

“What’s an arcadian doing here?”

Author's Note

Phase 1 is over. Now it's training time. I haven't decided yet how much chapters of training and battle explanations i will make, but let's just see how it works out.

Grapefruit-juice

His question was only answered with confused looks, especially from Discord himself. Aren looked around and groaned inwards.

“Alright, I will ask again. What is an arcadian doing here?” He pointed with his flat hand at Discord. Again the confused looks. Twilight was the first to speak up.

“This is no arcadian, whatever they are. He is a Draconequus and god of Disharmony and Chaos. We –“

“What do you mean he’s a Draconequus? I recognize an arcadian when I see one, and he definitely is one.” Twilight got interrupted by him. What was he talking about? This time it was Celestia who asked.

“What is an arcadian?” Maybe this way, she can convince him that Discord isn’t one. Aren sighed once, but then began to explain.

“The arcadians live in their homeworld arcadia. They are a bunch of immortals with perfectly asymmetric body structures. The different parts of the body are always different from arcadian to arcadian. They have high magical powers and the magic they are best at is called uni-magic. Haters and jealous people call it chaos-magic, but that’s degrading.”

Aren walked over to Discord and looked at him again. “Yep, definitely an arcadian. He even looks kind of like King Parlo.” The ponies were a little taken aback. Even Celestia, who only asked about them to disprove his exclamation, could find nothing wrong about it. Aren looked a little confused at the other confused looks. Then suddenly his face changed into an “oh” expression.

“You don’t know that you’re arcadian, do you?” He asked Discord, who just shrugged nonchalantly. So this guy thinks he knows something Discord does not know, so what? He can think whatever he likes. Celestia walked up to Aren from behind.

“Aren-“ She got aborted by Aren suddenly jumping in the air, turning around and slashing with his sword to a spot behind him while making a light shriek. The whole room got startled by this. Suddenly Aren began to hyperventilate, and to look around the room in a frantic manner, but calmed down pretty quickly. With a startled look, he turned around and looked at Celestia.

“Don’t startle me like this. I nearly died right there.” Celestia looked confused and scared at the long crack beside her in the floor. The feeling definitely was mutual. Even if, the sword didn’t hit the floor, it still made a humongous crack.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t mean to startle you. I normally walked over to you and spoke in a normal tone.” Then Aren calmed down and rubbed the backside of his head with one of his hands while laughing slowly in a nervous and embarrassed manner.

“Yeah, you couldn’t know. It’s just that whenever I share my soul with someone, I need to conserve my magical resources. Overexerting right now could make things worse. That’s why I deactivated my 350 passive omnipresence-spells. I feel kind of unsafe and vulnerable, when I can’t feel, see, and hear everything in a hundred meter radius.” He still rubbed the back of his head in shame.

Discord smirked deviously. This is going to be fun. He crept up behind Aren and inhaled deeply. Everypony that saw this got nervous. This could go south very badly. Suddenly he whispered silently into Arens’ ear “boo” and while shrieking, Aren swung his sword in the direction he heard the whisper from. Discord could narrowly avoid,being a head shorter than before, but, not his mane.

Discord looked also startled. The hair that was now lying on the floor could have been his head. Yep, he definitely didn’t want to do that again, but he still had to snicker a little. Aren turned to him with a shocked expression.

“Why did you do that? Well more like, how could you do that? I thought your species doesn’t like humor that much, especially if it’s on expenses of another person.” He raised an eyebrow. Discord just waved that statement dismissively away.

“Oh please, what is life without the certain amount of chaos and fun?” Aren just looked confused.

“Did you just say, chaos and fun?” Discord shrugged.

“Well if my ears are not mistaken.” Aren looked at him with an inspecting look. Something was not right here.

“I would like to make a test with you. It is really really important to me. I would appreciate it if you do the exact thing I want of you, is that ok? I’ll say it again, I would be REALLY honored to have you helping me.” Aren stated in a friendly and NOT sarcastic way. Discord looked confused while the ponies looked taken aback.

‘Did Aren just ask somepony nicely for help?’ Discord just shrugged.

“Alright, tell me what you need.” It would certainly be something very important if he would beg him for it. Aren looked him in the eye with a serious expression. It definitely meant a lot to him if he would be that serious about him. What could it be that he needs that hard? The silence and the tension could be cut with a knife, that’s how thick it felt. Finally, Aren spoke his wish.

“I would be really thankful if you could summon exactly half a liter of grapefruit-juice in a normal half liter glass. Nothing extra. Just the juice and the glass. Both absolutely normal.” All of the ponies looked the same. They all had the ‘what?’ expression on their faces. Discord shrugged and summoned the boring looking glass with the juice and ice-cubes. Aren looked down and shook his head disapprovingly.

“I said nothing extra. Only the juice and the glass. Both absolutely normal and this time, no ice-cubes. I’ll say it again, I will be very thankful to you.” Discord crooked an eyebrow. What’s up with that annoying guy? Getting here and demanding absolutely boring and disgusting grapefruit-juice. With a groan, he complied and summoned another one and again Aren shook his head in disapprovement.

“What’s with the little fancy curve at the glass? I said I would be extremely thankful if you could summon me an absolutely normal glass with absolutely normal grapefruit-juice.” He stated with a serious expression while looking into Discords annoyed eyes.
‘What’s up with him? What’s the problem with a bit of luxury, and why does he keep repeating how thankful he is?’ Discord groaned a little in annoyance, but summoned another one with nothing in it. Again the disapproving headshake.

“This is more than half a liter. I would be really thank-“

“I don’t care how thankful you are. What’s your problem? Why do you want this absolutely boring glass with absolutely boring and disgusting grapefruit-juice in it? Can’t you just take something different? Or at least a better glass or something with it? Why does it have to be this boring glass with this boring drink?” He stated while holding a defensive stance. Aren smirked a little inwardly but didn’t show it.

“What’s wrong? The only thing I want is a normal half liter glass with half liter of grapefruit juice. Why do you not grant my wish, even though I would be really grateful to you?” He asked in a serious tone. The ponies looked confused. What’s with the grapefruit juice and why has it to be exactly half a liter with no changes? But the biggest question was, why does Discord not create one?” Discord gritted his teeth and flicked with one of his hand.

A half liter glass with grapefruit-juice. Aren shook his head disapprovingly.

“WHAT IS IT THIS TIME?” Discord nearly shouted. Aren kept being calm.

“You have summoned the glass correctly, but this is not a half liter of juice. It’s less. I just like to have a-“

“I know I know. A normal half liter glass with half liters of grapefruit-juice.” Aren nodded and Discord snipped again, and he shook his head again.

“The glass and juice are correct, but why the drinking straw? I said nothing extra.” Discord grinded his teeth in rage. Why can’t he just wish something more chaotic or something with it? Why does it have to be exactly a perfectly round amount of juice with a boring glass? Why? Another snip, followed by a headshake. Another one. Another one and another one.

The ponies now looked at Discord. Why can’t he just summon a normal glass with a normal amount of grapefruit-juice? What’s so difficult about it? Suddenly Discord got an idea and snipped again. This time Aren didn’t shake his head instantly.

“That is a very good attempt, but why does it have to be so hot? Can’t you make it a little bit more…” He inched closer to him and spoke the next word with a mocking tone. “Normal?” At this exclamation, Discord roared and flipped the enormous table in the room. He picked up his chair and thrashed around the room.

“WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?” Every exclamation was accompanied with a punch, a kick, or thrashing. “Why can’t you just wish for something else? ANYTHING ELSE! Why does it have to be this?” Aren just smirked triumphantly. The ponies were scared by the sudden rage that Discord showed them. What was his problem? Why couldn’t he just summon it?

“Discord.” Aren called, and Discord looked at him with rage in his eyes. “You asked the wrong question. It’s not, why I ask you of this. It’s why you don’t do it. I told you often enough how thankful I was. I don’t say that you can’t do it. It’s just that you won’t do it. So how about I give you some motivation?” He asked with a smirk, and Discord looked interested again.

“If you manage to summon this normal glass, with normal grapefruit-juice with the normal amount, in normal temperature and with no changes and nothing extra, I allow you to change me in term of appearance to whatever you like for a whole hour.” This picked Discords interest. He wasn’t able to use some chaos for a month since he promised it. He could finally use up all his pent-up chaos-magic, and the only thing he had to do, was to just simply conjure a glass of juice.

“Deal.” He just simply stated and snippet his fingers. Just a simple glass with a simple fluid in a simple form in simple circumstances. Nothing he had ever problems with. Nothing that was out of his league. He could summon whole monsters on his whim. He could summon a whole ocean of grapefruit-juice if he wanted to.

Looking down at the glass, with the little umbrella in it, he just looked shocked. Just one glass. Nothing to difficult. ‘Why is it not as he asked? I can spent an hour doing whatever I want with him, so why is it not normal? Why isn’t it normal? I imagined it being exactly like he asked, so why is this umbrella in there?’ He gritted his hands around the glass.

“Why?” He silently asked. “WHY IS IT NOT NORMAL?” He shouted destroying the glass, shards embedded in his claws. “I WAS WILLING TO SUMMON THIS STUPID NORMAL GLASS WITH THIS STUPID NORMAL LIQUID. WHY IS IT NOT NORMAL?” He screamed while holding his head between his appendages. He just gripped down hard on his head and groaned with rage.

Aren just sighed a deep sigh. “Do you want to summon it, like I told you to?” Discord just looked at him with rage.

“Yes, of course. How could I let an opportunity slip for me to use chaos on you for a whole hour?” Aren then took another bite from his apple, which he still had.

“Then why isn’t it normal?” He asked simply. Such a simple question. Discord asked himself this question a lot of times. He always asked, but never answered. Now he was being asked, and he felt the urge to answer. So he thought about this. Why isn’t the glass normal? It’s not like he didn’t want it to be normal. He got promised a whole hour full of chaos. Summoning a simple glass with juice was nothing against that.

Discord didn’t move. He just gripped his head and didn’t move at all. The ponies and the changeling looked worried at him. Why is he so angry, and why is he so frustrated about this? Discord still didn’t move. Even after two minutes. The same position of frustration. Celestia wanted to speak up, but an open hand of Aren showed her to be quiet. They waited and waited. Every time someone wanted to say something, they were shown to be quiet. After nearly ten minutes, Discord finally moved.

Everyone looked expectantly at him. Did he find the answer? Discord just looked at Aren with a sheepish smile.

“I don’t know.” Aren just nodded.

“You know, but you can’t admit it to yourself.” Discord looked hurt. As if he received a spear through his heart. He had the power to summon something simple like this. He had the will to summon it. So why wasn’t it like this? He couldn’t find a reason why it wasn’t normal. There was no excuse anymore. No excuse to deny it anymore. Sighing he looked at Aren.

“I can’t.” He looked like he had seen a ghost. “I can’t do it.” Aren nodded deeply.

“Why?” Discord, still with shock in his eyes, looked down at the table. After some time he just simply answered.

“I don’t know. I just can’t do it.” He gripped his head again in frustration. “WHY CAN’T I DO IT?” He went to Aren and gripped his shoulders while shaking him. “WHY CAN’T I DO IT?” Aren just kept calm.

“I will now tell you something. After I tell you this, you will be able to do it. Do you want to hear it?” Discord looked like a junky that just got offered free heroin.

“Yes, tell me. Please!” Aren sighed.

“You can’t do it.” He just simply stated. Discord looked like he got slapped in the face. “Now try summoning it again.” Discord looked like a mix of shock and confusion but listened to him. This time it felt like he was afraid of summoning it. Afraid of seeing another failure of his power. Afraid to realize another time that he couldn’t do it. He finally flicked his claw and there it was.

A perfectly normal half liter glass with a perfectly normal amount of perfectly normal grapefruit-juice with nothing extra and a perfectly normal temperature. He looked to Aren, who just nodded approvingly. Discord couldn’t believe it. A simple summoning, but it had a huge impact on him. What did change? Why was he able to conjure it now? He looked again at Aren.

“That was easy. Why could I do it now and not before?” He just simply asked. Aren sighed.

“Because I told you that you couldn’t. Listen closely, because what I will tell you now is the truth. It may be a shock for you and the rest of the people in this room, but it really is the truth. You could only summon it because I said that you couldn’t do it. This gave you a little amount of chaos because you could prove me wrong. Using a spell to prove someone wrong, adds a little chaos to it.” Aren sighed.

“This means you were still not able to do it.” Aren stood up and looked on him with a sympathetic look in his eyes. “Discord.” He slowly stated. “You are suffering from Chaozai.” The ponies, just like Discord, looked confused at that statement. Aren continued. “Chaozai is an illness that only attacks arcadians. It first robs them of any ability to use a spell for something completely normal.”

“The victims don’t really realize this at first, because there are often only subtle changes and just think on other occasions ‘Why not?’. The sub consciousness realizes that something blocks the magic and goes into denial. That’s when the disease strikes again. It enhances your need for fun. It’s like an incredibly strong addiction. Whenever you use uni-magic, it gets more access to your brain.”

“In the final stage, it attacks your consciousness and uses different methods to change your view on the world. Suddenly it seems way funnier to transform other beings. It feels boring to help people, and it freezes the part of the emotional system, which controls remorse and judgment of what’s right and wrong.”

“Victims of this disease change and begin to act with cruelness and without remorse. They change everything into some strange beings, change the streets into something else, and do everything in their power to change everything further. This disease is very dangerous for you and every other being that is in contact with you. If you get a motivation for something strongly desired by you, it is possible to stop your addictions for a while, but only for a while.”

The ponies looked shocked. Here, he was. Discord the almighty cruel god of chaos and disharmony. The one that attacked Equestria two times. The one that got imprisoned in stone for two millennia. Everything of this just because he was sick. Ponies suffered under his cruelness, and he got imprisoned, because he had an unknown illness inside of him.

Discord still couldn’t believe it. He was ill? He couldn’t conjure this simple item because he was ill? Everything, this whole mess, his imprisonment, his inability to conjure a simple glass of juice, just because he was ill? This seemed too unreal. Discord stood up, disbelieve showing in his eyes.

“So you walk in here, we meet for the first time, then you say I am some kind of species I don’t even know of, and then you say I am ill? I am not so sure if I can believe that.” Aren sighed.

“I didn’t assume you would believe me right away, but even if you don’t believe me. I still can tell you this.” Aren smirked. “This disease is curable.” Lunas’ and Celestias’ eyes widened. It is curable? Does this mean that Discord will be his old self again? The chivalrous and generous self? It was like a dream come true, but Celestia still was afraid of asking the following question.

“Will he be his old self again?” Everyone turned to Celestia. This was the first time someone else spoke up in nearly 20 minutes. Aren just simply nodded. Her heart filled with joy. She feared that if somepony would suffer under this disease for too long that it could make irreparable damage. She felt so happy when she saw him nod, but she felt even happier for her sister. Looking at Luna who just stared like ten-million-dollars were just handed to her. Just a simple look of disbelief mixed with shock and joy.

‘Could it be over? Could we finally be together again? Did he change in the last thousands of years? Have I gained weight?’ Luna just thought in a split-second. She finally began to cry a little. Her sister lending her a shoulder to cry on, which she accepted happily. Aren suddenly clapped once.

“There is still one problem.” Everypony looked at him. “They don’t give the cure for it out like it's being offered in some market. Only the King of Arcadia can give it to the patient.” He pointed at Discord. “This means I have to take this guy to him.” Everypony sighed. They all thought it would be something more serious. Discord still looked in disbelief at Aren.

“How are you so sure that your judgment is correct? You could be mistaken, and I could be just like I am.” Aren shook his head.
“Arcadians are a proud and honorable race. It’s in their genes to be as generous and chivalrous as possible. They don’t even like to get paid because they just feel like they took money that wasn’t theirs. The biggest present you can give one is lots of appreciation and thank yous. With the amount of thanks I gave you, a normal arcadian would have gone into hell itself and would have fought against a demon in a battle of who-can-longer-stay-in-the-lava.”

“The fact that you didn’t care about this, means that your appreciation-receptors, which are unique to arcadians by the way, were damaged and not functioning. A simple side effect of the disease.” He then made an expression as if he remembered something. “That reminds me. How can you be here in Equestria and not know about Chaozai?” He asked simply to which Discord just shrugged. Now it was time for Celestia to talk again.

“We found him when he was very young in a green clearing near the city Everfree. He wasn’t older than two maybe, and he didn’t even know his own name. We never saw anything quite like him, so we thought up a name for his species and searched for his family all over Equestria. Of course, we didn’t find anything and stopped the search. We then raised him as some kind of child and gave him a name.”

“Due to his asymmetric appearance, we thought we’d call him Discord. We then lived together until he slowly started to change. After some years, he changed completely and began to run wild, so we had to turn him into stone with the Elements Of Harmony.” Aren nodded.

“Even if it would normally be an impossibility to even think about putting something as generous and friendly as arcadians into stone, I can comprehend your decision since he was suffering from Chaozai, but this still didn’t explain how he was able to land on Equestria, when he was not older than two.” Aren put a hand to his chin and pondered about this for a while.

“Well, doesn’t matter. I’m going now to Arcadia and tell the king about our little discovery here. I’ll come back later to take you with me.” He pointed at Discord, who was just thinking about how it would be to have more beings like him walking around, and how much chaos there had to be. He just simply nodded to him, and Aren quickly vanished.

They waited for several minutes until Aren finally returned. “The King wants to see you right now.” He just simply stated, while grabbing Discord and vanishing again. The ponies couldn’t even ask him something. Now they were again waiting. This time much longer. Wasting time with small-talk and acquainting themselves with Chrysalis a little more, they waited nearly two hours until Aren returned, alone.

Celestia looked around the room. “Where’s Discord?” Aren just looked confused for one second, but then began to giggle a little.

“Oh, you mean Prince Ravien?” He asked with a mocking tone. The ponies couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Discord was a prince, and they imprisoned him in stone for two millennia? They both felt a heavy lump in their stomachs. Aren began to talk.

“Well, to cut a long story short. I arrived with him in the throne-room of Arcadia, and the King instantly grabbed his son in a hug after realizing it was his long lost child. They said that he vanished after some magical instabilities in their world, and have searched for him everywhere. After 30 years, they stopped their search and declared him as dead. Man you should have seen the look on their faces, when they saw him.” Celestia smiled a little.

“So what happens now to him?” Aren laughed again.

“Oh nothing special. He will be there for the next three days. His family wanted to catch up with him and wanted to begin treating his illness right away. Oh right, I was correct in my assumption that he had Chaozai. He will be the old Ravien you knew from some thousand years ago.”

“No worries about him coming back. I made sure that they knew just HOW much we need him in our future battle. They will even teach him about how to travel through the multiverse if he wants to visit them.” Celestia crooked an eyebrow.

“I thought it was impossible to teach somepony from another world new magic.” Aren shook his head.

“Ravien isn’t from your world. He’s an arcadian, and Arcadia was travelling the multiverse for a long time.” Suddenly a yawn escaped his mouth. “Man using magic like this, while still being in my exhausted state from the coma and stuff sure made me tired.” He looked to Celestia with a tired gaze. “Could you give me bed to lie down? I don’t want to travel to my dimension right now.” Celestia happily nodded.

“Oh by the way. Tomorrow is training for the Elements Of Harmony.” He looked at Twilight. “Get yourself and your friends to the training field tomorrow at twelve midday, since I will be training the guards earlier.” Celestias’ eyes widened in shock.

“Wait you want to train them to be soldiers?” Aren just tiredly turned around.

“What? Oh no. I won’t train them like the other soldiers. I will only train them in the three points they need. Teamwork, evasion and stealth.” Celestia and Twilight crooked an eyebrow.

“Stealth?” After another yawn, Aren spoke again.

“Yeah, you don’t want to let Oran know your location before you are ready to use the elements, do you?” Twilight imagined the scenario in her head and violently shook it. “Good.” Then he turned to Celestia, Luna and Chrysalis. “Immortal battle training will start the day after Ravien returns.” Another yawn. “Yeah I will be going to sleep now.”

He then proceeded to take the table that was standing back on its’ old place and laid himself down on top of it. After some seconds, rhythmic snoring could be heard from Aren while laying face down. Celestia chuckled a little.

‘Good to have you back.’

Author's Note

Yeah, i think i'll continue calling him Ravien, i think.... i' not really sure.

Insanity

Celestia suddenly woke up with a start. She looked out of her windows, over the balcony, to the night sky. The moon still adorning the sky like a jewel. Definitely, it was too early for Celestia to wake up from her slumber. She never woke up in the middle of the night for no reason. Her Alicorn powers always let her sleep perfectly through the night as long as there are no disturbances.

So naturally, Celestia was more than a little worried when she looked at the clock and saw that it was 2:34. Something different made her wake up, but what? Her room was like she remembered it. No additional noises were heard. Everything was normal. Maybe she was worried over something? What did happen yesterday?

Aren returned. Discord er… Ravien was told he was sick and went to his home dimension for treatment. Aren said that today was training and then went to sleep on the table. She then levitated him over to his room and tucked him into bed. She had a lovely meal and some conversation with her sister and Chrysalis after that and then she went to bed. There was nothing that should make her wake up at this hour. So why was she wide awake this early in the morning?

“Because I need to talk to you.” Celestia froze. She knew that voice. That deep ominous voice. The voice that told of uncountable years of experience. The voice belonging to the one unquestionably powerful being in existence. She turned around and there she saw the creature that the voice belonged to. There, right beside her bed stood none other than Oran. She instantly felt afraid. What could he want from her?

“Like I said, I just wanted to talk to you.” Celestia calmed down, but only a little. What would he want to talk about? Celestia shuffled nervously on her bed. Could she just answer? He could kill her if she would answer with disrespect. Oran shook his head slowly.

“You do not need to be afraid. Whatever it is that holds your tongue, it is not important.” Celestia now really calmed down. She looked at him uncertain.

“What do you want to talk about?” Such a simple statement, yet so much information laid in it. She just accepted to talk to him. She showed that she respected him. She asked for information from him, and she showed that she was interested in it. Oran didn’t react at first but answered her.

“I travel the worlds to find a world that has enough power to halt my journey. I give them motivation for fighting against me. They know that I will end their existence, and that’s why they all fight me united. The same is said for Equestria. If you fail to stop me, the same thing that happened last time will happen, and you know that.” Celestia gulped and felt a chill run down her spine.

“But, I never end the world truly. I kill every being with extreme pain, but I never let them stay dead. Everything that I kill in the process of the fight that was created by my challenge will be revived after the war. I don’t travel the multiverse just for some lowly joy such as simple killing. So you should know that even when I do what I do that I never plan to end your world in destruction.”

What Oran then did, was something that no one ever in Equestria, except for Aren, thought would be even possible. The deep unknown that was known as Oran the powerful being let out a simple sigh. A show of emotion. A sigh shows that you either are angry, relieved, stressed or in this case, sad. Oran looked so very very sad. His eyes showing sympathy about the thing he wanted to talk about. Celestia picked up on that. She always felt when somepony wanted to talk about something.

“There is more to it, is it not? I don’t think that you just came to me to justify your actions.” She exclaimed, careful not to anger him. Not to sound disrespectful. Oran looked at Celestia with a deep gaze. For a moment there, she thought that she might have offended him.

“You are correct, Celestia. I came here for another reason, but what I explained to you, has something to do with this reason.” He then extended his arm to Celestia. Showing an open palm. After carefully analyzing the situation, Celestia realized that he just wanted her to place her hoof into his palm. “I want to show you something.” Celestia eyed the palm carefully but reluctantly placed her own hoof into it.

Suddenly the two were in Arens’ room. Just like that. Nothing happened, it was just like they were here since the beginning. She looked down at the sleeping face of Aren. He looked so happy. So peaceful. It looked like he had no worries in the world. She looked over to Oran and saw, that in comparison to Aren, he looked troubled and immensely worried. Celestia asked.

“What are we doing here?” Oran looked over to Celestia.

“Aren is not how you think you know him to be. He is different. He hasn’t shown his true self in over 30,000 years. He will show it in the next three days at some point. It is nearly unavoidable.” Celestia pondered about this for a while. Aren wasn’t how she thought of him, but what is so terrible about this that it forces Oran to talk to Celestia about something? Oran looked over to Celestia.

“Tell me Princess of the sun. Do you judge someone based on whom they are or based on what they did?” A simple question, yet a question she never thought about. Judging someone by how they are or what they did? After thinking for a while, it seemed obvious.

“I judge them by what they did. If, for example, some pony thought about stealing treasury from the castle, I can’t judge them because they never did it. I can only do it when they tried to make it happen.” Oran nodded once but asked another thing.

“Then what will you do, if you know that there is absolutely no doubt that this pony will do it and that it will succeed?” This was a hard question. If it was obvious that he would succeed, then she would know beforehoof that she couldn’t punish him. So if, she would act before it happened, the act would never have happened, and she wouldn’t have any right to punish him. It doesn’t matter what she would do, it would be unfair for either side.

Either unfair for getting away with a crime, or getting punished for something that didn’t happen. She looked over to Oran.

“I don’t know what I would decide.” Oran just looked back at Aren.

“Celestia, let me tell you this. There is no possible way to predict the future. The only possibility would be for me to decide that I know the future, but then it is not assured that the future I looked upon is the real one because the universe would change and bend everything to how it would be, when I decided I would know.” Celestia was a little confused by this sentence. “That’s why I don’t do it, but that I don’t do it, doesn’t mean that I can’t make assumptions.”

He looked worried at Celestia. “And my assumption right now is disastrous for your world.” Celestia was now truly worried. If Oran was right, and the future of Equestria looked disastrous, then she needed to do something about it. Oran looked again at Celestia.

“Celestia, I will now take you to Arens’ dream.” He pointed with his index-finger at Aren. “As you see by his current facial expression, he has a very pleasant dream, but be aware. A dream that is for one pleasant may not be pleasant for another one. You will see very disturbing things in his dreams. I want you to know that everything in there will be just a dream and that nothing will happen to the real world.”

Celestia felt nervous. By all the warnings Oran spoke, it was apparent that what she will see in his dreams will not be to her liking, but in the end she agreed, for the sake of Equestria. Suddenly she was flying in the air over Canterlot. Under her was her capital. Her beautiful city, with its’ white walls and its’ majestic decorations. The beautiful Canterlot.

It was bathed in blood, fire, destruction, and corpses. She gagged when she saw the parts of her precious subjects, lying around the floor like they were some destroyed bloody puppets. On the remains of the corpses were the most horrible expressions shown. Dead children, dead soldiers, dead mothers, dead pets, dead wild animals, dead plants. There was no living being to be seen, except the dancing flames that seemed to live their life with utmost joy while burning everything to the ground.

Destroyed streets, crumbled houses and destroyed furniture could be seen from everywhere in the city. Celestia began to cry. She never saw this much horror. The death of all of her subjects on Orans’ last visit was really bad, but this was just terrifying. Everything looked just violently destroyed.

“Do not be overwhelmed. Remember, this is just a dream.” Oran said while standing besides the princess. She looked around again, but couldn’t bring herself to feel nothing for this picture. Even if, this was not real, it still disturbed her on a fundamental level. But one thing seemed off. They were in Arens’ dream, but where was Aren?

“Where is Aren?” She asked Oran, who just turned around to the castle and pointed at it. Again Celestias’ surroundings changed, and she was in the strategy-room in the castle. Everything looked normal, except that there was a meeting. In this room were Luna, Chrysalis, Ravien, Twilight, and the other five Elements Of Harmony. Celestia still didn’t see Aren, and just when she wanted to ask Oran about it, Twilight spoke up.

“What will we do? Can we even do something about him?” She asked, fear showing in her voice. Luna hammered on the table.

“I knew that we shouldn’t have kept him here. I knew he meant nothing, but trouble.” She shouted while hammering her hoof at the table, but then put her hooves to the sides of her head while groaning. “Why does it have to be him? Can’t it be something we can handle? There is no way we can win this!” She slammed another hoof at the table. Chrysalis raised an eyebrow.

“I know that you are afraid of him, but aren’t you a little overreacting? Yes, he is very powerful, but he can’t stand against the three of us and the Elements Of Harmony.” Chrysalis simply explained. Celestia felt that Orans’ gaze fell to the door. He quickly turned to Celestia and spoke fast.

“Whatever happens now, remember that this is a dream and that Aren is still sleeping.” Before she could ask, the door slammed open, and a blood-soaked human with spiky hear entered the room, having his sword leaning over his shoulder. There was one thing that disturbed Celestia deeply about this scene.

It was not the blood. It was not the weapon. It was the deep malicious grin that spread over Arens’ face. He looked like a grinning demon of destruction. He looked as if he could do the worst things imaginable, and would still enjoy it. Everypony in the room went tense, when he looked around while grinning madly. Nothing was heard until Aren started laughing silently. So frightfully silent he chuckled, that it would have been impossible to hear if someone even breathed.

With the passing of time, the chuckle grew louder and louder until he was laughing like a maniac. Suddenly he instantly stopped and looked with extremely wide torn eyes at everypony in the room, his mouth still having the form of the malicious smile, but being nearly entirely open. Like he paused his facial position in the midst of his laughter.

He looked around the room, and his gaze stopped at Chrysalis, who looked afraid. He suddenly ran to her with unreal speed clawed both of his hands into her neck. Pressing together so strong, that the chitin started cracking and Chrysalis started choking. Still having the same expression on his face, he suddenly picked her up and slammed her into the floor with such a force that the whole room shook like there was an earthquake. Chrysalis still barely alive on the floor, let out a bloody cough that sounded like her lungs got squashed.

Suddenly Aren turned her around, so she was lying on her back, and put his hands into her torso. Then he pushed his hands apart, and Chrysalis body was splattered over the entirety of the room. The shower of gore and insides, soaking Aren even more, he started laughing again. Celestia couldn’t believe what she saw. This wasn’t the Aren she knew. This was some dangerous vile creature of pure evil. Suddenly Aren turned around and looked at Ravien with the same insane eyes.

Just when Aren started jumping to him, Celestia was suddenly flying outside of Canterlot again.

“I don’t want you to see the rest of the dream.” Oran simply stated. Celestia was still in total shock. This was not the Aren she knew. It can’t be. He wouldn’t just destroy everything for absolutely no reason in this brutal manner… would he? She looked over to the silent Oran. Too many questions hanging in her mind. Too many answers she wanted to hear. So she asked the one question that would summarize all of her questions.

“What just happened?” She simply asked. Oran turned to her with a sad gaze in his eyes.

“What you just saw, was the real Aren.” He waited some seconds, for the information to be processed. “You need to know the following. Aren is a truly evil being, which does only do good deeds, contradicting isn’t it?” He asked while looking at the confused and shocked face of Celestia. Nonetheless he continued.

“Normally someone would think that evil beings only do evil things, but this is not true. It’s the definition of evil that makes this possible. Someone is evil, when he does not live and think by the rules the majority lives by. If someone from Equestria, would go to a dimension, where it is hospitality to steal someones’ stuff, and the one of Equestria wouldn’t do it, then this one would be considered evil in their eyes.”

“It is a rather extreme thing to say to that since it would only be unpleasant or informal, but unpleasant and informal still fall into the evil box, if you divide every action perfectly into good and evil. You need to know that Aren has a very dark and deep problem. He is like you think of him, yet he isn’t.”

“He has a desire to help everyone. He wants to see the happy children after they got rescued by him. In short, he wants to be a hero, but for that, he needs to suppress his true self. When I first met him, he was guarding over a land of mortals, and protected them from everything that they deemed evil and vile, sounds nice doesn’t it?” He crooked an eyebrow. Celestia didn’t answer.

“It wasn’t. For his protection, he demanded a weekly sacrifice of one living being. He wanted to help the mortals. Wanted to protect them. But he couldn’t suppress himself at that time. He was still how you see him. He needed that sacrifice every week, in order to being able to control his desire for death.”

“I met him, and I saw this. I saw his eternally good heart, which was at the same time eternally evil. He had equally strong desires of protecting and destroying everything. I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine surviving this long with this conflict inside of myself. So I began to take him as an apprentice. Showed him the further ways of magic, and travel. After around 50 years, he was able to invent a whole new kind of spell. The mentality altering spell.”

“With this, he was able to alter his mentality to the point that he wasn’t addicted anymore to any of those two needs. He was neutral. He could finally decide if he wanted to feel good while killing someone or by protecting them. There was no urge anymore to do both. He could decide at any time he wanted.” Oran made a short pause.

“Until, he shared his soul with the Element Of Generosity. It was of course, not the first time he shared his soul. He always does it, when either someone very important for his plans, or someone he cares about dies. This case it was probably the former since the Elements Of Harmony wouldn’t have their overwhelming power anymore if one of the bearers dies. It’s further been proved by Raritys’ presence in his brutal dreams. He realized this and shared it, to not endanger his plan of finally slaying me.”

“You need to know that if you share your soul, your magic suffers under it. It takes a long time to get back to full power. Probably around three years. Until then, he needs to use as less magic as possible, to regenerate faster. This is the reason why he aborted using his 350 omnipresence spells constantly.” Oran sighed.

“It’s a shame that he needs to constantly use up half of his power and concentration to alter his personality. He could maintain the whole spell-combination if he wouldn’t need to maintain his altering spell.” He sighed again and looked deep into Celestias’ eyes.

“Celestia, you need to know that this is no lie, what I will tell you now. If I wouldn’t have made Aren tired yesterday in your room, you all would be dead by now.” Celestia was shocked beyond belief. They all could have died yesterday? Would Oran lie to her? No, this would be unnecessary since he could kill her with a mere thought.

“You need to know that I use my mass-ressurectionspell only on those, which fought against me. I will not use it for deaths of other beings. If Aren goes insane and destroys the entirety of Equus, I won’t resurrect anyone of you. I swore that I will not interfere with affairs of a dimension, which not concerns me. I swore this when I got my godpowers.” Oran sighed again.

“I never broke this. Never, except for yesterday, when I made Aren sleepy. I didn’t want to see the only planet, in hundreds of thousands of years that would be able to finally halt me, getting destroyed because of a white mortal unicorn that was not able to properly dodge a bite. You could trace this back to whomever you want to give the guilt for this.”

“Was it Arens’ fault for splitting his soul? Was it Raritys’ fault for not being able to dodge? Was it Arens’ fault for damaging your wheel? Was it the fault of the elements, because they didn’t want him in their chariot? Was it Lunas’ fault because she didn’t want him in her chariot? Was it your fault for letting him stay in Equestria? Was it Arens’ fault for having this personality in the first place, or was it my fault for not preventing the mortal mare of dying?”

“Was it the fault of the government that the poor man needed to steal the apple because he had no money to buy it? You can never place the guilt on one single being. In the end, it just happens.” Celestia shook her head. All of the information was too overwhelming, but even after all this, there was still one question she wanted to ask.

“Why are you showing, and telling me all this? What can I do about this? I know that I am strong, but I also know that I could not win against Aren in a battle.” Oran sighed once.

“It was more than 10 million years ago, when I last spoke these words. These words, other people use at a daily basis. I never spoke them, because I didn’t need to.” He looked at Celestia. “Yet, I feel the need to say them. Celestia, I need your help.” Celestia was overwhelmed. Why would someone like him need her help?

“I looked at every dream of Aren since he arrived in Equestria. It weren’t many since he rarely sleeps, and when he sleeps, he only does this in his home dimension. I watched, and there was one oddity in every dream of his, which was like this. The oddity was also here in this one. Can you see it?” He asked her. Celestia looked around, but couldn’t see what he meant. Finally, she shook her head.

“In every dream of his in which he slaughtered your planet, I never saw you even once.” She raised an eyebrow. What did this mean? “I never saw you getting slaughtered. I only saw you in his dreams, when he talked or did something else, which was not as brutal. Do you know what this means?” Celestia just shook her head.

“It means he likes you. I don’t know if it is romantic or just friends, but he somehow let you near his soul. Only friends and family are able to get near that. In the hundreds of thousands of years, he and I traveled among the multiverse, only very few beings got close to him. He blocks everyone out because he doesn’t want to get hurt, when they hear what he truly is.” Oran sighed.

“In the end, he is just a lonely kid that doesn’t want to get hurt.” Celestia looked down at her burning city. This sentence reminded her of the time, Aren and Luna argued at the training camp. It seemed funny when she thought about it. Celestia and Luna saw her mortals like children. Aren saw Luna like a child, and Oran saw Aren like a child. Celestia shook her head to get out of nostalgia. This was not needed right now.

“Oran, why do you need my help? Can’t you just alter his desires?” Oran looked conflicted.

“I could, but I also swore to never alter any personality ever. It would just ruin the natural creation of their being. No matter what happens, I will not alter his personality. I would kill him before he would do that. This is what I need you for. You are very close to his heart and soul, like I said I don’t know if it is romantic. So you can get to him and maybe, you can change him. Maybe you are able to change the deep darkness within him to something that can be loved by someone.”

“Let me tell you this, I broke my promise twice, first when I made him tired, and second when I told you this. I won’t do it a third time. Remember that. The future of Equestria, Aren, and of possibly many more dimensions rests on your shoulders. I do not think that you plan to assassinate him in his sleep since you said that you only judge people by their actions, and Aren has not yet done anything wrong to Equestria.”

Celestia felt like an extremely heavy weight was on her being. So much was at stake. Everything on her shoulders. If she would make a mistake, she would doom many worlds to certain destruction. Yet, the task itself does not seem to be this foreign and difficult to her. It seemed like it would be easy for her to accomplish this. Why did this feel so easy, even though so much was at stake?

Suddenly she was back at her room, sitting at her bed as if nothing happened. As if she didn’t do anything. As if she just sat here and everything she just experienced was in her head. She looked around her normal looking room. Suddenly her eyes widened. ‘How much time passed?’ She looked at the clock and the time shocked her to the core. When she woke up, it was 2:34, and right now it was 2:28. The same night, the same date, the same year, the same month.

She activated her magic and scanned the leylines of the magic of the world and stars. It was true. It was the same day, just earlier than she woke up. The shocking revelation was that her body wasn’t older. The body ages if someone time travels. The situation was unreal, but there was only one explanation, which was even more unreal. She hasn’t traveled through time. Time itself was turned back.

Suddenly she saw a single piece of parchment on her bed. It was just laying there as if it was always there to begin with. A single word written on it, yet this word carried her whole task. The whole future of Equestria, Aren and many other worlds. The single word.

“Aren.”

Auto-Spells

So the days passed by. Aren and Celestia never left the other one alone because Aren still couldn’t control himself fully while Celestia wasn’t around. Aren also was not allowed to train anyone for obvious reasons. But even if Aren wasn’t able to control himself fully, he was still getting better at it. So three days passed, and Ravien returned.

He certainly seemed changed. The appearance was the same, but his personality made a 180°. He didn’t do something random anymore. He didn’t use his magic, unless he needed to and he also was uncommonly generous and friendly to everypony. The first thing he did, was apologize to Celestia for his rude behavior towards her, and he also reassured her that it was the right thing to do when she imprisoned him. He certainly was out of control and had to be stopped.

He also dismissed that useless promise she had to make towards him to gain his support. In the end, the two hugged, and they could start to be friends, just like old times. Luna wasn’t convinced that easily, but also came around quickly. Ravien and Luna started to spend time together. It was obvious for everypony that they liked each other very much.

After another three days, Aren was finally allowed to continue training guards and the immortals.

“Aren, are you sure you will be alright?” Celestia asked worried. Aren just sighed.

“I told you a thousand times, training and killing is something completely different. When I train someone, it’s like I protect them from their own weakness. You don’t have to worry about my control. And even if I lose it, you will be there to stop me.” He said with a mixture of annoyingness and happiness. Celestia just sighed.

“I know. I just hope there will be no need to stop you.” Aren just chuckled and walked over to the training grounds where all the guards were standing. Aren watched them intently and raised an eyebrow. He then turned around to Celestia and shouted to her.

“There are too many. Why are there night guards here?” He shouted over to her. Celestia perked her ear.

“What did you say?” She shouted back. Aren put his hands to his mouth to make his shout louder.

“I asked, why there are so many soldiers?” Celestia raised her ears more.

“Could you repeat that?” Aren had enough. He picked Celestia up, with his levitation and floated her over to him.

“Why are there so many guards? I don’t remember training night guards.” He asked simply. She suddenly had an “Oh” expression.

“Luna accepted them to train together with the day guards. When you woke up, she wanted to retract them, but the guards liked the training so much that she had no other choice, so she allowed them to continue their training under you. She still is not happy with it though.” Celestia explained. Aren sighed once.

“Alright, better for us. More soldiers, Better chances.” Celestia nodded once and left the training area. When she left, he looked back to the guards.

“Alright, who was my substitution while I was gone?” He asked. The purple Pegasus on the front lifted one of his hooves. Aren crooked an eyebrow, but then nodded. “What did you do?” Purple Edge walked forward and stopped before Aren.

“We saw that your resurrection field still worked and used it. Like our training with you for the two weeks, we divided our teams into two equally strong ones and battled to the death. Then we made a 10 minute break, where everypony could give another pony tips. We then trained one hour to get better through these tips. We repeated that two times a day.”

Aren hummed. He then looked at the guards and their motivated looks. “Actually, I have nothing against this kind of substitution. You handled it better than I thought. Well, let’s see how good you got.” He then lowered his stance to a fighting position. “You know the drill.” The day guards tensed and looked at him with seriousness in their eyes while the night guards didn’t look as impressed.

‘We all against one pony? He seriously can’t be this strong.’ Most of the night guards thought. Suddenly the earth ponies and Pegasi started to move. The earth ponies spread and circled Aren while the Pegasi started to fly in unusual patterns around him. The unicorns stood a little apart and readied spells for the upcoming combat.

One of the night guards thought back to a conversation he had with a day guard before this day. “You know, while training under Captain Purple Edge, we are divided between two equally strong forces. While this is nice, it is nothing compared to High-General Arens’ training. While training with him, we fight together against an unstoppable force.” He honestly couldn’t understand why he thought of him that highly.

Aren looked around, and saw that he could attack nopony without getting flanked by other ones. ‘They got better.’ He simply thought while smiling proudly. He only activated one of his passive omnipresence spells. The one that allows him to see everything in a 10 meter radius. Checking every soldier, he saw some of them getting ready to attack.

Behind him was an earth-pony ready to run at him, while two unicorns charged their horns with a movement and a changing spell. ‘I know what they plan.’ Aren smirked inwards. Suddenly the earth-pony started running at him. Reading the targets of the two spells of the unicorns, he saw that the movement spell was targeted at the earth pony and the changing spell at the floor around him.

Aren quickly jumped back, and two stone pillars crashed together where he stood before. They would’ve held him in place, so the stallion could tackle him while being buffed by that movement spell. Of course, the guards weren’t that stupid and wouldn’t let a charging earth-pony run right in those stone pillars. They practiced this scenario a thousand times. The pillars connected at a pretty high place, so the earth-pony could slide under it.

When he slid under the pillars, they suddenly crashed down on him and pierced him with stone shards. Aren obviously knew, that they planned this and jumped right back on the pillars and smashed them, in order to squash the earth pony under it. One down. He jumped to the right and just when he landed, a Pegasus came bolting through his old position. The Pegasus didn’t stop flying since he would be an easy target to hit and just made a wide curve.
Suddenly he got impaled by stone. Aren took one of the collapsed stone pillar pieces and threw it right at him, remembering that he always was the best at darts. Quickly jumping up, he evaded the earth pony that was passing through under him buffed with a movement spell. Aren quickly grabbed him and threw him at two unicorns. Suddenly there was a tremendous blood splash when the earth-pony started flying, but he still seemed to continue on his flight.

The two unicorns quickly targeted two points to teleport to, and teleported right away. Arriving at the new destination, they got smashed by the flying lower half of the earth-pony. Aren knew that those unicorns won’t let them get hit that easily and predicted that they would teleport away. So before, he threw the earth-pony-guard, he halved him while throwing and only threw the upper half at them. Reading their spells, he saw where they wanted to teleport, and threw the lower half. When they arrived at the spot, they got instantly stunned and Aren started running over to them.

Suddenly Aren jumped again, and two earth ponies crushed together under him. Using them as stepping stones, he pushed himself high up and grabbed a charging Pegasus. Tearing away a wing, he threw the wing at a unicorn that just released a fire spell. The fire spell hit the wing not two meters away from the unicorn, and the resulting explosion killed it. Aren, still in the air, threw the rest of the Pegasus to another charging Pegasus.

Arriving at the spot where the two stunned unicorns were, he grabbed them both and suddenly held them to the right. Two spears quickly tore through them, which were originally supposed to pierce Aren. Turning the Pegasi around, he took hold of the shafts of the spears and used the pierced Pegasi on the tip of the spears as hammers, to smash the two earth-ponies the spears belonged to.

Suddenly punching at a random point on the floor, a unicorn on the other side of the field collapsed. It planned to change the stone into something that could smash Aren, but he saw this and punched with all his power on it, so the exertion of its’ magical reserves far surpassed the expected value, resulting in magical backlash that rendered it unconscious. Grabbing the spear of a charging Pegasus, he rotated the kinetic power in its’ charge into an overhead smash, which destroyed a charging earth pony and the Pegasus.

Suddenly smashing his hands into the torso of the collapsed earth pony, he tore him apart into a shower of gore and insides, which blinded two swooping Pegasus, which then slammed into each other. Looking around again, he saw four unicorns charging their horns. They were preparing a swapping-spell, a changing-spell, a defensive spell, and an offensive spell. Aren realizing what they planned, looked at the charging purple Pegasus and jumped up, avoiding two stone pillars slamming into each other.

He landed on the stone pillars and jumped again in a 45° to the Pegasus. Suddenly the Pegasus was gone and in its’ place was a unicorn with a readied fire spell, having a shield spell, protecting it. Aren made a summer sault and flew over the fire-spell, landing on top of the shield spell. Holding himself with his legs, he smashed down once and punched a hole into the shield. Not stopping now, he grabbed the unicorn by its’ mane and rolled over it, so it was now on his back.

The unicorn got impaled, by the charging Purple Edge, who was swapped to the old position of the unicorn. Aren tore it apart, and the resulting blood, blinded the purple Pegasus momentarily. Taking the freed spear, Aren turned around and pierced Purple Edge through the head. Swinging in a circle motion, he threw him at a unicorn, pulling out the spear while throwing. The unicorns used shields this time, to protect themselves from the impact of the corpse. What they didn’t know, is that Aren planned this and made his strongest throw with the spear. The corpse hit the barrier with a thud, but before it could slide down, it got penetrated by a spear that was thrown with incredible strength, also penetrating the shield and piercing the unicorn behind it.

The fight continued like this for another five minutes, and after this, everypony was dead. Not three minutes later, they all got resurrected by the resurrection field. Aren was creating the point list while he waited for them. The day guards looked somewhat happy, to have their old trainer back while the night guards looked defeated. It was not easy on dignity when being defeated by one being.

Every guard walked over to the floating list and looked at it.

Purple Edge: 17
White Side: 15
Break Neck 14
Sang Pun 14

….

Timber Wonder 8

The lowest guard had eight points. They actually got better, but their scores were still not as high as they expected. Aren then explained them, what their flaws were, and they trained on them. There was another fight in one hour and another training session. Nearly every fight going the same way, as the first one. When the training of the guards was finished, Aren had a one hour pause. He walked over to Celestia.

“Did you enjoy the show?” He simply asked. Celestia still wasn’t comfortable with the violence, but was also happy that Aren could control himself. She didn’t want to destroy the moment and just nodded with a warm smile.

“The fight was really impressive. I never saw my guards fighting this good before. It even looked like they got you two times.” Aren snickered a little.

“Maybe in four years. Didn’t you notice that I didn’t even use my weapon or my magic?” he simply asked with a smirk. Celestia then realized that he was right and thought about, what they will be learning in one hour. When the first session of immortal training would begin. She felt kind of nervous.

One hour later, Chrysalis, Ravien, Luna, and Celestia were standing on the training area, looking at Aren, who looked around and nodded once.

“Good, seems like we are all here. So, welcome to immortal battle training. I will be your instructor Aren. Don’t ask for my full name, it’s too long.” That made Celestia snicker a little inwards, remembering when he showed Luna his full name, but she didn’t show her amusement.

“The first thing we will be learning is, how can magic win us a fight. One of you tell me, what can I do with magic, to win a fight.” He looked expectantly at the four immortals before him. Celestia looked excited to finally begin training while Luna certainly didn't want to be here. Ravien looked at Aren with respect since he was told by his parents, how strong he is. Chrysalis just seemed bored. Celestia raised a hoof.

“You don’t need to raise a hoof. Just tell me.” Aren simply stated.

“We can damage the enemy.” Aren wrote this down on a floating list.

“Right, damage. Now what else can we do?” He asked. Chrysalis and Luna looking somewhat confused. They weren’t watching the training of the guards and were not been instructed in another dimension, like Ravien.

“We can enhance battle capabilities.” Ravien stated. Aren nodded and wrote it down.

“Alright, what else?” Luna obviously taking the opposite of it.

“We can weaken our enemy.” Aren nodded and also wrote this down. He then motioned for them to continue. Celestia remembered back at the training of the guards and thought about more ways. There was one more.

“We can change objects and the environment.” Aren nodded and wrote it.

“Very good, what else?” This time it was Luna, who thought back to the moment, when Aren absorbed her moon beam.

“We can protect ourselves.” Aren nodded again and added it.

“Well done. I think that’s enough theory for now.” He then looked over to Chrysalis, who just seemed to not pay attention. “Not interesting enough for you?” He asked her. Chrysalis just rolled her eyes.

“Why do we need to know that? It should be enough to just shoot a beam and be done with this.” Chrysalis said. It was understandable why she said this since she never saw any immortal fight, except for Celestia on that wedding. Aren smirked a little cocky.

“That’s a good question. Why do we need to know more? How about I show you.” He then simply levitated Chrysalis up in the air. She flailed around but couldn’t do anything. “So what do you do now? What will you do, when your enemy just levitates you, like you are just some kind of object?” He asked. Chrysalis smirked.

“I will just shoot you.” Suddenly, she looked like she got electrocuted, and was stiff as a stone.

“So what will you do, if I just stun you while levitating you? Got any ideas?” He asked with a mocking tone. Chrysalis couldn’t answer since she was stunned completely. Luna and Celestia looked intently. This was a very good question. What would they do in Chrysalis situation? They then realized that they didn’t know the answer to that. Ravien knew the answer because his parents showed him the basics of magical combat, but didn’t say a word.
“I could do anything with you right now. I could shake you, I could let you dance, or I could just simply kill you. You would be dead, and I would just continue on with life. But since you couldn’t know any better, I will just let you down.” He then just levitated her back to the floor, where he also released her from the stun spell.

Chrysalis stood up, and looked like she was furious. She couldn’t control herself and released a massive green beam of magic at Aren. The other immortals just rolled their eyes because they knew where this was going. Aren simply made an orange glow with his hand, and caught the beam while forming it into a sphere. Chrysalis looked shocked. Why did her attack not work?

Aren looked at the orb in his hand and hummed. “You know, this lesson will come later. Right now we need to learn something different. As you can see, throwing around pointless streams of magic is well, pointless. Every immortal that knows at least something about combat can do what I just did.” He looked over to Ravien and formed the orb back into the beam that was directed to him earlier.

Ravien just simply did the same thing Aren did and watched the newly formed orb in his claw. Chrysalis felt humiliated. Her strongest attack, which destroyed the god of the sun some months ago, was just being played with like it’s a childs’ ball. She was furious, but she couldn’t do anything right now. Aren nodded approvingly to Ravien, for catching the beam.

“Good job, but like I said, this will not be taught right now. First we will learn to dissipate the auto-spells. Auto-spells are the spells that choose their targets automatically. Like my levitation spell earlier. While it is harder to dissipate the ones that are not used against you, it is easy to dissipate those, which are targeted at you. Ravien, a demonstration.”

Aren started to levitate Ravien, but before he even got lifted 30 centimeters, he was back at the floor again, not looking out of concentration or exhausted in any way. Aren nodded approvingly again. “There are two ways to dissipate an auto-spell. There’s and ineffective, but easy one, and an effective, but hard one. We will begin with the easy one. It really is one of the easiest spells out there. In fact, it’s so easy that even your world should know it for over 3000 years. Since this is no advanced spell, your world is not ready for, I should be able to teach it to you.” Aren then thought about something.

“Actually it’s not even a spell. It’s just a simply action. Celestia could you please levitate me?” Celestia was a little surprised by the sudden request but complied. Aren was now floating in the air. “Alright, as you see, I am now being influenced by her auto-spell. An auto-spell always takes a point as target. I can show you.” Suddenly a yellow point showed up at his left side of his rib-cage.

“Celestia took this point to attach the auto-spell. The easy way to resist one is to just use your magic on that target point. Your magic will cleanse your body of this point and the spell goes into nothingness.” He then just popped down at the floor. Celestia was surprised by the feeling to just loose her target like that. It was like leaning against a wall, which just vanished.

“To detect that point is also quite easy. You just have to check your body for any magic, which not belongs to you. When you found it, you just splash a little bit of your own magic at it, and the spell looses its’ focus. Now let’s test this. Celestia, you begin.” He then began to levitate Celestia into the air. She closed her eyes and suddenly she wasn’t being levitated anymore. “Good job.” Aren praised her. He then looked over to Ravien, and just waved dismissively. He already knew how to do that. Luna was next. He levitated her up, and she honestly seemed like she didn’t like him to just levitate her, but for the sake of learning, she suppressed her anger.

She also plopped down to the ground. Aren nodded and walked over to Chrysalis, doing the same thing. She also managed to do this exceptionally easily. He then went back to his old place and smiled at his pupils.

“Well done. That was the easy way, but I need to tell you one thing. Don’t even think about using a constant stream of magic to wash over you. It’s way to taxing on your resources. Now, could someone tell me the problem of this solution?” The only one who looked not confused was Ravien, but Aren didn’t want him to answer since he had an unfair head start.

Luna then spoke up. “Even if the spell dissipates rather quickly, it still affects us at the beginning.” Aren nodded approvingly.

“Correct. For this, we have solution two. This will be a little more difficult to perform. Have any of you, changed your sight with magic?” Luna, Chrysalis and Ravien nodded. Celestia knew how it works and what it does, but never performed one. “Good. For solution two, we need to use the passive spell, aura sight.” Celestia remembered that spell. It was the one, which her guards used in the forest to detect the wolves.

“To perform the aura-sight, you need to put a layer of your magic over your eyes. The only thing it does is to change your vision into one that highlights magical energy. It’s really easy to perform.” The four tried, with Ravien being the first to succeed. Chrysalis then followed quickly, just before Luna was able to do it. Celestia needed a little longer, but also succeeded. Aren nodded again.

“Good, now look at Ravien.” They turned their gazes to him, and they noticed that a dot flew from Aren to Ravien, which then settled on his shoulder. “That dot you just saw, was my ‘connection’ (I think that’s how you call it in Equestria). Actually it’s called the TP (Targeting Process). The dot needs about 0.3 seconds to connect to its’ target, and another 0.2 seconds to get activated, and send out a magical return signal to its’ caster.”

“Now you can see it before you feel it. There are now three ways to hinder your opponent from using the instant spell. The first is to simply swipe away the symbol before it gets active, or your opponent uses the spell.” He nodded for Ravien to try. Ravien shot his dot, and Aren just washed it away when it landed.

“The second is to make a simple impulse of your magic, when it lands. It costs no magic at all if the pulse is only very short since it’s all inside your body, but it can only swipe it away, as long as it doesn’t send magic.” Nodding to Ravien, he shot his target again. Before it could hit, the dot got reflected by an impulse from Arens’ magic.

“The last way, you can use it when you feel like boasting, is to deflect it with your own magic.” Nodding to Ravien, he did it again, and before the dot came even near Aren, his magical reserves changed form and a spike of magical energy swiped away the target while flying in the air. The four immortals knew that this was exceedingly difficult. Even Ravien couldn’t do this.
“It is very difficult to learn and I won’t expect you to, but this also has its’ perks. Ravien could you try teleporting beside me?” Ravien shrugged once then they saw the dot flying to the location, Ravien tried to teleport to. Arens’ magic quickly swished out and destroyed the dot. As a result, Ravien was not able to teleport. This certainly seemed interesting.

“There’s even more. Ravien, if you would please use an auto-stunning spell.” Ravien complied and used it. When the target flew, it got swiped away by the magical spike and changed course to a tree. It hit the tree, and 0.2 seconds later, the tree rustled like a stone impacted with it.

To say that the gathered immortals were impressed would be an understatement. They never heard about the opponent choosing a new path for a spell. If the wrong spell was used, this could be very dangerous. “Against inexperienced magic users, this is a little overkill, but you need to be able to do this, against experienced ones. I will show you why.” He turned to Celestia. “Try blocking all the levitation spells with whatever you want.” He simply stated.

He shot one dot and Celestia just swished it away when it landed on her. Then two dots at the same time shot out from Aren. Celestia had no problems. “Easy isn’t it?” Aren asked nicely. Celestia reluctantly nodded. Then there were hundreds of dots suddenly flying towards her. The sheer amount overwhelmed her, and she got hit by every dot. The others tried to get their jaws back from the floor, but failed.

“As you can see, the first two ways are too slow to stop this many spells. With the third way, you can create a magical shield like this, which could deflect every single spell, but like I said, you don’t need to learn this right now. I just show you what’s possible, and if you want you can try to learn it. It took me several years to get this good at reflecting targets so don’t try learning it over night.” Suddenly some stacks of paper appeared in the air.

“These are lists of auto-spells you should know for basic combat, against experienced and inexperienced fighter, but remember that the most of them will only work on inexperienced ones since the experienced ones can destroy the targets as they want. As homework, I want you to learn them and memorize them. You should know the most of them already. If you have any more questions, just talk to me. Training is dismissed for today.” Aren announced.

The immortals grabbed the paper and looked at them. Even Luna and Chrysalis looked interested. It seemed like this would be more fun than they expected. Little did they know that tomorrow would be less fun, but bloodier. The resurrection field wasn’t there for decoration purposes…

Author's Note

Damn, it's highschool all over again.

Training The Elements

„Oh come on. You saw how I was able to control myself. They really need the training.” Aren exclaimed with an annoyed voice. Celestia just sighed.

“I just don’t know if you are ready yet to train the elements. They are civilians and can’t be treated like soldiers.” Aren eye-rolled.

“That sounded like you thought I never trained civilians before.” Aren sighed. “Trust me on this. I can control myself, and I can promise you that they won’t get hurt by me. They are our strongest asset in the battle against Oran, so they need to be learned accordingly.” Celestia pondered about this for some time.

“Alright Aren. But only if you promise me that they won’t see any blood, death, insides, or psychological terror, alright?” Aren smiled and enthusiastically nodded. “Good. When do you want to train them?”

“The schedule for immortal training will be delayed for two hours. I will squeeze two hours of training with the elements between my two other training lessons.” Aren scratched the back of his neck. “I feel less like a fighter and more like a damn teacher.” He said while giggling a little. Celestia nodded once while smiling warmly.

“Good, then I will tell the elements to meet you tomorrow.” She scribbled down at parchment and sent it straight to Spike. Celestia then turned around and looked questionably at Aren. “So, since we still can’t leave each others side because of your condition, what will we do now?” Aren grinned.

“Well you can learn those auto-spells I wrote down while I…. well… What do I do? Meh, I’ll just help you.” Celestia and Aren then walked to a secluded garden and Celestia started training while Aren gave her some tips about how to use some of them in battle. So the day passed by, and another morning arose.

Aren had no problems with the training of the guards, and after the guard training was finished, he waited for the six friends to arrive. After some time, the six walked together to Aren. Twilight looked happy to see Aren, just like Pinkie Pie, who can’t hate anypony. Rainbow Dash and Applejack still looked unfavorable at him. Fluttershy was afraid of him, just like from everything else in the world. Rarity seemed kind of nervous. It was obvious that she wanted to say something.

“Hello there, Aren. We are ready to receive our lessons.” Twilight exclaimed with a spark of enthusiasm and interest in her eyes. Aren nodded once and started his explanation.

“Welcome to the special preparation training for the upcoming fight with Oran. I am your instructor Aren. Don’t ask my full name since it’s just too damn long. The things you will be trained in will revolve around three topics. Teamwork, evasion, and stealth. Twilight told you this already, I presume?” A collective nod answered his question.

“Now, before we begin. Are there any questions?” An orange hoof shot up. Aren sighed once. ‘The same shit every time I start teaching someone.’

“You don’t need to raise your hoof. It’s ok if you just ask.” Applejack lowered her hoof and looked somehow unpleased. “Why are YOU teaching us?” Well there goes the happy atmosphere of training. Aren groaned once inwards, but didn’t show it.

“Because I know Oran the best and I have fought longer than your Princesses lived. Any more questions?” Fluttershy look around Rarity, whom she was hiding behind.

“W-W-W-Will there b-be vio-violence?” She asked while stuttering. Aren shook his head.

“No, since you are civilians you won’t get into any fights.” Aren then flashed a grin. “Unless you want to.” Fluttershy eeped and went back behind Rarity. The rest of the six friends looked at Aren disapprovingly. When there were no more questions, Rarity looked like she finally made her resolve. Not long after, she asked the question that burned on her mind for the last six months.

“Why did you save me back in the woods?” The six friends were excited about the question. They also wanted to know why. As all the expecting eyes looked at the nonchalantly in his ear drilling Aren, they hoped that there would come some answer that would show chivalry. Everypony from the group knew that Rarity had a crush on Aren since that day. She daily told them about how long she waited for her shining knight to just save her.

Maybe this time Rarity has finally found her true love. Maybe she could finally settle down her search for her prince. Aren looked at Rarity with a bored expression, and then something happened that none of the six ponies would have anticipated, except maybe for Pinkie Pie, no one knows what happens in her head. Aren rolled his eyes.

“The same reason why I am training the six of you. We need the Elements Of Harmony in the fight against Oran. I don’t know what I would have done if one of the bearers just died.” The ponies were shocked. They would have never thought that he would tell it to them this straight. Didn’t he have any remorse to destroy Raritys’ feelings? Applejack slowly walked forward.

“So ya would’ve also done this fer me and fer the rest of mah friends?” She asked slowly. Aren simply nodded. Applejack walked back, knowing that Raritys’ heart probably was destroyed. For the last six months, she hoped that he would wake up from his coma, and would swoop her from her hooves to ride into the sunset with her. There was still one last piece of hope remaining.

She looked at him. “Would you have done it, when I wouldn’t be a bearer?” She asked, hoping to get a yes. Instead, he just looked like Rarity said something ridiculous.

“No, why should I? We don’t even like each other. That’s at least what I thought after you shot me that venomous glare when I wanted to ride in your chariot.” Aren shrugged while explaining. To say that Raritys’ heart got obliterated would be an understatement, but she didn’t show it to the outside. Instead, she just looked down at the floor.

“I see…” She just stated slowly. Her friends could feel how much that hurt her. Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy walked up to her and comforted her while Twilight seemed sad that she actually thought of Aren as a friend. Rainbow Dash was furious. She flew into his face and looked him deep into the eyes.

“How dare you shoot her off like that? What did she ever do to you?” Aren raised an eyebrow. “Shoot her off? It’s not like she liked me or something.” He shrugged again. Rainbow wasn’t phased by this and just turned around to fly back to her friends.

“Not anymore.” She said to him with anger while comforting Rarity. Twilight also walked over to Rarity and shot one last tearful look at Aren. How could she think of him as a friend? Such a cold heart. He never said anything emotional. He never asked how she felt. He even ignored her, as long as she didn’t speak to him directly or in a meeting. She thought that after the good time they had while he answered Twilights’ questions that they were friends. How wrong somepony can be.

Aren tapped his foot impatiently while he watched the friends hugging each other. After some time, he had enough. “Can we start training now? I haven’t got all day.” He stated annoyed. The friends looked angrily at him. Now it was Applejacks’ turn to get mad. She walked up to him and exclaimed her anger.

“Ain’t that just the spot-on example of a flank-hole? Can’t even keep his mouth shut after he broke a heart.” Aren was a little taken aback by the exclamation that he broke a heart. So Rarity had feelings for him. Well she should have thought about that before, she chose her side when she glared at him, and when she talked behind his back about him. It was hard to NOT hear the talking while having 350 omnipresence spells active. Nonetheless, he answered.

“Should I have lied to her?” That made Applejack even angrier. Not because she took it as an insult, but because she had to admit that a lie would have been easier to take. But she couldn’t possibly betray her element and say yes.

“No, but ya’ll could’ve told it friendlier.” Aren suddenly narrowed his eyes and didn’t seem like he didn’t care anymore. He looked her deep into the eyes and told her with a deep anger-filled voice.

“Listen here, Applejack. I am not here to make friends. I am here to build an army that can stand up to Oran. I don’t care what you six think of me, as long as it doesn’t get into our cooperation in a fighting situation, and now I’d like to start training.” Applejack could explode out of rage, but instead she just looked at him like she tried to kill him with this glare. Then she turned around and walked back to her friends.

After some time, the friends were finally ready for training. He looked around the ponies that hated him, yes even Pinkie Pie, and smiled when they were ready to begin. “Alright, so we can begin. Your first lesson will be about teamwork. When you pass, we will move on to the next one. To pass this lesson you have to do one simple thing.” He held up his index-finger.

“Catch me, with whatever means necessary. I will stay at the training grounds here all the time. Since you are six and I am alone, you shouldn’t have that much trouble with this. You can begin now.” He just continued standing there, and looked at the ponies, who slowly started to spread. Of course, it didn’t take long for one certain rainbow-colored Pegasus to take a head start.

Aren watched as the Rainbow rushed at him in an obvious way. At the last moment, he simply stepped to the side, and Dash missed him. Before she impacted with a tree, she curved to the air and started flying circles. It was obvious what she would try. Aren looked over to Celestia who watched everything from the border of the Rezz-field. He motioned with his eyes to the flying Pegasus then to the floor. Celestia didn’t immediately get what he was trying to say, but understood that he wanted to ask what he should do when Rainbow would crash into the stone floor. Celestia simply shrugged.
Aren rolled his eyes and waited for the Pegasus to strike. When Rainbow Dash started, Aren evaded with intention too early, so she wouldn’t smash into the floor. She turned her dive and was now flying at Arens new location. Her friends were cheering when they saw that she should get him, but stopped when he simply sidestepped again. Rainbow was able to stop her fall undamaged.

Twilight realized that this wouldn’t be successful and shot a telekinesis spell at him. Aren simply deflected the target to Rainbow Dash, and saw how Twilight had a grin on her face. She couldn’t know that he deflected it since magical activities are only visible during Aura-vision. Just when she tried to levitate him, she levitated Dash instead. The confused look on Twilights’ face was priceless.

“Whoa, stop that Twilight.” Dash said while she floated through the air. Suddenly the flow stopped, and Twilight looked in panic at everything around her.

“This can’t be. I targeted Aren. How could I fail at a simple levitation spell?” Aren had to snicker when she panicked like this. Twilight turned to him and instantly knew that he was responsible for this. Her panic turned into anger, and she shot another one. The same process repeated, but this time it was Twilight who lifted herself. She knew of nearly every kind of spell and could perform many. She knew how most spells worked, but she never heard about somepony who could redirect spells on new targets.

Now it was Applejacks’ turn, and she threw her lasso at him. Aren just rolled his eyes and cut the lasso in the air with some simple magic. Throwing away her rope, she charged at him, but he only hopped back every time she got near him. Rainbow was now back in the action and also tried to get him. At one time, she timed her charge badly, and when he evaded the two ponies crashed into each other, forming a confused pile of ponies.

Suddenly, Aren saw pink. Pinkie was running at him in unreal speed, and he barely evaded to the side, where Pinkie was already waiting for him. He jumped over her and evaded her hooves that were moving extremely fast. Not relenting, Pinkie turned around and sprung at him like a spring. Aren never let her out of his eyes and could evade now pretty well. He just got overwhelmed the first time she came at him. Suddenly she vanished, and reappeared behind Aren. If he wouldn’t have activated this sight-spell, he would have been caught instantly, but instead he just jumped away.

Pinkie thought she had him there, but this was not the case. Rarity only sat around, not wanting to get sweaty by all the running, and just tried to use some spells, which got deflected pretty quickly. In the end, she gave up and saw that there was nothing she could do. Twilight tested a lot of spells and watched what worked and what not. After a while, she realized that only spells that seek a target are being deflected and only then, when the target was in a five meter radius around Aren.

Fluttershy hasn’t really moved the entire time, but when the three chasing ponies slammed into each other, she got mad at Aren for humiliating them like this. She flew up to him and stared him into the eyes.

“How dare you use my friends like that? Have you no shame of picking on girls that are smaller than you?” She looked him into the eyes, and Aren simply looked back at her with an amused smile.

“Well well well, what do we have here? I didn’t think that this world had someone that could use an imperator-spell. And here I thought I would be in a peaceful world. Say Fluttershy, can anyone else do that?” The ponies were taken aback by the easiness on how he just shrugged the stare off. Fluttershy realizing that her stare didn’t work backed down again and hid behind Rarity. Twilight still didn’t like Aren, but her curiosity got the better of her.

“What’s an imperator-spell?” Aren looked over to her and explained.

“Imperator-spells are spells which take over parts of the mind. They range from manipulation, over control, to destruction of the mind. That what Fluttershy used was an emotional-mind-control-spell. If the target feels a special kind of emotion, to which the spell is configured to, the target looses control over its’ mind and an illusion will be built, which tells the target that they have absolutely no chance against the caster. In this case, it should be some bad emotion. Not quite sure which one.”

“Whenever the target of her spell feels that certain emotion, she can invade its’ mind, and do whatever she likes. There are emperors that are only emperors because of an imperator spell. They took control over everyone important in a state and just told them to be their leader.” Suddenly Aren jumped to the right, evading the cyan Pegasus that was flying at him from behind. Before she could crash into somepony else, Aren levitated her and let her plop down at the floor.

“Don’t interrupt me while I am explaining something.” He scolded her. Rainbow just stood up and readied herself to charge at him again. “Sit down.” Aren commanded Rainbow Dash, who instantly sat down. Rainbow Dash was confused why her body sat down without her giving the order. Aren gestured to her.

“This is a body-control spell. If the target has not sufficient enough mental barriers its’ body does everything I want. And I really mean absolutely everything. But don’t worry. I won’t do anything to you. What you should know, is that imperator spells are forbidden to use outside of teaching ground since they are one of the dirtiest and darkest spells that exist. Many people think that being controlled by someone is worse than getting killed.”

Fluttershy looked somewhat shocked. Her ability she was born with, was some evil spell? She couldn’t really believe it. She was born with that ability, and she wouldn’t have thought that this would be something evil, but if she honestly thought about it, Aren seemed right. She was mind-controlling some of her animals. She began to silently cry, overwhelmed by the guilt. Twilight walked up to her and placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder.

“You have done nothing wrong, Fluttershy. You couldn’t know that your stare was a mind-control-spell, and you also never used it for something evil.” It took a while, but Fluttershy calmed down. The others continued to try to get Aren, but failed miserably. After one hour, they all were exhausted beyond belief. Aren looked at them and shook his head disapprovingly.

“I didn’t expect you to catch me on the first day, but I also didn’t expect this.” He walked over to them. “Have you ever listened to the name of this lesson? It’s TTTEEEAAAMMMwork. The only ones’ that acted kind of like a team were Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. The rest of you only sat around, tried something pointless or did both. Try to act as a team the day after tomorrow and try catching me for real. This wouldn’t be a team training exercise if you could catch me alone.” He walked away again. “Training is dismissed for today.” He told them while walking over to Celestia.

“So what did you think? Was this okay?” Celestia looked sad and sighed.

“Aren, while your training was alright, you really didn’t need to do that to Rarity. She did nothing to deserve this harsh of a treatment.” Aren raised an eyebrow.

“Well first of all, I didn’t know that she had feelings for her. Second, because she was unable to run to the guards while fighting those wood-wolves, I had to go through a pretty bad time. You know, pain and coma and stuff. Third, she hated me before I did that, so why should I care now about her?” Aren stated simply. Celestia shook her head.

“Aren, what you did wasn’t some simple prank or punch. You destroyed her hopes, which she had for the last six months. Did you know that she visited you nearly every second day in the hospital, even though she didn’t know you at all?” Aren felt a bit of guilt suddenly. He didn’t know that he meant so much to her. If he had only known, he wouldn’t have been such an asshole.

“Maybe I overreacted.” Then he sighed. “There’s something you should know. I swore to myself that I will never have a mortal as a friend anymore. I swore this after my 27th best friend died. It doesn’t matter how much you like them, you will outlive them eventually as long as you are immortal. I think I just overreacted because I started liking her a little, but wanted to end any chance on friendship to protect myself.” He groaned. “Oh I don’t know. It’s been over 300,000 years since I was this long without my mind altering spell. I don’t know my own feelings anymore.”

Celestia also sighed. She knew how it was to feel somepony important die. This was probably the worst part of being immortal. “I think you should talk to her.” She told him. Aren sighed and shook his head.

“No, I made my decision, and I will go through with it.” Celestia didn’t like this, but didn’t want to tell him what he had to do. They both talked for another hour until immortal training started. All of the four immortals were gathered in the middle, and Aren looked happy that they were here.

“Hello everyone. Today we will begin with two basics of combat. The first is, changing your magic into something that actually damages your opponent.” This time none of them looked skeptical since they all saw what a pure magic beam does, when used against someone experienced in combat. Absolutely nothing. Aren crooked an eyebrow. “By the way, why didn’t you use magic against that huge wolf at the clearing?”

Celestia and Luna looked confused at each other. “Timberwolves are magic immune. We can’t use magic against them.” Celestia explained. Aren raised his eyebrow further.

“Well that didn’t stop me from blowing him up, did it?” He asked. Luna and Celestia had to think for a while, when they remembered that he apparently used magic against a timberwolf. Luna shook her head.

“How did you do it? When I used my magic against him, he absorbed it.” She asked somewhat desperate sounding. Aren shook his hand.
“Because you attacked him with magical energy. I didn’t attack him with magical energy.” Luna also crooked an eyebrow.

“And how did you do that?” Aren smirked a little.

“Let me ask you another question. How do you light a candle?” Now it was Celestia that said something.

“We use our magic and gather it around the candle. We then transform our magic into fire, and the candle starts burning.” Aren nodded.

“And why didn’t you use it against it?” He asked, and Celestia answered.

“He would absorb all of the magic before we could transform it into fire.” She said, and Aren nodded again.

“And why didn’t you transform it earlier?” He now asked. Celestia answered again.

“Because as soon as it is transformed into fire, we can’t control it anymore. Which means we can only use fire at places where he does not stand.” Aren had an “oh” expression.

“You know that magical energy, when leaving the body, has some kind of kinetic force, right?” Celestia nodded. “And you know that something in motion, won’t stop until it gets disturbed by something, right?” Another nod. “Now think about what I asked, and start combining.” Celestia pondered about this for a while.

‘Let us recap. I have magical energy that moves towards a target which would absorb the energy. In order to not being able to absorb it, it needs to be transferred into something different. Since magical energy has a kinetic force, it won’t be stopped that easily. So when it flies, I could do something with it that does not destroy the kinetic force.’ Then her eyes widened.

“Of course, we could transform it on the way to the target.” Then she realized something. “But transforming magic while it moves around is exceptionally difficult. No pony ever really tried to bother with it, since there was no real reason to learn it. If it would be easier maybe.” Aren smirked and nodded.

“But not impossible. This is the standard kind of damage spell immortals use in combat.” He then stood up and out of his palm shot a long ray of pure fire. He only shot at some stones but stopped rather quickly. The demonstration was impressive. “To hinder our enemy in absorbing our magical energy, we transform the beam of magic to something different when it leaves our body. Depending on what you are able to change it to, this spell can be nearly worthless and also your strongest. In how many forms can you change your magic into?”

This time it was Ravien who spoke up. “There are five basic elements. Energy, Earth, water, wind, and fire. Energy is the raw form of magic when it leaves the body, and the rest should be self-explanatory.” Aren nodded once approvingly.

“These are the basic elements. Earth is nearly useless in combat, just like water. Both elements only annoy your opponent. Wind is more useful since it can cut the enemy. The most useful in combat is obviously fire since Fire is a form of pure destruction.” Aren smirked. “But there is more. Like I said, these are only the BASIC elements, so it means there are other elements as well.” Even Ravien didn’t know that, and the others listened intently.

“For example, this.” Aren suddenly shot a beam, made out of lightning at a stone, which just exploded. “Or this.” Suddenly he shot a beam made out of metal at the damaged stone. The metal punched through the remains and went into the ground. Luna shook her head.

“How did you do that?” Aren just continued smirking and explained.

“Before you learn this, you first need to learn to use the basic elements. You won’t be able to learn this right away since it is pretty hard at the firs time to mold magic while it’s moving away from you into something different. You should practice this while you don’t have training with me. Think of this as your homework for the next weeks, but now we come to the main-lesson for today.” He walked away from the immortals.

“Defensive magic. Every elemental attack can be either, blocked, redirected, absorbed or controlled, but let me warn you first. Don’t even attempt to control anything, which you have no natural skill for. As magic users, we are only able to control magic, nothing else. Not even I am able to control the fire you could shoot at me. I would need to choose one of the other three tactics.”

Aren stopped and turned back to the immortals. With a warm smile, he exclaimed.

“You won’t get anymore instructions on how to defend yourself against elemental attacks since you can’t always rely on me, and you need to be able to come up with new techniques by your own. So instead of instructing you on how to do it, we directly proceed to the practical test.” Still having a warm and friendly smile, he opened his hand in which a fireball was.

“In the practical part of this lesson you have only one simple goal.”

“Survive.”

Author's Note

Yeah, Aren is an asshole. Btw there will be more training chapters, but those will be sprayed over the next four years, so expect a lot of time jumps.

I hope the huge amount of explaining of how magical battle works doesn't bore you oO

Doing The Impossible

Chrysalis and Luna were not happy with what Aren said. Of course, they would be trained in battle tactics and magic, but this came a little… sudden. They obviously didn’t like this. Ravien already knew that this would be coming sooner or later since his parents warned him from Arens’ training, and also told him that he will die more than once in it.

Celestia just sighed. She knew Aren better than all the others on Equestria, so it was obvious to her that they would come to this point eventually. Of course, she wasn’t looking forward to it, but she accepted it since she saw the advance her guards made while training under him. If they genuinely wanted to stop Oran, then it was necessary.

“I never agreed on this!” Chrysalis shouted at Aren, who simply smirked.

“Oh yes, you did. You agreed to getting trained by me, and this is training. If you are concerned about your life, I can assure you that nothing will happen to it. We are currently in a resurrection-field. That means that we all can die in here to our hearts content and be revived later on.” Chrysalis still didn’t like it. She wouldn’t die, but it was going to hurt obviously.

Luna was even more against it, but she knew from experience that the barrier of the rezz-field was impossible to break and that there was no discussing with him about his training methods. So instead of complaining, she just waited for him to explain what he wanted. When Aren saw that no one wanted to say anything anymore he continued his explanation.

“Now then. In five minutes, I will release this little baby.” He pointed at the fireball in his hand. “This little thing has enough power in it to blow Canterlot to pieces, but don’t worry. The barrier will block it from spreading any further than the training grounds. So I advice you to come up with a solution to block or absorb the fire, but I will give you another advice. With a fire attack of this magnitude, it would be easier and less painful to absorb it. Absorbing elemental energy isn’t as hard as you might think, but I doubt that any of you would succeed at the first attempt.“

“The time begins now.” He simply stated. The immortals simply started thinking about a way to absorb fire. No one wanted to feel the pain of being burned to a crisp.

‘Alright Celestia, think. I need to, somehow, block or absorb the blast, but since the blast is of such strength I won’t be able to block it without using all my magic, so it would be better to start thinking of a solution to absorb the blast. Since the blast will engulf my whole body, I need to absorb it from every side, so a barrier should be sufficient enough, but how can a barrier absorb fire?’

‘Since fire is heat, I can maybe absorb it if I give my barrier the properties of ice. Maybe, but I need to think further. This can’t be this easy. Think Celestia.’

“Ten seconds to go.” Celestia widened her eyes. Was she already thinking for five minutes?

‘No going back now, I just use the ice-barrier.’

“Alright, here it comes.” Aren said, and suddenly the fireball in his hand exploded with a ferocious force. Celestia saw the blast and her life flashed before her. Even if, she knew that she won’t die for long in here, it still felt like her life would end. She just hoped that her barrier would absorb or at least block the blast. The blast reached her barrier and instantly gulped up the barrier together with her body. The death was so fast that it didn’t even take three seconds for her to die.

Celestia woke up with a start. She was standing at the training field, being looked at by Aren. Aren smirked once and said something.

“So how was dying for the first time?” He asked. The immortals just looked at the floor. Celestia was the first to answer.

“Honestly speaking, it was not as painful and bad as I thought. It was just simply over, like thinking in bed and suddenly falling asleep, but the feelings I felt before the blast hit me can’t be described. It wasn’t really bad, just strange.” She said while sounding somewhat calm. Luna and Ravien felt similar. After Celestia didn’t see Chrysalis she asked Aren about her.

“Aren, where’s Chrysalis?” Aren pointed with his index-finger to the side of the training field. There stood Chrysalis outside of the training field. Celestia crooked an eyebrow. “Why is she out there? Are we already done?” Aren smirked.

“No, she succeeded. She was the only one who survived, and not only this, but she survived completely unharmed. To be honest, I haven’t anticipated that.” The eyes of the remaining three immortals widened, and they all looked over to her. A cocky grin spread across Chrysalis face while she turned around and walked back to the castle.

“How?” Luna just asked.

“Well that’s what you need to find out.” Aren simply answered. Then he opened his hands again, and there was the fireball again. “Next round. Five minutes starting now.” Celestia instantly went back into thinking-mode.

‘Alright, cold barrier didn’t work. I’m pretty sure that the barrier part is right, but there is still the problem of absorbing the fire. There needs to be a way to absorb it since Chrysalis apparently survived. Maybe I can do it when I heat my barrier further up than the fire itself. No, it doesn’t sound like this would be able to absorb anything, but maybe this is the blocking method Aren told us about?’

“Ten seconds.”

‘Alright, let’s just try it.’ She summoned a barrier that was burning more fiercely than the bomb would. Aren then let loose his fireball and then it exploded. The explosion reached Celestia, and she felt the same feeling. It felt like her life would end in some seconds, and again her life flashed before her eyes.

When the blast reached her barrier it stopped for a very short time, but her barrier collapsed, and it was over. Again her life ended. She suddenly awoke again with a start. Looking around, she saw that still all three of them were in the barrier. This meant that nopony survived the blast, except for Aren. He conjured the Fireball again.

“Five minutes from now.”

Celestia began to think again. ‘How can I absorb an elemental force? How can I negate the strength of fire? I tried ice. I tried more fire. The fire-barrier held longer than the ice one, so I assume that this is the blocking technique, but with that blast, blocking is nearly impossible. How was Chrysalis able to do this, this easily? Think Celestia. I am pretty sure that in terms of magical talent, she isn’t really superior to us, but something made it easy for her to absorb it. What’s the difference between her and us?’

Then Celestias’ eyes widened. ‘Of course, she is a changeling. This means that she absorbs emotions. So logically, the process of absorbing emotions is similar to absorbing natural forces, but that still leaves one problem. How can I absorb emotions? If Twilight would be here, she could tell me. She studied them after the wedding for quite a while. She would know how Changelings absorb emotions.’

“Ten seconds.”

‘Already?! I don’t even have a plan.’ And then the blast was released and again, Celestia didn’t survive it. Celestia awoke again and looked around. This time, Luna was missing. After seeing this, she turned to the border of the training ground and there she was, waving at her sister giddily. Celestia waved back, happy that at least her sister was able to do it. When Aren wasn’t looking, Luna pointed at the sun with one of her hooves.

Celestia didn’t instantly know what Luna meant, but she got it when Aren announced that the time starts running again. Luna meant that the process of absorbing fire is similar to how they control their celestial bodies.

‘Let’s see. To control the sun, I need to embrace her power and let it take over my body. With this, I build up a connection to the sun, and can use its’ own power to move it.’ Then her eyes widened. ‘Of course, I need to let my barrier embrace the energy of the warmth of the fire in order to strengthen it. When the fire hits, it strengthens the barrier which makes the barrier stronger and the fire weaker. It’s like absorbing magical energy to make oneself stronger, or emotions in Chrysalis’ case.’

“Ten seconds.” This time Celestia was ready. The blast exploded and hit her shield. Celestia didn’t even feel exhaustion. Her barrier just held, and she didn’t even need to use magic to hold it up. After some seconds, the fire vanished, and Celestia stood at the ground, healthy. Aren smirked.

“Good job, Celestia. You can go out of the training field while I wait for this pile of ash to figure it out.” He gestured at a pile of ash, where Ravien stood before. Did she look like this too?

When Celestia reached the edge of the barrier, it just let her pass, and she now was beside Luna. “Congratulations, sister.” Luna said to her sister while smiling happily.

“Thank you, Luna.” She answered with a smile of her own. Suddenly she realized that they were not alone. Many guards watched them while training, probably being lured in by repetitive sounds of massive explosions. There also was somepony else watching.

“Princess Celestia, are you alright?” Twilight asked worried. Celestia was a little taken aback that Twilight was watching all this.

“Yes, I am fine.” Suddenly she heard Aren announcing that there were only ten seconds left, and everypony looked at the training grounds. Celestia wanted to know how the explosion looked from outside the area. Luna walked beside her.

“You may want to watch this. It looks really impressive.” Celestia didn’t need to be told. The explosion went off, and it just looked… powerful. Every last bit in the barrier was engulfed in flames. She had to shield her eyes, because of all the brightness the pressured explosion had. She also noticed that the ground shook like there was an earthquake.

‘I think, I didn’t notice the ground shaking because I was preoccupied with surviving the blast.’ She thought with a little bit of humor, but what Celestia impressed the most, was the fact that the barrier around the rezz-field could contain such a force. If this barrier would be created by the most advanced barrier spell they knew, it would take an unreal amount of energy to hold it up. To let it block such a blast would take at least 15 Arens’. It certainly was fascinating how advanced this barrier was.

When the blast subsided, another pile of ash was adorning the floor. Ravien couldn’t do it.

“How can somepony be this cruel?” Twilight asked while sounding rattled. Celestia looked over to her.

“What exactly do you mean my student?” Celestia asked Twilight.

“Forcing somepony into a barrier, which they can’t escape from and killing them repeatedly if said pony can’t find a way to defend itself. It seems so cruel.” Celestia watched Twilight, who just looked terribly sad. Seeing this, Celestia embraced Twilight.

“Twilight, I thought like this too before I felt death on myself. To be honest, I was really scared the first time, but I am not anymore. Do you know why?” Twilight shook her head. “Killing somepony is bad, because of the pain they are put through, and because they are taken away from their loved ones. Here, we are not taken away, and I can assure you that the death is swift. It’s not as bad as it seems.”

“You need to know that the death is not the punishment for our failure. The death has absolutely no consequence in this explosion since you will be revived and it’s over too fast to feel any pain. The punishment for our failures are our own feelings of disappointment. You can trust me, when I say that it is not as bad as you think.” She smiled reassuringly at Twilight.

“It still seems very brutal to me, but if you say that it isn’t as bad as it looks, I will trust you princess.” They turned around to see another explosion, but this time, Ravien survived. Celestia was happy to see that Ravien survived, but Twilight had other things on her mind. It took all her courage to ask the following question.

“Princess, how can you be friends with Aren?” Celestia was a little taken aback by the suddenness of the question. Looking down at the pleading face of her student, she answered.

“Because he is lonely.” She made a short break to let the information sink in. “He is afraid to make friends because they either betrayed him or they died. Yesterday after your training, I had a talk with him. He told me that the reason he acted in front of you, like he did, was because he started liking you all and that he didn’t want to be hurt again when you die someday. So he decided to destroy any hope of being friends with you.”

“But to answer your question, Twilight. I am his friend because he has no one else.” Twilight seemed sad. She honestly didn’t like Aren for what he did, but at least she understood now why he acted like this. This didn’t mean that she forgave him, though. Twilight simply looked back at her teacher.

“Thank you princess, for answering my question.” Celestia chuckled a little.

“It’s quite alright. I always told you that you can ask me anything you want.” Twilight nodded once and walked away, back to her friends while Aren walked to Celestia.

“Well that’s it for todays’ training. Hope I didn’t overdo it.” He said sheepishly while scratching the backside of his head. Celestia shook her head.

“No, you didn’t. Actually, I kind of like your training.” She answered him. Then they both walked over to the castle gates until Aren stopped.

“Say Celestia, I haven’t trained myself for quite a while. Could you maybe try to learn the transformation of moving magic, out here?” Celestia crooked an eyebrow.

“Sure, why not, but shouldn’t you be resting? You still need to conserve your magic, and you used lots of it in our training.” Aren waved a dismissive hand.

“That wasn’t much magic. With enough practice, you can create such a blast with the power of a mortal. In the whole time, I didn’t even use 10% of my reserves. Now let’s go.” He just turned around and walked back to the field. Celestia followed behind. When she arrived at the side of the training area, Celestia summoned a cushion, and her utensils, which she always uses when she practices magic. Sitting down she looked over to Aren, who just got ready to begin.

“Alrighty then. Let’s begin.” He said and pulled out his sword. He then began to make some basic slashed with it. He also tried different elements. Fire, Lightning, electrified steel, cutting diamonds, even molten gold. Celestia still didn’t know how it was possible to conjure any other elements aside from the basic ones, but Aren told her that they will learn this too.

“Ok, I still can do everything.” Then he summoned mannequins. After using another spell, the mannequins started flying around in the barrier in high-speed. Aren got in fighting position and began. He suddenly charged forward with speed, she never saw him use before. He quickly slashed down, splitting a mannequin together with the floor beneath it.

Jumping to the barrier and pushing himself away from it, he was now flying around the air. Putting his hands out, he started to use different elements to hit different mannequins in the air. Every shot a hit. Every mannequin was destroyed before he hit the floor. “Alright, targeting practice successful. Now for strength practice.” He then held both of his hand out to the barrier.

“Aren, are you sure the barrier can withstand this?” Celestia asked form the other side of the field. Aren lowered his hands and turned to her.

“Celestia, this barrier is designed to contain immortals. Trust me when I say that it will hold. Not even Oran could break out of one without using his godpowers.” Celestia was surprised. She knew that the Barrier was strong, but not this strong. She stopped her learning to watch Aren train.

He put his hands out to the barrier and began to conjure a fireball. It got bigger and bigger until it shrunk down again. Then it got bigger again and shrunk down. Celestia wasn’t sure what he did, but it was obvious after some time. He pumped it up with magical energy and then squashed it into a smaller form. He did that already five times. Then she knew what this means.

The blast he used while her lesson would be a candle compared to this. Could the barrier actually hold this? After the final downsizing of the fireball, it glowed like the sun itself. He smiled and threw it at the barrier. From outside, the explosion didn’t look different from the first time. The only difference was that it looked brighter and that it apparently made no sound.

Another difference was that the explosion lasted for an awful long time. After a minute or such, it subsided, and Aren stood in it. He turned around and shouted to Celestia, but she couldn’t hear anything. After she hadn’t answered, Aren face-palmed and flicked with his fingers.

“I said that I am finished with training.” He started walking over to Celestia, but suddenly stopped. He turned around again and hummed a little. Then he walked back. While standing in the middle of the place, he opened his right hand and looked intently in it and didn’t move. Celestia watched, and watched, and watched. Nothing happened.

15 minutes later, Celestia was already back to learning her magic. She made a quick glance back to Aren, and saw that nothing changed. So she simply continued trying to manipulate moving magic.

“I don’t know why he’s doing that. I tried talking to him, but he doesn’t react to anything. The barrier is also active, which means that we can’t get near him. I don’t know what he’s doing.” Celestia told her sister. Aren has been standing like this for over 16 hours, and it was nearly time for the guards to train with him. Many of the guards were already standing around the training field and watched inside. There he just stood, watching his hand intently.

“I think, he’s concentrating on something.” Luna answered. Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“For 16 hours?” Before Luna could answer, they both felt magic coming from the barrier. They turned their heads to Aren, who still didn’t move. Nothing seemed to happen, but the magical power was rising. It was rising to unreal heights until it vanished. The magical tension was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

Luna and Celestia looked around but could feel no magic anymore. They turned back to Aren and their eyes widened. In his hand was a blue glowing fireball. It didn’t look any different than the normal fireball, except for the color, but somehow, they both were afraid of it. They didn’t know why, but they knew that this was dangerous. Aren finally moved, by smirking.

He then lifted his arms up and pointed them towards the sky. Suddenly a beam of blue fire flew out from his hand and impacted with the barrier above him. The barrier didn’t relent, but the beam also continued. It seemed like nothing would happen, but there was a cracking sound coming from the barrier. The cracking got louder until there was a sound, like glass shattering on the floor and the beam passed through the barrier. Aren quickly stopped it before it made any damage.

He turned around to look at Celestia and Luna, but he didn’t have the expression they thought he would have. He looked shocked beyond belief. No one seemed to move. Not even the wind. Even a falling leaf was standing in the air. It seems like time stopped.

“What did you do?” Aren heard from behind and turned around. “How were you able to destroy an IIB?” Oran asked Aren.

“I.. I’m not sure.” He still looked frazzled and looked at his hands. “I think I created a new element.” Oran shook his head.

“A new element does not explain how you were able to break an IIB. No one, not even I can break an IIB. Tell me what you did.” Oran seemed kind of shocked.

“I… just shot at it. I think it’s the new element that did it.” Oran raised an eyebrow.

“I saw it, but I don’t know what it was. Show me the creation sheet for this element.” Aren summoned a piece of paper and wrote something on it. He gave it to Oran who just raised an eyebrow.

“This is impossible. You can’t combine soul with a basic element.” Aren shrugged.

“Apparently it is possible. I simply combined fire with soul.” Oran scratched his hair violently.

“No, it’s not. I tried thousands of years to mold magic into soul, and I wasn’t able to do it. How can you just do it?” he looked angry while Aren looked at the floor.

“When I shared my soul with Rarity, I felt something. You know the feeling when you part your soul, aside from the pain? This feeling. Since I parted my soul this often already, I could remember this indescribable feeling. Just now I remembered the feeling and tried to conjure it.” Oran crooked an eyebrow.

“Just now? You stood here for 16 hours.” Aren backed away.

“16 hours? It felt like five minutes.” Then he just simply shook it. “Doesn’t matter. Somehow I was able to conjure the feeling of soul, and then I was just able to mold my magic into soul energy. After this I tried to fuse it with fire. It wasn’t possible. It just wouldn't stick together, so I used more magic. When I nearly used up all of my reserves, it finally happened, and they fused.” Oran seemed to accept it and began to concentrate on his hand. After some minutes, he looked back at Aren.

“It seems like I am not able to simulate the feeling.” Then he chuckled a little. “Well I didn’t split my soul as often as you. Make sure to make a photo of my face, when we fight in some years, and I don’t remember this. Also, congratulations. You created a new element. The first new element after nearly 500,000 years. You can be proud of yourself.” Aren smiled.

“Thanks… master.” He said with a satisfied grin. Oran also grinned satisfied and vanished. With his vanishing, the time ran again, and Aren walked over to Celestia and Luna. He scratched his head in embarrassment.

“Well, it seems like I created a new element just now. I think I’ll call it Soulfire” Most of the guards walked away, not knowing what just happened. Well didn’t seem so important anyway. Celestia and Luna congratulated him simply. “Would it be ok if we continue training tomorrow? I used nearly all of my energy.” They both nodded simply, and Aren walked over to the gates, but stopped.

‘Wait a minute. If I am now able to transform my magic into soul-energy shouldn’t I then be able to…’ he then began to simulate the feeling again. After some minutes, he was able to transform his magic into soul energy and then he absorbed the soul energy into his body. The energy warmed him, and he suddenly felt healthy again. After some seconds, he jumped high into the air.

“YEEEEEEESSSS!!!! IT WORKED!” He then ran around the plaza around Celestia and Luna like a kid that just got the best Christmas present of all time. They both looked somewhat confused and unsure of his current mental health. Maybe he used too much magic and went bonkers? He then stopped before Celestia.

“I did it! I was able to transform my magic into soul energy and absorbed the soul energy into my body, and now my soul is completely healed. Do you know what this means?” He nearly shouted at her with a happy voice. Celestia shook her head and went back a little, gaining her personal space back.

“This means that I don’t need to hold back anymore because my soul is completely healed again.” He shouted and jumped around. Celestia understood now what he meant, and also looked happy for him. Luna didn’t care. Suddenly Aren stopped.

“Since I am healed now, and I don’t need to hold back anymore.” He then turned to Celestia and Luna, and pointed to the training grounds. “Get in there. Training starts.” He simply commanded. Celestia laughed at the sudden change of his emotions while Luna groaned because of his tone. Suddenly he gasped and smiled again. “Be right back.” He then dashed into the castle and came back out some seconds later, with Chrysalis and Ravien on his shoulders. He plopped them down to the ground.

“Wait here, I need to make a new barrier before we can begin.” While he was creating the barrier, the immortals talked to each other. Mainly concerns about Arens’ mental health. After ten minutes, he was finished, and they walked into the new barrier. When they were at their respective places, Aren smiled like a schoolkid.

“Well then. Since you, all are able to defend yourselves against elements, and this only needs practice, we begin battle practice. For the next month, until you are able to manipulate moving magic, we will make the same thing over and over again. You can use whatever you want in order to reach your goal. Your goal is simple.”

“Kill me!”

Combining Elements

Aren just stood there, in the middle of the four immortals and waited for them to begin, but it seemed like they had other things on their mind. Celestia obviously expected something like this, but right now? She was not comfortable with the idea of fighting till the death with him. Luna didn’t quite know what to think of this. On one hand, she can finally let her aggressions against him free reign, but on the other hand, she knows that she right now has no chance against him in a fight.

Chrysalis was comfortable with the idea. Why not? Ravien heard from his parents that this would come pretty soon in the training. He was ready to go into the fight, but there was one question, every immortal had on its’ mind. How can we damage him? The only thing they can do with their magic, in terms of damaging somepony, is to simply throw a beam at him or use telekinesis on something to throw.

Aren tapped with his foot impatiently. “What are you waiting for? I give you the chance to strike first, so take it. If it calms you down, I won’t use any magic. This session is more for pure combat.” He exclaimed while waiting for them to start attacking. They still needed to think about a way to attack him. Celestia was the first to come up with an attack plan.

She sighed. ‘I will kick myself in the flank for this, later.’ With that thought, she lowered her head and charged at Aren with her horn pointing at him. Celestia used a movement spell and was now three times as fast. Aren saw her preparing this spell through his aura-vision and was prepared for the sudden burst of velocity and could simply sidestep. Suddenly Luna came from behind him.

It seemed like she teleported behind him and started charging at him. Through his vision spell, he could see her when she charged at him, and he just jumped up while she charged. He landed on her back and grabbed her neck, instantly breaking it. “One down.” He stated. Even if, it was only training, it still hurt Celestia quite a bit to see her sister get killed before her eyes. Aren suddenly jumped up, and at the spot where he stood before, a red explosion happened.

Ravien shot a chaos-blast at Aren that seemed to miss. He knew that Aren could absorb and control normal magic, but the uni-magic of the arcadians is no normal magic. Suddenly Chrysalis started and flew straight at him. He turned to the side in the air and grabbed her while flying. Aren wanted to end it, but he lost his grip when Chrysalis suddenly turned into a little foal.

He didn’t expect this and landed on the ground, instantly rolling to the side to evade another charging Celestia. When he stopped rolling, he got greeted by a chaos-blast that nearly hit him, if he wouldn’t have fallen to the side on purpose. Aren rapidly stood up from the floor and looked into the eyes of Ravien who stood smirking before him. Realizing that this could end real badly, Aren turned around and noticed a Chaos-bolt flying to him from the opposite side.

Crouching down by reflex, he evaded the blast by a hairs width, and it passed over him straight into Raviens face, exploding it to bits of black pieces. The bits were all black and green, indicating that this Ravien was just Chrysalis in disguise. Aren chuckled a little nervously. “Well, two down. Even though I didn’t do this.” The real Ravien cursed silently under his breath and readied himself again for the next round.

Suddenly Ravien hammered his hands in the ground, and the training ground instantly transformed into a stone maze. Aren wanted to use his omnipresence-combination, but stopped. He promised no magic, so he just ran through the maze. He suddenly stopped, and a stone hand came out of the wall that smashed the other side of the wall. Jumping back and up, he could evade a charging Celestia, who now passed under him. Suddenly Celestia teleported under him, but that’s not where she planned to be. Normally she wanted to teleport above him. Then it hit her, in all the action, she forgot that he can manipulate auto-spell targets if they are close to him. How could she be so foolish?

Suddenly feeling a weight plopping down on top of her back, she knew what was coming. “Sorry, Celly.” And then it was over for her. Jumping away from Celestias’ corpse, Aren searched for Ravien. Seeing a red orb flying at him, he jumped up and saw Ravien over him, shooting another orb. While the orb was flying, Aren saw that Ravien planned to teleport to the other side of the small hallway. ‘Time to show him something.’ Aren smirked.

Ravien teleported to his spot and looked down at Aren but didn’t see Aren, instead there was his red chaos-bolt flying straight at him. When the sphere was flying at Aren, he steeled his arms and angled them 30° to the impact way. A little mini-impact came out of the sphere, but the rest got deflected to the new spot Ravien was now. Out of reflex, Ravien consumed his own uni-magic, and looked down where Aren should be.

Suddenly, he felt a touch on both sides of his head. “Nice try, Ravien.” And it was over for him too.

All of the immortals woke up with a start. They were all standing in the normal training ground, looking at Aren. He simply flicked with one of his hands and some kind of flying screen appeared. “This is a recording of the whole fight. We will go over it, and I will tell you what you did well and what you did badly.” He flicked once more, and the video started.

After the first charge of Celestia, it paused, and Aren turned to her. “Alright, the idea to use a movement-spell to speed up your charge is a very good one, but you made three mistakes. First, you activated it too early. Second, you should’ve known that I saw you activating it and that I would know that you would charge. So you should be ready to change course to the direction I would most likely evade to. Third, you should never charge this openly at me. If I would have been allowed to use my weapon, I would have just held it in your charge-path.”

Celestia nodded once accepting his criticism, and Aren continued. After Lunas' charge, it paused again. “The idea to teleport behind me and charge at me is a very good one, but the execution is flawed. You should have already started to charge before Celestia even got to me. I was able to recover from her charge and was ready to evade yours. If you would’ve run earlier, you would maybe have gotten me. On top of that, you should have used a movement-spell like Celestia.” Luna just huffed and looked away. She didn’t like to get patronized by this arrogant-prick.

Luna winced once when she saw the part, where he broke her neck. Witnessing your own death has a unique feel to it. The next time it paused, it showed how Aren took hold of Chrysalis. “Your charge was the best one since it was timed perfectly, but you too made a mistake. You were aiming too high. Remember that, even if it’s hard, people still can evade slightly in the air. You aimed too high, which made it easy for me to evade down, and to grab you.” The video stopped the next time, when she transformed into a foal.

“I must say this was really a great idea. I honestly didn’t anticipate that, but there was still one last problem with this. You should have only been in this form for less than a second, so I lose my hold. You were longer in this form, and if I would have known that you would transform, then I would have plenty of time to crush your little foal form.” Chrysalis just looked indifferent. She seemed to accept what he said, but she was not happy about it.

The video stopped again, shortly after Aren evaded the first chaos-blast after his landing. “Good idea, but you should have fired it on that timing that it would explode on the ground before I touch it. This way I would still get hit by the explosion, and wouldn’t have an opportunity to evade.” Ravien nodded acceptingly.

It stopped again, when Aren stood before the fake Ravien. “Very good idea. You knew that I knew that Ravien was the only one who could get really dangerous to me. So you disguised yourself as him, to bring me to turn around and run straight into his blast. Really remarkable, I see absolutely no flaw in this.” Chrysalis grinned complacently.

The video paused again, when Chrysalis got the chaos-blast to her face. Her grin instantly vanished, and Luna had to suppress a little giggle. “You should have simply side-stepped it. I honestly have no idea, why you just kept standing there, even though your goal was fulfilled.” Aren told her, and like Luna before, she just huffed and looked away. Luna was watching intently again since she wasn’t able to see the rest of the fight for obvious reasons.

Then he paused when the maze was created. Luna and Chrysalis looked at this with raised eyebrows. “Interesting idea, to change the terrain into small hallways. I can’t evade to the side, which gives Celestia a good chance to attack me.” He let the video continue until he landed on Celestias’ back, but instead to Celestia, he turned to Ravien.

“I was on her back, why didn’t you shoot me?” He asked him. Ravien looked at Celestia.

“I didn’t want to hurt her.” Celestia smiled a little, but Aren just shook his head.

“I was on top of her. If you wouldn’t shoot me down, her death would be 100% sure. Remember that you are a team and that you need to help each other to defeat me.” He said, and Ravien acknowledged that he should have just shot at him. Aren paused the next time at a particularly entertaining part. He looked over to Ravien.

“Why did you close your eyes, when the sphere flew at you?” Ravien just shrugged embarrassed. Aren just groaned. “Never close your eyes, and always keep your opponent in sight. Because you closed your eyes, I could sneak up on you and end it.” Then the video ended. He walked a little away and turned again to the immortals.

“Now for the fight I have only one thing to say.” He looked over their unpleased expressions, but he just smiled. “You fought better than I anticipated. That doesn’t happen often so, congratulations.” The gathered immortals, looked pleased, except Luna who didn’t want to show it to Aren. He clapped once in his hands.

“Alright, that was the fight for the day. We will all fight one time a day and will review it afterwards. Now I want to show you something else.” He looked over to Celestia. “Celly, could you take some steps forward?” Luna only crooked an eyebrow.

‘Celly?’ but she dismissed it. Celestia reluctantly walked some steps forward, and on her fifth step, a circle with lots of forms, numbers, and letters appeared where her hoof stepped on. Suddenly there was a whopping gust of wind, and her mane got thrown into every direction. The gust calmed pretty fast, and her mane looked ridiculous, which forced some giggles out of Aren, Luna, and Ravien.

“This is a trap-spell. These are spells that are only getting activated when someone steps on them. There are special trap-only-spells and normal spells, which can get put into a trap circle. It’s not hard to perform them since the only thing you need is a trap-circle and a spell mixed with it. I mixed a simple gust-spell in the trap Celestia walked into.”

“There are another three traps on the training ground, can you find them?” He asked with a smirk. The immortals instantly changed into aura-vision and looked around, but they couldn’t find anything, and shook their heads. “That’s the advantage of the trap-spells. They can’t get discovered unless you step on them, or by the trap-placer.”

“Another perk of them, is that they don’t need much time to get set up. Based on the strength of the spell, it can be nearly instantaneous or could take up multiple hours. So you can create standard and weak traps while fighting. If you haven’t used trap spells before, you would need to stand multiple seconds before a trap, to create it. Later on, you can create a trap spell, with a trap-creation-spell that doesn’t need you to be near the trap in order to activate it, but this comes in some months.”

He flicked with his hand and sheets of paper appeared in the air. Every immortal got one sheet. “These are the spell-sheets to create a trap-spell, and how you will be able to inflict them with your spells.” The immortals looked the spell-sheets over and realized that this was actually pretty easy.

After five minutes, everyone was able to conjure a trap-circle with a weak spell, and Aren nodded approvingly. “Well that’s all I can teach you about traps. Just like with the moving-magic-manipulation, you just have to practice in this to get better results.” He clapped once. “With this, I stop teaching new spells for a while. You have four tasks over the next month.”

“First, you need to be able to create an elemental beam of a basic element. Second, you need to get the absorbing of elemental-attacks into your reflexes. This means that you should be able to instantly react if a fire beam is being shot at you. You can ask me, when you need to test it. By the way, you should also be able to absorb magic now since it’s even easier than fire.”

“Third, you need to learn to use traps before the fight and while fighting. You should also internalize the workings of the trap spell in order to use it faster and in rapid successions. Fourth, you come here every day at 14:00 in order to fight with me. It’s just one fight per day and a following review. That is all.” Aren left the training field and walked back into his room.

One month later.

Aren jumped back, and instantly bolted up again. A Pinkie Pie charged through under him. He held out his hands and blocked the hooves that nearly wrapped around him, by Rainbow Dash in the air. Noticing the flying rope, Aren turned Rainbow Dash around so the rope would engulf her instead of him. Suddenly the rope shined light blue, and it extended further, to his new position.

Aren pushed himself away from Rainbow Dash so he could get momentum in the air. With this, he was able to dodge the rope, and landed on the floor, skipping backwards. After some skipping, he smashed into a stone wall. ‘This wasn’t here before’ he thought. ‘That’s probably Twilights’ doing.’ Then he noticed that something was teleporting in front of him, just outside his reach to stop it with his magic.

He turned to the left and saw Applejack running at him. Looking to the right, he saw Pinkie running straight at him. Looking to the top, he saw Rainbow Dash dashing at him. Aren backed further into the wall. If he timed this right, he should be able to use the wall as pushing stone to shoot him into some kind of opening.

He leaned against the wall, and suddenly the wall vanished, and he lost his balance. He fell back and felt hooves wrap around him. Shocked, he looked back and saw that a certain shy pegasus was standing behind the wall that just vanished. Fluttershy had her hooves wrapped around him and had a happy smile on her face.

The friends stopped and looked at Fluttershy, having Aren in a bear-hug from behind. They looked at the pair and then broke into cheers.

“YES! WE DID IT!” Twilight screamed while embracing Rarity, and turning in a circle, while hopping around.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE DEM APPLES?!” Applejack simply shouted.

Rainbow was just flying calmly in the air, saying how easy this was, and how they totally not needed a full month to accomplish this. Pinkie was just bobbing all over the place, shouting about her We-caught-Aren-party. Fluttershy just continued having him in the bear-hug, still being shocked that they actually did it.

“Eh Fluttershy?” She looked up to Aren. “You can let go now.” She then let go and moved back, blushing a little. He smiled happily and let the elements have their little party since they deserved it. After another five minutes, he had to stop it since it began being ridiculous. With one loud clap, he silenced them.

“First of all, congratulations on passing the first test. You did magnificent.” The ponies smiled broadly again. “So since you successfully got through the teamwork training, I let you off for today. Tomorrow we will start with evasion training, and again. Good job.” With this said he walked into the castle. He didn’t need to have Celestia around anymore. They trained on that, and he was now able to control his urges without her around, even if it still was hard when there were emotions involved.

Luna and Celestia were always training together while not fighting with Aren. After some weeks, they even tended to battle each other in the rezz-field. Ravien and Chrysalis also trained together often, but not as much as the two sisters. Everyone came at least three times to Aren to ask him a question or to request his assistance in testing something.

The guards were even able to inflict some damage to him at some points in the last fights. Aren looked forward to them, passing level one of the guard training. Level two would mean that he would be allowed to use his sword to fight them. If they would be able to win against him on level two, and that’s a monumental if, their training would be finished since it is nearly impossible for mortals to win against an immortal if he uses his magic correctly.

Theoretically, he could just create a gigantic explosion that utterly overpowers everypony in the barrier, and they couldn’t do anything against it. So their training would be complete with doing level two.

But the immortals will feel level three, when they will complete level two. They were also real close to doing level one.

Guard training went smoothly. The guards were able to make multiple small cuts across his body, and even broke one of his bones in the fight, but they still lost. Then it was time for immortal training. This was the day where everybody should have completed all their tasks.

The immortals gathered at the training ground and waited for him to announce the beginning of training. “So today is the day, where you all should be finished with your tasks. Let’s see them. Ravien, could you begin first?” Ravien walked to the front and waited for the orders. “Show me a fire-beam.”

Ravien shot a solid beam out of fire out of his claws to the barrier, holding it for multiple seconds. It was pretty easy for him since he was able to do this for two weeks now. “Very good.” Aren said. Suddenly he shot a beam of concentrated cutting wind at Ravien, who instantly began absorbing it. Aren smirked again. “Well done.” He then told Ravien to go back to his position, since everyone was already able to conjure the traps with ease.

“Celly, you are next.” Celestia stepped to the front and pointed her horn at the barrier. Suddenly Aren shot to Celestia a fire-beam, which she easily absorbed. Having battled with her sister a lot, she already developed the habit to create her barrier whenever she sees fire moving rapidly. Luna had to laugh, when Celestia did this while being startled by a column of smoke that came out of an oven, when she wanted to bake something.

She then demonstrated four different beams of every basic element in rapid succession. “Outstanding. You can go back too.” Aren told her, and she walked back. Luna and Chrysalis also had no problems in proving themselves, and after everyone was finished Aren looked to them once more.

“Good job all of you. Today I will show you, how it is possible to use different elements, than the basic elements.” All four of them couldn’t contain their excitement and looked expectant at Aren. They wanted to know how to do this for the last month. “It is very hard at the beginning. I doubt that you will be able to do one in the next two weeks, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“The key in shooting another element, than the basic element, is to use a combination out of basic elements. This means that in order to create steam, you need to morph your magic into fire and water at the same time. It sounds impossible at the beginning, but it also sounded impossible to mold moving magic in the first place. Remember, every element consists of the basic elements.”

“You can mix elements in four different actions. The easiest one is to add them. It’s something like this.” Aren shot out of his hand, a burning column of earth. After this, he shot bubbling water. “I admit that those two spells seemed kind of useless, but I only needed a demonstration. What I did first, was to change my magic while it shot out of my hand, into earth and directly after it, added another layer of magic to it, which then was molded into fire.” Then he smirked.

“But there is one very effective addition spell out of basic elements. Watch this.” Suddenly he shot out a ball of dirt. It was just flying like a ball, nothing special, but when it impacted with the barrier it exploded violently. “I added fire with air and added a layer of earth over it, so it can’t go out. When the earth shell broke, the thing got out and exploded. You will be able to add two elements in about two weeks I think.”

“The second method is to fuse two elements. If you fuse two, they will create a new one. Those for example.” He shot out a stream of lava. “That’s fire fused with earth.” Then a stream of steam. “Fire and water.”

“To fuse two elements, you need to think of both properties’ of the elements at the same time, and need to mold them both together. It is very hard on the beginning, but you should be able to do two basic elements in three to four months. In a few years, you may be able to do my personal favorite.” He then shot a beam of lightning out of his hand.

“In order to produce lightning, you need to fuse fire with water to create steam. Then you need to create fire and water again in order to make more steam. Then you add steam with steam to get cloud. After this, you add fire to cloud in order to produce energy. Lastly, you fuse energy with air, and you get lightning. It seems undoable right now, but you may be able to do it in some years.” The immortals looked unsettled. They didn’t know that creating lightning was this complex.

“Now to the third method. The third method is to split the elements. You won’t need this much, but it’s essential for some important combinations. You need to know that when you fuse two elements that the resulting element can be split into a basic element and a property of the result element. For example, if I fuse water with earth I get mud. When I then add fire to mud, the mud transforms into fertile dirt. If I then split fertile dirt, I get earth and effectiveness. Don’t ask me how, but that’s how it works. If I then combine effectiveness with fire for example, my fire burns more fiercely than before.”

“Another good combination is, fusing earth with earth to create stone. Then fuse air with air to create pressure. Then add stone and pressure to create diamond, and now comes the mind blow. When you split diamond, you get hardness and earth. If you then fuse hardness with anything, it gets hard. If you for example, fuse hardness with fire, you shoot out a fire beam that shoots through stone before it dissipates. You can also use a pure hardness beam, to inflict the target with the properties of hardness.”

“If I shoot a pure beam of hardness on glass, then the glass will be as hard as diamond. This can, for example, be useful for windows in prisons, but let’s go to the last and most difficult method. Negation.”

“With negation, you can transform the properties of an element into the opposite. If I have a beam of hardness and I negate it, it gets to a beam of weakness. I could shoot this beam at diamond, and would then be able to crush the diamond between two fingers. Negating elements, is extremely strange. You get the weirdest and craziest results with negating an element.”

“If I negate lava, I get molten iron, for example. Don’t ask, I know that Lava is molten stone and not molten iron. That’s why I have absolutely no idea what logic is behind that one. It just happens. If I negate plant, I get moonstone. Again no clue why. In order to negate an element, you need to completely reject it. It sounds easy, but it isn’t. This is the hardest method to learn, and it will take at least five months for you to learn it.” Aren flicked with his hand and four books appeared. “Everything I said is again explained in those books.”

“One last thing before you go. The key to win against an immortal, is to being better than him in fighting, and to being able to conjure more and more dangerous elements, which he cannot defend himself against. The key to create new elements is to use every method on everything and write down the outcome. 99% of the results will be useless.” He smirked once.

“But with the right combination you can destroy whole continents. Wait let me just create a strong barrier around us.” He took nearly five minutes to create the barrier. When he was finished, he talked again. “Sorry that this took this long, but it’s necessary. Now I will explain what I will do.”

“I need to make around 25 steps in order to get the element Atom. If I then fuse atom with energy, I get something extremely dangerous. Look at this.” He then conjured one ball, not bigger than a pearl and it hovered slowly to the border of the barrier. Aren instantly started screaming and put all of his power into the second barrier. When the ball reached the border, it exploded with ferocity that has never been seen before in Equestria.

The barrier nearly collapse, which Aren conjured, but he was able to hold it. The whole earth shook like the moon just crashed into the earth, and nothing was left where it exploded, except the two barriers. Suddenly everything was back to normal, and looked like before he shot the ball.

“This was an atomic explosion. By the way, everything is back to normal, because of a time resetting spell that I used on this area. At the time of activation, it saves the current status of matter, and waits 30 seconds until it sets everything back. If I wouldn’t have used this, we would have a problem with radioactivity right now.” He looked back at the slack jawed immortals.

“This counts as the most dangerous spell in existence, and only very few immortals can use it since it is extremely difficult to combine two elements which need 25 steps to being created and then combine them.” He then smirked a little. “Well, it was the most dangerous one until a month back.” He chuckled a little. “Well training is done for today. Remember to read those books and to practice in creating new elements. We will see each other tomorrow.” He then skipped to the castle.

The immortals looked at each other and knew that this won’t be easy to master, but they were also motivated to do it.

When Aren was alone, he instantly collapsed to the floor, but before he lost consciousness, he thought one last thought. “Why did I try to block an atomic explosion with a normal barrier?”

Author's Note

Don't ask how moonstone is created by negating plant. No one knows this.

Decisions

Aren jumped back, and where he stood before an earth-pony crashed down, nearly obliterating the stone-floor beneath it. Not having time to catch his breath, he instantly rolls to one side, evading a flying burning spear. When the spear flew past him, he instantly grabbed it, ignoring the pain he received by touching the burning weapon, and threw it at a unicorn on the other side of the field.

The spear got teleported behind Aren, who instantly ducked, evading it again. A purple Pegasus with a heat-shield grabbed the flying spear, and they both got teleported behind Aren again. This time, Aren got grabbed by the Pegasus when he evaded the spear. Before the Pegasus grabbed Aren, he put his lower legs around the burning spear and used Aren as a grabbing point, to transform the movement-energy into a spinning energy. With effort, he was able to plunge the spear into Arens’ right arm.

He screamed out in pain, but wanted to grab Purple Edge on his back. Before he got him, he got swapped out, and the bulkiest earth pony that was currently available was now on Arens’ back. The sudden addition of weight destroyed Arens’ sense of gravity, and he fell over his back on the ground. The stallion instantly put all four of his hooves around Arens’ body and arms, while Aren laid on top of him.

Not seconds later, he got penetrated by multiple spears from Pegasi who charged at him from the sky. The last thing Aren saw was a smirking purple Pegasus.

He awoke with a start, sprawled on the floor of the training area. When he got up, he saw cheering guards everywhere. Aren couldn’t suppress a smirk on his face. ‘So they finally did it, huh?’ Chuckling a little, he got up and applauded them. The guards paused a little with their cheers and looked at the applauding human. Not long after, they started cheering again. With one last, especially loud clap, he silenced the guards, who instantly changed into a salutation form.

“Well done. With exceeding teamwork and with immeasurable tenacity, you were finally able to bring me down. You can really pat yourself on the back for that.” The guards looked happy. “With this done, you can finally be called, a standard army.” Nearly every guard crooked an eyebrow. Standard?

“You were able to complete the basic level of my training, and now it’s time for the advanced one.” His expression turned to a cocky grin. The guards gulped.

‘If that was basic training, what are we in for now?’ They thought, while gulping nervously. Aren continued his explanation.

“Advanced training isn’t really different than the basic one, except for one change.” He held up his index-finger and pulled out his sword. “I will use my sword, and I will use some very basic spells.” He then smiled warmly. “How about we begin right now?” He asked with a nice tone.

The guards instantly felt endangered, and all went into battle stance. “Well, you can begin.” Aren stated simply while also taking a battle-stance with his sword. The guards began to carefully move around while Aren just waited for them to make the first move. He didn’t have to wait long since a green earth-pony bursted to him, having three movement-spells applied to him.

Aren easily side-stepped him while slashing into his charging-path. The pony got carved into two. “Sorry, but that doesn’t work anymore.” The guards tensed up. That move worked pretty well against him before, but now he had a way to damage the charging tank. Aren looked down at his blood-soaked sword and smiled.

‘Aren, calm yourself. You don’t need to split everyone apart. You are over this.’ He calmly said to himself while feeling a deep urge inside of him. Looking over to four unicorns standing at the other side of the area, he smirked and made a very wide slash with his sword. The slash created a shockwave in the air, which traveled to the unicorns in a split-second and sliced them into pieces.

The other guards were shocked. This really was something totally different than basic training, but they were still able to keep a cool head for now. Aren turned around and slashed to some Pegasi. All of the Pegasi got halved, except for the single purple one who managed to evade the shockwave, but he also was being sniped by a second shockwave.

Doing a 360 slash, Aren shot a shockwave out, which parted about 80% of the remaining forces. The only survivors were the ones who either ducked or jumped over the expected slash since the slash even penetrated the defensive barriers of the unicorns. One of the remaining unicorns, tried to levitate his sword, but he just couldn’t send out a target dot at the sword. It seemed to be immune against magic of any kind.

“Yeah, that won’t work.” The last remaining unicorn heard from behind him. He turned around and saw a warmly smiling Aren. “Nice idea thought.” He said before ending the unicorns’ life.

15 minutes later, everyone was alive again, and the review of the battle started. The guards now saw what Aren was capable off, and could prepare themselves for the next fight, which would be tomorrow. He concluded training and everyone went their own ways.

A little while later, six certain friends came to the training area. Today would start a new lesson since they were able to succeed in the first one. When everypony was at their respective positions, Aren started explaining.

“Alright, welcome to evasion training. Like the name suggests, you will learn here to evade slashes, hits, beams and other stuff. It’s kind of like the teamwork lesson, just the opposite. Instead of you chasing me, I will be chasing you.” He then flicked with one of his hands and a one meter long blue stick appeared in the air, which got grabbed by him.

“Alright, this is a patpat-stick. Don’t laugh, I didn’t name it. It basically is a normal stick, which got enchanted with an anti-force spell.” He looked around the confused faces of the ponies. They clearly didn’t know what he meant. Well, everyone but Twilight. He sighed once. “I think it’s better if I demonstrate it. Twilight could you step forward?”

She stepped forward without wasting a second, knowing what an anti-force-spell does. He then swung the stick with all of his power on Twilights’ head, producing an ear shattering whiplash-like noise. The ponies groaned at the voice and also were shocked at what Aren was doing to Twilight. They nearly wanted to storm at him, but aborted their starts when they saw a giggling Twilight.

“Don’t worry everypony. It didn’t hurt one bit.” She reassured them. Another giggle escaped her, when she saw the skeptical looks of her friends. “That’s what an anti-force-spell does. It negates every kind of physical force, which the weapon would inflict to any other being or object. This means that he could punch me the whole time, and I wouldn’t notice a thing.” The ponies’ expressions changed to an “oh” one.

Aren smirked. “Well that’s not completely correct.” Twilight turned to him, demanding an answer with her gaze. “There’s another enchantment on the stick. Try moving your body Twilight.” She didn’t know what he meant, but still tried to move her legs. She was shocked when she realized that she wasn’t able to move her legs.

“I can’t move my legs.” Aren laughed a little.

“That’s the second enchantment. When I hit someone, she can’t move unless I allow her to. This will ensure that there are no whinies when I hit someone. I don’t want to hear ‘But you didn’t hit me’ anytime soon.” He then levitated Twilight over to her friends, and allowed her to move again.

“Now the second thing I will use to catch you, is a thin beam. Like this one.” He pointed at Pinkie Pie with his index-finger and shortly after, a purple beam shot out of it and hit Pinkie on the breast. She instantly began laughing uncontrollably. Rarity looked down on her.

“So you used some kind of laughing beam?” She asked.

“No, that’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. When my beam hits a sentient being, it travels through her body and makes four marks at the floor, where her hooves stood, in the ponys’ color.” They looked down and surely, there were four pink markings on the floor. Pinkie slowly calmed down and looked back at Aren.

“Alright, the last thing I will do, is enchant myself with a paralysis spell. So whenever something touches me anywhere, it will get paralyzed. For those of you who don’t know what paralysis is, it’s when you can’t move any muscles, and just lay on the floor.” The ponies shot him looks that stated ‘Do you think we are this dumb?’.

“Your goal is to run from me for five minutes. If I hit one of you, it’s over, and you failed. In that case, the lesson gets a reset, and we begin from anew. Any questions?” Rainbow quickly threw one in.

“Why do we lose if only one pony gets hit?”

“Because you can’t use your Elements Of Harmony anymore if one of you is dead.” Rainbow still didn’t like the rule, but she also reminded herself that this was training for an upcoming war and not some playtime-game she goes to every second day, even though it was fun pretty often.

They then all began to spread around the area. Aren looked around and grinned a little. “Alright, I will begin in ten seconds. Remember, if I catch even one of you, you all lost, and one more thing. I will use every last dirty trick to get you.” The ponies didn’t like this exclamation but haven’t lowered their defensive stances.

“Here I go.” Aren screamed as he ran to his right, directly at Fluttershy. She was paralyzed in fear and couldn’t run away. Aren was at her side nearly instantly and hit her with the taptap-stick (I don’t care if the name sucks. That’s the name!) with an incredible loud snap. Aren smirked.

“I won.” He simply said. They couldn’t believe how fast this game was over, but they couldn’t even think about what just happened because they all got teleported into the center of the training area.

“At the beginning of every round of ‘tag’ I will port all of you to the center of the training-field. Then I will wait ten seconds until I chase after you again. Ten seconds from now.” He said while readying himself to do another mad dash. Fluttershy could move since he allowed it, but she still felt a little shocked since it was only about 20 seconds ago, when he got her.

“Here I go.” Aren screamed again as if it was a catch-phrase from an evil istallion plumber. He ran fast into the center of the field, where nopony was anymore since they all fled to the sides. When he arrived, he instantly turned to his left and made a mad dash. The pony he was running for couldn’t move due to the fear that was inside of her while looking at the dashing enemy that came for her.

It felt like something primal. It was like she was being chased by a predator, which wanted its’ next meal. Before she could react, she got caught… again. The loud whiplash-sound resonated again from Fluttershys’ head. The ponies lifted their eyebrows. ‘Why is he going for Fluttershy again?’ they asked themselves, but got teleported to the middle of the platform again.

Aren just waited and readied himself again, and after some seconds, the ponies realized that the time was already running, and they evaded to the sides. After ten seconds, Aren ran at Pinkie, but before he arrived at her, he instantly stirred right and ran at the startled Fluttershy… again. The loud snap showed that the game was over… again. Before they got ported to the middle, a cyan Pegasus came into a threatening close distance from his face.

“Hey, what’s that all about? Why do you always go for Fluttershy?” Aren simply smirked.

“Why not? That’s the easiest way to win.” Rainbow didn’t let go.

“That’s not fair if you go for her all the time.” Aren crossed his arms and had a smug look on his face.

“Why don’t you go to Oran then and tell him that you wouldn’t want him to go for Fluttershy because it is unfair. I bet he will surely listen to him.” His voice practically tasted of sarcasm. Rainbow Dash hated this. Why does he always have to be so serious? She felt that she couldn’t fight this argument, but it still didn’t feel right. Of course, Oran wouldn’t listen to her, but why does it have to be like this right now?

And again they appeared in the middle of the training ground. They instantly jumped to the side, awaiting Arens’ dash. And after some time it came, but this time he ran in the opposite direction of Fluttershy, at Rarity. She waited for him, ready to evade to any direction, but before he came to her, he turned around and shot a purple beam at Fluttershy. It hit her, indicating the end of this round. The ponies groaned.

This went on like this for half an hour until Fluttershy was nothing more than a crying mess. The feeling of being the weakest link was just too overwhelming. The feeling of being absolutely useless in the current face of danger, or in this case, in the current face of a being that knew that she was the weakest link of the group and would take this advantage without any remorse.

Her friends didn’t like that Aren so shamelessly used this advantage and shot multiple disapproving glances in his direction. His steeling gaze didn’t waver since he knew from the beginning of the training, how the ponies would take in the information of him using this advantage this shamelessly.

But it was necessary because enemies could easily see that she was the slowest and weakest part of their group, and they wouldn’t care if it were ‘unfair’ or fair to go after her. To give the whole group the possibility to evade him for five minutes, he had to do it this way. Even if Fluttershy was now a crying mess.

This went on for multiple days until Fluttershy was finally able to evade him with a relatively positive ratio of success. He then also began to chase the other ponies, since Fluttershy was now on their level in mobility. Of course, there wasn’t even a single round that lasted longer than fifteen seconds, but they will succeed eventually.

The immortals also were able to beat level one in combat training, and level two also overwhelmed them, like the guards. The guards were able to at least survive for a decent amount of time, but they haven’t scratched him yet. Every group slowly made progress, and thus time went on.

Five months later.

“Wow, this tastes remarkable. I don’t know how cook Spicy Feat is able to surprise me anew every month. I think I haven’t eaten a chocolate-cake this fantastic for multiple centuries.” Celestia said with some chocolate pieces adorning her mouth. This cake was truly delicious beyond comprehension of any mortal mind.

“I must say, I really missed the food from Spicy Feat when I was living in the Crystal Kingdom. If there was one reason, to continue doing night-court for Equestria, aside from all the feeling of accomplishment of doing this, it is the cake, which enables me to comb with the stress.” Shining Armor said while looking at the delicious treat of god-creating chocolatness.

Celestia chuckled a little. “My dear Shining Armor, I thought that there would be more reasons for you to rule an entire land, and not just the simple sin of enjoying a piece of cake.” Shining Armor smirked a little.

“His hay-fries are great too.” He said with a smile, and the two shared a hearty laugh. When Celestia calmed down, she wanted to ask him something.

“I heard that you reformed the distribution of the cumulus-clouds for the outer parts of Equestria. A really magnificent idea, if you would allow me the privilege to say this. What gave you the idea?” She asked him. She genuinely wanted to know, because she never thought about reforming this. It always seemed to be just perfect, for the last couple of thousand years. Shining blushed a little for the compliment, but nopony could see it.

“Well I saw the procedure for it, and thought that this might help the land in general. There were weather factories out there that weren’t completely integrated in the circle of the distribution of the clouds, so I added them and optimized the routes, so every field and village would get the appropriate amount of water it deserves. It really helped, and I now only have half the amount of ponies who come to me because of apparent water problems.”

Celestia was awed again and again by the originality of Blueblood and Shining Armor. They both made substantial improvements for the country. Improvements that would have been in Celestias’ power, but which not have been considered. She just never got the idea to reform the distribution. Blueblood also made many positive changes, which were taken positively by the ponyfolk.

Some of the changes were in the way of harmony, which Celestia followed her whole life. So it was obvious that the land still needed somepony leading them, which embraced the idea of having peace and harmony, but the ideas which were produced by the current two leaders, were brilliant. This was truly something Equestria needed. Change.

For the last couple of centuries, Equestria wandered closer to stagnation in terms of magical and technological advance, and everypony knew that stagnation of advance was the first sign of a dying society. Of course, this was only said by the most paranoid of the ponies, but it still gave the other ones an unpleasant feeling in the stomach.

‘Maybe I am just getting old. Maybe I embraced the old ways too much and should have made way for the new generation.’ Celestia thought to herself.

“Is something the matter? You were awfully quiet for the last two minutes, Celestia.” Shining Armor asked with a concerned voice. Celestia shook her head.

“Everything is fine. I just had something on my mind, but that’s not important now. So tell me, how was your weekend with Cadance?” She asked with a smirk. Shining Armor blushed deeply.

One month later.

‘Alright Celestia. You went through this often enough and made up your mind. You don’t have to justify your actions to anypony. You are the oldest pony in Equestria, and you can decide for your own. But why is it so hard?’ She thought to herself while sighing. She arrived at the training grounds, nearly simultaneously with the other immortals.

It was time for a fight again, and the other three were eager to prove themselves worthy of finally advancing to level three of combat training. Sadly, they weren’t even close to doing level two. They were able to scratch him at some points with some stray-spells and luck, but they still weren’t able to hit the obstacle that was his weapon.

Aren welcomed them to training and instantly announced the beginning. The fight went pretty bad this day, due to Celestia not being concentrated enough. She wasn’t even able to use her favorite battle-skill, the lava-beam. She just tried it and failed horribly, destroying her face, ending her participation in the fight rather early.

When she awoke, she saw the other ones looking at her with a worried gaze. She nearly never died first in battle, since she belonged to the top two, together with Ravien. Luna looked at her sister worried. It was not like her to lose her concentration in an important situation. Ravien and Chrysalis didn’t think anything of it since every one of them lost their concentration at some point and died in an embarrassed manner.

When the others left, Celestia nudged her sister to leave too. She wanted to talk with Aren. Seeing Aren who just wanted to go to his castle suite, he took the castle-suite because he needed to be available for any questions of any of his trainees, she stopped him.

“Wait Aren. I want to talk with you about something.” She stated in a serious tone. Aren turned around and waved a dismissive hand.

“If it’s about training today, don’t worry. Everyone loses their head at some point.” Celestia shook her head.

“No, it’s not about that. Well it has something to do with it, but it’s not about the fact that I lost my concentration today.” She looked around the training area and noticed some of the guards looking suspiciously unsuspicious. “Can we talk in a more private area?” Aren crooked an eyebrow but simply nodded and teleported the both of them to their little hill under Canterlot.

They both walked over to the table, and Celestia sighed once. “Aren, I have a favor to ask of you.” She sounded serious. Aren was a little taken aback. Celestia never asked for favors unless it was about training, but she stated already that this wasn’t about training, but about something different. So this really seemed to be an entirely new situation for him.

“Shoot.” He simply said. Celestia sighed again.

“Could you take me to your home-dimension? I just want to see it.” Aren sighed. Here, he thought that she meant something serious, like training another 500 guards. A simple visit, why not?

“No problem.” He said, and they both vanished.

They reappeared leaning at some table in a big hall. The hall had gray marble floors and walls, but they looked so incredibly smooth and shiny. On top of that, there were devices and things she didn’t recognize. This dimension was obviously way more advanced than her own. The table itself was of a material she also didn’t recognize. It had a green color, and felt incredibly comfortable when she touched it with one of her hooves. Funny enough, the objects that stood on it were standing perfectly balanced.

She stood up and turned around to see a balcony. Looking over to Aren, he just nodded, and she walked to the balcony. When she stood there and looked out to the land below, it felt like her heart stopped. She saw so much. It was not like in Canterlot, where she could only see the border of her country, about 100 KM away. No, even if logic was denying it, she could see way over 1,000 KM. This was unreal. Either the planet was incredibly large, or it was flat.

But this was not the reason, why she was this awed. Every last piece of land she could see was built upon, with massive gray buildings. There was absolutely no green, except some houses that were colored in the particular color. There were also flying chariots with a very strange form flying around the entire world. Everything seemed to move in a pattern of chaos, but after some time, it was apparent that it was all ordered.

The sky had two suns, which were like twins beside each other at the end of the horizon. The one sun was red and the other one blue. There was no cloud in the sky, but the sky itself was gray instead of blue. The pure weight of the change was felt deep inside of Celestia. This world was entirely different from her own.

Suddenly she realized the smell. It didn’t smell particularly bad, but it smelled a little bit like she was in a hospital. It smelled artificial and overly clean.

“Yes, the world is not the most beautiful one, but it still is my home.” Aren said while walking beside her and leaning over the railing. He nudged Celestia to do the same, and she just complied. They both looked at the setting suns. Celestia watched at the beautiful sunset and wanted to ask a question.

“Who is controlling the suns?” She asked Aren without turning to him, just continuing to look at the sunset. Aren chuckled.

“No one. You should know that, in nearly every dimension, the planet and the suns move by their own. Yours was only the fifth dimension I visited, in which the stars were controlled by people.” No one was controlling the suns? This seemed unreal to her.

“You know, I am controlling our sun in Equestria, but it’s not like I am the only one that can do it. It’s actually just a simple spell, which just needs enough magical power to work. Five unicorn mages could do the same. The rumor that only I can control the sun was spread over Equestria some thousands of years ago. I tried to stomp it, but it just persisted and in the end it was even educated in schools.”

She sighed once. “Your world isn’t ugly, it’s just different. I just realized that there are so many things I haven’t seen, and I also thought about what you told me about the reason why Oran wanted to stop living. After some thinking, I somehow started to curse the day when Oran would attack, but not because of the battle, but because of the following days, no matter which way the battle goes.”

“I would need to go back to ruling the land, and I wouldn’t be able to learn something new. Back to the old perfectly scheduled life of a ruler. Getting up, raising the sun, washing, breakfast, day court, lunch, more day court, tea, even more day court, dinner, signing papers, lowering the sun, some free time which I mostly spend with books, and then I just go to sleep. Nearly every day was like this for the last four thousand years.”

“Some time ago, I started thinking ‘What am I doing?’. Every day the same thing, over and over again. Well that was at least until you came around and trained us. Now I could learn new things. I could get better in combat. I learn new spells, and I can even see how my guards and how Twilight and her friends progress and grow. You defeated the menace that was my everyday life.” She sighed again.

“I also looked into the ruling of Blueblood and Shining Armor. They did both remarkable jobs. They made many changes, and those even showed in the advance in our technology and magic. Even if, not every decision was to my liking, it still kept up rather well. They got ideas, which would have never occurred to me. So I decided something.” Aren crooked an eyebrow.

“What?” he asked. Celestia sighed again.

“I will resign my reign over Equestria and day-court to make way for a changeable position for normal ponies. Luna loves ruling too much, and I still would want her to rule night court. This way Equestria would have one ruler with thousands of years of experience and one with new ideas and reforms.” Aren chuckled a little.

“I couldn’t believe that you ruled over Equestria for four thousand years without a break. There’s something you should know.” He turned to her. “In nearly every dimension, the immortals were very rarely rulers. They always let the mortals rule themselves and just went about with their own business, or offered good advice to citizens and rulers alike. It’s not a bad decision to give up the spot.” He said to her.

Celestia smiled a little. She thought that he would scold her because she shoved all the responsibility away from her, but she was mistaken apparently. They both looked over in the night sky. There were planets visible in it and many stars were seen throughout it. It seemed like the planet had no atmosphere and that they could look into the depths of space without any hindrance.

“Did you know that there are nearly always multiple planets with sentient beings in every dimension? I bet there are some in Equestrias’ dimension too.” Celestia smiled at this. The great unknown. There were still things she didn’t know, and she could still see something she never saw before. “You have enough time on your hands. Why don’t you visit every planet in your dimension? That’s some kind of adventure.” Aren said with a happy grin.

Celestia continued looking at the star, but stopped to look at Aren. Then she slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t think this is what I want. What I want is a different kind of adventure.” Aren, still having that smirk on his face, turned to Celestia.

“What kind of adventure?” he asked. Celestia looked him deep in the eyes.

“Aren, I want to travel with you throughout the multiverse as your apprentice.”

Author's Note

ALL HAIL THE PATPAT-STICK!

Btw my updating speed may slow down. I can't continue writing 4000-5000 words everyday.

The Council

„You want what?“ Did Aren mishear this? She wanted to be his apprentice? Seriously? Of course, this was not the first time that someone asked Aren to be his apprentice, but it never was someone who Aren actually kind of liked. Now he is asked again, this time by a pony. A pony! He can’t go through the multiverse while being accompanied by a talking white unicorn-pegasus-hybrid-thing. Celestia sighed.

“I wanted to ask this for several weeks. That’s also the reason why I wasn’t exactly concentrated during training today. I made up my mind and swore myself that I will ask you today.” Aren shook his head violently.

“Do you know what it means to be my apprentice? As my apprentice, you would need to follow me through every decision I make. You would not see your home dimension for years in the beginning, and you will have nearly no time visiting your family. On top of that, you will do a lot of fighting and also a lot of killing because I personally am not as reluctant as you to end a life, and as my apprentice you would need to follow my teachings and adapt.”

Celestia nodded enthusiastically. “I know. I thought long about this and I am ready to accept your teachings.” She simply stated while smiling warmly. For the first time since he knew Celestia, he lost control over his jaw. He was indubitably sure that this will destroy any chance of her still wanting to be his apprentice. Celestia still continued looking at the slack jawed Human.

Aren quickly regained his composure and started putting his fingers to the bridge over his nose. He had to think over some things. ‘So she wants to be my apprentice. She has good talent for magic and also for combat, and she is ready to learn everything I teach her. She also said that she has no problem with killing or with leaving her homeworld for years. I also kind of like her, so that’s a plus too.’

He looked her over. ‘I never thought about getting an apprentice. I always thought that I should wait a while longer to take one since I still have a lot of time and I am also an apprentice… well my master is something different. I am already stronger than most masters… maybe I should consider an apprentice?’ He hummed and squinted his eyes.

‘Well I should consider one, but does it has to be one right now? Surely Celestia would be a formidable apprentice and companion, but is she ready to leave her home world behind? Maybe it’s too early for her. Hmm what to do?’ He still continued humming and looked at the hopeful and expectant gaze of Celestia. Her wish of finally visiting other lands was so immense that it even showed in her eyes. Aren sighed.

“Alright… I accept.” He said while scratching the back of his head. Celestias’ mouth reached widths which were never seen before, and she had the biggest smile ever on her face. She almost looked like a little filly which got its’ favorite toy for birthday, and she started bouncing around the room screaming ”YES!” the whole time.

It looked so damn adorable that Aren couldn’t suppress a chuckle escaping his throat. Yes, she was still terribly young. She was happy because this meant so much to her since it was her only way to learn something entirely new because Equestria would still need multiple thousand years to get into the multiverse age. The only other thing she could have done would be astronomy and stuff like that. Yeah, she wasn’t a huge fan of it.

“Alright Celestia, you can calm down now.” Celestia suddenly stopped and blushed a little.
“Sorry about that.” She cleared her throat. “So what happens now?” Aren walked over to one of his wardrobes and opened it. He was instantly assaulted by a mountain of papers, which had the desire to bury him under them. Celestia had to giggle a little.

“The first thing we gotta do is to explain to you what exactly you have to do before you can be my official apprentice.” He shouted while being buried under paper. Suddenly the paper flew back to the wardrobe, and the doors closed. Aren now had only one paper in his hand.

“First, you can’t take back an apprenticeship. If you accept being my apprentice, you will be my apprentice until you either succeed me, I die, or you kill me. There are also some exceptions, but these are very rare. We can’t just end it when we want. On top of that, you need to forsake your title as a being from Equestria. When you are an apprentice of a traveler, such as me, you are not bound by any dimension. You may still call one dimension your home, but you can’t claim to be a citizen of it.”

“If you break a law in any dimension, you must either fulfill the punishment that the dimension deems fit for your crime, or swear to never come back to the particular dimension again. If you have a disagreement with your master, and he insists in being right, you have to follow his decisions, even though you can tell me that you disagree.”

“These are the main rules if you want to be an apprentice of a traveler. Are you really sure you want to go through with this?” He asked her while placing a hand on her back, and looking into her eyes. Celestia looked up.

“I thought long enough about this and I am sure that I want to do this.” Aren sighed once.

“Alright, then we need to go somewhere.” Aren grabbed her hoof and then they disappeared.

They appeared in a gigantic white hall. The ceiling was over 100 meters high and the hall was adorned with multiple broad pillars. The walls had paintings and candles of unreal size and at the side of the hall, there were strangely looking chairs. Only in some of them, sat creatures of the weirdest looks. One of them looked like a hybrid out of a rat and a human. It had a long partisan, which looked mightily impressive, changing its’ color every second. Its’ eyes spoke of experience and combat-power, and it was approximately 1.60 meters tall.

Beside it, was something that was much taller. It was extremely fat and had armor, which reminded one of tribes in a jungle. With its’ height of nearly four meters, it looked intimidating. On top of that it carried a humongous hammer, which was bigger than Celestia. Said princess looked away and saw the other side of the hall. There were mostly normal looking things, normal in the standards of the multiverse of course. One blue human thing, and also a small human with a big beard. ‘Why has nearly everything the form of a human?’

Aren nudged Celestia to sit down at one of the chairs. She looked at the chairs and thought about how weird they looked. How could she sit down on them? After looking at the chairs from every angle, she just decided to try to sit on them. Surprisingly, they changed their shape instantly, and she was now sitting in a very comfortable position. She gets surprised again and again by the multiverse.

“Listen here, you don’t need to be nervous about this. We will be talking to five of the most powerful immortals in the whole multiverse. They are working under The Bearer, who is the emperor over the biggest group of dimensions. They will judge us and based on their judgment, you will be allowed to be my apprentice or not.”

Celestia wasn’t nervous before, but now she was thanks to Arens’ marvelous job of calming her. They waited for approximately five minutes, and then some kind of mixture of a human and a dragon stepped out of the big door at the end of the hall. He looked down at a massive stone he had in his hands.

“Achrkba and his disciple nuzzleb please come to the council.” He stated and then the two strange beings from before stood up, but before they managed to go to the guy, Aren ported between them and looked at the dragon-human, who just sighed.

“Please sir, could you wait? It’s not your turn.” The dragon-human said with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“How about Celestia and I go in now? I think we can manage something since my current master is somewhat unique right now…” The dragon-human summoned some kind of device and sighed in annoyance.

“You know that you can’t take an apprentice as long as you are an apprentice yourself, mister…?”

“Aren. Just Aren.” The dragon-human hummed for a short while. He searched through his device and thought about why he felt like he heard the name before. When he found the appropriate page, his face got completely white, even though he had scales all over his body. He stared at his device, then at Aren, then at his device again and back to Aren. Suddenly he cleared his throat and turned to Aren.

“Of course, you can go in right away sir.” He made a polite bow and Aren gestured for Celestia to follow him. She went around the group, which threw her one curious and two angry gazes. The two strange beings surely didn’t like those two going in there before them. Celestia felt quite awkward while walking around them.

When she arrived at the door, Aren opened it, and they both walked in. The hall was pretty dark, and there was only one illuminated spot. It was impossible to see anything beside the illuminated spot, with Aren standing in it. Celestia reluctantly walked into the light, and when she stepped in, it could be felt that the room had a strange aura of surprise.

“Aren and Princess Celestia of Equestria. We are here because I want to take her in as my apprentice.” There was no immediate answer. Celestia wasn’t even sure if there was anyone here.

“We greet you, Aren and Princess Celestia of Equestria, but before the council hears you out on your request, it has a question. Why do you want to have an apprentice even though you are still one?” The voice was deep and came from outside of the illuminated area. Aren wasn’t disturbed by this question.

“You all should know that my master and I are an unusual case. There is nearly no way for me to succeed him in near future. On top of that, I am stronger than most masters, and also lived longer than them. So why should I not have the right to have an apprentice myself?” The council was quiet for a while.

“The council knows that yours is a special case, yet the council still has to abide the rules. Your title is an apprentice, and as long as you are still one, the council can’t give you the freedom of your own apprentice.” One of the voices said. This one sounded scratchy.

“Council, can you recite rule 847, clause 8E please?” Aren asked. There was an immediate answer, by a young sounding voice.

“The status of an apprenticeship can be changed into one of a master if said apprentice is able to perform a spell with a power value of seven or higher, as long as the master is not able to use this spell.” The young voice recited. Now the old voice spoke again.

“This applies of course, but judging by the nature of your current master, the council doesn’t see a way which makes it possible for you to achieve this. Tell the council, have you achieved this seemingly impossible task? Are you able to perform a spell, which your master can not perform?” Aren smirked.

“Yes!” Suddenly there were murmurs.

“Could you demonstrate said spell?” The old voice asked again.

“Sure.” Aren said and held out his hand. Inside of his hand, a fire burned, which changed its’ color to a deep blue. There was silence in the room. Celestia and Aren couldn’t see it, but the council felt a deep fear inside of them. By the hundreds of thousands of years they were alive, they could feel that this spell was exceedingly dangerous. The old voice didn’t seem calm anymore.

“Would it be possible for you to explain this spell to the council?” Aren smirked when he heard the uncertainty in the voice of the old being.

“Of course. This actually is an entirely new element, I just created half a year ago. I can give you the creation-sheet.” He summoned five pieces of paper, and every piece floated into a different direction. After some time, there were loud murmurs heard. They sounded outraged and angry.

“Are you kidding me? There is no way to transform magic into soul. This is unheard of!” A female voice shouted. Aren chuckled mockingly.

“Well it is a new element. I would wonder if it was heard of before.” He said while chuckling. The old voice shouted loud.

“ENOUGH!” The room got quiet. “The council demands a performance of said spell.” He shouted at Aren, who just continued smirking. Oh this will be fun.

“I would, but there is a security risk here.” The lifting eyebrow could be felt.

“What do you mean?” The old voice said. Suddenly the female voice was heard again.

“The next thing he will claim is that this spell could break an IIB.” Aren had to laugh at this.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I claim.” Aren said while laughing. Celestia just stood there and didn’t know what to do. The whole time Aren spoke to the council, she was just standing aside and didn’t do anything. Maybe it was better this way. The council seemed even more outraged, judging by the voices they heard. The old voice silenced the other ones again.

“Then prove to the council that what you told it wasn’t a lie.” Aren smiled.

“With pleasure.” He then gestured to Celestia to move back a little. She happily complied, and when she backed up enough, Aren shot the beam of soul-fire to his front. It hit a barrier, and shortly after, a sound like screeching glass could be heard. Aren put more magic into his blast, and it got wider. The barrier then began to dent, and finally it broke with the sound of shattering glass. Aren instantly stopped his magic flow, and the beam disappeared.

The hall was silent. Nothing was heard for nearly a minute. Then the old voice spoke again.

“This certainly proves the originality of your spell, but do you really claim that you have found a way to mold magic into soul?” Aren simply nodded. “Then there is no further reason to doubt you. Aren, the council witnessed your performance of four nearly impossible feats. The creation of a new element, the destruction of an IIB, the performance of a spell, which Oran the Traveler can not perform, and the transforming of magic into soul. This is plenty reason enough, to acknowledge you as a master instead of an apprentice.”

“Celestia, Princess of Equestria please step forward.” Celestia hastily did this and stood beside Aren. “You know that as his apprentice…” he began to recount everything Aren told her about what it means to be his apprentice. When he finished, he awaited an answer from Celestia.

“Yes, I know all this, and I accept every part of it.” She stated with a serious tone to her voice.

“Then your title shall now be, apprentice of Aren. Congratulations.” The old voice told her. “One more thing. Is the council allowed to publish information about your new spell and your apprentice to the public of the multiverse?” The old voice asked. Aren waved a dismissive hand.

“If you want, do it. I actually don’t care.” He simply said while turning around.

“Very well then, and Celestia?” The voice now spoke to Celestia. “You found yourself a very powerful master. Learn many things, and achieve wisdom over your future powers. You have the absolute blessing of the council.” Celestia lowered her head in politeness once and followed Aren out of the hall. When they exited it, Aren turned to Celestia.

“You got the ABSOLUTE blessing of the council. Do you know what this means?” Aren asked her with a happy tone. Celestia looked also happy, but the reason for her happiness was that she finally was the apprentice of Aren.

“No, I thought they tell this to every apprentice.” She said. Aren shook his head.

“The council normally says ‘May you learn many things from your master.’ And that’s it. To receive the blessing of the council means that they acknowledge the team of master and apprentice to be two immensely powerful beings, capable of going extraordinarily high in the ladder of power. The absolute blessing means that the council has no doubt that the apprentice will some time reach the top 100 of all beings in the multiverse. On top of that, you get many advantages. For example, free health insurance in the most prestige medicinal dimension, and a free room in the castle of The Bearer.” Celestia was taken aback.

The council meant that she could achieve such power? She honestly felt embarrassed by this and couldn’t contain a blush.

“Do you know who was the last one who received the absolute blessing?” Celestia simply shook her head. How could she possibly know? Aren had to chuckle.

“It was me. I was the last one who got the blessing, and now look where I stand.” She got the same blessing as him? No, she couldn’t get as powerful as him. They had to be mistaken, but she still had some questions.

“Speaking of, where are you standing right now? You said something about the top hundred. Are you part of them?” Aren scratched his chin and hummed.

“I think I’m five or something like this. I don’t really care about the rating.” Celesitas’ eyes widened. She knew that Aren was powerful, but the fifth strongest one? She never would’ve thought this, but she had one more question.

“One more question.” She seemed to blush a little and played with her right front-hoof. “Being your apprentice, should I call you different?” Aren crooked an eyebrow. “I mean should I call you master, or master Aren, or teacher or just simply Aren?” She asked. Aren ohed finally knowing what she meant.

“Seriously, I don’t really care what you call me. Normally an apprentice calls its’ master just plainly master, but I don’t mind how you call me. I mean, I call Oran just old man. It bothered him the first few years, but he accepted it after some time. You accepted your nickname also rather quickly, Celly.” He exclaimed with a smirk. Celestia had to giggle a little.

“Whatever you say, Ary.” Aren suddenly winced, and looked at her.

“Ary? Seriously? I am now your master for nearly all eternity, and you want to call me Ary?” Celestia laughed and walked past him.

“Why not? Also, I think it’s time we go back to Equestira, Ary.” He sighed. Why didn’t he tell her to just call him Aren or master? Well no point in staying here.

“Wait just a minute there!” A loud deep voice came from behind them. They both turned around to see the two beings, which were angry at them before. Celestia felt a little afraid because she knew that she wasn’t particularly powerful right now in the multiverse, and those two seemed to have trained much longer than her. Aren just sighed again, and turned around, facing the smaller of the two.

“Yeah?” He asked annoyed. The smaller of the two looked enraged while the bigger on looked afraid, just like Celestia. It was obvious that the smaller one was the master of the two, and he looked absolutely livid.

“How dare you to cut in line before us? I demand justice!” Aren rolled his eyes. Justice, of course, what else? He sighed once.

“What do you want?” The master of the two smirked.

“I challenge you to a formal duel! You and me, to the death!”

Author's Note

Some news.

I had to change the age-restriction to mature. Heard today in the FimFiction chat, that the kind of gore i describe is too heavy for teen.

well apart from that, hope you liked the chapter.

Duel

Aren did something that he did many times before on this day. He sighed. That ratman wanted a duel, of course. No, it can’t be a simple fine or an apology. It had to be a duel to the death. Why do these ratmen always make such a big deal out of injustice? He wanted to kill him in a duel because Aren cut in line. It’s honestly not understandable.

“Seriously?” he deadpanned. The ratman huffed.

“Yes!” Another sigh from Aren. He turned to the bigger of the two who seemed to feel uncomfortable.

“Are you his apprentice already, or were you here because you wanted to be?” Before the burly guy could answer, the ratman shot between them.

“Don’t you dare addressing my apprentice. You don’t see me talking to your…” He looked to Celestia and watcher her for several seconds. “Flying-horse-thing.” Celestia felt hurt, by the condescending tone which the ratman used, but she didn’t want to say anything. The situation was like two parents arguing with each other while the kids could only watch. Aren seemed to pick up on Celestias’ pain.

“And you don’t see me, talking down to your apprentice. Now tell me, is he your apprentice already?” The ratman seemed outraged but still answered the question.

“He would be by now, but you and your mount had to cut in line.” Mount? Alright, that’s enough.

“Alright, it is on!” Then all four of them vanished.

They reappeared at a big clearing. The floor was made up of gray cobblestone and had a round form. Around 30 meters was the diameter of the round clearing with the cobblestone floor. Beyond it, were just plains and many other round clearings placed in ordered intervals, and loud fighting could be heard and seen from many other clearings. Apparently, this was some kind of field for people to do duels.

“Horse, get out of the arena.” Celestia turned to the ratman, who just gave her an order. She looked around and saw that the fat guy who accompanied the ratman was outside the arena and looked to her. Celestia saw that he also seemed to feel awkward. Judging that he probably wasn’t as mean as his master, she walked over to him and sat down beside him. When she arrived, she wanted to start a conversation.

“So, have you witnessed one of these duels before?” The big fat guy looked a little surprised that she wanted to talk to him, but answered.

“Yes. Master likes to duel a lot.” He said in a nervous voice. “Have you seen a lot of duels, horse?” Celestia winced at the word horse.

“Could you please stop calling me horse? I am a pony or Celestia if you presume my name.” The beefy guy lowered his head a little.

“I’m sorry, Celestia. My name is Nuzzleb.” He offered his immense meaty hand and Celestia placed her hoof in it. They both shook their appendages. “So have you witness a lot of duels before, Celestia?” She shook her head.

“I fought a lot with my master, and some other immortals, but I never witnessed a real duel before.” She decided to call Aren, master when other ponies were around. It seemed kind of silly and disrespectful if she would refer to her master as simply Aren. Nuzzleb sighed, which created a gust of wind due to his size.

“I am very sorry for you. I witnessed my master dueling with many masters before, and he always won. Seeing the faces of the apprentices, feels like a shot to the heart.” His deep voice resonated like a bass. Celestia witnessed this, and could feel the sadness oozing from the big heart, but she wanted to continue the talk.

“How have you met your master, Nuzzleb?” Celestia asked with a warm tone. The giant had to laugh at this.

“I was the general of our army from my home country. We were fighting a war against the forces of evil, and there was no hope. We just waited every day for the final battle, in which we would be put down, and move on to arkbarzia. When the day arrived, we suddenly got a visit from someone from the multiverse. He was just drinking in the tavern, and when the forces attacked, he ignored them.”

He had to chuckle. “Yet the forces made a mistake. They knocked over the drink of my master, and he was very upset about it. He then slaughtered every last one of them and won us the war. I witnessed this, and offered him my live for him to be my master. He accepted with the reasoning that he didn’t have anything planned anyway. We traveled around some worlds, and my master would challenge many other masters to a duel. Mostly because of petty reasons, like cutting in line.”

Bringing a whole race to the brink of extinction just because of a spilled drink. Celestia didn’t know how he could act this destructive just because of this. Nuzzleb crooked an eyebrow and looked at Celestia. “What’s your story?” He inquired. Celestia hummed and answered him.

“Well I am the princess of Equestria, and we were invaded by an immortal from the multiverse. We then began summoning somepony who could be able to stop him. We ended up with my master, and he has been training everypony in whole Equestria for nearly a year now. Just an hour ago, I proposed to him that I want to be his apprentice, and he accepted.” Suddenly they witnessed the two masters parting. It seemed like the duel was about to begin.

Aren looked at the ratman. “You know, I really don’t want to drag this for too long. So let’s just begin ok?” The ratman huffed and took out his partisan, which then began to shine in a mixture of lightning and lava. Celestia felt impressed. She didn’t know that it was possible to enchant weapons with elements. On top of that, he did it with two at once. Aren just pulled out his sword nonchalantly.

Celestia heard a gasp from beside her and saw how Nuzzleb looked at Arens’ weapon in shock. She looked to the weapon, but couldn’t see the reason why he looked so shocked. “Excuse me, Nuzzleb? You seem rather startled after seeing my masters’ weapon. What’s the reason for this?” He turned to her and had a look like she just grew another leg.

“You don’t know anything about your masters’ weapon?” Celestia pondered about this and saw that he was right. She actually never heard anything about it. At last, she shook her head. Nuzzleb gestured to the weapon.

“This weapon has been forged by Black Fire, the personal smith of The Bearer. Only the best and strongest ones can claim to be worthy of a weapon of his creation. How did he obtain it?” He asked her, but Celestia just shrugged. He looked back at the arena. “If he has a weapon of Black Fire, then he is more than a match for my master.” The ratman also didn’t look as calm anymore.

“How did you obtain that?” Aren crooked an eyebrow.

“This old thing? I had it forged for me about 100,000 years ago.”

“LIAR! You stole it from someone, didn’t you?” He instantly accused. Aren just shook his head.

“Nope, but that doesn’t matter anymore.” He then looked at the enchanted weapon of ratman. “So you are fighting with a lightning, lava combination, eh?” Then he looked at this sword. “I think I’ll show you how you use that correctly.” Before the ratman got a chance to answer, Arens’ weapon was suddenly engulfed by red and black glowing lightning. “This is lightva” The ratman shook his head.

“What is this trick? You can’t combine lava and lightning into a new nonexistent element!” Aren crooked an eyebrow.

“You don’t even know of merging elements on a subspacial-plane? How old are you? Ten-thousand?” The ratman just shook his head.

“Enough of these games!” He screamed while charging in an unreal speed at Aren, who simply slashed with his sword at the weapon of his opponent. When the weapons met, a loud cling was heard throughout the area, and in the center of the arena stood Aren, his sword pushing back the partisan of the ratman.

The ratman growled as he sidestepped and hoped to destroy Arens’ balance with this. Aren anticipated this, and changed the direction of the swing into a sideways one, but the ratman was too fast, and was able to back step another time, so the sword couldn’t hit him. Yet, the ratman didn’t give Aren any time to take a breather, and instantly summoned three burning swords, which whirled with unreal velocity. The burning swords were now whirls of red color, and they flew at Aren, who simply summoned a gigantic metal shield, which blocked the whirls.

That wasn’t everything the giant shield did. Apart from redirecting the swords, it changed their color into an orange one, and the swords turned around and started flying at the ratman. He anticipated something like this and took a step back but instantly pushed himself into the sky with his partisan because he felt that he stepped on a trap-spell, from which an explosion of lightning sprung out.

The swords flew straight at the partisan, and they got flung away by it since the weapon was too masterfully crafted. In the air, the ratman did some amazing somersaults, from which small lightning-balls shot. Every lightning-ball started flying straight at Aren, who made one swing with his weapon. The resulting shockwave destroyed every lightning-ball, but when the shockwave hit the ratman, he just pulled his partisan up to him and blocked the shockwave.

He got shot back by the force of the shockwave, and landed with his feet first at a barrier he conjured around him in the sky to stop his flight. Instantly pushing away with insane strength, he shot at Aren. The ratman instantly slashed an overhead slash, before he reached Aren. This looked pointless at first, but it seemed to have a purpose because with his slash, he destroyed a little board-barrier in his flight, on which a trap-spell laid.

Aren shot lightning at the ratman, but he seemed to grab the foundation of the dimension and seemed to shift it. There was a blue streak before him, and the lightning passed through the streak, into another dimension. The ratman then instantly held up his partisan to block lightning that was coming from the top. Aren saw that the ratman opened up a dimensional gate, and found out, through a dimensional scan, which dimension the attack went, and opened up another dimensional rip behind the ratman.

The lightning shot back into the dimension behind the ratman, and Aren summoned an iron-cube in the path of the lightning. The lightning hit it and was enchanted into it. Aren then switched the cube with a dense form of air, over the ratman because a swap spell is instantaneous, and the half second delay of a teleport-spell would take too long. When the cube was swapped, it let out its’ lightning to the nearest target, which was the ratman who simply blocked it.

But this wasn’t Arens’ full plan, because while the ratman blocked the lightning strike from the top, a concentrated beam of lava shot out of the floor. The ratman realized this fast, and created a barrier under him, to block the lava. Smirking, he looked forward to the target he was flying to, and the last thing he saw in his life was the edge of Arens’ sword, 20 centimeter in front of his face. The fight was over.

The two apprentices stood there, slack-jawed. Celestia only thought one thing. ‘And we are supposed to win against him in a fight?’ She looked over to Nuzzleb and felt sympathetic. Nuzzleb was still shocked. He couldn’t believe that his year-long mentor died. Whom could he learn from? What could he do now? Was his master truly dead? He can’t just simply die like this!

While Celestia watched Nuzzleb, Aren made a last gesture of respect towards his former opponent and teleported the corpse, back to its’ home dimension. He didn’t actually want to kill him since he had an apprentice too. Maybe he just wanted to boast a bit and look good in the eyes of his apprentice? There wasn’t enough to judge him upon since they haven’t really talked a lot.

But even if he didn’t want to kill him, he still had to. Getting challenged to a duel to the death, meant to the death. Forfeiting meant sure death to the loser. Ever since, they stepped into the ring, it was decided that only one of them would walk away, and he is not that generous that he would die so that a master can boast to his apprentice.

Walking over to the two apprentices he looked at the big guy, who was still in shock. “Hey kid.” The big guy turned to him, sadness, confusion, fear, and shock in his eyes. “Where’s your dimension? I will send you back there.” Nuzzleb didn’t answer, and Aren groaned.

“Listen, this wasn’t my first time killing a master with an apprentice, so let me give you some tips. Just because, I killed your master, doesn’t mean that you are a bad apprentice or that your journey ends. If you want to find another master, go to the dimension located at ARFX-128. It’s an exclusive place, where masters go to find apprentices. Maybe you can search for a new one there.”

Deep inside, Nuzzleb was angry at Aren. How could he just simply kill his friend, companion and master? Yet, he accepted his advice since his anger was contained by his logical reasoning. He knew that the duel involved the danger of his master dying. It was a fair match. He got a tear in the eye and looked down to the floor.

“ABBZ-062.” He simply said. Aren nodded and not a second later, the fat guy vanished. He then turned to Celestia.

“So, wanna go back to Equestria?” Celestia still didn’t know what she should feel. It still felt wrong to kill, and even more wrong if the reason was such a simple thing. It also still shocked her, how Aren could kill without any remorse. How can he be so cold hearted? Aren crooked an eyebrow. “Something bothering you, Celly?” He asked.

Celestia just shook her head. She accepted Arens’ teachings and was willing to learn his ways. If she genuinely wanted to be his apprentice, then she needed to get over such feelings. Taking up one hoof, and rubbing it against her eyes, she was able to calm down. She looked up at Aren, and wanted to distract Aren with a question, so he doesn’t realize that she still hated seeing ponies die.

“What were you talking about earlier? With these letters and numbers?” Aren tapped on his chin, but then he knew what she meant.

“Oh, you mean the catalogue-system?” She didn’t know what that was, but just nodded. “The catalogue is a list of every dimension in the A-cluster. You should know that the A-cluster is the group of dimensions over which The Bearer rules. The worlds in the dimensions of the A-cluster are all marked with four letters and three numbers. The first four letters represent the dimension while the last three represent the planet in the dimension. With a special spell, we can access waypoints in the dimensions so we can go there just by knowing the catalogue-number. It’s pretty smart.”

Celestia didn’t really listen to this because she was still thinking about her position with Aren. It was obvious that she will have to deal with worse things than a death in a duel while learning under him. ‘No, I thought long enough about this and I made my decision. I won’t be bothered by something like this!’ She thought to herself, but still felt doubt. She shook her head again.

“Can we go back to Equestria?” She sounded worried, but Aren could guess what this was about. It was impossible for such a pure and innocent being, which hasn’t killed before, to just jump into something brutal as the multiverse and shrug it all of. He knew that the best thing he could do for her, was to let her have some alone time, so she can sort things out. He put his hand on Celestia and then they vanished.

They reappeared in Celestias’ bedroom. Looking outside, they realized that it was night. Apparently, Luna lowered the sun, and it was indubitable that Luna would be worried over her sister. Celestia never forgot to lower the sun. Never. Celestia knew this and felt guilty.

“Oh no, I need to get to Luna. She is probably worried sick.” She looked over to Aren.

“Yeah, you go do that. I’ll be back in my room. I have to think over some stuff.” Aren said, and then simply vanished. Celestia just hoped that he didn’t have second doubts about her being his apprentice, but there were more important matters at hoof right now. She needed to find Luna, and tell her that she was fine. Some seconds later, she too vanished in an explosion of light.

Aren reappeared in his room, and instantly realized that he was in danger. Through his 350 Omnipresence-spells which he always has activated, he saw that over ten ponies were ready to attack anything that appeared in the room, but before he thought about anything, he built a barrier around himself. Not too late, because several spears and magic-blasts were shot at him right away, which couldn’t damage the barrier.

This wasn’t training, and he wasn’t in the rezz-field. They seriously tried to hurt him. Since this wasn’t training, he also wasn’t bound to spells which should have been created in Equestria already. With a flick, he stopped time in a certain radius. This was a spell, which was way too advanced for Equestria right now, so they couldn’t have the easy defensive spells for this. He didn’t use such spells in training, because he couldn’t teach the defensive spells against this, since Equestria would not be ready to learn them.

He searched around, and spotted Luna standing in the doorway, readying a spell. Probably some stun spell or something similar. Walking over to her, he stepped aside beside Luna and let time flow again. Luna suddenly went wide eyed because her target just vanished.

“So what’s with the sudden hostility?” Aren asked, and Luna jumped into the air and turned to him. She quickly shook her head and changed her expression back to a serious one.

“Where’s Tia!?” She nearly screamed. Aren looked confused.

“The last time I saw her, we were in her room, and she said that she wanted to look for you because she thought you would be worried sick about her.” He then looked at some random stone. “And you Ravien, stop hiding there, and get down here.” One stone just moved, and transformed into Ravien, who just flew down beside Luna, who looked like he slapped her in the face.

“Don’t give me that! We searched all over her, and her and your magical-traces were nowhere to be found in Equestria. You ponynapped her!”

Aren had an ‘Are-you-kidding?’ expression on his face. “Ponynapped? Really?” He then just shook his head. “Well never mind that. You couldn’t find our traces, because-“ He interrupted himself because he had to absorb a fire-bolt which was flung at him from behind, and shot an unreal amount of teleportation spells at his attacker, so she couldn’t block the spell with her magic. A second later, Chrysalis was teleported beside Ravien.

“Because she wanted to visit my home-dimension. If you could try your detection spell again, I am sure that you would find that Celestia is back in the castle.” He explained. Luna shook her head.

“Tis a lie! If this was the truth, then I would’ve alrea-“ She got cut off by a unicorn, dressed like a scientist, who came running down the hallway yelling ‘Princess Luna’ over and over again. When he arrived, Luna gazed sternly at the scientist. “Go, this is no place for a scientist to be.” The scientist had none of that.

“Princess Luna, we found the energy of Princess Celestia!” Luna made a double take on that.

“What? Where?” The scientist rubbed the back of his head with one of his hooves.

“Actually, she is right here in the castle.” She turned back to Aren, who just raised an eyebrow.

“I thought, after one year we were over something like this.” He then walked to his door, around the guards who watched with uncertain eyes. When he arrived at the doors, he turned to the guards. “Don’t forget training tomorrow.” He said and closed the doors behind him. Shortly after, some guards who were still hiding in his room, were ported out front.

Luna turned her head away from the door and searched for the magical energy of her sister. She made an imaginative jump of delight, when she found her, in her room. Luna instantly gathered her energy and ported herself to her sister. When she appeared in a dark explosion of light, she looked around and had a wide smile with teary eyes when she found her sister.

“TIA!” She screamed and ran to her sister, embracing her in a loving hug. Celestia was a bit surprised by the suddenness of this action, but also hugged Luna back. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She whispered into Celestia, who just strengthened her wings around her.

“Shh, everything will be ok Luna. I’m here.” She also wanted to say, that she would never leave Luna alone, but this wasn’t the case since she was now Arens’ disciple. Instead, she just continued holding her. Luna began to sop quietly into her while they both shook in a soothing rhythm. She looked down to her still sobbing sister, who now tried to form words.

“I thought *sob* I thought, Aren pony *sob* ponynapped you. I was so afraid that you would never *sob* never come back.” Celestia gulped. Luna won’t take the news of her new status well. Instead of telling Luna where she was, she just continued holding Luna, feeling tears in her own eyes. She hasn’t realized until now that she will leave everything behind. She won’t see Luna for an awful long time. Only now, she fully realized the size of her decision and also started crying.

After a while, they both laid on Lunas’ bed and just held each other in sisterly love. After some minutes, Luna was fast asleep, and Celestia was able to calm down. She looked down at the sleeping face of her sister, and had to think about something.

‘I didn’t know that Luna was this worried about me, but I made my decision. I just can’t continue living this monotone live. Also, I won’t disappear for forever. Aren told me that I won’t see Equestria for an unusually long time, but he also told me that when I return, I can visit as much as I want. It will be only for one long time, then everything should be alright again.’ She then thought about, how Luna would take this. She would certainly think that she would never see her sister again. Celestia sighed.

“By my own beard, this will be hard to explain.”

Author's Note

By Celestias' beard!

Sorry to end such an emotional chapter with that, but I couldn't resist. I also think that I suck at writing emotional scenes, so it doesn't matter thaaaaat much.

Oh, and I edited that "endless generosity" part out of "clearing under attack"....I had to facepalm so hard when I realized what I actually wrote there.

Everything Went Better Than Expected

„This concludes todays’ training. Now before, you continue doing whatever you have planned for today, I have one more thing to tell you. I think it’s time for you to get a weapon. Fighting with magic and your horns is cool and stuff, but you need a possibility to parry and block a physical attack. It would be very helpful if every one of you gets a weapon of some sorts in the next two weeks.” Aren turned to Celestia. “This doesn’t apply to you. Remember, in two days we begin.”

“This said, I’ll be back at my room.” And Aren vanished. The other three immortals turned their looks to Celestia, who just looked nervous. She hasn’t told them about her being his apprentice, even though three days already passed since it was decided. It would be necessary to tell them in the next two days. Celestia looked at the curious eyes of Luna. Especially for her sake.

“Sister, could you please tell me what you and Aren did three days ago? The air between you two changed, and you are acting differently to one another.” Then Luna gasped. “Has he done something to you? I swear if he even thought about hurt-“

“Luna, calm down. He didn’t hurt me or anything.” Celestia aborted Luna, who didn’t seem to be even a bit calmer. Celestia sighed. “Luna, what exactly do you have against Aren?” Celestia hoped that she may be able to gain a possibility to open up the topic of her being his apprentice, without any incidents, through this question. Luna groaned once in exasperation.

“He’s arrogant. He shows off his skills on a daily basis. He thinks he’s better than us. He has no humor. He acts like we are all some foals which never went out of their castles. His training methods are way too brutal. His teeth make me kind of nervous. And he acts like this place belongs to him.” Luna explained in one breath.

‘These are a lot of problems.’ Celestia thought with an impressed glint in her eyes. ‘Maybe this will not be as easy to tell her as I thought.’ She sighed once. ‘If I tell her about him and me, she will think that he stole me from her, and will hate him even more. Yet, I still need to tell her about my apprenticeship. Oh colt, this will not be pretty.’

“Really Celestia, I would have never thought that you would keep secrets from your own sister. I always thought you were such a perfect princess.” Chrysalis voice was moving deep in the levels of the strongest sarcasm-regions in existence. Celestia turned to her and got nervous. She wanted to tell them what happened between Aren and her, but it didn’t seem like a good opportunity. But when will a good opportunity arrive?

“Come Celestia, I think it would be appropriate for you to tell us. We have a right to know, why your training suddenly looks different from ours.” Ravien also gave his opinion, and Celestias’ mood kept going further and further to the station called nervousness, boarding on the country of panic. In the end, she just sighed, and decided to get this over with. She turned to Luna.

“Luna, have you looked at Equestria in the last year? The changes?” Luna seemed a little confused by the sudden topic change. Without any delay, she answered.

“Of course, but what does this have to do with Aren and you?” Celestia groaned once.

“I’ll come to that part later, but for now, what do you think of the changes?” Luna thought about this while Chrysalis and Ravien just looked indifferent at them. Since they weren’t really around Equestria that often, they couldn’t think of an answer. After a time, Luna answered.

“Well I must say, that Blueblood and Shining Armor are doing a good job in ruling the country. Some things they decided seem to benefit Equestria greatly, but some seem to be too… how do I put this… direct.” Celestia nodded.

“I think so too. They made some changes, which would have never occurred to me, but other ones just seem to be in the way of the harmony we tried to maintain for the last three thousand years.” Celestia sighed and looked to the side. “Say Luna, do you want to go back to ruling in four years, when all this is over?” Luna crooked an eyebrow, and she looked like Celestia asked the most obvious question in the world.

“Of course, what else should I do?” Luna exclaimed with a voice that hinted that this should have been obvious. Celestia sighed again. It seemed like she sighed especially much this day.

“Well you could go exploring. You could visit other planets. You could visit the rest of the world. Learn new things. Don’t you have the desire to learn and experience new things?” Celestia asked with a troubled voice, while looking away from Luna. Luna pondered about this and already had a hunch to what Celestia was hinting at. No, this was too crazy.

“I don’t know. Learning new things is a great thing, but it gives me a bigger sense of achievement when I solve a problem of my subjects. I just love to be there for them, even if not many visit my night court.” Luna sighed upset, but then looked at her sister. “Why do you ask this? Are you not happy with ruling Equestria?” Celestia shook her head.

“It’s not that I am not happy with ruling the land. It just feels like I am missing out. Seeing other villages, other lands, other spells… other worlds. It seems like it is such a big unknown, which invites to be explored. The things I could see. The things I could do after some time. The ponies I could meet. It seems so vast and interesting, like a novel with seemingly endless pages. It just lays there and waits to be read.” Celestia looked in Lunas’ eyes.

“Shining Armor and Blueblood are doing a very good job in ruling Equestria, but they lack experience. Experience they don’t have because they are not multiple thousand years old. You have the experience they lack. While we ruled over Equestria, our ponies were rejoicing in harmony, but it was a stagnant kind of harmony. They were living in happiness, but nothing new happened. No great breakthroughs in science and magic.” She shook her head again and had a more serious look in her eyes.

“Shining Armor and Blueblood have changed that. The current progress of science and magic is faster than nearly ever. The last time it happened, that Equestria was progressing this fast, was after Oran left last time.” She sighed deeply. “Equestria needs change, so I decided to give up my position as ruler over Equestria for a changing position of a mortal ruler.” Alright the first half of the awful news was out, now to wait for the reaction.

The reaction was stunned silence. Chrysalis looked like she could never think of giving up her rulership. Why would someling even think about giving up this kind of power over others? Ravien had a proud look in his eyes. She saw what was best for Equestria and sacrificed her own position as a ruler in order to improve the land. This actually was something truly noble.

Luna just had a shocked look in her eyes. A look that said nothing different than just the pure disbelieve in that statement. She shook her head. “What do you mean you give up your rulership? You can’t just say, I don’t want to rule you anymore. You can’t just simply quit. Equestria needs you, sister!” Luna told her with desperation in her voice. Celestia just looked sympathetic at her sister.

“Luna, you know exactly like me that it is not a good thing if the progress of a nation slows down until it eventually stops. Even if, I am immortal, I only have one consciousness, and am blinded for new ideas, which could be produced outside of my thinking pattern. If a land gets ruled by one or two beings who never do any new things, like visit new countries, it is bound to remain the same. Equestria needs change, but it also needs harmony. This is why I want you to continue ruling Equestria.” Luna shook her head violently, and tears began forming in her eyes.

“Tia, you don’t need to sacrifice yourself in order for Equestria to progress. We managed the last three thousand years, and we will manage the next three thousand.” Celestia sighed.

“Luna, I think you didn’t understand me completely. I know that it is not always right to sacrifice oneself, but this is no sacrifice.” Luna had a confused look back, accompanied by teary eyes. “It is the exact opposite. I am being selfish right now. I don’t want to rule Equestria anymore. I do the same thing over and over again. Waking up, raising the sun, cleaning, breakfast, day-court, lunch, day-court, tea, more day-court, diner, signing petitions, lowering the sun, and then about two hours of free time.”

“It is the same every single day, and I can’t stand the monotony anymore. I wanted to stop ruling over Equestria for the last five hundred years, but whenever I started to get any resolve in this matter, I just thought about what the new rulers could do wrong if they wouldn’t have any proper guidance. I don’t want to continue this monotone life!” She nearly shouted the last part and slammed her crown on the floor.

All the disturbing withheld emotions were now flowing out. Of course, it helped to speak with Aren some days ago, but she couldn’t properly let out her feelings back then. After she had remembered the last five hundred years while explaining to Luna why she wanted to quit, she began to recall all the feelings. It felt like a storm was breaking out of her. She couldn’t hold back anymore, and began to tear up while falling on her legs. Chrysalis and Ravien looked down at her uncomfortably and decided that it may be better if they went along their way.

Somewhere in that explanation, Lunas’ eyes changed from shock to pity. She didn’t know that her sister had these many problems with her leadership. She slowly knelt down to her sister and embraced her in a loving hug, which Celestia gladly returned. Luna teleported both of them back into Lunas’ room, not wanting anypony else to see her sister like this.

They appeared in Lunas’ bed but never parted the embrace, until several minutes later. When Celestia finally calmed down, they parted slowly, and Luna looked into her sisters’ eyes. “Feel better?” She asked with a little smile, and Celestia simply nodded, still looking a little stressed.

“Luna, I-“ She got interrupted by Luna.

“I’m sorry, Tia.” Luna exclaimed with a pained voice, to which Celestia just responded with a surprised expression. “I should have seen this. That you feel this way about ruling Equestria. How could I have been so blind?” Luna shouted with an angry hoof to her face. Celestia took hold of that hoof and moved it downward.

“Luna, you don’t need to be sorry. You couldn’t know because I always did my best to hide it. If somepony should feel sorry, then it is I.” Luna shook her head.

“No sister, you don’t need to be sorry fo-“ Now Luna got interrupted.

“Luna, this is not what I meant. I meant that I am deeply sorry for the pain you will be put through, because of me.” Luna crooked her eyebrow. “I feel awful for forcing you to carry on the burden of ruling Equestria. I feel so ashamed of myself.” Luna put a comforting hoof on Celestias’ shoulder.

“I love ruling my nation. You don’t need to feel bad for giving me something I enjoy.” Celestia smiled at this, but it soon faded. It can’t be postponed anymore. Everything else was discussed, and only one thing was left. Time for the truth.

“Luna, there is one more thing I need to tell you.” Celestia said with a hint of seriousness and sadness in her voice. Luna just continued smiling.

“Whatever it is, I am sure we can handle it.” Luna said reassuringly. What’s the worst thing she could say? Suddenly Celestia felt the urge to tell it to her as directly and unfriendly as possible. It felt like the universe wanted her to hurt her sister, but she would have none of that.

“Luna… I don’t know how to formulate this… *sigh* I will be going on a journey. Not in the near future, but someday I will go on it.” Luna raised an eyebrow. She wanted to go on a journey? And here she thought Celestia meant something serious.

“What journey? Where will we go?” She asked eagerly. Celestia giggled nervously and embarrassed.

“Well the thing why this is so serious, is that you sadly can not come with me.” Lunas’ eyebrow reached new heights.

“What do you mean?”

“The journey doesn’t go through Equestria.” Luna looked confused.

“Not through Equestria? Where else would yo…” Then it hit her. “Are you telling me that you plan to travel to other dimensions?” Luna hoped she was wrong, but Celestia slowly nodded, and Luna just shook her head. “We can’t travel through the multiverse because Equestria has no spells for that yet, and Aren can’t teach us since it is too advanced for our world, have you already forgotten?” Celestia drew small circles with her hooves.

“Well technically, I am no Equestrian anymore.” Luna was taken aback but shook her head.

“Of course you are. You have hooves, you have a horn, you are one of its’ ruler. Why wouldn’t you be?” Luna honestly wasn’t sure what Celestia meant. Celestia only sighed once.

“I don’t mean as in a pony. I mean that I am no citizen of Equestria anymore, or of our planet, or our dimension.” Luna looked a little nervous, but was still able to keep calm in her voice.

“Please elaborate.” She stated calmly.

“It genuinely pains me to tell you this, but I…” She hesitated a little, but there was no turning back now. She had to say it. “I asked Aren if I could be his apprentice, and he accepted.” Luna crooked an eyebrow.

“And what does this mean? Are you getting different lessons now?” She asked. Celestia forgot that Luna didn’t exactly know what it meant to be an apprentice of a traveler through the multiverse. Sighing she started explaining.

“It means, that I don’t belong to any dimension anymore and that I have the right to visit any dimension that I like. It also means that I acknowledge Aren as my master until I either equal him or he dies. In return, he will teach me everything he knows about the other worlds, magic, and every other thing. Since I don’t belong to any dimension anymore, there are no restraints here. Aren can teach me everything.” Luna looked a little skeptic.

“Tia, I don’t really see a point in there why you should feel sorry. The only thing that could disturb me about this is that you will spend more time with this Aren character, but that shouldn’t be that big of a problem.” Luna said with an unsure voice. Celestia was dumbfounded that Luna didn’t know what this meant.

“Luna, I won’t just be one hour a day longer with him. It means that I will be by his side nearly all the time… even after the issue with Oran is resolved, and Aren leaves Equestria.” Now Luna caught on, but still looked unsure.

“So you mean to tell me that you will leave Equestria?” Luna sounded shockingly calm, and her sister knew what this meant. Celestia quickly tried to rescue the situation.

“Yes, but not forever. I will come back, as soon as I am able to handle the dimension-travel-spell without help. Aren also reassured me that as soon as I am able to use the spell, I can visit Equestria frequently. So I won’t leave Equestria or you forever. I can still visit for some days.” Luna seemed to calm down a little, but it still unsettled her that her sister wanted to “move out”.

“I need to say, this really unsettles me. I always thought we were going through our lives together. I only returned one year ago, and you already tell me that we will part ways. Honestly speaking, I don’t really know what to make of this.” Luna exclaimed with a pained voice.

“Luna, I said I will visit, and I stay by my word, but there is still one more thing.” She sighed. “Normally, there are gateways that bring somepony to different dimensions, but they are logically only built and available in worlds, which already interacted with the multiverse. This means that Equestria doesn’t have such a gate.” Luna felt more nervous than before.

“What do you imply with this?”

“This means that I need to get back to Equestria the hard way. Every traveler needs to be able to trespass dimensions without the help of gates and gadgets. So the travelers created a dimensional travel spell, which only they can teach and use. That’s the spell Aren used whenever he simply vanished. This spell is not bound by any gates, and can bring somepony to a dimension which doesn’t have said gates.”

“This means that I first need to learn this spell, in order to return to Equestria, and Aren told me that it needs a very long time to learn said spell. He gave me an estimate on how long it will take for me to learn this spell.” Luna seemed like she didn’t want to hear the time, but still paid Attention. Celestia sighed.

“Luna, he thinks I will need around two thousand years to learn it.” Lunas’ eyes widened, and she couldn’t believe what Celestia just said. She won’t see her sister for two millennia? Luna shook her head.

“You can’t possibly mean that. Two thousand years. This is an unreal amount of time. You can’t even consider doing this.” Luna slowly said with an unrecognizable voice. “You don’t need to do this. There surely must be another way.” Celestia shook her head.

“Luna, I talked with Aren. There is no other way.” Luna shook her head in horror.

“Then just don’t do it. Don’t go!” Again Celestia shook her head.

“Luna, it’s already official. Aren and I went to the council, which decides such things. I am officially his apprentice now, and there is absolutely no turning back now. Everything’s already decided.” Luna looked pained.

“And you never thought about talking with me before you all decided that?” Celestia looked to the side, a pained and guilty look on her face.

“If I would have talked to you before, I knew that I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I can’t continue living this monotone life. The thought of doing the same thing for the next five hundred years seems unbearable.” Luna quickly answered in a shouting voice.

“AND YOU DIDN’T THINK THAT LETTING ME ALONE WASN’T UNBEARABLE FOR ME?!” Celestia winced at the sudden outburst, but wanted to place a comforting hoof on Lunas’ shoulder. It got quickly punched away. “Get out!” Luna bellowed dangerously.

“Luna, please-“

“GET OUT!” Luna screamed, and used her horn to teleport Celestia out of her room. She quickly built a barrier around her room, because she didn’t want her sister to return. Just sitting in her bed, not moving an inch, Luna thought about things. Celestia can’t just leave her like this. How dare she?

Wait… how dare she? No, leaving Luna alone wasn’t something that her sister would do. It was impossible that her loved sister would do something hideous like this. No, it’s all Arens’ fault. He corrupted her sister. He wanted to be between her sister and Luna. He was the one who told her sister about how thrilling it is to travel through the multiverse. If it weren’t for him, Celestia would be her old cheery self.

If it weren’t for him, Celestia would still be the sister she loved. Aren changed her sister. Celestia wasn’t her sister anymore. She was something different now, something evil. Only a pure evil being could play with the hearts of their loved ones like this. Luna began to breathe heavily and fast through gritted teeth. Aren is the lone fault that her sister is now evil.

Luna gripped her head with both her hooves and started groaning violently and in extreme aggression. ‘If he would not be alive, I would still have my sister. That embodiment of evil and chaos! I FUCKING HATE HIM! HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HATE HIM HAAAATTTEEE HIIIIMMM!’

She couldn’t hold herself anymore and began throwing all the things in her room around, and began incinerating everything with fire and death. She screamed on top of her lungs like she was a mad-mare who wanted nothing more than to scratch Arens’ eyeballs out. He has to die! HE NEEDS TO DIE! She continued thrashing around and hammered her hooves at the walls and at the furniture. She continued screaming and destroying and didn’t even stop when her hooves began to bleed furiously.

No matter what she did, the burning rage inside wouldn’t subside. Clutching her head again and laying at the floor, she continued to groan and screech in aggression. Her throat hurt already, and her voice seemed to fade, but that didn’t stop her. With aggressive eyes and barred teeth, she hammered her head into the floor beneath her. It hurt a lot, especially when her horn hit the floor. Screaming, she continued destroying the floor beneath her. It was not enough. She needed to kill Aren. It was the only way. It was-

CLINK

Luna stopped doing everything, when she heard and felt that noise. Looking down, she noticed the upper third of her horn, laying at the floor. She slowly picked it up in her hooves, and felt blue liquid pouring down from her horn over her face. She continued looking down at the part of her horn and began shaking.

“He broke my horn.” She slowly said to herself.

“HE BROKE MY FUCKING HORN!” She screamed and slammed it into the floor. She started gripping her head again, and began to just scream in rage. Suddenly there was a shattering noise, and Luna was enveloped in a furiously burning red aura. She continued to scream her lungs out until the room exploded in a furious red explosion, which destroyed her room and some neighboring rooms.

Many maids and guards came running to the explosion, and looked around. A huge chunk of the castle was blown off, and the remaining walls were smoking as if they were burned. The floor suddenly stopped and broke down into the deep fall from Canterlot. There were still broken chunks falling down to the earth beneath Canterlot, and from time to time, new parts of the castle fell down.

Celestia was also there since the rooms of the two sisters were pretty close to each other. Celestia didn’t know what could possibly cause this much destruction to her castle. Then she heard rustling and looked down at some parts of the remains of Lunas’ room. They were moving.

“LUNA!” Celestia shouted while flying to the remains that moved around. “By the sun, I am glad you are alri-“

From the debris, something emerged, and it was most definitely not Luna. It looked like Nightmare Moon, but also not the same. It was bigger than Nightmare Moon, and it wasn’t dark and blue like the night. No, it was pure black, with red streaks and veins going all the way through the body. Red burning shoes were on each hoof, and her wings looked like the ones of a phoenix, just redder and burning more violently. Its’ mane and tail had silhouettes of agonized spirits appearing and fading in them, and its’ mane and tail were not gracefully floating in the breeze of the ether. No, they were moving like a violently burning fire.

The face also didn’t look as cold and calculated as Nightmare Moons. No, this thing looked like it was burning with rage. Grinding and barring carnivore teeth could be seen, and the red burning eyes had a furious look in them. On top of its’ head was a spiky and jagged red crown with a black jewel embedded in it. There was also a black jewel embedded in its’ chest that was glowing a violent red. The horn was black at the hilt, but changed color the further it went to the tip until it was a furious red, but the most disturbing thing was the cutie mark. Its’ cutie mark was a picture of a squirming and furiously burning pony.

Celestia took a step back and gasped. Then she composed herself. “What did you do to Lu-“

Celestia couldn’t end the sentence due to the black and red horn that was suddenly penetrating her chest.

Author's Note

Yeah I had one question while writing that chapter. How can someone scratch out eyes with a hoof?

Apart from that, I decided that since I had to change my story to mature, I can take advantage of that and put in some swear words. You are used to a psychopath that tears ponies apart, so I doubt that some "fucks" rustle your jimmies.

Nifret

Everypony who stood or sat at the damaged parts of the castle gasped at what they just witnessed. An unknown black-red Alicorn stabbed the sun goddess with its’ horn. The look on Celestias’ face wasn’t different from before she got stabbed. She looked like she didn’t even notice the long horn that was penetrating her chest.

She slowly looked down and her eyes and mouth changed to a shocked expression. She couldn’t believe it. Did she really got stabbed outside of a rezz-field? This felt totally different than training. Even if, she died nearly every day in training, this stab didn’t feel the same. Getting killed in training feels painful, but it doesn’t feel like something wants to truly kill her. The stab she just received felt colder and was filled with hate. Hate that wanted nothing more than her death.

She didn’t have any more time to think because she felt an unreal pain in her chest. The red and black Alicorn wasn’t smiling victoriously, no. It still had this wretched hate filled expression on its’ face. Celestia felt how her hooves lost their grip on the floor beneath her as she got lifted into the air by the horn that was in her body. The black Alicorn shook its’ head once, and Celestia got thrown over the edge, away from Canterlot.

It was impossible to fly. Aside from the unreal pain and shock she was in, she also couldn’t straighten her wings, due to her chest-muscles being torn. What scared her the most, was her inability to cast magic. She wanted to at least teleport something safe, but it felt like a force in her wound hindered her in forming mana into a spell. There was nothing she could do.

Looking down, she saw the ground approaching very fast. Closing her eyes and having one tear rolling away from her eyes, out to the falling winds, she made her farewells. Suddenly she felt herself slowing, and then she stopped. She was enveloped in a yellow magical aura. Looking to her right, she saw a falling unicorn beside her, which used his telekinesis to hold the princess up.

While the princess stood still in the air, the unicorn continued to fall, but around 20 meters above the ground, it suddenly used a swap spell and instead of the unicorn falling, was now a purple Pegasus, who was barely able to align his body, so he could outfly the ground. Celestia was still hovering in the air, but slowly descended. She looked down and saw the recently falling unicorn standing safely at the ground.

Just now, she remembered that she still had a gigantic wound in her chest, and when she touched the ground, she slumped down on her haunches. The unicorn instantly ran to her and examined her.

“Status-report, Gold Digger.” Purple Edge said while landing near the princess. Celestia only perceived this barely, due to her being near unconsciousness.

“Several muscles, her stomach, and one of her lungs got penetrated. If the medics don’t hurry, we will lose her.” She explained professionally. The purple Pegasus sighed in relief.

“That’s good because here they come already.” Celestia barely able to change the position of her head, looked to Canterlot and couldn’t trust her eyes anymore. About ten unicorns, eleven Pegasi, and one earth pony were falling/flying down from Canterlot to the ground, each team doing the same maneuver Purple Edge and Gold Digger did before. When did her guards learn this?

The unicorns instantly surrounded Celestia in a circle. Then one of them shot a bolt of pure magic to the next one. This one shot an even bigger bolt to the one next to it, and so on and so on. Celestia realized what they were doing. The first one shot all his magical reserves to the one next to it. Technically, it was possible to harness as much magic as one want, as long as it does not use it.

It’s like pushing extremely much water into a cube, and then closing it. It doesn’t damage as long as you don’t open the cube and let the water out. Using a spell while being overpowered results in an incredibly result for the spell, but also with a massive backlash to the caster. If the last unicorn used a spell with the magic of ten unicorns combined, it would die undeniably.

The last unicorn received the, now huge, magical blast and instantly casted a mass-teleportation spell, being targeted at the hospital in Canterlot. Before the spell was put in effect, Celestia could see that a separate unicorn, had been using a force transfer spell on the unicorn casting the spell and the earth pony.

A force transfer spell, is a spell that can redirect magical exhaustion at a new target, as long as the target opens up their receivers for magic. The magical exhaustion from the overcharged unicorn went to the earth-pony, which used its’ earthly magic to redirect the force into the earth, thus eliminating any negative side effects of the overcharge.

Suddenly, Celestia laid on a bed in a hospital, doctors running all around her. “No worries, your majesty. You will get through this.” One of the doctors said while putting something into Celestias’ leg. After some seconds, she felt incredibly sleepy and lost her consciousness.

Dodging a firebolt, the hate filled Alicorn flew to the side and righted its’ position. Not one second later, a Pegasus with an anti-force-shield applied to his hooves, smashed down at the new position of the Alicorn. The Pegasus couldn’t even reach the Alicorn, due to the horn penetrating his body. The Alicorn anticipated this attack with easy and caught the Pegasus with her outstretched horn, never changing her expression.

It turned around and bucked into the air. Suddenly two massive red energy balls, shot out of the two hooves and slammed into two shields, which were built by a unicorn. The balls exploded with a massive force, sending red lightning everywhere. The barriers couldn’t withhold the force and crumbled under it, killing the two ponies and the unicorn who casted the spell.

Suddenly the Alicorn jumped to the side, a red orb exploding at her old position. Looking up, she saw Ravien. “I don’t know who you are, but such crimes will not be forgiven.” He said with a chivalrous voice. The Alicorn didn’t actually react, except for sending a red beam at Ravien. Ravien saw the magic, and readied himself to absorbing it, but somehow the beam wasn’t listening to him.

Then he realized it. This was no normal magic. This was something different. He was able to duck under the beam, but it didn’t just pass him. When it reached his old position, it widened and formed a cage around Ravien. The cage quickly shrunk, and Ravien tried porting himself out. It was not possible. There was some kind of anti magic spell in effect. Gritting his teeth, he made himself as small as possible and went through the red beams.

He survived, but not without major injury. Both his horns, both his wings, and a good portion of his appendages were entirely cut off. Through pain, he realized what these beams were. It was nothing different than light, but it was not the normal light. It was highly concentrated light. Sadly, there was no known name for highly concentrated light that could burn things in milliseconds.

Ravien fell to the ground and impacted with a loud crash. The Alicorn didn’t stop and instantly ran at the nearly unconscious Ravien, but suddenly he vanished and a violet Pegasus was at his place. Purple Edge came back from the bottom of Canterlot, and wanted to assist in the fight. They switched him to the place of Ravien while he was hovering above a stretcher. When they swapped, Purple Edge stood in the path of the angry Alicorn while the remains of Ravien fell gently on the stretcher. The four Pegasi, carrying the stretcher, instantly started and flew to the hospital.

The Alicorn didn’t care. The Pegasus realized that they had no chance against the Alicorn. He could observe some of her fighting earlier, and realized that she knew about combat and that she used spells which they never saw. This means that the Alicorn either created new spells, or knew of spells which were not created in their dimension yet.

Either she was an overpowered ancient evil from Equestria, or someone from the multiverse. Purple Edge hoped it was the first option. He evaded some red light-beams. It looked like he was doing well since he only had to stall for time, until the courier would message Aren of the events. He was most likely the only one that knew something about what was going on right now.

When that thought ended, he instantly got pierced by a long black horn. He didn’t realize that the Alicorn vanished from existence and appeared right under him, some moments ago. This was the same spell Aren used, when they wanted to ambush him in his room, when they couldn’t find Celestia. How was this Alicorn able to stop time? Suddenly he felt that the horn, which was impaling him just moments ago, was quickly removed from his stomach, and he fell to the ground, instantly being swapped out by more medics and more stretchers.

The black Alicorn evaded a lavablast, which would have hit her right on the sides if she wouldn’t have backed off. Purple Edge took a last look at where the lavablast came from, and saw Celestia standing there, healthy without any wounds. Suddenly the face of the black Alicorn made its’ first change. It changed to confusion, but then changed back to its’ hate filled glare.

The black Alicorn noticed that Celestia planned to teleport herself behind the Alicorn, and it just turned around and shot a red beam at the new position she would appear in, but the beam just went through the position and nothing appeared in it. Suddenly realizing that this was a feint, the Alicorn turned back to Celestia, just to realize that she was nowhere to be seen. The Alicorn activated a simple all around looking spell but couldn’t find her. She couldn’t just simply vanish, and the Alicorn was sure that she still held every protective charm of nearly every possible spell that could affect the time. So where was she?

Suddenly, the floor beneath her exploded, and she got thrown away by the shockwave. She slammed into the floor about five meters away and bled at some spots at her body, yet she was still able to get up. The explosion made its’ damage, but it wasn’t devastating due to the hardening spell she kept up the whole time while fighting. Looking at her old position, she noticed not Celestia, but a black and green bug-pony standing there. Chrysalis just smirked at her plan.

She changed into Celestia to confuse the Alicorn. Then she fainted a teleport, so it would look away, and when it wouldn’t look at her anymore she changed her form into a little ant. As an ant, she crawled to the Alicorn and used her fire absorption spell and her firespell at the same time, so she wouldn’t get damaged by the explosion. Yet she still didn’t like this development.

She had thought that the explosion would deal more damage, than just some cuts. Chrysalis knew that she probably hardened her exterior. The only real way she knew by hardening the exterior was by using a constant stream of the hardness element on the own body, but it takes too many steps to even be created. This proved that this Alicorn knew how to battle as an immortal, and was able to use something like this subconsciously. It was unmistakably a being that fought for multiple thousand years like this.

Suddenly she saw a guard running towards her. It was the one who went to get Aren.

“We can’t find him!” He screamed, and Chrysalis felt her heart drop. This was bad, real bad. She could buy time, but she couldn’t possibly think of defeating this Alicorn. Aren couldn’t just vanish. She needed to buy more time. Then she thought about how she could be delayed if she was an immortal being with much more power than its’ opponents. It was not hard to change into this thinking pattern since she was exactly this at the wedding.

She also remembered what Luna and Celestia told her about Equestrias’ recent problems. Nightmare Moon, Discords breakout, Sombra. Then she realized something. Everyling did the same thing, except for Sombra. They loved to monologue. No, this couldn’t work, but it was still worth a try. Chrysalis slowly let go of her battle-stance, and saw that the Alicorn looked a little confused by the sudden calmness.

“I never saw you before. Who are you?” Please work please work please work please work. She stated this in a calm, yet careful voice. The Alicorn slowly lowered her battle stance. Looking at Chrysalis, she changed her expression to a smug smile. She heightened one of her hooves to her chest, and with a distorted ghostly sounding voice, she talked.

“I am Nifret, spirit of hate.” Chrysalis crooked an eyebrow.

“And why are you here attacking my castle?” Nifret obviously didn’t know anything about this world, so she decided to say that this castle belonged to her. A good villain loved to monologue, but she would love it even more if she could monologue in front of the big fudge. Nifret just smirked.

“Oh, this nice castle belongs to you? I am sorry if my explosive nature damaged it a little.” It’s not needed to mention that her voice was deeply sarcastic. “Oh by the way, who was this asymmetric being back there? Was this your pet?” Chrysalis had to think a little, but knew that she meant Ravien.

“That’s my court jester. I would really miss him in court if he wouldn’t be able to attend it due to injury.” Yep, calling Ravien, the most chivalrous and composed of the immortals, a court jester. She was totally telling the truth. If Applejack would have witnessed this expert lying, she would have caught a fish with her rope and would have smacked Chrysalis with it until she started bleeding fish-bones.

Nifred chuckled a little. “Well I am sure that he will be just fine.” She smirked deviously. “Of course only until I am finished with all of you.” She started to get ready again, and Chrysalis went a little in panic. She needed more time.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you attacking my castle?” Another crooked eyebrow from Nifret, while switching back into a talking position.

“Isn’t it obvious? Because I want to destroy it and kill every one of you.” She went back into battle position, but Chrysalis quickly followed with another question.

“Why?” Nifret seemed a little annoyed and talked again.

“I don’t need a reason to kill and destroy.” She went back into battle position.

“Why not?” Chrysalis felt stupid continuing to ask why, like a little foal, but apparently it was pretty effective. The Alicorn had a dumbfounded look in her face.

“What do you mean, why not? I just don’t need one!” Back to battle stance.

“But what’s the reason for not having a reason?” Nifret looked at Chrysalis with squinted eyes. The look said nothing more than just simply ‘What the fuck? Is she for real?’

“Why should I have a reason for not having a reason? Having no reason implies I don’t need to have a reason for it!”

“But having no reason to do something doesn’t mean that there is no reason to have no reason for this something!” The Alicorn facehooved and groaned.

“Of course, because not having a reason also counts for the reason itself. If something has no reason, then there is no reason to have this reason or in this case no reason.” She shouted annoyed.

“But if this has no reason and you are here for no reason, then why are you here?” Finally, a question she could answer.

“I am here because this one” she gestured to herself “Felt so much hate and anger that it summoned me from my dimension. I possessed her body and well, here I am.” She explained.

“And why are you here?” Chrysalis said with a serious tone. She seemed serious and stoic on the outside while she fought two emotions inside herself. Panic and laughter. She just couldn’t believe that this stupid idea was actually working.

“I am here because in my home dimension, I am imprisoned in an IIB, and no one can escape an IIB. So when the hate summoned me to this one here, I accepted because being imprisoned is pretty boring, and some destruction could up my temper a little.” She exclaimed, finally having calmed down a little from the annoyance.

“See? So you have a reason for destroying my castle!” Nifret instantly groaned in rage and slammed her hooves to her head. This was unbelievable! How can one be so annoying?

“So? Then I have a reason to be here. What does it matter?” She smiled while switching back into a battle position.

“Why did you lie to me?” Nifret changed back into a dumbfounded expression and slammed her hoof in the floor. She slammed again and again until she felt calmer.

“Are you this fucking stupid or are you just retarded? Every idiot sees that I just didn’t tell you because I didn’t fucking care one single bit about you talking.” Chrysalis wasn’t angry. She felt like laughing inside because she managed to anger an opponent that was several times stronger than her with just acting stupid. This fact entertained her, and the fact that she would probably die a most horrible death for this. Suddenly a voice came from the side.

“Alright alright, what the hell is going on here?” They both turned their heads and saw Aren standing at a gate, having a confused and annoyed look on his face. “I go one single hour to my dimension to talk with someone about something and all shit is breaking loose. Celestia and Ravien nearly died. Half the castle is blown away. Some of my guards are dead, and when I go to fucking look what’s going on here, I see you two talking like two kids who argue about which superhero is the best one.”

Chrysalis eyes showed a mixture of relief and success. She was able to stall Nifret long enough for Aren to return. Now she only hoped that Aren would be strong enough to take her down. She genuinely outclassed everyling of them. Aren looked over to Nifret, and when he looked closer at her, he suddenly pulled out his sword with unreal speed. He instantly went into a battle-stance with an extremely serious expression and began to pant heavily.

“Nifret! What are you doing here?” He shouted at her. Nifret began to chuckle.

“Oh Aren. I wouldn’t have thought to find you here.” Her smirk changed to a seductive smile. “And I thought that there were no strong opponents here.” Arens’ expression didn’t change.

“You know that I don’t fall for your manipulation magic.” He growled deeply, and with an even deeper voice he said more. “Get out of Lunas’ body!” Nifret just continued smiling.

“Oh, you mean this body?” She gestured to her chest. “I am sorry, but I just can’t comply to your wishes.” She walked closer to him, but Aren didn’t move. When she came to him, she began to circle Aren while looking as seductive as possible. She also swayed her hips like she wanted to impress him with her new body. “You see, I never really had a body with hooves.” She exclaimed with a seductive chuckle. “I am eager to find out what I can do with them.” Nifret whispered in his ears.

Chrysalis watched this and felt drawn to Nifret. Her body. It seemed like it would harbor every secret that was known by anyling ever before. She seemed to ooze with magical and emotional energy, and that flank seemed to be the most gracious flank she ever saw. Chrysalis hated ponies and thought of them as disgusting hairy creatures. Yet, this body attracted her. Without her knowledge, the watching guards also couldn’t take their eyes of the mare.

She looked like a queen that needed to be served. Nifret slowly changed her look to Chrysalis and smiled deviously. “Oh Chrysalis dear, could you please attack Aren for me?” Back in her mind, Chrysalis screamed no, but her body seemed to answer the order. She got up and started shooting a fireball at Aren. Of course, he would absorb such a simple attack.

She was mistaken. The ball hit Arens’ left shoulder and exploded, throwing Aren and Nifret away. Aren was hit harder, but it also hurt Nifret. Just when he started to fly away through the impact, he turned and blocked a slash from a hovering sword, which was flying around Nifret. Still being in the air, he summoned two swords, which stroke down on Nifret, but were blocked by another two swords.

Aren held out one of his hands and shot some kind of red glowing steel-rope at Nifret, who simply shot a laser at it, which molded the steel, and went straight for Aren. Aren opened up two spacerifts, and the laser went into one, and came out of the other one which was located behind Nifret. Three mirrors appeared in the air. One behind Nifret which deflected the laser to the top at another one, which deflected it to the front, and the last one, which deflected it straight at Aren.

Aren formed his hand into a shape, which looked like his two last fingers were crooked into a fist, but the index- and the middle-finger were standing straight up. He made one groan, and the laser parted into six different yellow beams. Instantly summoning prismatic crystals, he aligned them in an order which allowed all the beams to unite at one violet crystal. Out of this crystal shot seven beams. Every beam having one color of a rainbow.

Summoning more spacerifts, Aren made every beam go into a different rift, and shortly after, they came out of other rifts, and the beams connected into a hovering flame over Nifret. When the beams hit the flame, it began to shine in all the colors of a rainbow, and instantly crashed down on Nifret, who saw her predicament and saw only one way out. She screamed and put all of her magical reserves into a barrier on top of her. The fire impacted with it, and it was obvious that Nifret had a hard time holding up the barrier.

Everything up until now was happening in that short amount of time while they were still flying away from the blast of the explosion. The whole process didn’t even take three seconds. Now they both landed. Aren on his back, from which he instantly rolled over to get back into a battle position, and Nifret on her hooves still holding up her barrier. The fire subsided, and she took her barrier away. Suddenly she began to chuckle.

“My my my. Would you look at this? I didn’t know that you were able to conjure rainbow-fire. A very impressive display.” She began to laugh in her hoof. “But to think that you would use it in the first place is the most interesting thing I saw in a long time. A spell that does not kill, but is impossibly hard to pull off. It seems like the one in this body here is important to you.” She said in between laughing fits. Aren just spat on the ground.

“I just need her against Oran. He has his eyes set on this dimension here.” Nifret let out a loud “oh” and looked amused.

“So Oran is here.” She giggled again. “I can only imagine his face when he sees the corpse of his apprentice.” Aren seemed serious and strengthened his hold on his weapon. He suddenly winced with his shoulder, and his sword was engulfed in rainbow-colored fire. Nifret instantly bursted to him with an unreal speed and threw five lasers, each in a different direction. Suddenly they all made a turn and went parallel to Aren, past him. It looked like he was standing in a pentagon. Suddenly, the Lasers behind him made another turn and impacted into each other.

Aren knew this spell. This was the spell which Nifret used last time they fought, and this spell was not pleasant. She instantly shot a gigantic red beam at him. Aren knew that if he would step out of the pentagon, he would receive the full burst of every line in it, but if he got hit by that beam, he would get toasted. If he would evade, she would just follow his movements and would align her spell with Arens’ new position. He needed another plan.

Suddenly, Aren walked to the left of the pentagon, and another Aren stepped out of him, who walked to the right. Nifret smirked. A simple duplication spell, nothing special. She just needed to use her aura-vision to… wait. She can’t discern the real one. Both looked like they had the same amount of magic, and both looked like they were made of flesh. This can’t be. She had to hit both at once because if she decides for the wrong one, she would most likely lose.

Putting more energy into the blast, it got wider and engulfed nearly the whole Pentagon. She knew that if her spell would go past it that she would receive the damage from the pentagon, and she could not risk, being inflicted with this. Suddenly both of the Arens vanished, and her eyes widened. She ended her shot and looked around. He was nowhere to be seen. This was impo- WAIT!

She instantly ended her pentagon spell and jumped back, just in time to evade an orange-lightning explosion. She looked to the front, and saw that Aren was disguised as a little bug. Now he had his old form back, but just continued smirking. Why was he smirking? Now she knew why. He parted himself, and the second Aren was still somewhere. Using an all around sight spell, she saw the other one behind her and instantly built a barrier behind her.

The second Aren hit the shield with his rainbow-fire-engulfed sword, and she felt a slight magical backlash. It was certainly not easy to block such an attack, but she managed. Turning around, while flying, she shot a laser at this Aren, who simply got swapped out with another Aren, who had a prisma-shield. The laser impacted with it and got reflected back to her. She simply absorbed her own spell back into her body and used a black orb, which flew at the new Aren with the shield.

The black orb impacted with the prisma-shield and exploded violently in a black explosion, but before it could hit him, it was suppressed by a barrier which was built around it. But the barrier wasn’t round. It was shaped like a flask, and the explosion had only one way to go. It flew to the only free hallway in the barrier and went straight into a spacerift. The outcoming spacerift, was placed directly at the first Aren, who had an unenchanted gray sword with a diamond in it placed at the rift.

The black explosion, turned to a beam, came out of the rift and impacted with the diamond. The diamond absorbed the beam, and when the beam vanished, the sword glimmered with black light. Nifret had no time to guess what Arens’ plan was because she had to block a massive column of white-water, which was shot by the second Aren. With one hand shooting the water, the second Aren threw his sword up and got swapped with the first Aren. The first Aren was now in front of Nifret and caught the falling sword.

The second Aren behind her screamed and used every last bit of his remaining power, to conjure another barrier in the shape of a flask, but this time the first Aren and Nifret were in it. Having the black sword in one hand, and the other one in his other hand, he threw the black sword at Nifret. While the sword was flying, he shot a rainbow-colored beam out of his other sword, which impacted with the black sword. Then the sword exploded into a gigantic explosion, just like the black explosion earlier. But this time, the explosion was rainbow-colored and not black. Nifret also used the last bit of her strength and summoned another barrier.

Sadly for her, she used up too much magical power already, and the shield collapsed. The rainbow-explosion engulfed her, and the world turned black for her. The first Aren who was in there didn’t feel different. His world also turned black. Outside, the barrier vanished, and the first Aren, just like Nifret, fell down to the floor. The body didn’t look damaged at all, just like Nifrets’, but it nonetheless wasn’t capable of fighting anymore.

The second Aren sighed and put his sword away. Then he walked over to the unconscious first Aren and put his hand on him. The first one, then got sucked into the second one, and Aren cracked his neck. He slowly walked over to the unconscious Nifret and placed his hand on her head. Not long after, a black fog materialized over the unconscious body, and the body slowly turned back into the form of an unconscious Luna.

Aren won this time against Nifret. The last time they fought, which was about 50,000 years ago, he lost the fight and only survived the fight through sheer luck. Seeing the soul, Aren opened a dimensional-rift, which sucked the soul up, but this wasn’t enough. Aren wanted to make sure to never see this ghost again. So before, the rift closed, Aren summoned a nuclear-explosion spell and inflicted it with the element soul. A nuclear-explosion of soulfire. Aren had to shiver at the image of this, and threw the now blue glowing ball after the ghost into the rift.

When the ball went into it, the rift closed itself, and everything remained quiet. Chrysalis noted that she could move again, and slowly walked over to Luna. She didn’t want to admit it, but this was an impressive fight. Chrysalis didn’t understand half the spells or how they worked, but she could still see that many of those spells were extremely difficult to pull off. She had no doubt anymore. If she would have fought against Nifret, she would have lost.

Arriving at Lunas’ side, she looked over to Aren. “Will she be alright?” Chrysalis asked with a serious tone. She still needed her for Oran.

Aren didn’t answer. He only stood there, and his head hung down with gently closed eyes. He seemed to be in deep thought. Not wanting to disturb Aren in his thoughts, Chrysalis waited for him to speak first before she spoke again. Some minutes passed, and Aren still didn’t move. Chrysalis got impatient and looked closer at Aren. What she saw made her feel perplexed and angry at the same time.

Aren was fast asleep.

Author's Note

I'm not sure about this fight.

It would be appreciated if you would give me a feedback for this fight, since it may be a little complicated with all the stuff that's happening. A cool fight is nice and stuff, but if I don't describe it good enough, so it can be understood, then the fight ain't worth shit.

Battle Review

„AREN!“ Luna screamed while jerking upwards from her bed, panting heavily. In panic, she looked around the room. Still panting, she slowly began to calm down. It seemed like she only had a nightmare, well every dream involving Aren was a nightmare since she doesn’t like him even a single bit.

Looking around the room she was sleeping in she witnessed that this was not her room. She sat on a bed with white sheets and a white mattress. The walls also looked white and guess what color the curtains had. The sun shined through the closed white curtains, giving the room a subtle pattern on the floor. Luna could only see the room in dampened light, but this was no problem for her. She was the princess of the night and being able to see in darker places was a skill, she always had and appreciated.

Yet, she didn’t recognize this room judging by the looks, but one thing gave away where Luna was right now. The smell. This overly clean and disinfected smell. There was no doubt. She was in a hospital. Instantly panicking, she looked down at her body to inspect it, in order to find the injury she might had, which forced her into a stay in a hospital. She looked over her hooves, and her body, but couldn’t find anything damaged.

Reluctantly she stood up and looked at her own body again. Nothing. Everything was as it should be. Why was she in a hospital? The last thing she remembered was being extremely angry at Aren. Suddenly remembering what happened in her room, she looked up at her horn, and gasped at what she saw. Her horn was OK and looked perfectly normal. She could have sworn that she destroyed it in her anger, so how was it fine?

Her ears turned to the door, when she heard the silent opening of it. She looked to the door and saw a brown unicorn with a white jacket standing there. Upon seeing her, his expression changed to surprise, and he made a quick bow.

“Oh Princess Luna. You are already awake?” Luna looked confused around the room but answered.

“Yes, I am awake, but tell me. Why did I sleep in a hospital? I can’t seem to remember the last night this clearly.” She said with a serious tone in her voice. The doctor seemed to get more nervous, and began shuffling a little.

“My sincerest apologies princess, but I think I am not the right pony to explain what happened last night.” He did another bow, to strengthen his apology. Luna sighed a little inwards, not wanting to show this to one of her subjects. Of course, it wouldn’t be this easy to learn about the events which brought her into the hospital. Oh speaking of hospital.

“Why did I even sleep in this hospital?” She asked with a raised eyebrow, and the doctor could answer this question without problems.

“This I can tell you, princess. We didn’t know what effects the spells had, which general Aren used on you, so we transported your highness into this hospital, just for precautions.” Lunas’ eyes widened. Aren used a spell on her? Why? She shook her head. She had to talk to somepony who knew what was going on. She concentrated on her bond with her sister and found her, but she was not where she anticipated. Turning to the doctor, she asked with a serious voice.

“Why is my sister also in the hospital?” The doctor sighed once. Of course, this question would come sooner or later. He looked pained to the site.

“I think it’s for the best if I show you, your majesty.” He made a short bow again and walked out of the room. “If you could please follow me, your majesty.” He exclaimed while walking away. Luna felt more worried than before but still followed the doctor.

While walking down the hallway, Luna noted that more rooms than normal were occupied. Being the main hospital in Canterlot, didn’t mean that they had many patients. Ponies are extraordinarily resilient to sickness, especially the earth-ponies. A town normally doesn’t need more than one hospital, while villages only need one doctor.

They continued walking and stopped at a patient-room. The doctor knocked three times, and a loud “Come in.” could be heard from the other side, after a while. Opening the door, the doctor motioned for Luna to step into the room. She slowly walked into it, fearing that she may see her sister with a terrible sickness or a dangerous injury. The doctor wasn’t really able to calm her down earlier.

Slowly walking into the room, she looked around. Just like the room she woke up in, this room was entirely colored in the color white, but in comparison to hers, the curtains in this one were open, and the sunlight shined into the room. Looking to her right, she saw two beds. One was clean and apparently no one slept in it, and in the other one.

“SISTER!” Luna cried and ran over to Celestia, who laid in her bed. Celestia was facing to the door, and her whole body was covered in the white blanket. Well, everything except her head obviously. When Luna arrived, she looked down to her sister and saw how she was groaning and moaning. Oh what happened to her? Leaning down, she hugged the head of her sister and began to cry silently.

“Yeah, you might want to let go a little. She obviously doesn’t get any air this way.” Aren told her while sitting on the windowsill. Luna turned her head to him in a bewildered expression, and then looked down again. Her sister squirmed in her grasp with opened eyes. Luna quickly let go, and Celestia pulled back again. Chocking a little, she straightened herself.

“Well, being woken by a loving embrace from my sister, sure sounded better in my imagination.” Celestia said with a smile. Luna blushed a little, but also started smiling. It seems like her sister felt better than expected.

“Tia, what happened? I can’t remember last night.” Celestias’ mood seemed to darken. She obviously didn’t want to tell her sister. Luna noted the nervousness of her sister and grew more nervous and afraid of what she will hear in this room.

“Well misses emotional.” Aren jumped from his windowsill and walked over to her. Luna turned her head to Aren, and Celestia looked disapproving at him. Couldn’t he bring that over more nicely? “Yesterday, you seemed to have lost control over your emotions. Apparently you were so angry that your anger and hate lured an ancient hate-spirit from another dimension to Equestria. The hate-spirit was called Nifret, and she took control over your body.”

Luna had a shocked look in her eyes. She quickly combined the known facts in her head and came to the conclusion that she probably harmed her sister. “Now before you start giving yourself the blame for that. Let me first explain.” She looked back to Aren. “Nifret, like many other hate spirits, searches through the dimensions in order to find their next meal.”

“When someone feels an exceptional amount of hate, she can detect that and travels to that being. When a mind isn’t focused and is torn from hate, it is easy to gain access to. She obviously went into your room and took control over your body, shoving your consciousness and your soul back into a dark corner in your mind. When that happens, they have absolute control over the victim and start feeding on them.”

“The first thing they do is starting to feed on your hate. They consume it, and when they absorbed every last bit of it, they start consuming the rest of your emotions. When only some emotions are amiss, it’s possible to get them back, as long as the rest is still there, but when every emotion is absorbed, they go for the soul, and when also this is finished… well. Then you’re like a glass without water in it.” Aren shook his head, and walked to Luna and looked her deep in the eyes.

“Luna, I dare you to give yourself the blame. It is not your fault what Nifret did, and I can’t use an emotional wreck for a fight against Oran. So don’t you start feeling guilty about this.” Celestia thought it was good that Aren talked to her sister, but she didn’t like the way he did it. It was obvious that he only cared about her health so they can defeat Oran. Well it’s ok, but he didn’t need to tell it to her this directly.

Luna couldn’t decide how to feel. If Aren said that this wasn’t her fault then it obviously wasn’t, but she still felt kind of guilty. Aren slowly went out of her face and went back to his windowsill. “Alright, now for the events of yesterday night.” Luna looked to him. This is what she wanted to know.

“When Nifret took control over your body, she blew away half the castle. Celestia ran to the remains of your room, worrying over what might have happened to you. She saw some rubble move and went down, thinking it was you. Well, the rubble moved, and some black and red alicorn came out, but before Celestia could do anything, she was impaled by its’ horn.” Luna gasped and held a hoof over her muzzle. She looked over to Celestia who slowly nodded.

Luna walked closer to her sister on the bed and placed her hoof over one of Celestias’. They looked at each other. Luna with worry and guilt in her eyes, while Celestia looked with sympathy. She knew that Luna would give herself the blame, and that was why she felt sympathy for her.

“Nifret then threw Celestia down Canterlot, where she got rescued by some soldiers. While they rescued Celestia, Nifret battled against guards and killed five of them in the process. The whole commotion came to Raviens’ attention, and he battled against Nifret.” Aren looked pained to a wall at the side of the room. “The fight didn’t turn out so well.” Luna felt like something shattered in her.

It was no secret that Ravien and Luna were a couple. They always loved each other, especially before he got Chaozai. She only hoped one thing. “Is he still alive?” She asked with worry in her voice. Aren looked to her.

“Barely, but when his body is stable, he will go through a shitton of pain.” He sighed. “Maybe I should tell you this too.” He pointed at Celestia. “I will overforce her soul in order to let her regenerate faster. She already knows this.” Luna looked at Celestia who nodded once. “The body forms the soul and the soul forms the body. If the soul is damaged, the body can heal the soul, and if the body is damaged the soul can heal the body.”

“With my new ability of producing soul with magic, I am able to give her raw soul-energy in order to force her soul to use the overflow of soul to regenerate the body. I can only do this to someone whose health is stable because it takes a toll on the body. It’s somewhat similar to what I did to Rarity, but with two differences. One, I don’t use my own soul. This means, I don’t have any repercussions. Two, Celestia is already on 100% soul while Raritys’ soul was at approximately 70% due to her will to live, in which her soul used its’ own energy to keep her from dying.”

He sighed. “This also means a lot of pain for the body.” Luna kept looking at Celestia, who had a strong look in her eyes. She was ready to get it over with. Luna still pitied Celestia for what she had to go through because of her own inability to control her emotions. “Well let’s continue with the tale of the past night, shall we?” Aren exclaimed from his windowsill.

“Ravien got transported to the hospital, and then Chrysalis battled against Nifret. On this point, I have to praise her for her wit. Through tactic, she was able to damage Nifret, and not only this. She was able to stall her for a very long time, through talking with her. If it weren’t for her skills and plans, you would all probably not be alive right now.” Luna felt that she needed to thank Chrysalis later for this.

“Well then I arrived and banished the spirit from your body. You can get the details from Chrysalis since I don’t want to look like I’m bragging. Well, when Nifret was destroyed, I went to bed-“

“You mean you started sleeping in the middle of the battlefield.” Celestia exclaimed with a sly smile and giggle, to which Aren only rolled his eyes.

“Yes, and you were brought to the hospital. You don’t need to worry about any consequences, by the way.” Then he suddenly had an expression as if he just remembered something, and looked to Celestia. “One thing I forgot to tell you, Celly. I’ve got the whole fight recorded, and for the first lesson, which will be tomorrow by the way, as my apprentice we will go over the fight, and I will explain to you what I did and why. A practical example is always good to see.” Celestia looked dumbfounded.

“You recorded it?” Aren nodded. “The whole kingdom gets attacked by an overpowered opponent and you start recording your fight, like it’s some schoolyard-ramble?” Aren waved dismissively.

“Oh come on. That spell needs no magical energy and no concentration to hold up. I thought ‘Hey, when I am going to fight against someone this strong, then I can use it for teaching my absent apprentice.’ Said and done.” Celestia sighed. Aren was impossible…Why did she need to ask him to be her master?

Luna also didn’t like the fact that he recorded it, but somehow she didn’t have the urge to hurt him anymore, like the last weeks. Yes, she still didn’t like him, but she didn’t have this irresistible urge anymore to do something evil to him.

To explain something, Luna doesn’t have this urge anymore because Nifret fed on her hate and took everything with her, when she lost the connection to Luna. She obviously still didn’t like Aren, and that will probably never change, but the accumulated mountain of hate, which built itself over the course of the last year got taken away. Aren looked around in the room and jumped down from his windowsill.

“Well, time to get this over with.” He looked at Celestia, who nodded with a determined expression on her face. Luna looked a little worried for her sister but went away. It was what she wanted. Aren stepped closer to Celestia and conjured a calmly flowing blue light. He floated it closer to Celestia, and when it touched her, it got sucked in instantly. Some seconds passed where nothing happened until suddenly Celestias’ body jerked and she started gripping the sheets and the bed.

She gritted her teeth and squinted her eyes in an angry expression while groaning. Luna could practically feel the pain from her sister, and she wanted nothing more than to take the pain for herself, so her sister could rest. After a minute, Celestia calmed down and took in a deep breath.

“Seems like we are finished here. Stand up, Celly” Aren told her, and she reluctantly stood up. No pain, no hobbling or anything like this. She could stand without a problem. Using her magic she unwrapped the bandages around her chest, and when they were all unwrapped, she looked at her chest. Nothing, just pure white fur on a normal chest.

“Wait, the doctor said this will be a scar. I don’t see one.” She noted with a confused voice while Aren only smirked.

“Well if I would use your antique healing techniques, you would definitely keep a nasty scar, but well, I don’t. Apart from the soul-energy, I used about eight more spells, to keep you steady during the process. One of them can prevent scars. I will teach you that one too if you want. Of course not, right at the start, but at some time.” Celestia smiled happily and nodded while Luna walked up to her and leaned her head against Celestias’ chest.

“I am so happy that you are alright, big sister.” She sniffled with a tear in her eye. Celestia looked down at her and felt a warm feeling inside of her. She was happy to have such a loving sister.

It’s sad that she won’t be with her forever.

“Alright, I’m ready to go.” Said Celestia while looking at Aren with determined eyes. It was the next day, and Aren and Celestia were standing at the normal training area. Like Aren said, Celestia felt fine and healthy, and she was not the only one who recovered. Ravien was also fine. They both heard the day before that Ravien is stable and Aren overforced his soul. It took a lot longer than with Celestia, and judging by Arens’ explanation it was also way more painful. Yet, Ravien was determined to undergo the procedure in order to begin training again.

Luna and Ravien spent the day together, like the couple they are while Celestia trained her manipulation in elemental-magic. They day went over very slowly because she was nervous. On the next day, she would have her first lesson as Arens’ apprentice. She could finally learn new kinds of magic, without any restraints. Finally, she would come a step closer to the powers that the multiverse offers.

“Good that you are prepared, but we won’t train here.” Aren touched Celestia on her shoulders, and they both vanished.

They reappeared somewhere else. Celestia opened her eyes and was overwhelmed by what she saw. They were standing on a flying stone-platform, which had a width of around 100 meters. The stone was a cold gray and wasn’t completely smooth. Sharp edges, big rocks, little cracks and ravines adorned the stony platform everywhere.

It was obvious that fighting here would be a totally new experience. It was such an uneven terrain, and it would hurt quite a bit if one would slip and fall on a rock or a ravine. She walked around and took the rest of the landscape in.

Looking up, she saw the sky if you could call it a sky. There were dark clouds nearly everywhere with a lot of holes. From the holes could be seen some kind of dark light. It was hard to describe. The air was a thin and cold with a temperate of approximately 10°C (50°F). The low oxygen part of the air would force her to inhale deeper and faster.

She walked to the end of the platform and looked over the edge. She gasped when she saw that even under the platform only the ominous sky was located. This looked interesting, so Celestia tried to take flight, but failed miserably due to the thinness of the air. Well if, she couldn’t fly, she could always use her self-levitation spell.

Normally she didn’t need that spell because she had wings, but in this case it could get in quite handy. Levitating herself over the edge and under the platform, she saw that everywhere around her this ominous sky was located. She couldn’t see any other platforms or water or ground. Just this lonely platform with this sky.

Deciding she had seen enough, she levitated herself back on the platform and walked over to the smirking Aren. “You like it, Celly?” Celestia looked at the sky again.

“It has a feel to it as if this place is sacred. Light is shining from every direction through those cloud-patches which seem to protect the platform.” She looked over to Aren with a genuine smile. “Yes, I like it.”

“Good, then let’s begin, shall we?” He summoned a couch on which he sat down. Patting on the empty space on the couch, he showed Celestia that she should sit down too. She went over to the Couch and sat down on the space, Aren was showing her. Sitting down, she realized that it was unusually comfortable.

Suddenly a big screen appeared in the air, exactly like when Aren was training the immortals and was reviewing the battle. It was showing Nifret and Chrysalis who looked at each other. Suddenly the Aren on the monitor said something and they turned around to him. Celestia didn’t hear the details of the fight, so she was pumped to finally see the fight. It was quite a surprise to see that the Aren on the monitor had a dead serious expression on his face. Judging by this expression, Nifret was no small fish.

“Have you noticed her using an imperator spell on everyone present?” Aren asked her with a serious tone. Imperator spells, she heard from her student what Aren told them about those spells, but Nifret hasn’t moved at all. She shook her head, and Aren reeled the movie back at a seemingly random part. Then he slowed it down to 1/10 speed. He let the thing play again, and she could see how Nifrets’ pupils went over everyone present. Nothing more.

“Whomever she looked at got dragged into her imperator spell, also called IS.” That fast? How can she use around five IS in a tenth of a second? “She used the body-control-imperator-spell, or BCIS for short. This means that the body belongs to her and she can do with it whatever she wants. The consciousness isn’t affected. This kind of IS is extremely weak and extremely strong at the same time.” Celestia looked a little confused.

“There are safety-measures for imperator-spells. One only needs to fortify his consciousness with mental barriers, and it makes the invading of ones mind exceptionally harder. The BCIS is the most basic IS which exists. It’s so basic that it couldn’t even be considered a spell. Basically, what she did, was accumulate all her mental strength and resolve, and shoot it at a target.”

“It’s impossible to defend against this consciously, but it’s not as easy to succeed in using this spell. Imagine a dragon, staring down a raccoon. The raccoon knows through instinct that it couldn’t possibly win, so it tries to run away. If it can’t run away, it gives up and surrenders to its’ opponent. The BCIS works with the same principle.”

“Your instincts realize that you are helplessly inferior to this being, and surrenders its’ control in a last attempt to gain mercy from the threat. So in order for this spell, to work, you need to outclass your opponent by far. I could use this spell without any problems on you and on everyone else on Equestria right now. Yet, if all of you would train for some thousand years, I couldn’t use it anymore.”

“This sounds like a pretty long time, but you also have to take into consideration how long I trained. I fought for over 300,000 years. If you would train for 5,000 more years, I couldn’t control you anymore. So even if I fought and trained 60 times longer than you, it still wouldn’t be enough to control you. This is why this spell is also considered weak.” Celestia nodded slowly but still felt a lump in her stomach.

“Mindcontrol, I don’t like this. It just doesn’t seem ethical or fair to use such spells.” Aren nodded.

“That’s why they are forbidden to use in the A-cluster.” He suddenly remembered something. “Oh that reminds me I think I haven’t told you about other clusters yet, have it?” Celestia shook her head. “Well basically, there are four big clusters and a shitton of small ones. The big clusters go from A to D, and each cluster has over 10,000 dimensions. Each dimension can rule itself, but if something concerns interdimensional affairs, the government of the appropriate cluster decides and judges.”

“You should also know that there is constant war going on in the multiverse.” Celestia looked down to her hooves. Of course, war. Why does the multiverse seem this warfriendly? “Cluster A and D are at constant war. B and C keep to themselves but have multiple wars with smaller clusters.” Aren sighed.

“Interdimensional war is basically the same as normal war. The inhabitants of cluster A hate the ones from D and vice versa. You can volunteer to be a soldier, and take part in the next attack. To win an interdimensional war, you have to destroy or overtake the dimension, the ruler of the cluster is located in. But there are, of course, actions outside of the planning. Namely, inhabitants or soldiers attacking civilians of the other cluster. The incident the day before yesterday, was one such case.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“Nifret was an officer from Cluster D, who got imprisoned for being too brutal. She would often go to any dimensions on Cluster A and would mindlessly slaughter civilians. Even if, there was a war, both sides still know that civilians are most likely innocent and shouldn’t get involved.” Celestia wanted to ask something.

“Are you participating in the war, Ary?” Aren winced at the name.

“Are you seriously calling me like this?” Celestia didn’t look amused, and Aren sighed once. “No, I am not participating in it.” Celestia let out a long breath she was withholding. She really didn’t want to go into a war with him. “But they tried to force me once.” This time, Celestia had a quizzical look.

“They never bothered me at the beginning of my journey because Oran said that he and his apprentice, namely me, wouldn’t participate. They didn’t even dare to try to convince him. They just said that they understood and went away. That was about 250,000 years ago. Around 70,000 years ago, Oran and I already went different ways, they tried to convince me, and since I was the apprentice of Oran and he wasn’t around they wanted me for their army.” Aren made a pause.

“What happened then?” Aren continued.

“I refused of course, but they would have none of that. After countless discussions with them, they tried to force me, and sent some high ranking officers to get me.” Aren snickered. “Well, let’s say that every officer who wanted to force me didn’t make it back to make a report.” Celestia looked disapproving. “Hey it’s not my fault if they suddenly attack me out of nowhere.” Celestia sighed.

“After some years and countless attacks, they decided that they would lose more soldiers on me, than I was worth. So at some point, they stopped sending soldiers at me, and let me go my way.” Looking back at the monitor, Aren continued. “We got sidetracked there. I think we should get back to the fight between me and Nifret. Where were we? Oh right, when she used the IS.”

The movie started playing again, Celestia saw how Nifret walked around Aren and was uncomfortably close to him. She couldn’t understand why, but this somehow made her angry, especially when Nifret tried to seduce him. Why was she getting this angry over something like this? Well it didn’t matter. She looked back at the monitor, and saw how Chrysalis shot a fireball at Aren.

To say that Celestia was surprised when the fireball hit, would be an understatement. “I bet you want to know why I let that fireball hit me, am I right?” Celestia nodded, and Aren reeled the movie back to a spot where Nifret and Aren stood close together. Celestia didn’t like this picture.

“Nifret was touching me, and her dangerous horn was dangerously close to me, but my sword was also close to her. You should know the following. Advanced fighter can manipulate magic of their opponents while it is still in their body, but only if the magical-receptors are opened and only if they can touch their opponent. It’s possible to transform all your magic in your body into fire, and you would explode.” Celestia did not feel comfortable with the knowledge that someone could make her explode just by touching her.

“So when she was touching me, I had to abort any spells I used, but I was not the only one. She also had to abort any spells, since I can do the same thing to her. Then we have her horn and my sword. If one of us would have attacked, we would both most likely die since the other one would react instantly. If one of us would have moved back, the other one would be able to use a back-forcing-power-spell. I will explain at some other time what this is, for now you only need to know that this would win the fight for the one who would use it.”

“So in the end, the one who would move first would lose the fight. This was Nifrets’ plan from the beginning and also the reason why she used her IS on the other ones before she went close to me. Using Chrysalis, she was able to get a hit in me, and gain an advantage. If I would have absorbed the spell, I would lose the fight because she could manipulate my magic. So I let myself get hit by her.”

Looking back at the picture, Celestia only now realized how much was going on there. If a normal pony would look at the picture, it would just look like two beings stood together, yet so much was going on there. Aren let the movie play again and went through the fight in the air on slow-motion.

“The first thing that happened was that I instantly used all my passive spells again, which I use for battle. Those are exactly 128. They increase my fighting capability, my reaction time, my strength, my speed, my receptivity and lots more. I could get them up pretty quickly and blocked the slash from behind, which had around 20 enchantment-spells embedded into it. One of my passive spells is aura vision, and thus I was able to distinct the enchantments of one another.”

“Around15 were simple strengthening spells while the remaining five were transporting-weakening-spells. When the weapons clash, those kind of spells get transported over the weapons to the opponent and the only way to defend yourself against such spells, is to dispel them while they make their way over your weapon, or enchant your weapon with counter enchantments. Due to them being extremely difficult to perform, strong masters only use two or three at one time, but Nifret was more than just a strong master. She was a monster.”

Celestia understood what Aren said, but couldn’t imagine the mental stress and the multi-tasking one would need to have to fight like this. Now she could grasp why they needed thousands of years to get this strong. Such speed in thinking is not achieved with some years.

“After this, I summoned two swords with each having 30 enchantments, which were blocked by two swords with the counter-enchantments. You should also note the other things that were happening while we did this.” Other things? Was there more? “Aren zoomed to one of the back legs of Nifret, and Celestia could see that there was a spacerift from which a fireball was coming from. Shortly after, it went into another spacerift, appearing behind Aren. Then it went again into one and came out at her head. If the video wouldn’t be shown in slow-motion she could never see it.

“While we were fighting with the swords, we were also throwing around other spells. The most obvious one of them was the fireball, which went into a shitload of spacerifts. Apart from this, we used a lot more spells, mostly autospells, at different areas, all around our opponent. While enchanting and dispelling the weapons, we had to transport the fireball and also needed to block, and redirect the auto-spells. This was the true extent of the fight.”

“After this, I created markabian-steel and infused it with red color magic. Let me explain something about color-magic. Color-magic is the most advanced form of magic that attacks the soul. Nearly no one can use it, and it is extremely complicated to perform. On top of that, it is pretty ineffective for its’ expenditure.”

“There are seven known colors, which can be conjured with color-magic. The red one makes a crack at the soul, which disrupts the ability to hone your body and magic. Color-magic has two aspects that make it unique. The first one is that it does not kill. You should know that dying only happens when the soul and the body get separated. There is no known possibility to get the soul back into the body without any preparations.”

“Color-magic attacks the soul, but it does not separate the body from the soul. So when my attack would have hit her, she would lose her hone for her body and magic but would not receive any damage. Not her body and not her soul. The second aspect is that there is no known possibility to block color magic. The only known way, is to destroy the medium on which the color-magic moves, namely my markabian-steel.”

“Markabian-steel is the strongest material I can summon. As you see, she used a laser to melt the steel. Equestria is not advanced enough to know what lasers are, so let me explain this too. A laser is nothing more than light, concentrated into a thin beam, which makes this beam extremely hot. Honestly, I am not yet able to conjure a laser. I know the creating-sheet for it, but I am not yet able to create it.”

This was the first time, Celestia heard that Aren was not able to use a spell. This shows that his opponent really was something special.

“I used two spacerifts, to get the beam to attack her, and she used mirrors to reflect it, like the light it was. When it came for me, I used a hard-separation-field in the air to separate it into six different light-beams. Creating some prisms, I changed the path of the light to a complex-color-splitting-light-prism. To create one, you need to create a prism out of arcadian-glass and inflict it with every color you want a beam to be created from.”

“In this case I used all seven colors, and thus seven color-beams appeared. While this was all happening, I needed to dispel and destroy any measures Nifret tried to prevent me with. Like creating additional spacerifts. I was successful in that and was able to combine the seven colors with the fire over her, creating rainbow-fire. The only ones I know who can create rainbow-fire are, The Bearer, Oran, and I.”

“The rainbow-fire was created and attacked Nifret, who blocked it with a massive barrier. Since rainbow-fire isn’t deadly it isn’t especially strong, so she was able to block it with a barrier. Well the good side is that she used up an extreme amount of magical reserves for this barrier. After this, we landed and made a short pause.” The fight really looked impressive until now, and Celestia didn’t want to disturb the flow with a question right now.

“When we began again, she used her trademark spell. It basically puts me into a tunnel with five edges. If anything leaves this area, it and its’ owner, if it’s a spell, receives the combined heat of five laser-beams. This also counts for her. You should also know, that holding this spell up, needs an unreal amount of magic, so she couldn’t hold it up for long.”

“In order to force me to leave the pentagon, she used a wide beam, which would follow me when I evade, so basically, I was fucked.” He then chuckled. “If it weren’t for the new spell.” Celestia looked at the monitor, and saw that a second Aren stepped out of the first one. She wasn’t really impressed since even she could create a magical clone.

“I bet you think this is a magical clone.” Celestia was a little taken aback by Arens’ skill of guessing what she thought but nodded. Aren only smirked. “It isn’t. You should know that there are three things a being consists off. A body, magic, and a soul. You can create an illusion or something that looks like you with magic. This is a magical clone. I did something different.”

“I tried to create this spell for an eternity. I would create a body out of flesh that is exactly like mine, and I would halve my magic, and put one of the halves into this body. The only thing I managed to create was a corpse with my appearance. There was just no way to create another soul.” He snickered.” Well up until some time ago.”

“Do you remember what I said in the hospital? The soul forms the body and the body forms the soul. Basically, I created an exact duplicate of my body, and with my new ability to create soul out of magic, I infused the raw soul energy into the body. The body then shaped the soul exactly like mine and thus created another me. We were two separate beings of the same kind, with half the magic of the original.” Celestia was dumbfounded.

The mirror-pond created a being that was like the original, but what Aren did was different. While the mirror-pond created the copy only out of magic, it never was able to get a soul into it. Thus, the body ran on magical energy and wasn’t under control of the soul. Aren didn’t just simply clone himself. He copied himself and created himself again. This means that there was no original and no copy. Both were the real Aren. Aren just laughed.

“See her face, when she realized that this was no magical copy?” He pointed at the screen, and Celestia saw that Nifret had the same dumbfounded look in her eyes like she earlier. “Well she then didn’t exactly know what I did, and thought that only one of us was the original, and that she needed to hit the right one. She then widened her beam to a width, on which no human could evade it while being in the pentagon.”

Looking at the monitor, she saw that both Arens vanished. “Like I said, no humans. We both changed shape into bugs, and were able to hide in the little space that was not covered with lasers. While Aren one went behind her, Aren two attacked her. She evaded, and Aren one was able to enchant his sword with rainbow-fire. She had to use a shitton of magic to block that one, and even felt a slight magical backlash.”

“We then tried to bring her to use her infamous black-blast, by showing her that her laser was worthless. The black-blast is a spell only she can use. It’s basically, a spell that creates a destructive ultra dense explosion, which eats everything. When she used it, we engulfed it with a barrier in the form of a flask, so the whole force runs down the corridor into the space-rift.”

“The blast turned into a beam, and the other Aren used a raw-energy-saving-stone to absorb the blast. Those stones can absorb any kind of magic and save them inside. The sword around the stone is for directing the energy of the stone outwards. Those stones are, by the way, immensely expensive, and need to cool down for some days after they released their power.”

“So when we absorbed the blast into the sword, we swapped each other, without the weapons of the Aren who was located at Nifret. So then one Aren had one holstered sword, one sword enchanted with the black explosion, and one enchanted with rainbow-fire while the other one had noting.”

“The one at the outside made a barrier with his last remaining magical power, and the one in the inside let the black explosion loose while enchanting it with the rainbow-fire, thus creating a rainbow-fire-explosion.” Celestia looked at it with wide eyes, and saw that one of the Arens and Nifret fell down to the floor, unmoving.

“Let me explain what rainbow-fire does. Every color affects the soul on a different level. Blue, shocks the soul. Yellow creates a cut in the soul. Green pushes the soul and so on and so on. When all of the colors get combined, they practically blast the soul in an uncountable amount of pieces. The soul is parted in too many pieces to repair itself and remains like this in the body. The person stays alive, but is not conscious and can’t do and feel anything.”

“It remains in this state until either the body gets destroyed or a soul-restoration-spell gets cast on the victim. The one Aren went to the other one and fused with him, creating me again. I then went over to Nifret and gathered all the pieces of her soul. I took them out and fused them together, but not without blocking her movement and magic.”

“I opened a spacerift, and threw her soul together with a soul-fire-nuclear-explosion into another dimension, and closed it, thus ending the fight and getting the spirit of hate out of Lunas’ body.” The screen vanished, and Aren threw a stack of around 100 papers at Celestia. “This is a compilation of every spell used in the fight, what they do, and how to use them. I don’t expect you to learn many of those since most of them are extremely advanced, but there were also some basic ones. Try to learn some of them, and look at it again to get an overview of how some kind of spells are used, and in what situations.”

He stood up from the couch. “Tomorrow we will begin with real practice. This was only a lesson to show you how a fight between two strong opponents goes.” Celestia looked through the papers and raised her eyebrow at some of them. “Any questions?”

Oh shit, she had a lot of questions, but somehow in the excitement and the taking in of the new information she forgot them. She tried to remember some questions, but wasn’t able to. In the end, she just shook her head.

Aren then simply transported them back to Equestria. “If you have any questions come to me. You know where you can find me.” Then he walked away.

And Celestia had an ass full of shit to learn.

Author's Note

Damn, I hope this whole explaining doesn't bore you.

And sorry for the long chapter :(

Crystals & Caves

Twilight jumped to the right and evaded a beam by a hairs width, but before she even was able to land safely on the ground, the devilish weapon was already prepared to strike her down. The weapon that tormented her friends and her for the past two years. Two years, it’s been already two years since they started the evasion training.

They were not able to get away from him for five minutes even once in two years. Twilights’ appearance was a little different than two years ago. Her hair was a little shorter and looked more like Rainbows’. Her body changed too, but not in a negative way. All the useless fat, which had accumulated over the years of reading books, and the lack of athletics has been transformed into slim muscles.

Muscles can be separated into two kinds. Red and White muscles. White muscles are very oxygen-heavy, giving them the ability to burst out massive amounts of strength for a short while. Red muscles have less oxygen in them, meaning that they don’t get exhausted that easily. They can’t conjure those massive amounts of momentous strength, but they are able to maintain their strength over a long time.

Twilights’ muscles were mainly changed into red ones, which are thinner longer and faster than the white ones. So instead of looking like a pony which takes steroids every day and always shouts “YEAH!”, she looks like a sprinter. She often noticed guards looking suspiciously unsuspicious while she was around, and she was sure that they watched her with dirty looks when she didn’t see them.

Yet, even with this new athletic body, she and her friends were never able to evade Aren for five minutes, and again the evil weapon was about to strike down. One weapon ,which tormented them for two years. One weapon, which was hated by every pony of them. The weapon with the name, nopony dared to speak out.

The Tap-Tap-Stick.

Suddenly, Twilight shot forward and was able to evade the stick. Looking beyond Aren, she saw the horn of Rarity shining a blue light, which also engulfed Twilights’ body. Rarity didn’t actually look different. She always did sports, because a lady had to look fabulous, and not even the training could hinder her mane in looking absolutely fantastic.

Aren cursed a little under his breath, due to him missing the strike on her. Turning around, he shot a beam at Rarity. She was concentrating on Twilight, and wasn’t able to see the beam in time. Rarity also jerked to the side suddenly. This time it was Twilight who had her in her magical grasp. Both unicorns had the other one in telekinesis and their infinite trust into each other allowed them to let themselves get controlled by the other one.

Both were flying through the air, and Aren had a little problem getting them when they did that. He quickly turned around, and bolted for Fluttershy, who looked ready to evade. Fluttershy was probably the one who changed the most. She didn’t have her old weak and fragile body anymore. Now, her body looked like Applejacks’. The first days after beginning of the training, Aren always went for her.

She felt useless and bad for the first few days. They always lost due to her being the weakest link. She already had planned to run away from them one day, but Rainbow Dash found her and talked to her. Rainbow motivated her and Fluttershy decided that instead of running away, she just had to train way more. Even if, she was as good as everypony else after two weeks, she still continued training extra every day. Thus, her body was as athletic as Rainbows’ and Applejacks’.

Her mane had still the same length, but it looked messy. It wasn’t the sensual long well groomed mane anymore. It now looked more like the mane of a wild horse. Yet, her ponyality (personality) didn’t change that much. She still was the friendly, animal loving, caring Pegasus she was before the training. But due to the training, she was now able to be assertive when the need arose.

When Aren ran to her, and was only two meters away, she bolted to the heavens with a mighty jump and flew away, never breaking eye-contact with him. Aren only shot a beam at Fluttershy, but it got deflected by a gust, which was created by Rainbow. Rainbow looked exactly the same like two years ago, except for her being taught a little Pegasus-magic from Aren.

He told her a year ago that Pegasi also had magic in them, and how to manipulate it. She never was the kind of pony which knew how to do something just from explanations. She had to try countless times, but after six months, she was able to command air in a certain radius around her. She could create strong gusts that were able to lift a pony from the ground. With one of those, she deflected the beam going to Fluttershy.

Aren cursed silently and looked at Rainbow Dash. A second later, he waved his hand dismissively. He didn’t even need to go after her. She was uncatchable for some months now, and no matter how often he tried going after her, he never got her, not with the repertoire of magical skills he only used for their training. He could always freeze time, or buff himself with a speed buff, but then there would be no point to the training.

Looking further, he saw Applejack being ready for him. Running to her, he readied himself to hit her with the Tap-Tap-Stick. He slammed down, but Applejack suddenly vanished. Cursing again, he knew exactly what happened. Like the two unicorns and the two Pegasi helped each other, the two earth ponies also helped each other. He dreaded the day he showed Pinkie to use her weird skills on other earth ponies.

There was only one pony left. Pinkie Pie. He looked at her and shook his head. She was impossible to catch on the get go. He never caught her even once in the last two years. He ran around and attacked the pony which was always closest to him, but he never caught one. After five minutes, he smiled and let the stick disappear.

“Congratulations, you were able to win.” He shouted to the ponies, which were happy beyond belief. Two long years, and they finally were able to win. The ponies weren’t really mad at him for what he did in the past, and they still didn’t forgive him, but after two years of “playing” together, they forgot it. Of course, they didn’t literally forget it, but it just seemed to long in the past. Aren and the Elements Of Harmony weren’t exactly friends, but they at least were happy to have each other as company.

Suddenly Pinkie stopped celebrating, and her eyes widened. “Do you know what this calls for?” She asked with an excited voice. Not two seconds later, her party-cannon appeared, and while shooting out the party supplies, she shouted. “A PARTY!” The whole training ground was littered with party supplies of any kind. Streamers, decorations, piñatas and every kind of cake could be seen everywhere.

Aren had to genuinely chuckle a little. Two years ago, he wasn’t actually used to chuckling and laughing. The only opportunities he did this, was either when he could boast, win or teach… or rip someone apart, but that changed. It changed due to something that happened between Celestia and him.

Yep, the two were also a couple now. They both talked about something some months ago, and then it just happened. Celestia and Aren kissed, and they both realized that they loved each other. They were together from the day since, but they never stepped further, since it was not necessary.

Mortals feel the urge to reproduce because they get older and will die at some point, so they need someone else with the same genes as them to live longer, namely children. Immortals don’t have the urge to do this, since they don’t naturally age. They can, of course, still do it, but it was not needed. It was enough as long as they just were beside each other.

“Before you begin wasting yourself into a sugar coma, I should tell you about your next lesson.” The ponies looked at him, having cake, sugar, and chocolate hanging from their mouths. “As you all know, your next lesson is stealth. With stealth, I don’t mean that you should assassinate someone or something like that. I mean that you simply can’t be detected.”

He looked around again, to see if he had the attention of everypony, which he luckily had. “In comparison to your two old exercises this one has two major differences. First, I won’t participate in them. You will do them completely without me.” The ponies looked a little sad at this. He wasn’t their friend, but they still had fun “playing” with him.

“Second, it won’t be here and not at day.” They raised an eyebrow. “What you have to do is the following. In the restricted area in the castle are rooms with chests in it. In the chests are necklaces with different gems embedded into them. The whole section is being heavily guarded by guards. What I want you to do is, to get the necklace. Every one of you has to be successful at getting their color of gems. The gem each one of you has to get has the color of the emblem of your Element Of Harmony, so it should be easy to see which one you are supposed to steal.”

“Also, every night the locations of the gems change. This means that you first need to get to the chest, open it, look if it is your gem, and if it is, you get it, and if it isn’t you are not allowed to touch it, and need to close the chest. You all need to start at the same time, and you are not allowed to tell or show one of your friends if you know where their gem is. Trust me, I see if you cheat or tell them.”

“This is not everything. There are more rules. Magic, flying and weird Pinkie stuff is all prohibited.” The ponies gasped. Everything sounded ok and doable until that point, but how were they able to do this without their specific skills? Aren had to smirk because he still wasn’t finished yet. “Oh it gets even better. I extended the forbidden area of the castle even more and casted spells on it. The whole area of the forbidden castle is now as big as the whole castle.” The ponies had a look of disbelief.

“And why don’t we see this extension? I think something this big, could be seen from anywhere in Canterlot.” Twilight exclaimed logically. Aren smirked and threw some cloth at the floor. The cloth extended itself and was now 1x1x1m in size.

“That’s how. Dear Twilight, could you please go into there?” He gestured to the entrance of the little tent. Twilight was not sure what he meant, but she looked with her head through the entrance and couldn’t believe what she saw. This was no tent, this was a castle. She fully walked in and looked around. Her friends quickly followed her and also went in. They all looked around and could safely say that this castle was even bigger than the Canterlot-castle.

After a while, they were ported back to the training-ground-made-party. Aren folded the cloth back together and put it back into his coat. “This is a spell that allows me to extend the size inside of an object. I did the same thing with the prohibited area of the castle.” He had to laugh a little because he still wasn’t finished yet.

“There’s more. I also casted a spell on the whole area, which makes it change its’ structure every 15 minutes. What I mean is that the rooms, hallways and doors change their locations. Suddenly the chest with the yellow necklace isn’t on the bottom floor anymore, but on the top floor, and suddenly there is a hallway you never saw. Things like this. I should also say that the change of the architecture happens without you noticing it. It just happens.” The ponies gulped.

“Hold your horses because I am still not finished yet.” He genuinely had to hold back his laughter. “I also asked some guys from other dimensions to help guard the area, and I also created some spells with bodies and artificial intelligences. So basically, your goal is to not get detected by the guards, and any other thing in there. The “other” guards in there have appearances like ghosts, rats, satyrs and many other stuff.” He certainly had to chuckle.

“Three more things. First, you lose if one of you gets touched by a guard. In that case, a loud alarm echoes through the halls, signaling the guards and you that the exercise is over, which brings me to the next point. You only have one chance per night. If you lose, the forbidden area transforms itself into a straight corridor, from which you can easily find the exit. If one of you gets touched, you exit the area and try your luck again on the next day.”

“Third, you win if each of you gets her necklace and delivers it to me in my room. Any questions?” The ponies had an ass full of questions.

“And how do ya’ll think this is possible?” Applejack asked him.

“Of course it’s possible. You are not the first civilians that go through that training. They all succeed eventually. Some after six months, some after two years. It’s different every time.” Now it was Raritys’ time to speak.

“And how are we able to hide ourselves in empty corridors and rooms?” Aren chuckled.

“They aren’t empty. There are desks with food, statues of potential guests, chandeliers, long tables, chairs, ornamentations on walls, wardrobes, barrels, boxes, pillars, and much more stuff. It’s pretty filled.” Now it was Twilights’ turn.

“When can we begin and when is it too late to begin?”

“You can begin at 20:00 at the earliest and you need to be finished at 2:00. Six hours are way too much time. Normally to get your necklace as a newbie without being detected needs at worst maybe three hours. In average 1 ½. So I let you decide if you want to start at 20:00 or at 0:00.” The ponies still did not like this, and Aren just continued smiling.

“Cheer up, nearly all of the ones I trained said that this exercise was the most fun. I bet you will love it. Remember, if you want hints on how to be sneaky and if you still don’t know about some rules, just come to me and ask.” He smiled once more and walked to the castle.

The ponies looked at each other, not sure what they should say or do now.

“Ah, really don’t know if that’s possible what he wants us to do.” Said Applejack with a downward gaze. The others looked at her and also looked at their own hooves. Twilight walked to her.

“He said that the others were also able to do it. Nothing he said in the past two years was a lie, wasn’t it Applejack?” She smiled reassuringly at the farmer. Applejack looked up at Twilights’ eyes for a while but then only sighed.

“Ah just don’t know if we can do it. Ahm not the sneakin kind a’ pony, y’know?” Twilight only shook her head slowly.

“We also thought it was impossible to catch him at the start. Then we thought it was impossible to run away from him. But we did it! We made the impossible possible. Just like the impossible things before, we will also make this possible!” She said a little louder than normal and with motivation. Applejack had to smile at Twilights’ reasoning and hugged her.

“Thanks, Twi.” Twilight placed her hoof around Applejack, and her face changed into a warm smile.

“No problem, AJ.” Suddenly they heard a gasp and turned to the source of it. Pinkie Pie.

“Do you know what this calls for?” A collective eye-roll took place in the group since everypony knew what she would say now. “A happy sneak-through-the-castle-and-steal-necklaces-party!” The party-cannon was already ready to fire and did this not a second later. Now everything was doubled. Two cakes of each kind, the double amounts of streamers and two piñatas. The ponies shook their head at Pinkies antics, and began to chat and eat again.

At night.

The ponies were in a round hall with seven exits. The walls looked like they were made out of malachite. The ornamented windows had the look of a church without the pictures of the gods on them. The pillars and some ornamentations on the wall had the color of an Ametrine. Hell, they looked like they were made out of that stuff. The floor looked like it was made out of deep blue sapphires.

One of the seven exits on the walls looked different from the others. It was smaller than the other ones, and it was the one they come from when they went into the hallway. This small exit led out to the normal castle while the other six would most likely lead to different parts of the castle with different boxes.

“My my my, I really have to say that Aren did a magnificent job in designing and building this part of the castle.” Rarity stated while looking around the gem-like floors and walls, admiring her reflection in them and playing with her mane a little. Applejack also looked around.

“Well it does look kinda fancy.” She said while looking closer at a seat made out of rubies.

“WHOA! Look up everypony!” Pinkie shouted while pointing one of her hooves to the ceiling. The ponies looked up and there it was. The whole ceiling had an enormous dragon painted on it. His scales were made of obsidian and his eyes of Cinnabar. His claws were made of diamond.

“Wow, I never saw a black dragon before. I think black dragons can’t even exist in Equestria, due to the pollution of the harmony-particles, which are always in the air.” Twilight explained.

“I don’t care if they can exist or not, it looks awesome!” Rainbow shouted while putting both her hooves to her cheeks.

“Ehm, don’t you think we s-should begin?” Fluttershy meekly exclaimed. The others looked at her and had an “oh” expression. They looked at each other and nodded.

“Alright everypony, gather up.” Ordered Twilight and they all went in line. “Every pony of us should go through one of those doors since we are forbidden to help each other. Remember to be sneaky, and always remember. We have time. Don’t rush things and wait for an opportunity. I know we can do this, and I wish you all good luck.” She said with a smile and turned around to one of the exits.

“I will take this one!” She said while pointing it at. Rainbow flew to another one.

“This is mine!” She shouted and bursted through the door. Twilight had to sigh… doesn’t that mare know what sneaky means? Pinkie bounced to the next exit and bolted through it with a long “WEEEEEE!” Twilight had to facehoof at this. Those two. Rarity and Applejack went through theirs pretty normally. When they were gone, Twilight looked around the room for Fluttershy but couldn’t find her.

When she didn’t find the yellow Pegasus, she suddenly realized why. She apparently went into her hallway without anyone noticing.

“Wow, she’s good.” Twilight then also walked into her Hallway. After a while, the hallway got wider, and she saw that she was in some kind of long dinner room with a long table made out of citrine. Above the table was a buffet with freshly cooked vegetables, and grass. It looked delicious, but she had a job to do. There was no time for snacking of these perfectly cooked, steaming, fresh… Oh one bite won’t hurt anypony.

She took a steaming apple and looked it over. It had a perfect form and color. She bit into it, and the crunch echoed through the whole hallway. It echoed more than once, and Twilight was frozen in place. That was not part of the plan. After a while, it looked like no one noticed and she placed the apple back at the table. Suddenly her ears perked up. There was a sound like an army running to her. What was that sound?

It got louder and louder, and after a while she looked into the hallway she wanted to go to, and saw that it was fully packed. Dozens of guards, flying ghosts, ratmen, lizardmen, and other monsters of any kind stood there, all having their gazes focused on Twilight. Twilight only gulped.

Rainbow Dash was sneaking around, and saw two guards walking on a patrol. On one of the walls was a lizardman. He was bigger than a normal human, and had the head of a snake and also the tail of it. His scales were green and yellow. He crawled along the walls on all fours, and he made nearly no sound while doing this. Rainbow Dash would have never seen him if he wouldn’t have scrabbled into her field of view.

She searched for an opening, but before she could find one, there was a loud sound like a gust went through a tree. All the halls and hallways shifted and moved around. Rainbow didn’t know what happened, but before she could react she saw that she was in a gigantic hallway. It was at least 100 meters wide and over 500 meters long.

She saw an ass full of guards and all of her friends. The guards laughed and started walking to the end of the hallway, ignoring the ponies. Suddenly, Dash realized what happened. One of them got caught, and the game was over. She saw the clueless looks on four of her friends. Further looking around, she realized that Twilight wasn’t there with them. But she spotted something different while looking around.

A huge pile of guards, monsters, lizards and so on. They were all atop each other and laid there. After a while, they started to get up, and to climb down from the pile. When the last one stood up, Rainbow could see the quivering and shivering form of Twilight on the bottom of it. Her friends saw this too and ran over to her. They reassured her that everything would be ok and that the monsters were gone.

Twilight wasn’t physically hurt, but she was in shock due to seeing an army of monsters she didn’t know charging at her and burying her in a pile of flesh. Rarity picked her up and placed her on Applejacks’ back. Then they walked out of the hallway. Aren who watched the whole thing through some kind of monitor in his room was still laughing. The look in Twilights’ eyes when she saw the fully packed hallway, looking at her. It was priceless.

Suddenly a ringing voice started sounding, and he looked at his wrist. “Oh, it seems like it’s time.” With that said, he stood up from his seat and vanished.

He reappeared on a dark plane. The floor was black and looked like frozen magma while there was no sky visible. The same black stuff, of which the floor was made, was also over Aren, creating a cave. Stalactites and stalagmites were pretty numerous in the cave and also had the color black. Normally it would be impossible to see even 10 centimeter ahead because there was absolutely no light coming in from anywhere.

Aren simply used a self-illumination-spell, those are spells that illuminate the air around your body, to make the surroundings visible. He walked a little while and stopped at a seemingly random part of the cave. Before him was a little door in the floor with barriers, chains and locks on it.

Using the correct spell-combination, the locks and barriers disappeared, and the door could be opened. Aren had to chuckle a little, when he remembered what happened here.

“Alright, Celly. Today we will up your concentration.” Aren looked over to the door in the floor. “Do you see that door?” Celestia looked over it and nodded once. “Down there are Kurmiar. Kurmiar are very interesting creatures. They are predators that only attack the unprepared. If they see you prepared to defend yourself, they won’t attack you.”

Aren had to chuckle a little. “But this doesn’t mean that they stop hunting for you, no. They wait in the shadows and watch you. When you let your guard down even once, they will attack you. They are really dangerous and could tear you apart if they get you without you noticing. Their legs look like they walk on swords and their fangs are so long that they even go over their muzzles.” Aren had to chuckle even more.

“They live here, by the way. This means that they can smell, hear, and feel you much better, and always know where you are. Come closer and take a look at them.” Aren waved her over, and Celestia slowly walked over to him. Aren smiled like a little child in a zoo and Celestia never liked that smile. Whenever he smiled like this, she got into a ton of danger.

The first months of training were easy. Dispel this barrier. Use this spell while doing this. Look over there and search for the target. Pretty easy stuff, but after a while, the training got harder and more dangerous. He once blocked the magic of her horn, tied her wings together, and threw her down a cliff, and there was no rezz-field.

He did this to force her to realize that magic doesn’t need to be used from her horn. She was able to slow her fall, and only broke a leg when she landed. Aren healed her, of course, and then explained something to her. Every being without exclusion in the multiverse has the multiversal-magic. That what the alicorns and unicorns were using was a naturally born magic. It was a different kind. A weaker one.

After training for a while, she was able to use this magic and undoubtedly saw that her attacks had more power, and not only this. She could use her magic from anywhere from her body. She could shoot fire out of her hooves, for example. On top of that, the magic had no color, so it was impossible to see if she casted a spell, as long as no aura-vision was activated.

At another time, he blocked her magic, and forced her to kill an enormous black dragon only with her horn and self-buffs. On another occasion, he said to her to survive for an hour. She had a large field of grass to run, and needed to survive the bombs of soul-fire Aren threw at her while flying over here. This time, also no magic and wings allowed.

Celestia knew that there were no rezz-fields, and Aren genuinely wanted to hit her. If she would have failed one of the lessons, she would be dead. He even looked for opponents for her who would do duel with her. Of course, the loser dies. At 123, she stopped counting the times of near-death experiences.

It was understandable that she hesitated to walk over to the door at the floor. When she came closer, she heard rustling. She wasn’t able to see anything in there, but she heard noises like there were swords constantly piercing the stone. There were so many noises that it nearly sounded like a wave hitting the shore. There had to be a ton of those things down there.

She looked over to Aren, and saw him smiling. He then tilted his head to her wings. Celestia looked to her wings and saw that there were chains around them. Why does she never notice it when he does that? Feeling inside her, she also felt that her magic was blocked. Looking over to the smiling Aren, she slowly shook her head. Aren eagerly nodded, and Celestia shook her head more fiercely.

Not one second later, he kicked her into the pit. When Celestia landed, the sound of the swords stopped. She quickly got up and went into battle-stance. She tried to make light, but her magic was entirely cut off. Deep down, she was afraid, but through her hellish training, she was able to suppress it and look like she was prepared for anything.

Slowly, the sounds of the sword returned. She couldn’t see anything different than black, and her smelling and hearing was due to the dirty cave air and the echo in the cave nearly useless. She heard the sword legs from all around her. They were beside her, in front of her, behind her, and even above her on the ceiling. They slowly shuffled around. It sounded like there were thousands walking around her, observing her every move.

She seemed ready to react to anything that could happen. One time, she lost focus because of something she was thinking about, not one second after her eyes lost a little weariness, and she instantly heard a sound, like a sword coming out of the stone with a tug. She instantly reacted and pointed her head to the direction she thought the pounce would come from.

Suddenly something heavy hit her horn and got impaled on it. She heard a screeching noise and threw it away from her horn. She instantly straightened herself and went into battle-stance again. What scared her most was that she didn’t hear any legs moving. Based on the amounts of noises she heard earlier, there had to be at least 50 down here with her.

The fact that she didn’t hear, nagged hard on her resolve. This meant that they were all around her and were waiting. Waiting for their food to make a mistake. After finally adapting a little to the total darkness, her other senses began to heighten. She wished that this didn’t happen. She was wholly surrounded. Those things were everywhere. They stood not even a meter away from her. On all sides, there wasn’t even a meter of space for her to evade.

She heard the breathing and smelled the foul breath that came with it, coming from everywhere.

“Have fun! See you in 24 hours!” shouted Aren from the top and closed the door. Celestia heard him but didn’t make any movement. A false move, could give all those monsters around her a reason to pounce at her, and she wouldn’t be as lucky as last time, where only one pounced at her. If two at the same time would do it, she would stand surely no chance. They would rip her apart before she could even react.

Aren opened the door and used his magical aura, to give himself the smell, and noise of a full grown dragon. One second later, he jumped down, and he instantly heard the shuffling of frightened Kurmiar. Since they can’t see, and only hear and smell, they thought that a gigantic dragon landed there, and instantly fled.

Illuminating the area, Aren saw Celestia. Standing in battle-stance. Nearly unscathed, except that she was missing her left front leg. It looked like she didn’t notice him and only looked grim and prepared at some point on the wall. Aren walked over to her, but she didn’t react. Celestia was in a state of readiness and to conserve her energy, the body shut down any signals that didn’t seem dangerous from outside. Focusing everything on her concentration.

She didn’t even notice that Aren healed her leg. Suddenly she gasped because she felt warmth all around her. Looking frightened down, she saw that it was just Aren who was hugging her. She looked around the cave, and let out a sigh when she didn’t see anything. Slowly, she calmed down and let her body slump down.

Tiredness instantly greeted her. All the fatigue, stress, fear, and terror came to her. She felt like she was on sedates and totally slumped down. Due to his embrace, she started to feel warm again and felt only infinitely tired. The noise and look of everything began to dull and to blur, and she slowly closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She heard one last thing before she lost consciousness.

“I am proud of you, Celly.”

Author's Note

Two more years until the battle with Oran begins.

The Last Days

Twilight looked around the corner. Two lizardmen at the left wall, one ghost patrolling the ceiling. Two night-guards were guarding the room she wanted to go in. The hallway was mostly straight, and only some pillars and some vases and tables were between her and the watchful eyes of the guards.

Looking down at her hooves, she pulled the socks further up. Normally socks were an accessory that only couples were wearing… during certain processes. The reason why she was wearing socks was a totally different one. The soft material allowed her to silently walk from hiding spot to hiding spot, without making any loud clopping noise on the crystal-floor.

One of the lizardmen walked into another hallway, and the other one was currently not looking at her. Turning her watchful eyes upwards, she also noticed that the ghost wasn’t there anymore. Taking her chance, she quickly pulled an apple out of her saddle-bag and threw it behind a pillar.

The noise wasn’t terribly loud, and only the two night-guards heard it. One of them quickly ran to the pillar and looked behind it. The pillar was from the view of the door to the left, and the other guard was also looking at the first guard at the pillar. Deciding that this was probably nothing unusual, he looked back into the hallway.

He strained his eyes. There was something different than before. Looking more closely, he saw some kind of obsidian-stone laying there. Quickly turning his gaze upwards, he saw the black dragon ornament, but not where it could have fallen from. “Hey Blazing, do you know where that stone comes from?” The guard yelled to the other one who had a fascinating apple in his hand.

“I don’t know, and I also don’t know where this apple came from.” He showed the apple to his guard partner. Suddenly they realized that this probably only was a distraction. They both turned around and bolted into the room they were guarding. The door blew open, and they looked at the room. The room looked normal. Nothing was different.

But the guards knew better. They knew that somepony had to be in there. Obsidian does not simply fall from the ceiling, and it is most certain that apples don’t just teleport themselves behind pillars. They carefully searched through everything in the room. Through the bed, under the bed, along the box, in the wardrobes, behind the curtains, below the carpet, even on top of the door, but they couldn’t find anything.

Scratching the back of their heads, they walked to the box and opened it. They gasped when they realized that the necklace in the box was missing. Cursing under their breath, they stormed out of the room and gave alarm. Everyone started running in a hurry and frantically searched through all the hallways. No one found anything.

Twilight was already back in the main room. To elaborate what happened earlier. When the second guard concentrated on the obsidian laying on the middle of the hallway, Twilight was sneaking around him. While he talked with his partner, Twilight opened the door silently, thanking the sun that it was oiled, and instantly looked into the box.

A purple necklace was in it, and she didn’t hesitate for even a second to grab it. She did this a lot already. After nearly two years sneaking around, you get the hang of it. Her body was still the slender same form of two years ago, but she still looked mighty different. Currently her whole body was covered by a green veil.

This would be pretty flashy in a normal circumstance, but not if the walls of every room looked green too. When she was leaning against a wall in the right position, it was quite hard to spot her. On top of that, her head was also wrapped in a totally green veil, which was easy to see through if there came light from the other side. In the last two years, her friends and she had many problems with the sneaking exercise, so they decided to also think of techniques and things they could use to succeed.

They played hide and seek in their free-time and also some other games they created in order to get sneakier. Rarity made all of them a suit that would mold really well into the environment. Rainbow Dash showed them her awesome sneaking technique. Applejack collected and built some things they could use for their advantages. Like a kind of scaffolding that if placed correctly, would collapse in ten seconds, creating a sound.

Pinkie taught them a trick, which let them stop from an exceptionally fast dash into a still position in a part of a second, so they could be able to run and stop instantly if necessary. Fluttershy showed them how she was able to evade attention on the market or other crowded places, and Twilight thought about some tactics for certain scenarios. Like what to do when three ratmen were on the walls, and four guards would guard the door.

Of course, there were many failures, but whenever something failed somepony would find a solution for said problem. When Twilight grabbed the necklace, she knew that the guards would most likely bolt right into the room, so she didn’t hesitate even a second. She instantly ran beside the door, and used a spell she needed a long time to master. She asked Chrysalis a lot of times about how she would be able to change her appearance.

Chrysalis didn’t like teaching that to Twilight, but she changed a little bit in the last five years. She wasn’t so bitter anymore, and if you had the right reasons or the right price and she was in a good mood, she would even consider helping you. It took a while, but she was able to convince the former changeling queen. She showed Twilight some tricks how to do it, and Twilight was able to change single parts of her body.

But since magic was forbidden in this exercise, she couldn’t do it. Well she couldn’t perform the spell, but there were always loopholes. Smirking, she took out some kind of sphere and stomped it under her hooves silently. The sphere cracked, and some dust went around her four hooves. This was a trick she learned from Aren.

Enchanting an object would give it its’ property, but if the right object was used, the object would release the enchantment upon destruction onto the next target. Twilight used a spell at some spheres that would change four appendages into arms. When the dust around her hooves settled, instead of hooves, she had hands. Even after nearly six months of using this spell, it still creeped her the fuck out.

Having normal legs but instead of hooves, hands. It just looked way to creepy, and the fact that the hands were far bigger than they should be didn’t help. It helped even less that the hands were hairy with long nails. With her four hands, she grabbed onto the ornamentations in the door and in the walls and climbed up. When she was over the door, she held onto the ornaments and waited for the guards to run in.

When the guards crashed into the room, Twilight just crawled through the door, like a spider. Outside, she instantly went to the ceiling and ran along it. It took a long time to learn how to run with hands on the ceiling, but she eventually succeeded in it. If the ceiling wouldn’t be this uneven, she would never be able to do it.

When she saw a ghost, or a lizardman, she hid behind the ornamentation of this black dragon. It was big enough to hide her if she crawled behind it. After a while, she saw the entrance to the main room and ran to it. When she came to the door, she heard the screaming guards behind her, who finally looked into the box.

Smirking, she opened the door and walked through it. On the other side of the door were her five friends. Everypony looking like a green polygon figure, with nothing visible, but the green veils around their bodies. She showed her necklace, and the other ponies followed. They also showed their own ones, and for the first time, all six of them had their own necklaces in the hooves, or still hands in Twilights’ case.

“Good job you six. You finally made it eh? And not a day too early.” They heard from a bank. Turning to the voice, they saw Aren sitting there. “You succeeded. Congratulations.” He said while biting into an apple. The friends cheered and jumped around. They finally were finished with training. All three exercises down. Teamwork, evasion, and stealth. Twilight was the first to take her veil down, and looked at her friends with a smile.

Applejack was the next one to take the veil down. Her body was still the same, but her hair was awfully short. She thought that shorter hair looked tougher than long hair. It also annoyed her when it was entangled with some of the crystals she was hiding behind at the beginning of the stealth training.

The next one, who took her veil off, was Pinkie Pie. She looked exactly the same as five years ago.

After her, it was Rainbow Dashs’ time. Her mane wasn’t ruffled anymore, and it also wasn’t that long anymore. Her mane was shorter, and it was pressed on her head. She meant that this would look more “aero-ro-dynamic” this way, but the biggest change was the scar on her left cheek. One lizardman scratched her with one of his claws there by mistake. He apologized, and Aren offered to heal it, but Dash declined. She meant that a scar would look awesome on her and dangerous. Whenever somepony would ask her where that scare came from, she would just say that some lizard-monster from another dimension gave it to her. This was no lie.

Rarity was the next one. Her body still looked as slender as two years ago, and her coat also had the same radiating white. The one significant difference in her appearance was her mane. It wasn’t hanging from both sides of her head anymore, but instead tied in a sophisticated bun on top of her head. It made her look like a business-pony. A pony that knew how to handle money and power.

Fluttershy was the last one, and she still looked kind of the same as two years ago. The only big difference was that her mane also was shorter. It looked a little bit like Raritys’ old mane but less styled and straighter.

The ponies grinned at Aren happily. He only chuckled a little. “Well, it seems like you made it in time. I really wasn’t sure if you would be able to do it until the day after tomorrow.” He showed them a praising smile. “I think since the plan is already explained, and you all know what you have to do, you can take the next two days off.”

The smile of the ponies widened. They were finally able to get free time. Of course, they had the whole day for free-time before, but they had to sleep during it and couldn’t really travel or visit their families.

“Just remember, be here the day after tomorrow at 18:00.” The ponies all nodded. “Good, if there are no further questions, I am back in my room, bye.”

“Wait!” Aren heard Twilight shouting, and turned around.

“Yes?” He asked her with a raised eyebrow, and Twilight only drew small circles with her right hoof, which finally stopped being a creepy hairy hand.

“I just wanted to say, thank you.” Aren crooked an eyebrow.

“For what?” Twilight stepped closer to him.

“For training us and helping Equestria. The training was really fun, and your help is honestly appreciated. Thank you.” She said kindly. Aren only waved a dismissive hand.

“Don’t mention it. Now if, you excuse me, I’ll be going now.” That said, he vanished. Twilight only looked at her hooves and sighed. She knew that he actually liked them, but wanted to have no contact with them. Twilight remembered her talk with Celestia four years ago, the day after he destroyed Raritys’ heart.

“Princess, how can you be friends with Aren?” Celestia was a little taken aback by the suddenness of the question. Looking down at the pleading face of her student, she answered.

So any attempt to build a foundation of friendship with him was either never tried to build, or Aren always destroyed it before it got built. The reason that he didn’t want to talk to them if it didn’t concern the war was probably the same one. She was sad that he would never be her friend, but she won’t let this take her attitude down. They were finally able to steal all the necklaces, and this was a reason to party.

She went back to her friends and partied the whole night.

“You did great. You weren’t able to succeed in level two in my training, but you still held your ground. Not every army I train can say this.” Aren told the guards after the last training session was over. The guards looked happy and sad at the same time. Some time in the last two years, they got told the real reason why they were training this hard.

Since then, their motivation for training got even stronger, and they were perfectly ready to fight against Oran tomorrow. Aren walked over to Purple Edge.

“Major General Purple Edge. Having a battle-score of 82 is really remarkable. Not many mortals get this high after my five year training. Congratulations!” He smiled down at the saluting purple Pegasus.

“Thank you, sir!” He said with a steeled gaze, and Aren only shook his head. He will never understand why that guard always needed to be this formal.

“Well, I’ll be back in my room. I will see you all tomorrow, when the action starts.” He said and walked into the castle.

“Alright, that’s enough you three.” Aren said with a pant. Luna, Chrysalis, and Ravien lowered their battle stances and looked at him. “I think we trained enough for today, don’t you think?” He asked the three immortals.

They were currently training on level three against Aren. Level three means that Aren gave it his all, while only using skills and spells Equestria should know. They certainly gave him a run for his money. Celestia hasn’t been training with them for nearly four years. Ever since, she was accepted as Arens’ disciple, she got her own training with him.

Her participating in the immortal-training would have either meant that they would easily manage level three, due to Celestia knowing spells that are too advanced for Equestria, or that they could never win because Aren also had to use more advanced spells. So in the end, they decided that Celestia got her own training.

The three immortals calmed down slowly. Luna put her blue-moon-katana back in its’ sheath, and calmed her breathing. In comparison to four years before, she looked more athletic. She was immortal and multiple thousand years old, but that didn’t mean that she had a perfectly athletic body before.

Through training with him for four years, she also built an athletic form for her body. Ravien certainly liked Lunas’ new body. Her weapon was a blue katana, with a white wave form going along it. The sheath of the weapon was swung over her back.

Ravien looked exactly the same, except for his weapon. He had a sizeable two-handed long sword. The favorite weapon of arcadians. His father visited some time ago, and let his personal smith forge a weapon for him. It was a long blade with multiple forms. Every weapon of this kind was forged for every arcadian specifically. It was built that if Ravien carried it with his eagle claw, it could be handled like a swift sword, and if he had it in his lion paw, it could be wielded like a long sword. With both appendages, it could be wielded like a sharp long heavy club.

Chrysalis also looked the same, since she always made sports when she had time. The only difference was also her weapon. She had strapped around her torso, around ten green throwing stars with three tips each. They were forged of expensive and rare glass-diamond and were attuned to her magic. This meant that only Chrysalis was able to manipulate the ten stars with magic.

“Tomorrow it’s time. You all know the plan, and we already practiced it long enough. If everything goes alright, we should have a realistic chance to beat him. You made remarkable progress in the last four years.” He looked over to Chrysalis.

“Chrysalis, no one can compare to you in terms of wit and creating tactics. You are a genius that can come up with a cunning plan on the spot to win the fight.” She genuinely smiled. After some years, she opened up a little and saw that being more open to the world made life easier. Aren walked over to Ravien.

“You have the best control over magic and the highest power. You also showed that you don’t hesitate even a second if you can save a fight through a self-sacrifice.” Ravien chuckled a little and made a slight bow to show his gratitude. Aren then walked to Luna.

“No one can combine the strength and skill of spells and attacks like you. Every attacking pattern from you is fluently executed and no one of you three comes up at your skill level in wielding the sword.” Luna and Aren were on a ‘do not bother me, and I will not bother you’ relationship, but Luna still had to smile. Even if, she didn’t exactly like Aren, she could at least tolerate his existence.

Aren walked back to his old spot and addressed the immortals one last time. “Tomorrow is the day we prepared for, and we will win this. I am happy that I had the opportunity to train you, the elements, and the guards. My training rarely made so much fun as in this world. I will meet all of you tomorrow.” He said and vanished.

“I am really nervous. Are you sure we can win tomorrow?” Celestia asked with a soothed voice. Her coat was being caressed by Aren while her head laid on his chest. They were like this for some hours now, and only talked and enjoyed each others company. Celestia had closed eyes and enjoyed the feeling of Arens’ fingers going through her mane and coat while he felt warmth around his chest.

Celestias’ body didn’t look any different than four years before. The only two differences were her two white swords, which were forged by the Derians. The Derians were a race that was famous for producing extremely sharp weapons, and they unquestionably had their prices. When Celestia saw the “standard” weapons, she nearly got a heart attack. That would blast a gigantic hole in Equestrias’ budget. Aren only waved a dismissive hand and ordered their finest smith to create a weapon that perfectly suited the alicorn. She never thought she would ever see that much money at once.

Her other difference was her mane. It still floated gently in the ether, but something fundamental was different. Instead of four colors, it now had five. On top of her four old colors, there now was also a black one going through it. It was the highest one and floated through the ether just like the other ones. It suddenly appeared when she won against a monster that looked like an embodiment of evil and hatred. The fight was hellish, and she needed to use everything she knew in order to defeat him. When he died, a black streak suddenly appeared in her hair. The last time a new streak in her hair appeared was when she controlled the sun for the first time. At that time, she received the pink in her mane.

While Celestia enjoyed her time, Aren had different thoughts. He always thought that friendship or love was something that only hindered one in fighting when the time arrived, but he was mistaken. It gave one strength and the will to win. Some years ago, he would have never thought that he would one day lay on a green hill under the night-sky in Romaria with a white alicorn.

Romaria was a dimension that had arguably the most beautiful night-sky. The colorful moons were accompanied by the countless stars, and the light-spectacles adorning the night sky. He sighed once, but didn’t stop going over Celestias’ coat.

“I really don’t know if we will win tomorrow, but no other world than Equus has this much potential. My chances in finally defeating Oran were as high as never before, but I still don’t know if this is enough.” He looked down at the seemingly sleeping face of Celestia. “But I think that we will be able to at least stand up to him.”

Right now, Celestia didn’t care that much about Equestria or Oran. She was happy to be just sleeping here. It was something she was craving for, for the last couple of millennia. Someone who understood her and someone she could look at in a different light, than just simply a friend, a subject, or a sister. After a while, she calmly fell asleep on top of Arens’ chest, while the warm night air caressed her body.

Aren never stopped going with his hand through her coat, since he really doesn’t sleep much, and because he thought about the fight the next day.

Aren looked down from atop of the Canterlot-castle. All the guards who would fight Oran, all Elements Of Harmony, and the immortals were standing on the plaza, looking up on him. Behind him was Celestia, who wasn’t down there due to her being his apprentice. The plaza was silent and waited for Aren to speak up.

“For over 100,000 years, have I been traveling the multiverse in order to search for worlds that were capable of bringing Oran down. I trained the armies, civilians, emperors, powerful entities, and even objects in the ways of battle. I have shown mortals and immortals alike, what they can expect in a fight with Oran.” He shouted in a deep voice.

“But never have I seen a world this peaceful, which was yet this strong. You can have strength, but you will most likely lack the freedom of peace by achieving it. You can be peaceful, but when someone attacks you, you will most likely have no chance in winning. In this world, I saw the perfect equilibrium of this.”

“A world in which everypony, everyling, every-everything was handled with care and love, yet there still is power in this world. The power of harmony. The power to unite every soldier, every civilian, every object, every immortal to fight as one in one final battle. The power to overcome differences and to unite against one mighty foe.”

“No petty stubbornness is in this land. No race is under another one. Everyone is equal in the face of our united foe. We all are just warriors. Warriors that defend our loved ones from the one being that tries to hurt them. Warriors with the strength to fulfill the impossible goal. Warriors that have the potential to bring the mightiest god down who ever walked upon the living.”

“You showed that you do everything to protect the world. You showed that you are capable of protecting the world. And you will show that no one will hurt it. In one hour, we will show our enemy what we can do. In one hour, we will unleash our strength and justice on him. In one hour, we will win, and we will vanquish the biggest threat Equestria ever faced. In one hour, we will win. We will win, and we will go back to our loved ones. We will go back, and tell them of our success.”

“Tonight we are one. No one will stand against us.”

“ORAN SHALL FALL BEFORE US!” Aren shouted with a raised fist. The plaza exploded into cheers and battle cries. It seemed like the whole city was trembling under the power of the united ponies. Aren walked over to Celestia and nodded once.

“Let’s see how this goes.”

One hour later on top of Mount Dragonborn, a human began to move. He stood up and looked over to the land below him. After the mountain came a forest after the forest came a long plane of grass and beyond that, was the mountain with Canterlot, his goal. Placing one hand on his head, he swished over it once. Every memory of this world, which would give him a hint of the strategy and the strength of his opponents, was erased.

He readied himself, took his long sword in his hand, and began walking towards Canterlot.

Author's Note

Finally we are here.

The next chapter will be the last one.

The final battle with Oran.

The Last Battle

It was time. Another world would stand before the most powerful being in the multiverse, Oran. Another world he had to destroy, and most likely another failure. Last time when he was here, a thousand years ago, he won without even a scratch. He didn’t even need to slow his walk towards his goal. How could this world win against him now?

Oran didn’t remember much of the last five years. The only things he remembered were that Aren seemed to be happy, for whatever reason, and that he got disturbed by some changelings some years ago. He didn’t remember more than that about this world.

He slowly descended down the mountain, and he touched the grassy plane, which was surrounded by trees. He remembered that this was called The Everfree-Forest. He slowly began walking towards the mountain on the horizon. The mountain on which Canterlot was built.

He walked undisturbed for quite a while until he came to a clearing. He felt that he should be here and stopped his stroll. He stood before a hill. There wasn’t anything special about this clearing. He looked up, and saw that a familiar biped walked over the hill and stopped at the top. Oran grinned when he saw his apprentice looking down to him.

“Hey old man.” Aren said slowly, but not with aggression. Oran only nodded once. Some time went by where neither of the two moved. Arens’ expression slowly changed from a nice smile to a sad smile. He looked down at the reflection of his sword. “I never thought this day would come this fast.” Oran crooked an eyebrow.

“What day do you mean, Aren?” His apprentice only chuckled a little and looked him in the eyes.

“The day when this finally ends. Your journey. My apprenticeship.” Oran had a bewildered look in his eyes.

“Do you honestly think that it is over today? You know that I never needed to use my full power against anything. You shouldn’t sell the fur before you hunt the bear.” Oran said with a serious voice, and Aren only shook his head.

“I don’t know if this will be the last time we meet.” Suddenly his expression changed to a serious one. “Listen here master, this is the strongest world you have ever seen. It’s a shame that you don’t remember what happened here. I hope you have your fun because it won’t be easy today.” He said with motivation glimmering in his eyes.

Oran smiled happily. “I’m glad to hear that. Now, show me that your words aren’t empty.” He said, and Aren straightened himself. Opening his right hand, he held it in front of him. Slowly, lightning materialized in his hand. The flying ball of pure electricity glimmered in its’ white color, and Oran only shook his head.

“You’re going to use lightning against me? You know that this is not enough.” He exclaimed, and Arens’ expression changed into a cocky smirk. Suddenly, the color of the lightning changed from white to blue, and Oran instantly felt a deep danger coming from it. His eyes widened, and Aren shot the soul-lightning at him.

Oran instantly screamed and erected his most powerful barrier. He built it all around himself because lightning had the property to go over barriers, and attack the caster from behind. When the attack impacted with his barrier, he instantly felt the force of it and put even more into it.

Screaming aggressively, he put everything he had into it and held it up. Aren continued shooting lightning and made even more lightning-bolts flying out of his hands. He also started screaming in exertion and also used every last bit of magic he had. Oran had a hard time. He never saw an attack like that. What was this element? How could it be this strong?

He needed to do something, but he couldn’t. If he would use any less magic, the barrier would break, and the unknown lightning would surely kill him. He only hoped that Arens’ magic would run out before his own.

A whole minute passed in Arens’ onslaught, and Orans’ magic was dangerously low. He couldn’t keep this up for any longer. Suddenly, the flow of lightning stopped, and Oran looked to the front, only to see Aren being one meter in front of him, swinging his sword at him. Oran instantly sidestepped and jumped back.

Aren had none of that and followed after him. While back-stepping, Oran pulled out his own sword and blocked a strike from Aren. Instantly noticing that Aren placed a lot of spells on his weapon, he used the last of his reserves to dispel them. They both stood there, swords clashing at each other. No one of the two went back and only used even more strength to push forward.

Slowly the hill beneath them began to lower, and formed a crater. While they both stood there with their swords clashing, both sent out spells and dispels at each other. All of them got countered, and lightning and fire came out of the swords in a chaotic way. Suddenly, Oran pushed Aren back and threw him away with one mighty push.

Aren jumped back with a back-flip, landed, and instantly bolted forward again. Both swords clashed, but this time there was no blocking. Both slashed at each other, and the slashes impacted on each other, and every impact created a shockwave that went through the forest, and rustled the leaves in the trees.

One swing from Oran came through, and Aren jumped over it. He slashed down, and Oran went under him. Using the power of the swing, he jumped out of the way of Arens’ slash and went behind him. He extended his swing and slashed at the landing Aren, just to get parried by his sword. Turning around, he went forward and punched the body of Oran with his shoulder.

They fought with unreal speed, and suddenly Aren jumped to the side. Oran followed him. He was much faster since he was stronger and older. After a short while, Oran got to Aren and used a gigantic overhead-swing to slash down on him. Aren turned around and blocked the swing, with his sword while one hand held the blade, and another held the hilt.

Oran used all his strength and broke through the defense. When Aren was stunned due to the shock on his hands, Oran slashed at him and cut off Arens’ left arm. Gritting his teeth, Aren jumped back and landed on the hill. Oran quickly gave chase and slashed at Arens’ other side. The slash got blocked with the sword, which was held in Arens’ last remaining hand.

Suddenly, Aren smirked, and a blazing light shined from beneath them. Oran looked down and noticed that they both stood on a gigantic trap-circle. He pushed Aren away, and jumped back, out of the circle, but impacted with a barrier.

“Sorry gramps, can’t let you exit.” Aren said and the trap-spell activated. Black chains were wrapping around Aren and Oran with unreal speed. None of the two were fast enough to block it. They burned when they touched the skin, and wrapped themselves around each wrist of the two. Suddenly, the barrier vanished, and the chains let loose. Oran and Aren jumped out of it, each jumping in a different direction.

Oran looked down at the chains at his wrists and frowned. He knew those. These were partian-closing-chains. A special kind of chain that could only be used with a trap spell. It takes nearly forever to build a trap with this spell, but it was worth it. Those chains block the regeneration of magical energy for a long time, and Oran had nearly no magic left. This looked bad.

He could remove the chains if he could get some time to concentrate. Those chains were extremely hard to break, even for him. He looked up from his wrist and looked over to Aren, who just laughed.

“Time to begin for real, old man.” Then he flicked with his remaining hand, which was still engulfed with a chain, and suddenly seemingly hundreds of soldiers came running and flying out of the forest. Every night and day guard who has been trained by Aren charged at Oran. Aren winked once at Oran and then vanished out of existence.

Oran had no time to think about what Aren planned, and readied himself for the attack of the guards. He made one huge slash, and a shockwave flew at the army. They all evaded it like they saw this shockwave at a daily basis, which they did. Seeing that this didn’t work, Oran cursed silently under his breath and readied himself.

The first who arrived, were the Pegasi, which instantly got swapped out for earth-ponies with shields, which were ridden by Unicorns with readied offensive spells. Being surprised by the swap spell, Oran jumped back to not get smashed by the earth-ponies. When he went back, the Unicorns unleashed their spells at his new location. He blocked and deflected a lot of them, but not every spell was shot at him.

There were many explosions on the floor beside him, which bathed his body in fire. The fight just began, and he was already injured. This looked bad. Seeing that the ground around him was filled with magic, he instantly jumped as high as he could. Not a second too early, because the floor around him got changed into two gigantic plates that smashed into each other at the old place he stood.

In the air, he didn’t get any breathing breaks because an ass full of Pegasi all charged at him. He blocked one spear with his sword, used his other hand to pull the Pegasus to him, and broke his neck. Using the corpse, he shot himself a little more upwards, to evade the other attacks. He took his sword in one hand and threw it down while it was spinning extremely fast.

The sword cut two Pegasi apart, but suddenly on top of the rest of the Pegasi, unicorns got ported there, and shot a barrage of fireballs upwards to Oran. He didn’t have much time. If this hit him, he would be history. He instantly punched the air above him, creating a gigantic gust that pushed him downwards. One of the fireballs grazed him on one of his legs, but it wasn’t a big injury.

He evaded the other fireballs, and was nearly at the flying guards again, but then something happened. Every single guard got swapped out with bombs. Orans’ eyes widened, and he gusted himself to the right, just when the bombs exploded. He evaded the combined force of all the bombs, but one explosion still hit him, while he was blocking his body with his arms.

The shockwave shot him away, but he didn’t even think about taking a break. He instantly looked at where he was flying, and made a front-flip, evading a charging guard with a spear. After completing the flip, he landed on top of the guard and pushed himself below him. He grabbed the guard and threw him with all of his power at another one, who was running away with his sword.

The guard impacted with the other one, and both died. Using a tiny spark of magic, he catapulted himself to his sword, and picked it up while rolling on the floor. After the roll, he shot himself skywards and evaded the ground exploding beneath him. Preparing himself in the air, he suddenly spun like a gyroscope and unleashed one gigantic shockwave in the air.

The Pegasi which were at the same height as him, tried to avoid it, but this shockwave was way bigger than any before. He got around 40 guards with that move. The corpses of the sliced guards fell down to the floor and made a sickening crunch. Oran landed some time later, and started running at the Unicorns. Shooting one large shockwave to the gathered unicorns, he used his aura-vision to see where they planned to port.

At every destination they planned to evade to, he unleashed a mini-shockwave that was not exceptionally big. If the unicorns ported or not, didn’t matter. They were dead either way. Some saw what he did and changed their plans, and swapped with some sticks and stones. Those weren’t many. Around 75 unicorns were lost with that maneuver.

Not pausing, he looked around again and saw the gathered earth ponies. He instantly ran to them, but suddenly there was a gigantic red explosion that impacted the floor before him. He got grazed by it, and his shoulder got burned. Looking to his right, he saw an arcadian. It was obvious that he shot the red ball, but something was different.

This arcadian had unreal magical power. It looked like his power was over 4000 crunox. How was this possible? Aren still had his 3400. Suddenly he felt endangered, and crouched down, evading a slash from a night-blue Katana. While crouching, he rolled away and looked back. There stood a blue alicorn with a Katana. Her power also was unrealistic. It was at around 3500. How was this possible?

He suddenly turned to the right, and blocked two white swords that flew at him. An alabaster alicorn was using her magic to hold them against him. 3800 power. He jumped away because a flurry of ten green stars was flying through his old position. Looking to his left, he saw a changeling. 3700 power. How could they be this strong? He knew that they didn’t even have half that power 1000 years ago. It was physically impossible to get this much stronger.

Suddenly his eyes widened with realization. He jumped up, and looked at the trap-spell in which he stood before. It was a dull gray. “Fuck!” He cursed to himself. Now he knew how they were able to get this powerful. When he was attacking the guards, the four immortals used that time, to absorb the saved magical energy in there. The whole saved magical energy was now in those four immortals.

He landed and instantly shot a shockwave at Chrysalis. She evaded with morphing into an insect, and Ravien shot one of his chaos-bolts at Oran, who redirected it at Celestia. She easily sidestepped it and charged at Oran again. Her two swords slashed at him, and the blocked both swings with his sword.

Celestia didn’t stop and charged with her horn at the open spot in Orans’ defense. He instantly jumped back, but he suddenly felt a gigantic force to the head. Celestia used a force-back-spell. These are spells that use the power, which was used to jump back, and throw it at the target. So when Oran jumped back, all the physical power he used to catapult his body away from Celestia, impacted with his head.

He was stunned for a short duration, and Luna used this to shoot her Katana at him. He calmed down quickly and blocked the Katana with his sword. Instantly afterwards, he leaned back to evade some green stars. He grabbed the Katana and blocked more green stars which were flying at him now. He threw the Katana at Chrysalis and caught one star with his hand. Chrysalis’ eyes widened, and she instantly jumped to the side. The Katana grazed her at the back, but the cut was not too deep.

Still falling, she looked at Oran and saw her own star flying at her. Out of reflex, she caught the star in the air and stopped its’ progress to her head. Suddenly, Oran put his sword over his head and blocked an overhead swing of Raviens’ two handed sword. The floor beneath Oran shook with a “boom” and his knees’ buckled. This slash was empowered with magical energy.

Stepping to the side, he let the swing go through his old position and threw his sword at Celestia. He didn’t throw it to damage her, but rather to block the lightning-strike that was charging at him from her position. The lightning impacted with the sword and got absorbed into it. Oran turned around and punched Ravien in the gut. Using unreal strength, he shot him over the clearing, and he impacted with a tree, which got totally annihilated.

Not a second too early, he turned around and blocked a Katana-slash with both of his flat hands. He didn’t completely stop the force, and let the sword together with the body of the blue alicorn fly over him. When he landed on his back, he used his legs to kick Luna in the body, and catapulted her also into some trees.

He evaded more of the green stars and jumped at Chrysalis. He picked some of them up while they flew at him, and threw them back at her. He held to one of it, and slashed at Chrysalis, but she got swapped out with Celestia who blocked the attack with one of her swords, using the other one to strike at Oran.

He blocked this strike with a second star, he had in his hands. Suddenly, Celestia jerked her head to the front, and then he saw it. She had his sword in her mouth. She prepared a slash at him, and Oran was prepared for it. He would punch the sword out of her mouth before it touched his body. He punched down, but the hit never came. Instead of blocking a slash, he punched right into the tip of her horn.

His middle-finger got badly damaged by this, but he gritted his teeth, and still went for his sword. He got it and used it to attack Celestia. She hoped that he would be stunned for a little longer, but this was not the case. He tried to behead her, but she went back. Instead of beheading her, he cut of her horn. Celestia instantly screamed while being in pain.

Oran didn’t let up, and struck again at her head, but she got swapped out, and in her place was a damaged Ravien with his sword again. Orans’ slash got easily blocked by the immense arcadian sword, and he heard Celestias’ screaming form the other side of the battle field. She was save, for now.

Ravien smirked, and he suddenly exploded into a huge red explosion of chaos. Oran got caught in it and received some heavy damage to his legs and arms. He had some burns and deep cuts in them, but Ravien wasn’t alive anymore. He sacrificed his body in order to damage Oran. At least, his plan was successful.

Suddenly he jumped back again and avoided a slash with the blue Katana. He grabbed the top of it, and pulled Luna in, giving her a powerful close-line. He picked her up before she fell to the floor, and held her to his left side. The green stars that were flying straight at him, instantly stopped their flight and went back to Chrysalis.

He took his sword, and slashed at Luna, but she got swapped out with a stick. Cursing under his breath, he saw how a red earth-pony was running at him. He crooked an eyebrow. The earth-pony jumped, and Oran was sure that he will get swapped out with something more dangerous. He was right, but it was not what he expected that got swapped in.

A with blue fire burning, smirking Aren was directly before Oran, and his eyes widened in shock. Oran jumped back with as much force as possible, but it was too late. Aren impacted with the floor and the environment got destroyed in one large blue soul-fire explosion.

Aren was intelligent enough, to absorb his own explosion, and looked at the smoky area. It was hard to see, and he didn’t know if Oran was still alive. While the guards and the immortals fought, he concentrated on removing the chains on him, and on healing him. The smoke slowly lifted, and Arens’ expression changed into a frown.

Oran was still alive. He used the absolutely last bit of magical power to defend himself against this explosion. Now he was 100% spent. His life flashed before his eyes back there, and he actually had to smirk at that. It was over 15 million years ago, when this happened the last time. This dimension truly was better than all the other ones.

Aren didn’t let up and instantly charged again at him. He already used up all his magic again through this explosion, but he was healed again and could attack him head on. He slashed at Oran, and he blocked. Like at the beginning they traded blows, and the powers that clashed at each other were again damaging the surroundings.

Suddenly Aren jumped at Oran, and Oran lifted his sword. Before Aren could get him, Orans’ sword pierced through Arens’ stomach. Aren didn’t stop and pushed him to the ground. When Oran hit the ground, the sudden stop, made the sword go even further into Aren, but instead of frowning or having a shocked expression, Aren only smirked. He coughed once and said something.

“Chains… Of… Flesh!” Suddenly the muscles on his back and on his arms and legs, exploded out of his body and wrapped themselves around Oran. All the flesh and muscle moved in unreal speed, and Oran was thoroughly subdued in this. Chains Of Flesh was a spell that created extremely strong chains out of the body of the caster. They were only used in desperate situations.

Oran was completely pinned to the ground and couldn’t move. He knew that the chains weren’t there for long since they vanish quickly. He looked up because Aren was laughing like a dying man. “It’s over.” He simply stated through coughing fits. Oran didn’t quite see what he meant and turned around.

His eyes widened. There they were. Six ponies, flying in the air, having some kind of necklaces and crowns on their heads. Just when he saw them, a gigantic rainbow came from them. He tried to get out, but the chains were too strong, and he used his last bit of magical energy on the defense against the soul-fire-explosion before. There was no escape.

The beam impacted on him and engulfed him in a bright explosion. The ponies fell down to the floor and were also perfectly spent. It took an enormous toll to use the Elements Of Harmony. They were just sprawled on the ground and lifted their heads to look around. Luna walked over to them.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, and they slowly nodded her. Chrysalis also walked to them and stood by their side. Together they looked at the smoking crater before them. They heard heavy breathing in it, and they shook their heads in disbelief. Some of the fog lifted, and there stood Oran. He was nearly destroyed. Blood was flowing furiously out of many cuts, and his left arm was entirely encased in stone.

“Impossible! How can he withstand a direct hit from the Elements?” Twilight asked no one in particular. Her voice sounded deeply shocked. Oran slowly lifted his head, and enraged eyes were locked at the six ponies who damaged him. Suddenly, he saw something on the corner of his vision and looked at it.

He felt nothing but disbelief. Leaning against a tree at the other side of the clearing, was the battered and torn body of Aren. Aren was hit with the elements, just like Oran. How could he be back there? He looked closer. There was no mistake. That was Arens’ body. But if Arens’ body was back there, then what was with him hit by the elements?

He turned around, and the last of the fog lifted. There stood a white alicorn without a horn. It sparked and glowed fiercely with power. He took a step back. Celestia was even more powerful than before. How could that happen? Suddenly it hit him. The Elements Of Harmony were pure harmonic magic and were able to differ between enemy and friend. So when Aren had him pinned, Celestia swapped herself in before the beam hit them.

Since she was the princess of the whole land, the Elements’ couldn’t possibly deem her an enemy. So instead of damaging her, they gave her their strength. Oran was near death, and Celestia was radiating with Orans’ magic, the elements’ magic, and her own magic. She opened her eyes, and they had no color. They were a pure shining white.

Lightning came out, out of all parts of her being and stroke down everything in a close radius around her. She lifted her swords with her multiverse-magic, since this didn’t need a horn, and the swords also suddenly glowed in an intense white light. With an intense cry of battle, she charged at Oran and slashed at him.

He was barely able to evade some slashes, and block some with his sword in his remaining functioning hand. Celestia screamed, and all around her, everything was lifted with a burst of lava. Oran and Celestia were surrounded by towering lava-pillars that created an arena. There was no escape.

He silently cursed under his breath, and readied to go at it again. Celestia instantly stormed at him, blazing with pure power, and threw a lot of elemental beams and bombs at him, while slashing with her weapons. He was barely able to evade everything and slashed at her. Suddenly, his sword got shot down by a stray spark, of Celestias’ power, and the slash got aborted.

He evaded to the side, and they traded blows again. Whenever he would get a slash at Celestia, it would just get shot down with her power. Now Oran knew what she did. Aren apparently managed to teach her in this short amount of time, how to build a magical-reaction-shield around herself.

A magical-reaction-shield was a spell, which encased the caster in a magical-reflex-field. When a foreign object came into the field, the magic would lash out and would stop it. With Celestias’ amount of magical resources right now, it looked nearly impossible to win against her. She wouldn’t run out of magical energy any time soon.

He was at a bad spot. Being trapped with an overpowered immortal, in a lava-engulfed arena. He evaded another spell and rolled to the side. He had totally no idea, how he could win this fight. Celestia continued attacking with everything she got, and he always evaded or blocked. He needed more time to think up a plan.

After a minute, she finally got him. She was able to graze his leg, and he nearly fell down. Raising her weapons, she prepared to slash down on him, but suddenly there was a noise that sounded like glass just broke. Not a moment later, the whole clearing was leveled in a monumental explosion.

Even some parts of the forest around the former-clearing got blasted into nothingness. The size of the explosion was unreal, and nothing could be seen. The smoke slowly cleared, and a coughing Luna, which was battered with cuts and bruises, slowly rose from some debris. She rose and below her some ponies also slowly stood up.

Luna saved the Elements Of Harmony from that huge blast. Before the blast hit, she had tried to absorb it, but it wasn’t fire. After she got hit hard, she quickly changed her absorbing barrier with a normal barrier and just blocked it. Nearly her whole magical energy was spent. Looking down at the also injured Elements, she asked.

“Is everypony alright?” The elements coughed, and slowly every head nodded. Hearing sound from her right, Luna turned to the origin of said sound, and saw how Chrysalis moved some debris to get back at her hooves. She also had a ton of injuries all over her body. Suddenly Twilight shouted.

“Where’s princess Celestia?” All heads perked up and looked around the clearing. Then they saw her. She was badly damaged sprawled at the border of the destroyed land. They sighed once when they saw that she was alive. Suddenly, they looked back to where the explosion came from.

When the smoke lifted, they saw it. Oran was flying in the air, lightning coming out of his body, hitting everything in a two meter radius. His cuts and bruises healed at an incredible rate, and his arm wasn’t encased in stone anymore. They looked shocked at him, and they saw the reason for it.

The chains that were suppressing his magic were broken, and all the power was flowing back to him. He looked around and saw Celestia laying beside the battered form of Aren. In his absence, Aren was able to heal himself to the point where he wasn’t in immediate life danger anymore, but he was far from ready to fight, just like Celestia. Her near dead body was nearly impossible to move.

Oran was ok with this outcome, and let them sleep there. He moved his head over to the rest of the ponies. His expression changed into a smile, and he slowly floated over to them. His victory was assured. It would be impossible for them to win against him anymore. In a short time, his body was completely healed, and he was back in his best condition.

Chrysalis and Luna nudged the elements to move behind them, and readied their weapons. Oran had to laugh at this.

“Do you honestly think that you can stop me?” He asked them with a loud but deep voice. They didn’t flinch and only looked even more serious at him. Chrysalis shot some of her stars at him, but they got quickly obliterated in the air by an orange lightning-blast. All her weapons were entirely destroyed.

“An interesting weapon, but it is too weak.” He stated with a deep voice. Luna shot her Katana at him, but it got sliced in half by an unseen force. “This is not any better.” Luna and Chrysalis went closer together and readied themselves. Why were they still fighting? Can’t they see that it was over? Oran was back at his full power, and they were fully spent.

He looked in their eyes, and he didn’t belief what he saw. He saw hope. A huge spark of hope. How can they feel hope now, in the darkest hour? What is it that gives them hope? He looked over to Aren and Celestia and watched closely. They were not asleep. Their breathing was too fast to be asleep. They were talking. Activating a hearing spell, he listened to their conversation.

“For I am not eternal, and my enemy is stronger than the sun.” Aren recited.

“For my enemy is stronger than the sun, and I am not eternal.” Celestia followed.

Oran pondered about this. Suddenly he realized that they both were near dead, but they didn’t really use much magical energy. They both were completely full, and in Celestias’ case more than full.

“As we fight together to bring the danger down.” Aren said.

“As the danger must be brought down, and we fight together.” Celestia stated.

Suddenly, Orans’ eyes widened in realization. He knew that chant. ‘Oh fuck, if they succeed in this, I am in seriously deep shit.’ He said to himself in shock. He instantly turned entirely in their direction and charged there. Chrysalis cursed under her breath. It’s bad that he noticed it already. They were not finished yet.

She ported herself, Luna, and the Elements in the way between Oran and his two targets. Oran cursed once, and shot a laser at Aren and Celestia, but Luna went between it and built a barrier. She screamed when she felt the power behind that beam. It was too much to handle, but she had to hold out. She had to keep him away from the two.

Cursing under his breath, Oran shot an electrified, burning chain of steel at the barrier, and Luna fell down on her haunches, but she still held up the barrier. Oran started throwing every spell he knew at her, and finally she collapsed together with the shield. He threw another explosion at her, but this one got blocked by a barrier of Chrysalis.

“I don’t have time for this.” He told himself and used a spell to stop time in a certain radius, but it somehow didn’t work. “Damnit, Aren placed some anti-time-spell-wards somewhere. Seems like it’ll have to do without them.” He instantly used a teleportation spell, to get to Aren, but the targeting-dot got swatted out of the air, by Chrysalis.

Oran grinded his teeth. How can she be able to use her magical aura like this already? He decided to go with the old tactic and threw everything he had at Chrysalis. She buckled over quicker than Luna, and her shield also got destroyed by him. He threw a last explosion, but this time it was stopped by Twilights’ shield.

He cursed again and threw more at her. After the second blast already, she fell nearly into unconsciousness, but suddenly her friends ran to her side.

“Don’t give up!” Pinkie screamed while she pushed herself against Twilight.

“Ya’ll can do it!” Applejack said while she placed a hoof on Twilights’ shoulder. Another blast hit, and she felt the damage again, but she had to hold out.

“We believe in you!” Fluttershy said while hugging Twilight.

“Don’t fall now!” Rarity screamed while she held one of Twilights’ hoof. Another blast hit and Twilight felt like she should just go to sleep. Suddenly she got slapped in the face by Rainbow Dash.

“Don’t you dare giving up now!” She shouted at her and put her hooves around Twilight. Everypony put all they’ve got into Twilight, and they all began to glow suddenly. Twilight felt like she had power, and she put more into her barrier. Oran was confused, but continued to throw more spells at them.

Twilight held out the longest from all of the barriers. Her friends gave her the strength to hold out even longer than a trained immortal, but also this strength had its’ limits. After 15 blasts, she started getting sleepy again. She didn’t give up. Equestria needed her. Her family needed her. Celestia needed her. Aren needed her, and especially her friends needed her.

She held out but fell down on her haunches again. Oran had enough and threw a gigantic explosion at them. Nearly the whole forest was blown up. Oran simply defended himself against it, and when the fog cleared he looked down. Everything was black and burnt. There were no trees, and there was no grass. The wasteland before him shouted nothing more than just “total destruction”.

When the fog around Aren and Celestia cleared, he had a shocked look on his face. The barrier of Twilight still stood, and she stood there panting heavily, but not two seconds later, she collapsed, and the barrier vanished. Her friends were laying unconscious beside her.

Oran smirked when he saw this, and shot a laser at Aren and Celestia. It was over.

“FOR WE ARE ETERNAL!” Aren and Celestia shouted at the same time, and suddenly everything was bathed in white light. Oran was confused at the beginning, but then he realized what happened.

“DAMNIT!” He screamed while falling down to the white earth. He got to his knees and hammered his fist into the ground. “DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT!” he repeated all the time. Those two succeeded. He was in real deep shit now. He got up again and readied himself for battle.

He waited patiently, but there still was too much fog. From the ground, he couldn’t see anything. The only thing he could do was waiting. Suddenly, there was a quiet sound that sounded like a sword-tip was gently placed on the earth. When that sound ringed, all the fog that could be seen got blasted over the horizon, like it was being pushed away by an explosion, but there was no wind. With a frown, Oran looked to his opponents.

Amidst the unconscious ponies all laying around, there was one being. A female human, not bigger than Aren. Her body was slender and agile, and her whole torso and legs were encased in a shining silver armor. The armor was perfectly suited for her, and her hands ended in long silver gloves that glistered in the light of the undergoing sun. On her back, was a long silver Katana. It was nearly 2 m long.

Her hair was extremely long and went down to her knees. It was completely silver and moved in the breeze of the ether. Oran rarely saw such a beautiful woman, but this was no time to think about her beauty right now. He readied himself for battle, but the woman only gently lifted her right arm and held it above the unconscious ponies.

She opened her eyes, and they shone in a mixture of light blue and white. On her back, silver wings were extending themselves, and they gave her appearance even more beauty. She slowly moved her hand over the air of the unconscious ponies, and blue shining crystals gently floated down to them like snow. When the crystals touched them, they began to move calmly, and they opened their eyes like they had a comfortable sleep.

Orans’ eyes widened when he saw this spell. He never saw it, but he remembered something when he was still really young. In his first millennia. It was said that there was a spell that could heal any injury, any disease, any grief. The spell “Embrace Of The Angel”. It was only a legend, and no one remembered it after a while. Oran was the only one to this day who remembered this legend.

The ponies slowly got up and looked around. Suddenly they were in panic when they realized what happened and looked even more frantic around, but when they saw the goddess beside them, their eyes stopped at her. Their frantic movement stopped, and deep calmness moved through them. Twilight looked up at the shining goddess like she just took a look at paradise.

“Who are you?” She asked slowly and calmly. The goddess opened her mouth, and when she spoke, it sounded like violins and harps were playing in the skies.

“My name is Aeos.” The ponies stopped their breaths when they heard her voice. It was such a beautiful voice. Aeos began to smile warmly, and looked at them. “You did a good job holding out. I am proud of you.” She slowly and calmly stated. Twilight felt even calmer than before, but she remembered something, and looked around.

“Where are Aren and Celestia?” Aeos chuckled a little, and it sounded heavenly.

“Celestia and Aren spoke the Oath Of The Eternals. Their bodies, minds, and souls were merged, and thus they created me.” Twilight never knew what the spell does. They were told that it was a last resort and that it is not important that they knew it. They only had to do everything to hinder Oran in interrupting it.

Aeos slowly got her long Katana and pulled it out of its’ sheath. She readied it in one hand and turned to Oran, who also was ready to fight. They were both nearly 100m apart, but they felt like the other one was just beside them. Aeos’ gaze slowly shifted from warm and friendly, to serious. She looked deeply in Orans’ eyes.

“You are the one I was called to defeat.” She slowly lifted her free hand before her and pointed at the sky with her index- and middle-finger. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head at her two fingers and said one last thing. “May your soul find peace.”

Suddenly, her eyes opened and Oran instantly moved his sword up as fast as he could. It was extremely close because if he would have been even a split-second slower, he would have been carved in half. Aeos was directly in front of him, and her slash was being blocked by Orans’ sword. She had run the 100m in nearly no time. One moment she stood by the ponies, and instantly after, she already slashed at Oran.

A large splash of blood exploded on Orans’ cheek. Even if, he blocked the strike of Aeos, it still created an unreal sharp wind that even cut him when he blocked it. Behind him, the clouds at the horizon were cut in two. The cut instantly healed due to Orans’ fast regeneration. Aeos instantly changed her stance and made a 360 with unreal speed. Oran was barely able to align his block to the other side of his body.

A gigantic slice went through his left upper body, but it also closed. He tried to take a step forward, and slashed at Aeos. He couldn’t even take the step before his left foot got cut in half, and Aeos already jumped back. This speed was unreal. It was as if Oran was moving in slow motion. His leg already grew back, and it was healthy again before he ended his step.

Due to Orans’ unreal amount of magical power, his body was regenerating at also an unreal speed. Not stopping his assault, he shot twenty different offensive spells at the same time at her. One slash with unnatural speed later, every spell, laser, bomb, and everything else was cut in half, exactly like Orans’ arm from which the spells emerged. It instantly healed, but Oran knew that this couldn’t go on forever.

It costs an extreme amount of magical energy to heal limbs in that speed, but he needed to re-grow them this fast, in order to not die. He slashed at her, but she only stepped around the slash. It looked like she was casually walking at Oran, and cut all four appendages of him, which instantly grew back.

She didn’t stop and began cutting apart every limb again and again. Oran couldn’t even concentrate anymore due to all the pain he was receiving. His magical energy was going down exceptionally, and after not even five seconds he was utterly drained. He didn’t have any magical power anymore. Slowly he collapsed. He panted heavily and looked up at Aeos, who had still a judgmental gaze in her eyes.

There was nearly no hope left for him. He was spent again, and his opponent still stood before him, with not even a scratch or a droplet of sweat. He fell down to his knees, and while he kneeled before Aeos, it looked like he offered his head to her.

“Why won’t you do it? Why do you not take my life?” He asked, and Aeos answered.

“Here in Equestria, we do not believe in killing. There is always a second chance. Face your defeat and accept your punishment.” She said while holding the Katana to her side. Oran coughed and slowly moved his hand at Aeos’ leg. Aeos let him do so, and did not stop him. When he touched it, he smiled and looked up at Aeos.

“Aeos, it was nice meeting someone stronger than me. Farewell.” Suddenly, Aren and Celestia flew out of Aeos, and she vanished. The ponies all gasped, and couldn’t believe it. Aeos was gone, just like that. Oran chuckled and stood up again. His chuckle slowly evolved to a full out laughter.

Aren and Celestia shook their heads and looked at each other. Celestia looked disapproving at Aren while he only scratched his head in embarrassment. “Oh come on. I didn’t think he would be this dirty to use a dividing-spell on us.” Celestia only rolled her eyes and looked back at Oran. Her magic was back to normal, just like Arens. Oran was still out of power, but he slowly regenerated his magic.

Aren jumped up and readied himself for battle. Celestia followed. Oran calmed down and also readied himself. Aren enchanted his weapon with soul-fire and charged at Oran. He only evaded the slash because he knew that if a weapon enchanted with this element would hit his weapon, he would get damaged pretty hard.

Aren continued throwing a barrage of attacks at him, and also used a soul-fire bomb to damage him. The attacks were pretty effective, and Oran was receiving more damage than he was regenerating. Celestia quickly followed in and also used her two weapons to attack Oran with everything she got. They both were one soul, and they fought like one. They never got in the way of the other one and combined their attacks perfectly.

Oran parried Celestias’ attacks while he evaded Arens’. Even if, he was able to part Aeos, Aren and Celestia were still dangerous. Suddenly, Aren got Orans’ left hand and cut it off. It tried to regenerate, but somehow it was impossible. Oran cursed under his breath. It seemed like this new element blocked any magical energy that tried to banish it or tried to get past it. If Aren hits him often enough, he won’t be able to regenerate at all.

Suddenly, Oran jumped into Celestias’ swing, and lost a leg of his, but he ignored it in order to behead her. Like earlier, she pulled her head back, and only her newly grown horn got cut off. She instantly screamed and moved backwards, while Aren attacked Oran, but missed again.

At least Celestia was out of the fight for now. Aren went more and more for a successful attack. Oran saw this and used his chance. Aren was way too aggressive right now, and when Aren made a slash that was too wide, Oran stepped into him, and pierced his body with his sword. He quickly pulled it out again and kicked Aren away. He flew over 25 meters, before he fell to the dirty burnt ground.

Oran saw that Aren was trying to heal himself, so he jumped over and place an anti-magic barrier around him. He didn’t want to end him right now. It was obvious that Aren was unable to move anymore. Being satisfied with his work, he walked over to Celestia. She had still unreal pain, due to her horn being cut off. She didn’t see that Oran was beside her and not long after, her two back-legs got cut off. She fell down and screamed some more.

A time later, she looked up at Oran, and he simply looked down to her. “I think we were here already.” He bellowed with a deep voice. “Just like 1000 years ago, you lay before me, without hind-legs.” She lowered her head and hammered on the dirt beneath her. She was so frustrated. They lost, again! How could they lose again?

Suddenly Oran turned around and slashed in the air. He blocked the sword that has been thrown at him, and he saw that it was Luna who tried it. Celestia saw her chance, used her multiversal-magic to pick up her horn, and threw it at Oran. He didn’t look. It was perfect. Suddenly his hand shot up, and he caught the horn. He turned around and smirked at Celestia.

“Trying to pierce me with your horn, very cle-“ Suddenly, a white horn pierced through his chest from behind him. Shock was plastered on his face, and he looked down to his chest. There was the tip of a horn coming out of it, but he blocked it. He looked at the horn in his hand. He slowly turned his head backwards, and there he was.

“Celestia lost two horns!” Purple Edge said while holding the horn in his wings. Suddenly the horn in his chest began to glow, and then there was an explosion. It was loud, and it was accompanied with much blood splattering around. Luna, Chrysalis and the Elements ran over to the two.

The area was still smoky, and they went in there, and when they found Celestia, they pulled her out of the area. They shared a cough and sat down. When the fog finally cleared, they saw the purple Pegasus standing there, with a torn wing, and cuts and broken bones all over him. He held a spear at the throat of Oran. Or at least at what was remaining.

The total underside of his body was torn apart, and only from lung and upwards was he laying at the floor. The ones, which could stand walked over to him. They looked down, and they saw him. Suddenly, He jerked, and he began to breath slowly. With a raspy voice, he said.

“End it. *pant and caugh* You won.” Everypony looked at the purple guard expectantly. He readied for a swing, but then he simply swung the spear over his back, and back into its’ proper place.

“Here in Equestria, we do not believe in killing.” He said with a serious tone and turned around. Oran looked bewildered, but finally he had a smile on his face. He began laughing. It got louder and louder. Suddenly, all ponies stood amidst a forest. It was the clearing they began their fight in. Looking around, they saw that everyone was alive again. Every guard was alive, Ravien and Chrysalis were fully healed, and Aren was leaning against a tree, having a happy smile.

“Well, I believe we have to find another solution then.” They heard from a direction, and they saw a fully healed Oran. They instantly readied themselves again, but Oran only held up his hands and signaled for them to stop.

“No need. You already won. I acknowledge my defeat. I won’t fight you anymore.” They slowly lowered their stances and looked at him, still careful. “If you do not want me to die, then I think we should do something different.” He put a hand at his chin and pondered for a while. While he did this, Aren walked over him.

“I said it. This world isn’t like the others.” Aren looked at him and smiled.

“Yes, you are right. And I am finally happy to end my journey, and to finally find peace.” Aren crooked an eyebrow.

“But I though you didn’t want to die since the Equestrians don’t want it.” Oran nodded.

“I already have another solution. I think everyone should be ok with this.” Suddenly, there rose up a giant mountain in the middle of the Everfree-Forest. It was a feat that looked mightily impressive. When it was as high as Mount Dragonborn, it stopped growing.

“This mountain, harbors many adventures. I created it, so young ponies and changelings and any kind of living creature can go into it and feel the thrill of battle and adventure without endangering their lives. Whenever someone dies in there, they will get ported out to the front of the mountain.” He smiled warmly. “The kids will love it.” Then he turned to Aren.

“I can’t believe how much you have grown. I never saw anyone as strong as you, and I am proud to have you as my apprentice.” He went to him and embraced him in a hug. Aren was a little taken aback, but when he felt the warmth of his old friend and master, he couldn’t hold himself anymore. He began to cry and to unleash all his sadness.

“Whatever happens, know that I will be always proud of you and that you will never be able to disappoint me.” Oran let go, and looked at Celestia. “Celestia, I think it is time we part ways. Remember me, and don’t forget to change the diapers.” He said, and Celestia suddenly had a dumbstruck look on her face.

Not a second later, Oran just wasn’t there anymore. They looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. They all felt that they will never see him again. Suddenly, a cry like coming from a baby was heard from the ground, and everyone looked down. There at the old position of Oran was a little alicorn-baby. It had a yellow coat, and a red mane.

Everyone looked at it, and finally they got it. Oran didn’t kill himself. He turned himself into a baby-alicorn. This way, he could finally end his journey, and he wouldn’t die. Aren bent down and held the baby up. They both stared at each other, but after a short while the baby had to sneeze. A collective “D’aaaw” went through the ponies when they saw this. Aren turned to Celestia.

“So what now? What do we do with him?” Celestia chuckled once and took the baby in her magic. She floated it over to her, and looked at it more closely. With a sad gaze, she turned her eyes to Luna.

“You take it.” She said slowly, and Luna hadn’t expected that.

“Me? Why?” She asked, and Celestia only sighed.

“Because, I will leave with Aren in some time, and I don’t want to take a baby with me to a dangerous journey.” Luna understood but only looked at it. After a while, she took the baby with her own magic and looked at it more closely. The baby simply looked back with interested eyes. Suddenly, the baby began cheering, and it tried to touch Lunas’ mane.

Luna chuckled a little, and let him go on her back. He played around with her mane.

“I think we can keep him.” Said Ravien from beside Luna. Luna looked at him bewildered that he accepted it so easily, but then smiled. Suddenly, her head jerked back, and she let out an ‘ow’. It seemed like the baby liked to pull on Lunas’ hair. Everyone in the clearing had to laugh at this.

They couldn’t stop laughing. It wasn’t because this was so funny. It was because it was finally over. The fight for which they trained five years for. The stress of the battle. The blood. Everything finally had an end, and peace could come back to Equestria.

The mane six went back to their home and families. The guards continued their work. There was always danger, and they had to be ready. Chrysalis went back to her hive, and took over again, but the relations between Equestria and Changlia were much better since then. Some years later, both countries were allies and new laws were installed that guaranteed a peaceful coexistence of the two races.

Blueblood continued ruling day-court, and Luna took over night court again. Shining Armor went back to his wife Cadance in the Crystal Empire. Ravien decided to continue living in Equestria with his love, and his new child. Thus, peace came back to Equestria, and everypony could have a normal life.

Celestia and Aren were on top of Mount Dragonborn and looked over the land. With a last smile and a farewell, they both disappeared, but it was sure that they will come back one day.

Author's Note

I am no guy for long epilogues.

Apart from that, we finally are finished. My first story can finally be tagged as complete. I really hope the last fight was to your liking, and that you liked the story in itself.

I will take a break from writing serious stuff for now. Maybe I write some one-shots or a comedy story? Well for now I am happy to finally have finished my main story.

It would be nice if you would give me a last comment to tell me how you thought the story was, and with that said.

See you guys at my next story ;)

Oran, the traveler

„And this is the reason why it would be appropriate to increase the taxes for the inhabitants of Trottingham by 0.7%.“ The snow-white Noblepony explained. „I would also suggest, confiscating 5% of the wheat they produce every year.“ He stomped on the ground with his left front hoof to strengthen his exclamation. "May we hear the decision?“

After thousands of years of listening to complaining nobles, Celestia has developed a habit to, at any given time, have a warm smile on her lips. Even if Sir Hoofenstein would suggest something utterly ridiculous like confiscating 5% of the wheat of some farmers.

The white noble waited patiently for the princess to consider his proposal. He wore a black top hat above his perfectly combed blue mane, and the mane went down the left side of his face so the top hat wouldn’t flatten it. His white coat, which adorned his appearance, was groomed beyond comparison of the common ponies he so despised.

Princess Celestia let out a long “hmm”. Even if, his proposal were entirely incomprehensible, she still needed to at least look as if she would think about this, even though the decision was long made. Finally the serene alicorn looked into the eyes of the white noblepony and asked: “Sir Hoofenstein, why do you think it would be necessary to up the Taxes for the citizens of Trottingham by 0.7%, even though they have the highest tax rates in all of Equestria? On top of that, you also suggest confiscating 5% of their wheat. Tell me, who would get the sway over said wheat?”

“Why, the nobility of Trottingham of course.” The white unicorn said, like it would be the most obvious thing in the world. Celestia nodded once, to show him that she understood what he said, but couldn't hold back an eyebrow that began to crook.

“And for what reason does the nobility need these wheat crops so badly?”

“They are farming on our land, so, for us nobles, it would be justified to receive a part of their harvest.” He explained again.

“That is why they pay taxes. If we take even more than we do now, this could be called exploitation. My subjects shouldn’t pay even more than they already do, and that is why it is decided that your Proposal is declined.” Celestia stated with finality.

Everypony in the throne hall could feel the anger boiling in Sir Hoofenstein. His expression was perfectly capable of showing the burning fury inside. ‘How could she deny me of my fair share of the harvest?’

Celestia looked in the eyes of the livid noble. “Is there a problem with my decision?” Her voice having a foreboding undertone.

The noblepony, grinding with his teeth, just looked away from her and showed a sudden interest in the windows adorning the castle. “No, your majesty.” He turned around and walked with a heightened head towards the gates. Not once did he turn around to look one last time at the princess. This was his way to show that he was not pleased with her decision.

After he left the hall Celestia let out a long withheld sigh. This was something she certainly didn’t need today since there are things on her mind that are of greater importance. She closed her eyes, and after some time her horn glowed in a vibrant yellow. Out of nowhere a little stone materialized itself in front of Celestia. It was as wide and long as one of her hooves. One would think it was just a normal stone, but on top of the stone was something written.

Celestia looked at the writing on the stone for the apparently millionth time. “1001” was the only thing written on it. It didn’t seem special since there are many stones with seemingly important inscriptions. What makes this stone different from all the other ones? The difference was that Celestia knows the … person… that made this stone, even if she wishes she wouldn’t remember the day he gave it to her since it was the worst day of her life.

She always felt confused by the inscription. Those four digits could mean so many different things. Did the 1001 just mean 1001 things? Could there be 1001 reasons? Is it a code? It is impossible to make accurate assumptions on the stone since there is too little information written on it. The most credible theory was 1001 years, and that was exactly why she was so nervous today because this day marks 1001 years since she received the stone. Even if it truly means 1001 years, what would happen today? Would he come back? That would be the worst case scenario. She can not afford to let her kingdom get destroyed… not again.

It was always strange thinking back to that day since it seems more like a dream, but the consequences seemed more like a nightmare, literally speaking. Why did he do it? How could he consider himself not evil and at the same time kill innocent ponies and why on top of that was it Equestria that had to be in his path and not any other world he visited?

Celestia was brought out of her deep thinking by one of her guards. “Your majesty, you have one more visitor.”

With her warm smile back on her lips, she looked to her guard. “Send him in, please.“ This would be the last visitor for day court since it was almost dusk. The last time he showed up, he introduced himself during day-court, and the possibility that this visitor could be him, was well aware to Celestia. She just hoped that her worries were not true.

She tried to calm herself down. The stone was probably just a reminder he gave her, so she does not forget her defeat at that day, and on top of that, it was over 1000 years ago since he was here. He could not possibly survive 1000 years, traveling through every world, if he did the same to every other world he visited. There were bound to be stronger worlds, which were better prepared for his arrival than Equestria at that time. The chances were to slim for him to win a war with over 200 different worlds.

“Presenting the traveler, Oran” The guard shouted with duty in his voice.

Wait did she just hear that correctly? Did he just say Oran? If this really was him, then Equestria would have a big problem at its' hoof. If it really was him, she had to be strong for her subjects. This time, they won't underestimate him. This time, they will take him seriously, and will do everything in their power to stop him, but Celestia just sighed in the end. ‘ Calm down Celestia, that probably is not him. That’s just somepony with the same strange name.’

The gates began to open. ‘I am overthinking this. It probably is just some farmer that wants some kind of loan. Nothing special.’ When the gates fully opened she nearly fell out of her throne if it wouldn’t be for her hard earned control over her emotions. ‘Why would he be here? Could nopony best him in those other worlds?’

Standing between the gates was a biped creature, which was about 18 hoofstrides (1 hoofstride = 10 cm) tall and had a black unkempt mane on his head. It was only possible to see his right blue eye because his left one was hidden beneath a black eyepatch. Sprouting down from his chin was a semi-long black beard, which hid the neck of the creature. His arms were folded behind his back and he started walking to the throne. The black leather boots made a loud “thump” every time he took a step towards her. A sound like two chains grinding on each other always followed behind the thumb. This sound was caused by the metal on his long black leather coat. He looked exactly like 1000 years ago.

“Long time no see Celestia. How has court bee-” He got interrupted.

“What do you want here? Was what you did a millennium ago not enough?” Celestia interrupted him. “Why are you back here? Do you want to seed more chaos and destruction?” Her guards became tense and wanted to subdue him, but they could not move. It was as if they were frozen in space. Oran continued walking to the throne and continued talking.

“Celestia you know that I do not wish to destroy your world. You know exactly what I want, and I will continue searching for it. Who knows, maybe I will find it this time in your world.” He said the last part of the sentence with a grin.

Celestia calmed down and lowered her head to the floor. She let out an audible sigh and looked him in the eye. “We can not give it to you. We are not able to, and we do not want to.” She shook her head. “Why did you even come back? Look at me! I may have gotten stronger in the last thousand years, but it is still not enough… not enough for what you want.” She just continued looking at the floor. This was jus too much. Why did he have to come back?

Oran looked at her for a long time. After some time, he also released a sigh. “I know that you alone have not the ability to grant my wish, but I did not come to this world expecting it.” He turned around, so his back was shown to Celestia. “You are not alone, and you know that. Gather your soldiers, your enemies, your friends and your allies. Exactly like last time, you have five years. Make the most out of it.” With that said he just vanished, like he was never there to begin with.

Finally being able to move one of her guards rushed to the princess and asked:” Your highness, are you alright? Did he harm you in any way?” Celestia just looked at the floor with a sad expression.

“No, he did nothing to me.” After some quiet seconds, she shook her head and looked at one of her guards, a gentle smile plastered on her lips. “Day court is closed for the day. Do also cancel night court, my sister won’t be able to hold it tonight.” This said, Celestia rose from her throne and walked out of the hall, her guards opening the gates for her. With a quick trot, she made her way to her sisters’ quarters.

Princess Luna was not even up for five minutes, and she already thought that this would be a fantastic night. She also had a lovely dream. Of course, being the Princess Of The Night she had power over the dreams of other ponies, but her own dreams were still out of her grasp. A pleasant dream was not common for her, even less a pleasant dream that she remembered after waking up.

Also, the dusk looked beautiful. Its’ pinkish shine was exceptionally bright and in unison with the many nearly transparent clouds at the horizon, it just looked as if it was painted. On top of that it was Friday. This means that the chef will cook her favorite dish, a lettuce-daisy-tulip combination salad with exceptional dressing. Apart from that, the most ponies came on Fridays to her night court. On most days, the night court is boring since there are nearly no visitors, maybe three to five, but Fridays they were way more numerous.

Only having five ponies per night in night court meant that she only could waste about two hours of time, and with the remaining eight, she had nothing planned. She mostly read during the remaining time, but this night reading would be cut short to two hours at most. Oh she loved Fridays and surely nothing could ruin it.
And exactly when she thought that, a knock was heard on her door. ‘Who could that be?’ She happily skipped her way to her door and used her magic to open the now night-blue shining door, just to see Celestia in front of her. “Oh good evening Tia, how has day court been?” She exclaimed with a smile on her face.

“Not so well. Say Luna, can I come in? I want to speak with you about something.”

“But of course.” Luna made way for Celestia.

“Thank you.” Celestia walked into her sisters’ room and closed the door behind her. Her room was painted in a dark blue color, with many stars decorating the walls. Luna walked to her balcony and turned to Celestia.

“Sister could you wait a moment? I need to raise the moon.” Celestia just nodded and Luna began channeling her energy. It was always a good feeling to raise her moon, like visiting an old friend. Luna always emanated an unreal amount of power while raising her moon. Being at the peak of her concentration, Luna finally raised the Moon above the Horizon to its proper place in the night-sky.

Slightly panting, Luna turned to her sister and walked to her bed. “So, what do you want to talk about Tia?” Luna climbed onto it and made a motion to her sister to follow her lead. Hesitantly, Celestia sat down. She let out a sigh, which she didn’t know was in her.

“I’ve got bad news Luna.”

“What kind of bad news?” Of course, just when Celestia wanted to tell her, she got interrupted. She released another sigh. “Come on, the news can’t be that bad.” Luna let out a small giggle and looked to her not-giggling sister. “Right?”

“I am afraid they are, Luna.”

“Did some noble propose a raise of taxes again?”

“No, I mean yes, but that’s not what I meant. I mean bad news as in really bad.”

“Oh come on, it surely is nothing we can’t handle. Tell me, what is so bad that it makes you so serious?”

Celestia looked back at the floor. After some time, she raised her head and looked her sister in the eyes. “Oran is back.”

Luna just looked at Celestia with the same cheerful smile she had previously. She did not respond at all to what Celestia just exclaimed. Suddenly she closed her eyes and began laughing.

“Ahahahahahaha. Really?” Luna looked at Celestia, who just sat dumbfounded on Lunas’ bed. “Ok then let’s go deal with him.” Luna stood up from her bed and moved to her balcony. Celestia who finally regained her composure ran after Luna and stopped her.

“Are you mad? You know how powerful he is. Why do you want to go to him right now?” Luna turned around to look at Celestia.

“Well why not? You know that nothing can win against me in my own dreams.” Celestia just stood dumbfounded there. After some time, she shook her head and looked Luna in the eye.

“This is no dream, Luna. This is real.” Luna just continued looking at Celestia with her happy smile.

“Of course this is a dream. Why else would you come into my quarters and tell me something ridiculous as, Oran has returned.”

“Stop fooling around Luna, we really-“

“This MUST be a dream. You can’t just come in here and tell me, that the reason I was a millennium in the moon just seemed to come back one year after my return. After one Thousand years how could I possibly have that much bad luck that not just any ancient evil, not just something arguably funny like Discord, but the lone reason why I had to spent an eternity in the moon just happens to come back, right when I came back myself.” She exclaimed rather furiously in one breath. After some time the fury turned to a sad expression and finally to tears. “You just can’t…”

Celestia put her wings around Luna, so both stood there intertwined in a hug. Luna began leaning her head on her sisters’ neck. “Why does it have to be us? Can’t he just go to any other dimension? Why us?”

Celestia just stood there, taking in all the sadness Luna felt. “Luna, I promise you that something like your banishment will never happen again. We just have to be strong, if not for us, then for our subjects.”

Luna broke the embrace slowly and looked to the floor. Then she put her hoof to her eyes and cleaned them off any moisture still left in them. With a determined stare, she now looked her sister in the eyes. “Yes, tis no time to linger in sadness. Please Tia, tell us what happened today.”

Celestia was proud of the resolution that was shown in her sisters’ eyes. With a strong nod, she started explaining what happened today in day court.

“Spike, bring me the second edition of superstitious sphere spells and please hurry.” The lavender unicorn named Twilight Sparkle rushed from her table with her quill and parchment to her telescope. With one eye closed, she looked into the telescope and swirled it around like Rainbow Dash with a lobster pinched to her muzzle.

“Right on it, Twilight.” Her number one assistant, Spike ran to the bookcase which would probably contain said book and moved the ladder attached to the bookcase to the left so that it now was right beneath the book. He climbed on it and looked for it.

“Where is it, where is it? Ah here it is, I’ve got it Twi-umph.” With an audible thump, he landed on the wooden floor, belly first. The reason why was, of course Twilight. Time was of the essence. She needed that book, stat. So when Twilight heard Spike exclaim that he found it, she instantly grabbed it with her magic and tugged on it. Exactly a half second later she realized that it would take nearly three seconds for the book to fly to her via levitation, and since time was so very fundamental right now she decided to teleport the book straight in front of her with the quintuple amount of magical energy exertion, but with spare time of nearly three seconds.

“Thanks, Spike.” she exclaimed while looking through her book. “No, no, this neither. URGH!” she threw her brand new book right on the floor. “This is the last time, I buy a book for its’ alliteration. Put this back into the shelf Spike!” Just when Spike got up from the floor, he was immediately thrown back by the book Twilight threw at him.

With a groan, Spike took the book and made his way back up to the top of the shelf. “I’m getting underpaid for this.” Realizing that he didn’t get paid at all he just shook his head to banish the depressing thought from his head. Twilight needs him right now and he wants to be as helpful as possible, even though it was such a hassle to help her while she has one of her episodes… again.

“Spike, go down to the basement and fetch me the possibly now existing new results from my Atmospheredisruptiondetector!” There she goes again, this time even forgetting to add ‘please’ to her order. Why did she even have such a machine in her basement?

“Alright.” He uttered this like a father to his hyperactive kid after an hourlong trip to some campsite near Canterlot after getting asked for the hundredth time ‘Are we there yet?’ As he reached the basement door, he heard the sound of mechanical work behind it. Really, why did she have to wake him from his well earned sleep this night?

Motivated like a near-dead squirrel in a desert, he walked to the device with its’ so easily memorable name. He looked down on the new sheet of paper and was immediately confused because he was so confident that the machine would print out the desirable results they both so longed for, two minutes after he looked at them the last time. Seriously, why does he even bother coming down here?

He grabbed the sheets of paper with their trailblazing results of nothing and walked with half-closed eyes back to Twilight to bring her the rejuvenating report that precisely nothing has changed in the last two minutes, what a surprise.

“Spike, why did you take so long? You know exactly that a magical disruption in the atmosphere of Equus could mean bad things, like interdimensional invasion or displacement of the powers of nature.” Spike just yawned and looked her in the eyes.

“Twilight, if it would be either of the two, don’t you think, that in this case, the princesses wouldn’t have contacted us by now? I mean really, interdimensional invasion? Shouldn’t we see lots of spaceships flying around if that is what’s happening?” He yawned again.

Just when Twilight wanted to make a retort, she got interrupted by a sudden belch from Spike, accompanied with green smoke. Suddenly the green smoke transformed into a scroll with the seal of the princess. Twilight quickly grabbed the parchment with her magic and levitated it to her.

To my dear most faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

I feel very sorry to have to write this letter to you at this late time, but something happened in Canterlot and it would be exceptionally desirable to have you and your friends as company to tomorrows’ evening dinner.

For now, there is no need to worry yourself over anything, and it would be helpful if you would get enough sleep, so you are at your best condition when we speak tomorrow about a task, I have for you and your friends.

My scientists have also told me about a magical disruption in the atmosphere, and since I am quite aware of your capabilities, I already am sure that this is no news for you, but rest assured, there is no need to worry over this event.

Hopefully we will see each other at tomorrows’ evening dinner. Till then Farewell my most faithful student.

Empress of the Sun,
Princess Celestia

Her eyes darted over the parchment and after she finished reading it, she let out a sigh. “Spike, I’m going to bed. I let Owlioucious clean the library.” She walked over to the door that leads to their bedchamber, and then turned around to face Spike. “You should go to bed too, mister. You were up long enough.”

‘Really? You wake ME up from MY sleep and then YOU tell me that I should not be awake at this hour?’ he wanted to say this so badly, but his desire for immediate sleep dramatically outweighed his urge to retort now. He just sighed again, walked to his sleeping-basket and just thought the thought which he thought the most this fantastic night. ‘I’m getting underpaid for this.’

“Spike… Spiiikeeeeee~~~” Spike turned around in his basket. This was way too early to wake up. His inner clock told him, it was ‘half-past-I-still-want-to-sleep’. The strong argument that his blanket threw in with its’ fluffiness also spoke against waking up now. One last wiggle and he was comfortable again on his basket, facing away from this dreadful monster that wanted to wake him at this ungodly hour.

“Oh Spike, come on, wake up… I made something for you.” Suddenly the air around spikes nose was filled with a scent that could only be described as the luxury shampoo of the most beautiful angels that fly above the mortal plane of existence. Only one thing in this whole wide world would smell this good, Ruby-Sapphire-Pancake-Soup.

Faster than a rabbit on steroids being chased by timberwolves, he bolted upright and looked to the source of the smell. There it was, atop of Twilights back, the soup of which was spoken. Something tasting so marvelous that spike gave it its’ own name. “The Taste Of Thorough Divinity”.

“Spike, I just wanted to tell you that I am very sorry for how I acted around you yesterday. I was just so tense, because of yesterdays’ event. Can you forgive me?” She looked at Spike with sad puppy-eyes. Spike, who was fighting the urge to kneel before the soup and pray to it, looked at Twilight and just realized what she said.

“Oh Twilight. I know that you didn’t mean to act as you did and it is not the first time, so I’m slowly getting used to it.” Twilights’ eyes began to get teary. Spike just noticing how that sounded spoke up again:” Oh no, that’s not what I meant. I wanted to say that there is nothing to forgive. You are still the same old Twilight I learned to love.”

Twilights’ expression changed from sadness to happiness in an instant, and she began hugging spike, who returned the hug gladly. They stood there for around 30 seconds and parted hesitantly after it. “Spike, I still want to make it up to you. I made your favorite soup.” She levitated the soup from her back into Spikes waiting arms.

While Spike was busy burning his digestive organs with boiling soup, Twilight walked to the door of the tree-library. “Spike I’m off to gather the girls so we can go to Canterlot this afternoon. I’ll be back later. Could you watch the library for me, please?” She looked back at Spike.

Spike just looked up from his soup to Twilight. “Sure thing, Twi. See ya later.” With this said, he began facing his soup again and continued his quest to devour it. Twilight just shook her head and walked out of the Library.

It was midwinter in Ponyville. No matter where you looked, there was always snow somewhere in said field of vision. The snow gave the town a white shimmer that would pull every visitor into a stasis of awe and inspiration.

Ponies were walking everywhere with the strangest winter attires. The only one that was not walking with any winter clothes was Twilight. Normally she would also wear said clothes, but she also found a new spell some time ago, that would provide a pony if used correctly, immunity to coldness of any kind till -30°C (-22°F). If said spell was performed by the most magical gifted unicorn in all of equestrian, it would be of course, seem natural that the spell would work perfectly.

As she made her way to Sugarcube Corner, she passed the market place. The first of her friends she wanted to inform was of course Pinkie Pie since she would have the best ability to accumulate all her friends in the fastest time, with her incomprehensible ability to pop up wherever she pleases.

“Howdy, Twi. Whatcha’ doin?” She heard from her right side. There was only one pony in Ponyville with this accent that talked to her this nonchalantly. This was of course one of her best friends, Applejack. “Ya goin’ to Sugarcube Corner?”

“Hey, Applejack and yes I was on my way to Sugarcube Corner to inform Pinkie of something we should be doing today, but since you are here already I can tell it to you right now.” Applejack just smiled.

“And what have ya planned fer today Twilight?”

“I got a letter from Princess Celestia last night, telling me that it is of grave importance that we, as in us six, should go and talk to her this evening while we have dinner with her.”

“Havin dinner wit’ the princess? That sounds mighty important ta me. When do we leave?”

“I think we should leave with the 16:00 afternoon train, so we get to Canterlot at around 17:00 and meet the princess at 19:30.”

Applejack nodded. “Alright, I’ll go round up Fluttershy so she can fly up ta Rainbow Dash and tell her about our evening visit.”

Twilight smiled and nodded. “Great, I’ll go get Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Meet each other at 15:30 at the train station.” She turned around and waved a hoof. Applejack looked at her shop and sighed.

‘And another day without profit.’ Then she began to dismantle her shopping-cart and made her way to Fluttershys’.

Twilight just walked into Sugarcube Corner and looked around in hope to find the bouncing pink mystery. Behind the counter was Ms. Cake, and not being able to find Pinkie on the spot, Twilight decided to ask Ms Cake for directions.

“Oh hello sweetheart what can I get for you today?”

“Hello Ms Cake! I’m not here to buy something. I just wanted to talk to Pinkie. Could you tell me where she is?”

“But of course my dear. Pinkie is in her room upstairs.”

“Thank you Ms Cake.” Twilight waved a hoof and went upstairs to find Pinkie Pie. Just when she rounded the corner to the hallway in which Pinkies’ door was located, she got rammed to the floor by a pink blur that rested right before her now lying form on the floor. The said blur was, of course, non other than Pinkie Pie.

“Oh my gosh, Twilight. Are you alright? I didn’t mean to throw you around like a bouncing ball. I just heard something from the floor beneath me and thought that may be some new pony who wanted to see me and ask me if I wanted to throw them a surprise party, so they don’t feel lonely anymore, but then I thought that this seems silly. Why would somepony who doesn’t know me, know where I live or know that I throw the bestest most superifficestest parties in ALL of Equestria? So I just wanted to stop thinking and ran right into the hallway where I saw you and you were all like BAM and bounce and now I’m here.” Pinkie bounced around Twilight like a filly that just got its’ cuteymark.

Twilight just rubbed her head. “It’s ok Pinkie.” With that said, she stopped rubbing her head and got back up on her hooves. “But something different. I wanted to tell you that the princess wishes to have dinner with us this evening and I wanted to ask you if you would want to ride the train at 16:00 with us.”

“A dinner with the princess? Oh my gosh, of course I will come with you. Let me just pack and then I am ready to go.” Pinkie vanished and reappeared not three seconds later on the same spot. “Done!”

Twilight just shook her head at the event that just transpired. “Pinkie, the train arrives at 16:00 not now. By the way if you are already prepared for the journey, could you tell Rarity the same I just told you? I need to pack myself and give Spike his chores for the day.”

“No problemo, Twilight. I see you at 15:30 at the train station.” With this said, Pinkie transformed back into a pink blur and bolted out of Sugarcube Corner. Twilight, unfazed by this event, just walked back to her library to make everything ready for her journey to Canterlot.

“No staying up past 9, no eating too much ice cream, no building ships out of paper, no raiding the fridge.”

“Yes Twilight, I know that. Could you please just go? You are already late as it is.”

Twilight just sighed. “Oh right!” Twilight bolted to the door, but suddenly stopped. “Oh I nearly forgot.” She levitated a scroll to Spike who took it in his claws. “These are your chores that you need to do for me today. It would be really great from you if you would do everything that I wrote on the list.” She glanced at the Clock, 15:45. Her eyes widened. “Got no time, love you, bye.” And just like that she bolted out of the library.

“Why does she have to make her life so stressful? Well it’s ok if that doesn’t involve me.” Looking down at the parchment in his hand, he began to unfold it, just to reveal a monster of a list. “I should do all of this?” He exclaimed with an uphold claw. The scroll got rolled back up, and Spike stowed it back into a pocket. “I’m getting underpaid for this.”

“So what do ya’ll think wants the princess from us?” asked Applejack while sitting on a green cushion located in a first class room, in the friendship express. There were six cushions placed, in the room in two rows with each one having three. Hers’ was placed from the doorway as the first on the left side. Beside her sat a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, called Fluttershy.

Besides Fluttershy sat an overdressed white unicorn with a perfectly styled purple mane. In front of Applejack sat the cyan pegasus-athlete Rainbow Dash and just like her name suggests, there was a rainbow mane attached to her head. Next to Rainbow Dash sat Twilight and besides her was Pinkie Pie. Pinkie didn’t sit, she just bounced up and down.

“I don’t know, but I bet it is something super fantasteriffic.”

“Maybe she just wants to have a small get-together with six of her most prized subjects. Oh imagine the glamour and the jealous look of the other high-class ponies when they hear about us, having a delightful dinner with Princess Celestia herself.”

“I-I don’t know Rarity. What if it is something really important. L-Like a *gasp* like a dragon.” Fluttershy hid under her cushion.

“Fluttershy, stop being such a scaredypony and mare up. You can’t always run away. I don’t expect you to be as brave and awesome as me, but you really need to stop jumping from your own shadow.”

“But I don’t want to.” Fluttershy hid behind her mane and started shivering. Rolling her eyes, Rainbow Dash took a hold of Fluttershy and pulled her out from under her safe hiding spot that she named “The Cushionfortress”.

“Girls! Whatever it is, that Princess Celestia wants to talk to us about, we will hear it from her this evening while we eat. Until then, we shouldn’t think about it and have a good time in Canterlot.” Twilight said this with a hint of order. The other girls nodded to her and went back to do the things they occupied themselves with, before they got all caught up with talking about their impending talk with the princess.

It was funny that Twilight told them to calm down, even though she was the most nervous one. This whole “Meet me tomorrow in the castle for a talk” just seemed way too weird. Shaking her head, Twilight tried to abort her upsetting though process and just wanted to enjoy the ride, but what was this somber feeling she felt?

“And you are certain, to tell your student about the upcoming war against Oran, dear sister?”

Celestia sighed. “There is no other way, Luna. We need the Elements Of Harmony for this fight, or else we won’t stand the slightest chance.”

“Yes, but do you really want to tell them now, even though we still have a whole of five years to prepare ourselves?” Luna was not sure if it would be the best idea to tell the elements everything right away. They should be able to live their everyday lives for a little longer, and not start preparing for a war with the most powerful creature currently visiting Equestria.

“Luna, I am aware that this is not fair for them, but the needs of the many outweigh the need of the few. I had to realize this, a thousand years ago when I was forced to use the elements against you, even though it was my own fault that they needed to be used in the first place. I will never be able to forgive myself.” Celestia began to tear up.

Looking into the teary eyes of her sister, Luna just felt deep compassion for Celestia. “It wasn’t your fault for what happened to me. The only one at fault was Oran, and you know that.”

“But it is still my fault that you endured the nightmare that made you change this much. If I just wouldn’t have…. If I just had…” she wasn’t able to end her sentence because of her uncontrollable sobbing. Luna seeing this put her wings around Celestia and encased her in a lovely embrace.

“Shh… everything will be alright. We will tell the elements about our plan, and they will help us through this, and this time we won’t underestimate him. If need be, we will search for even more help. Even if, it means kneeling before Discord, so that he lends us a hoof. We cannot let Equestria get ruined... again.”

Celestia looked into Lunas’ eyes and felt the deep determination in them. Encouraged by her sisters’ gaze, she wiped away her tears and nodded a strong nod towards Luna. Right when Luna went out of the room to deal with some paperwork, a voice from one of Celestias’ guards ringed through the throne hall.

“Twilight Sparkle, together with the Elements Of Harmony requested an audience with you, your majesty.”

Celestia, hearing this, rubbed the last tears out of her eyes and put back the warm smile, which accompanies her appearance at nearly any given time.

“Please let them come in.”

“Yes, your majesty.” The guard moved a hoof into the air to show the guards at the gates to open said gates. After being fully opened, Celestia was greeted with the heart-warming sight of her smiling student and her five friends.

“Princess Celestia!” she ran to her mentor and leaned her head against Celestias' side.

“My most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. It has been so long since we last saw each other. I hope Ponyville and your friends are treating you nicely.” Turning her head to the other five smiling ponies in her throne room she said: “Well, I think we should move our meeting to the dining halls. I think that, after your journey to Canterlot, you earned yourself a dinner.”

The gathered ponies nodded and made their way to the dining halls. When they opened the doors and looked at the grand table in the middle of the hall, they saw lots and lots of food of any kind. Not being able to restrain themselves, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie ran to the table and sat down on one cushion.

Rarity just rolled her eyes at their childishness and gracefully made her way to the cushion she chose to sit upon. Fluttershy just flew timidly to the first cushion she saw and sat nervously there, not knowing what to do now. Twilight walked together with the princess to two cushions that were placed side by side and also sat down.

“Please help yourselves to some food, while I explain to you, why I wanted to meet you here at this evening.” Following the order of the princess, the elements began to take their fair share of the variety on the table and began devouring it.

“The reason why I wanted to talk to you all today is of not little importance. In fact, it is something that will decide the future of Equetria.” Everyone at the table stopped eating, except Pinkie Pie.

“An old foe of Equestria that me and my sister fought a thousand years ago, has returned from his travel through the multiverse and plans to declare war on Equestria in five years time, in hope to receive something, he wants more than anything in any world. His name is Oran.” The ponies with their jaw on the floor just listened intently to the words of their wise princess.

“There is more, little ponies. I am also afraid to tell you that he is, without a doubt, the greatest threat Equestria has encountered, yet. What I am telling you is that I need you to prepare yourselves over the next five years to face him in battle so that we might have a chance against him.”

Rainbow Dash looked to the princess. “What’s the big deal? Let’s just zap him with the elements and everything is done for.” Celestia just shook her head.

“I am afraid, this will be not as easy as you think, Rainbow Dash. That is exactly what Luna and I did, when we faced him last time, and it was not successful.”

Now it was Twilights’ turn to ask something. “Then, if the elements didn’t work, how were you able to fend him off?”

Celestia looked down at the table. “We didn’t. He won the fight and left Equus after he didn’t get what he wanted, but he did something bad that I won’t explain to you in this conversation, and now he is back and tries again to get what he wishes for.”

Rarity lifted an eyebrow. “But, what is it that he wants?”

Celestia looked at Rarity with a compassionate gaze. “The thing he wants is to ascend into the next plane of existence.” Rarity was not sure what she could make of this exclamation.

Twilight with widened eyes asked Princess Celestia: “Wait, do you mean…”

“Yes my faithful student, the only thing he wants… is to die.”

Author's Note

So this is it. The first chapter of my first Story. i hope you enjoyed it. If not, tell me why. As a new author i could really need the feedback.

It would be nice if you could point out some errors I made in the story, since I may not be able to spot everything.

Btw english is not my native language.

Plans Of The Future

There was no sound heard in the room. No sound, except for a little lavender pony quietly sobbing to herself. Twilight couldn’t control herself after she heard the story. Ever since the battle started, the tears in her grew stronger and stronger until they finally breached the dam and started flowing freely.

“How could he do something like that? *sob* How can he be so cruel?” Twilight asked between sobs.

Putting Twilight under her wing, Celestia began to tear up too. She did not want to recall the events of that day, but she had to in order to provide Twilight with an understanding of Orans’ power. They both sat together, embraced in a hug for several minutes. Celestia was glad that she could open up to someone, and Twilight was happy to have her mentor near her. She genuinely needed the closeness with another pony right now.

Some moments later, they both parted the hug and waited for the other one to break the silence. In the end, Celestia spoke up first. “I think you know now, why I didn’t want you to hear about this. It’s understandable if you do not want to be with me in this room right now. It’s alright if you want to leave.”

Twilight shot forward and forced another hug with her teacher. “Oh princess, please, do not hurt yourself through blaming everything on you. It does not matter what you did. What matters is, that you are still the same mentor, princess and teacher I used to look up upon, and some old guy from the multiverse won’t change that.”

Celestia looked down to her student and smiled warmly. “Thank you, Twilight. That really matters a lot to me.” With that said, Celestia stood up. “I think it is time for us to go back to your friends. They are surely worried about you.” She nudged Twilight to move to the door.

They both left Twilights’ old study and headed over to the dinner hall, where Twilights’ friends waited for her return.

“How did it go, sugarcube?”

“Why is your mane in such a mess?”

“How powerful is he?”

“Girls! Calm down. I will tell you everything you need to know eventually. I want to think about something for now.” Twilight walked to her old seat at the dining table and sat down. Her food was still untouched at the same place in the same state.

Even though, she didn’t eat since morning, she felt no hunger and no motivation to stab her fork into her tulip-salad. Her friends looked at her with compassionate eyes. Celestia seeing this, wanted to explain to them, why Twilight was in such a state.

“I am very sorry, my little ponies, but what I told Twilight is very hard to digest and the aftereffects may take some time to pass.” The girls looked somewhat confused to the princess but nodded to her in the end. Together they walked back to the table and sat down.

Celestia looked around and decided that now would be the best time to tell them, what Luna and she had planned for the six friends.

“I am now going to tell you, what will happen in the future and how Luna and I plan to defend us against Oran. Since you were not able to hear the story of Orans’ last visit, I have to tell you again how extremely dangerous he is. He is without a doubt the most powerful enemy we have encountered yet.”

“Now, Luna and I have formed a tactic, which we will follow in order to defend us. We came up with a three-phase-plan. I will now explain to you, every phase of the plan and our goal for that phase.” The ponies listened intently.

“Phase one is gathering as much help as possible. I want you to help me out on this one. We may need to persuade old foes of us to help us in the upcoming battle. With the Elements Of Harmony, we may be able to convince some of them.”

“Phase two is training our forces. This includes, planning our battle-tactic, training our capabilities in a fight and gathering experience in competitions, duels and test-wars. In this phase, I want you also to partake in. You will get a castle suite for the duration of the training. This may take up to several years. Your families will, of course, be provided for by the national treasury.”

“Phase three is training and perfecting our battle-tactic and all its’ necessary skills. Nothing much to explain here.”

The six friends just took this in with a hint of skepticism.

“What do ya mean ‘This may take up ta several years’? Ah can’t let ma farm run itself fer a couple a years. Ah need ta be with ma family. They can’t possibly manage through applebuckin’ season without ma help.” Applejack shouted angrily.

“Yeah, and I need to train to get into the wonderbolts. I can’t just throw my dream away like that.” Rainbow Dash looked angrily at Celestia.

“M-M-My little critters and animal friends really need me. I can’t just let them alone.” Fluttershy whispered while hiding behind her mane.

“And I need to throw appro-xima-tata-ley, oh whatever, about 289 parties a year, for all my friends in Ponyville.”

“And I simply can not waste the time of my life in some filthy barracks, while training to fight in the mud. My mane would never be the same again.”

The princess raised one of her hooves to silence the outraged ponies. “Like I said, everything will be provided for. Applejack, I will send workers down to your farm, who will help your family without any cost whatsoever. You will, naturally, be able to visit your family once in a while.”

“Rainbow Dash, I can not allow you to continue your education in the wonderbolts’ academy, but I can manage to give you a special teacher that could educate you in aerobatics while you are training. This should even surpass the wonderbolts’ academy. If everything goes alright, you will, most likely, be perfectly capable of getting into the wonderbolts after our fight with Oran.”

“Fluttershy, your animal friends will be provided for by a loving medical team by my choosing. You can also take your most loved ones with you to Canterlot.”

“Pinkie Pie, I can also allow you to go to Ponyville and throw some parties for your friends there. You may be a little preoccupied at some times, but for most parties you will still find time.”

“And Rarity, I know of your aversion against dirt and filth, but you also need to know that the training you will be going through is no normal simple guardstraining. You will not be thrown into the mud, well at least not often, and if you wish, I can give you your personal stylist and masseur.”

The ponies were still not fully convinced. Of course, everything was provided for, but it still did not feel the same. Their future was decided by other ponies and not themselves. Naturally, they were still not comfortable with this idea, but they had no arguments anymore. In unison, they looked over to the still, at her food looking, Twilight.

Rainbow Dash flew straight to her. “What do you have to say about that? You didn’t say anything at all.” Twilight lifted her head, looked first at Rainbow and then at her friends.

“I am okay with this.”

“WHAT?!” everypony except Celestia exclaimed.

“How can y’all be okay with that? She practically decided our future lives fer us.”

“Yeah, what gives?” They waited for Twilight to answer.

“Well. It’s because you are all there with me.” They now all looked confused at Twilight. “You are my friends, and whatever happens, if we are together in this, I am able to accept any fate that befalls us. So what if we have to change our lifestyle for the next five years? If we still have each other, we can get through with this and maybe still have fun while doing it.” Twilight held her hoof in front of her.

Everypony looked embarrassed with some blushes to some really interesting parts of the castle floor or wall.

“Awh shucks, how can ah counter that?” Applejack looked to princess Celestia. “Alright, count me in.” She then placed her hoof on top of Twilights’

“*sigh* I think that’s it with finding my dream-stallion.” Rarity joined in and placed her hoof atop Applejacks’.

“How can I let my super bestest friends in the whole wide world down? I will help too.” Pinkie placed her hoof on Raritys’.

Fluttershy looked to her friends and afterwards to princess Celestia. “And you can promise me, that my animal friends will receive care and help?” Celestia just nodded. “O-Ok, then I will help too.” She threw her own hoof on the mountain.

Everypony in the room now looked at the hesitating Rainbow Dash. “Ah man, now I have to join, as well. I can’t let you do this without the most awesome and most loyal pony in all of Equestria. I just hope this trainer you told me about is as good as you make him to be.” Finally, every hoof was placed on top of each other.

Suddenly there was a warm glow, coming from their hooves. It bathed the room in rainbow colored light. Everypony looked at it with awe. It was one of the most beautiful things they ever witnessed. The warmness it radiated bathed their bodies in bliss and comfort. Celestia just looked at this with a happy smile and with one tear in her eyes.

“Your friendship is one of the strongest I ever witnessed. With this power, you can strengthen the Elements Of Harmony even further and may be able to drive off Oran. I wish you all of the luck I have, my little ponies.”

The group of six friends looked at the princess. They all nodded in unison. “You can count on us Princess.” Celestia could not be prouder of those six friends.

“Well then, what we will now do: I give you one month time before we start searching for help. You may go to your families and use this month to spend as much time as possible with them. Use it wisely, because this will be your last extended period of time where you will have time for this.”

Everypony nodded. “Good, then we will see each other in one months’ time. I wish you a wonderful vacation.” Celestia smiled at the gathered friends and left the room.

The six friends then left the castle and went back to Ponyville.

“Spike, do you know where the blankets are?”

“No Twilight, but I think the last time I saw them, they were in the freezer, for whatever reason.” Twilights eyes lit up, and she giggled.

“Of course, I had them in there because of the lice that somepony brought to the library. They really are persistent parasites. Maybe I should study them for some time.”

‘Oh dear. If Twilight starts to study parasites, I am out of this Library.’ Spike shuddered at this thought. She can’t force him to live with her while she looks at some tapeworms. It’s just too creepy.

“Oh look some of them are still alive.” Twilight held one living louse in her hoof.

“Seriously Twilight, I won’t wash this whole tree again if you unleash those lice again.” He certainly did not want to do that.

“Don’t worry Spike. I know how to handle them. Well I’m off to the picnic with the girls. See you later!”

“Bye Twilight.” While Spike was stepping down the stairs to the library, he heard the door close itself. He walked over to the Kitchen and saw that the freezer was still open and some black little dots started walking away from it. Spike hurried to the freezer, picked every lice up and placed them back into the freezer. Finally, he closed it and hoped that this won’t have any repercussions.

‘I am really getting underpaid for this’.

Twilight arrived at the green hill where her five friends already waited for her. The hill was green as one of Rainbow Dashs’ manestreaks. The flowers and trees were in their full bloom. The smells seem to punch her with the word ‘Spring’ repetitively. It was one of the best times of the year.

Winter Wrap-up was just two days prior to this and thus the spring-feeling was still fresh and felt strongly by everypony in town. Her friends saw her and waved her over.

“Twilight, darling, what took you so long?” Asked Rarity while holding one of her hooves over her eyes to block the sun.

“I’m sorry, I kind of lost track of time while reading retroactive space-time-exploration.“

One collective eye-roll later, they all sat together on their blankets. Twilight was on Applejacks’ because there was still an extremely interesting problem with her own ones that she still intended to look into.

“So now that we are here, how has everypony been?” Twilight asked her friends.

“I’ve been great! When I heard that I can’t throw any parties anymore for my friends in Ponyville, I was a sadpony, but then I realized that I can still throw parties for my ultra super bestest friends that come with me to Canterlot, and maybe also for new friends that I will surely meet there. Oh I am almost happy to go there. Where can I organize parties and how do those ponies there want them? There are so many funny things I need to consider.”

“O-Oh Pinkie, that sounds wonderful.” Fluttershy uttered quietly, being baffled by Pinkies energy.

Twilight smiled happily, since one of her friends at least was glad to go to Canterlot. Then she looked at Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, how was the last week for you?” Everypony looked expecting at her, which made her nervous.

“W-Well, it wasn’t an easy week, since I-I had to make my little friends ready for m-my departure in three weeks. It still breaks my h-heart whenever I think about them.” She had a tear in her eye.

“Ah c’mon Fluttershy. You heard what the princess said to us. Your animals will get company from the vet team, she chose.” Rainbow Dash just shook her head at Fluttershys’, well, shyness.

“B-But it’s still hard for them… and for me.” She lowered her head. Applejack put one of her hooves around Fluttershy.

“There there, sugarcube. Everything will be fine in the end.”

Looking at the seemingly uncaring Rarity, Twilight asked: “So, how was your week Rarity?” Rarity looked up as if she just woke up from something.

“Oh me? It was alright. The thought of giving up Carousel Boutique still drives me crazy, but I am also looking forward to my private masseur and stylist. Oh I will look simply smashing.”

And another friend that seems to be optimistic for the future.

“Well Ah am being with mah family as often as ah can. Granny Smith seems ta take the news quite well. Big Mac also looks ok with it, but Ah can feel that he will miss me. The worst is Applebloom. She cried fer hours to me that Ah shouldn’t go. Ah just hope that they can manage without me fer a while.”

“Oh I am sure that they can. Celestia guaranteed that they will get enough help from some workers.” Rainbow Dash exclaimed “I can’t wait to show this new teacher my skill and bravery. I bet that when he sees me, he wants me on the wonderbolts immediately. Oh, this is going to be so awesome.”

The outcome was better than Twilight thought. She thought that her friends would still be devastated by the news that they would need to spend the next five years in Canterlot. Naturally, she was still sad for Fluttershy and Applejack, but they will also manage somehow. She just hoped that things would stay this positive…

Twilight looked intently at the little tapeworm she was dissecting. It certainly is fascinating how they work. There is nearly no air in the intestinal tract, and they still manage to survive somehow. She just got hooked on the subject of parasites, when she saw the surviving lice two weeks ago in the freezer.

“Spike can you bring me internal workings of Parasites?” There was no answer.

“Oh right, he wanted to spent the night at Raritys’ after I told him about the tapeworm I wanted to dissect, but I still don’t get why this has to do anything with his payment.” Could he be right? Should he get some form of payment for all the hours he invests in helping her? Maybe he was right, maybe he should get some pocket money from Twilight… nah.

Suddenly her wanted book flew to her desk while being encased in a dam glow. Twilight looked to her right and saw somepony she was quite happy to see. It was the dam unicorn Cream Puff. She met him one week ago, and they instantly liked each other. Cream just had something on him, that made Twilight warm inside every time she sees him.

“Here you go, Twilight.” He winked at her with a smile.

“Oh hi Cream! I didn’t know you were here. Oh look at all this mess I made. I’m really sorry, normally Spike does the cleaning, but he is at a friends’ house right now.” Twilight blushed a deep red. Cream Puff just laughed with a deep laugh.

“Oh Twilight, I love it when you are embarrassed and no, I do not mind the disorder at all. I think it kind of suits you, when you are somewhat stressed. So much on your mind and no time to bring it into order.” Twilight looked now even redder than before.

“Oh stop teasing, Cream. So, what do you want to do?” Cream now looked somewhat nervous and drew circles with his hoof.

“Well uh- you know yeah- well- *sigh* I- I wanted to ask you something.” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“well would you eh… you know… it would be really great if you would ehm go with me to the new stage play that was in town. You know… just the two of us.” He now blushed a deep red, too.

“Wait, did you just call me out on a date?” Twilight couldn’t believe what she just heard. She could believe it even less, when he nodded. Nopony asked her ever out on a date. She was overjoyed. Cream always woke some unusual feelings in her. She always kind of liked him, and he was asking her out on a date? This was a dream come true.

She grinned and wanted to agree, but then she remembered. In one, week she will go away from Ponyville, and she won’t be able to visit often. On top of that, every other really important pony would come with her to Canterlot. Oh why did he have to ask now?

“I would really love to, but I can’t.” To say Cream looked devastated would be an understatement. “I really am sorry.” She looked down at her hooves. Cream had a somewhat forced smile on his face.

“Oh ok. Well if this is how you feel about me then, well ok. Oh look at the time I need to go home and eh-… look at some stuff, yeah. Good evening Twilight.” He turned around and ran out of the Library.

“No Cream, wait! This is not what I…” He already was out of hearing range. “meant…” Twilight looked some minutes at the floor and then walked to the Library door. She changed the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. Without eating and washing she just went to bed. There was just too much pain in her, at the moment. Oh, how she wished Spike was here right now.

“And watch out for that corner up there. Spiders love to make their webs there. Oh and don’t forget to reshelf the whole library at least once a week. Oh and you may need to clean up the basement, I just took everything out from there and it was more dirty than I thought. I just hope you don’t mind.” Twilight scratched the back of her head out of embarrassment.

“Miss Sparkle, I can guarantee you that I know how to administer a library. I am librarian after all.” The green unicorn told her.

“Oh right, totally forgot about that. Sorry.”

“It’s no problem, Miss Sparkle, but I do think you need to catch a train, if I’m correct?” Twilight widened her eyes.

“Oh yeah, right right. Well these are the keys.” She floated some keys over to him. “I leave the library in your surely capable hooves. Goodbye and good luck.” She waved him and walked to the library door.

“Oh I think you are the one that will need the luck. Well it was nice meeting you, goodbye.” He also waved her. Twilight left the library and made her way to the train station. It was still unbelievable how fast the month went over.

When she arrived at the train station, she saw that her friends were already there.

“Hello everypony! I hope I am still on time.” She exclaimed with a sheepish grin.

“Oh no worries, darling. The train has not arrived, yet.” Rarity looked to Twilight. “*gasp* Oh Twilight, whatever happened to your coiffure?” Twilight looked at her hairstyle, if it is even possible to call it that. Her hair just went in all directions.

“Oh I didn’t sleep very well, and it just felt like such a bother to fight against my mane this morning. I guess I just forgot about it.” Rarity looked at Twilight with compassionate eyes.

“Oh I am sure that none of us slept very well. It is an important day after all.” Several nods confirmed her statement.

“Ah just hope Applebloom will be ok. She was devastated when Ah left.” Applejack looked at the floor.

“I’m sure she will be fine.” A teary eyed Fluttershy hugged Applejack. “She will get over it eventually, just like my animals.”

“Well I just hope we will have enough spare time to visit our families.”

Twilight looked at the horizon. “Well, we are about to find out. Here comes the train.”

‘I just hope everything will turn out alright, in the end.’

Author's Note

Yeah i was bored, sat on my ass and didn't know what i should do.

So i decided to write this chapter a little early.

Finding Help

“You have to sacrifice yourself some time if you want to be a good ruler. I can not emphasize this enough. Every matter of concern that will be brought to you has to be considered like it would be the future of all of Equestria. How can we call ourselves the ruler, if we do not care for our subjects with all our heart?”

“*sigh* Yes I know.” Blueblood gently tipped his forehead with one of his hooves and looked around the throne room. How long did aunt Celestia talk to him? One hour? Two hours? Celestia stomped with one of her hooves on the ground.

“Are you listening to me, dear nephew? This is important.” Blueblood moved back a little after his aunts’ little outburst, but he composed himself again.

“Yes, yes… I know.”

“Listen Blueblood. You really need to pay attention to what I say. I have 4000 years of experience in ruling a nation. You only have two days.” Blueblood groaned.

“Auntie, it surely can not be that hard, as you make it be.” Celestia opened her eyes widely.

“Not that hard? You need to work twelve hours a day. Eight of which, you will be in day-court where you will listen to every problem your subjects bring to you. You need to keep your composure at any time for nearly eight hours straight. Afterwards, you must sign approximately 30 contracts, letters and requests, and you can be happy if they are only one scroll in length.”

“You will work hard from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. Your only breaks are lunch and dinner. If you make one mistake in this whole time, the reporters will quarter you in the air in their articles. So don’t you dare tell me that I exaggerate.”

“But auntie-“

“No! None of that! Shame on you! How can you take this so lightly? I want you give everything you got in ruling Equestria.”

“But auntie, why do I have to do the ruling? I don’t want to take over day-court. Can’t just aunt Luna take over, both day- and night court? I mean, you did this for a thousand years.”

“And those were the worst thousand years in my life. Even if, we alicorns do not need food, water and sleep, we still feel the need to eat, drink and sleep. I would not force Luna to take both shifts under any circumstance. Aside from that, she will also help me in preparing us against Oran.”

“So, if aunt Luna does not run night court, who will?”

“Since you are the only other member of our family, we needed somepony else to fill that roll. Of course, this pony also has the roll of a ruler, but not from Equestria. An empress, from another land, lets us borrow her husband for running night court. Even though he can only perform five days per week since he has other duties in his own land.”

“And who is this, ruler?” Just then, there was a shout from one of the guards.

“Princess Celestia, the new holder of night court has arrived.” The guard bowed deep.

“Wonderful, please let him in.” She turned to Blueblood. “Well it seems like you will meet him earlier than expected.” Blueblood just looked to the gates and waited for his future partner to arrive. Just when the gates opened, the guard shouted again.

“Introducing, King Shining Armor from the Crystal Empire.” Bluebloods’ eyes widened. Shining Armor? That common filth is going to share ruling over Equestria with him? Shining Armor walked into the throne room and spotted Celestia immediately.

“Greetings, princess Celestia.” He bowed only slightly. “And also greetings to you, Prince Blueblood.” The same slight bow.

“Celestia, you can’t seriously mean him. He was born as a commoner. How will he be able to rule Equestria?” Shining armor raised an eyebrow.

“Well well well, I wouldn’t have anticipated such prejudice from one of the future rulers of Equestira, prince Blueblood. On what basis did I earn to receive such harsh judgment?” Celestia let Shining Armor defend for himself. It would be wise to show Blueblood why she chose Shining Armor.

“On what basis? You are a commoner! You do not have the birthright to rule over a land!”

“Prince Blueblood, how does birthright help you rule an empire? A ruler isn’t a ruler because he was born to be.” The king shook his head. “A ruler is chosen by his devotion and love for his subjects. If your subjects have a devastating problem at hoof, then they need a loving and caring ruler to lead them through those bad times.”

“What birthright gives you the strength to work through days and days of problem solving? If we would crown somepony, just because he was born this way, then many nations would have succumbed to revolution already. You are royalty, that is correct, but do you know the reason why you are a special case, in comparison to other rulers in the rest of Equus?” Blueblood did not say anything.

“It is because, in other lands, the heirs to the throne are trained and being prepared because they will be on the throne at some time in their lives. They were forged since they were little foals, to be the best rulers the land has ever seen. In your case, nopony ever thought you would come to be on the throne at one time. The reason why, is the immortality of princess Celestia and Luna.”

“You were not trained and educated in being a ruler because there was no need to. You were just able to live every day in luxury and with no worries. The ONLY reason you are elected to be the leader of day court for the next five years is because princess Celestia believes deeply in you, having a good and caring heart. If it were not for her promise that you will be able to deal with the responsibility as a leader, you would not be standing here right now.”

Shining Armor waited years to say that to Blueblood. Oh, how good that felt. He was never able to talk to the prince in an informal manner since he was a guard and no part of royalty. Oh karma, you lovable demon.

Blueblood did not know what to say. What Shining Armor told him may hold some truth, but how could he dare to speak to him in such a manner? He was just a lowly guard. Just before Blueblood wanted to speak up, Celestia put a hoof between the two.

“Now now, Shining Armor. I think you brought your point across clearly. Let’s just stop at this point shall we?” Shining Armor just nodded.

“But auntie, how can you let him talk to me like that?” Celestia looked to Blueblood and just sighed. She didn’t want to say this, but it seems like he still did not understand.

“Because, in whatever manner he said it, he was right.” Bluebloods’ eyes widened. “I did not want you to hear it this directly, but now I can’t change it anymore. Yes, king Shining Armor is right. You were never prepared to take over the throne, but I still believe in your heart. Even if you act disrespectful at some occasions, I still believe that you have the ability to rule Equestria as a loved ruler.”

He could not believe what he heard. She just told him that his live was worthless from the get go. He was supposed to get spoiled his whole life and die without having done something meaningful, but still Celestia believed in him. He just lowered his head and looked at the floor.

“I am sorry. I need to think about something.” With that said he just turned around and began walking away, out of the throne room.

“Think I overdid it?” Shining Armor exclaimed with one raised eyebrow.

“No. I think that is exactly what he needs right now, to come to the right path. Equestria needs a good ruler in day court, and I believe, that if Blueblood thinks long enough about the things you told him, he will find the courage in him to rule Equestria to its’ fullest. I just hope he realizes that he has a caring heart.”

“Well ok then. Hey Celestia, where is Luna? I need to know how I run night court.” Celestia and Shining Armor were on a normal name basis since the wedding. It was either both of them talk to each other like royalty to royalty, or like friends. They have agreed to speak to each other like friends.

“Luna can’t be disturbed right now. I didn’t see her for a whole month.” Celestia looked sadly at the floor while Shining Armor, again, raised an eyebrow.

“Why is that?”

“*sigh* She told me that she is creating a spell that summons help from out of Equus.” Shining Armor blinked one time.

“What do you mean with ‘help from out of Equus’?”

“She got the idea that if Oran came from the multiverse as the evil, then why should we not try to summon someone good from there? She told me that she goes right on it to create that spell and that she wants no disturbances. Not even for food and whenever I knock at her door she just says through shut doors ‘I can’t.’”

“Wow that sounds serious. Are you sure that she can handle the stress?” Celestia smiled and nodded.

“Yes, I am quite sure of that. She was always like this. Every time she studied something, she never stopped until she achieved her goal. *sigh* It’s just sad for me, because I can’t see her frequently.”

“I am deeply sorry for you, but who will show me how to run night court then?” Celestia just chuckled.

“Well I of course. Let’s get right to it, shall we?”

“Right!”

“What is this room, princess?” Twilight looked around the room, in which she never was before. It was a spacious hall, nearly as impressive as the throne room, but instead of being a long hallway, this room was a perfect circle. Banners of the lands of Equestria decorated the hall. Princess Celestia looked with a slight hint of a smug grin to her student.

“Oh this? This is the Chamber Of Strategy. It just got redecorated some weeks ago. I thought it might need a renovation since we will be here more than once in the next five years.”

Twilight was still looking around the room, but then she remembered why she was here… or better, to ask why she was here.

“This room is very nice princess, but what do you want to talk to me about?” Celestia made a gesture for Twilight to sit down at the oversized round table in the room.

“I wanted to ask you how Canterlot is treating you and your friends.” She smiled at Twilight.

“Oh, it’s going great. They are all doing wonderful, well nearly all. Applejack still misses her family and also the daily farm labor. I just hope she will come around. I mean even Fluttershy managed to find some new animal friends in the castle in the last two weeks. Pinkie seems as happy as ever. It’s as if we never left Ponyville. She still jumps around like before.”

“Rainbow Dash loves flying around the mountains of Canterlot. Although she is kind of grumpy, because she couldn’t start with the lessons you promised her, yet. I think the one that has the least problems is Rarity. She hangs around with those high class ponies all day. It is as if she is even happier now than in Ponyville.”

Celestia smiled warmly. “I am glad to hear that.” Then she raised herself and started walking around the table while looking around the room. “Well then. Now for the real reason I wanted to talk to you. We need to talk about Oran. Do you have an idea what we could improve in order to stand a better chance against him?”

Twilight drew circles on the floor. “Well, I thought a little about it, but I don’t know if my plans are any good.” Celestia walked over to Twilight and put her wing around her.

“Tell me. We need to talk about this as much as possible if we want to plan the perfect tactic and training-plans.”

“Ok princess. So I thought about his power. If what you told me is true, then he has some sort of magical shield or magical immunity to some degree. He definitely is not immune to every magic, or else he wouldn’t have dispelled the elements. If he would be completely immune, he wouldn’t have minded them hitting him, like with your beams. Now is the question, is he immune to some specific kinds of magic, or is he just immune against every magic if it is below some degree of power?”

Celestia thought a second. “Well the Elements Of Harmony use the combined power of every harmonious virtue. It absorbs the energy and then transforms it into a ray of raw and powerful magic. My Sunbeam and Lunas’ Moonbeam are the same. We just take the magical power of our celestial bodies and release them in a raw blast.” Twilight pondered about this for a moment and then sighed.

“Then I am afraid that he has immunity against spells, below a certain degree of power. This is bad news. How are we able to damage him, if he is immune to any kind of power that is weaker than the elements?” She got a little mad. How can they damage him? Celestia walked over to Twilight.

“My dear student. I think you should widen your horizon a little.” She smiled warmly at Twilight. Twilight didn’t know what she meant. Was there more? Was there a kind of magic that could damage him, or was there a possibility to get as powerful as the elements? No, that was impossible. Someone as experienced and old as Oran has to know nearly every kind of magic.

‘And why does she want me to find out? I am not thousands of years old. How can I know about a way to gather more power than with the Elements Of Harmony?’ She grabbed her head with her hooves and groaned.

“Why does this have to be so difficult?!” She nearly screamed and slammed her hooves at the table. What she did not consider, was the sturdiness of the round table. She picked her hooves up and rubbed them ‘ow’.

“Wait…. Ow?... OW! Yes OW! That’s it!” She started sprouting the widest grin possible. Afterwards, she jumped up and ran to her teacher. “That’s it! Magic isn’t the only kind of damage we can inflict. We also have physical damage.” Celestia smiled warmly at her student.

“Oh I am so proud of you, my most faithful student. Yes, we can still manage to hurt him through physical attacks, and there are spells that can transform magic into physical forces.”

Twilight was happy to have finally found a way to bypass Orans’ magical immunity, but this happiness was only short-lived. “But does he maybe also have some kind of physical immunity?” Celestia shook her head.

“No, I don’t think so. He killed every guard that came near him and avoided or blocked every arrow we shot at him. I think he has some kind of armor around his upper and lower body, but I also think that this armor isn’t nearly as powerful as himself or his magical armor.” Celestia summoned a quill and a piece of parchment.

“So what do we have? We know that he can only be damaged by magical power, stronger than myself, and he can be damaged by any physical means. I doubt that he will be afflicted by disease and environmental damage, since he belongs to immortality class one, like me. Do we know more about his capability in fight?”

“Hmm.” Twilight thought about if she missed anything and suddenly she realized it. Oh, how she wished that she did not realize it. Celestia realized that Twilight wasn’t feeling good and went to her.

“What is it, Twilight? Did you figure something out?” Twilight looked at her hooves.

“Well, yeah I did. I think we are still underestimating him.” Twilight sighed. “There happened something else, aside from the battle.” Celestia thought about this for a while, and then her eyes widened.

“You don’t mean… that was also him?” Twilight nodded.

“Who else? How could the entirety of Equestria die at the same time and get resurrected eleven hours later, if not for him? I am pretty sure that it was him that resurrected all the ponies.” Celestia shook her head.

“Why should he? Why would he kill everypony just to resurrect them eleven hours later again? But that would explain why he said that the next enemy might not be as merciful as him.”

“Correct.”

“But if he really has this kind of power, how can we hope to stop him?” Celestia looked down at her hooves and sighed. This just seems to be impossible, but Twilight just smiled.

“The question is, why did he not use it from the beginning? There are only three possible answers. The first is that he didn’t want to. The second is that he couldn’t. The third is that he knew he wouldn’t need to.”

“Now if he knew that he wouldn’t need it, then he wouldn’t have bothered getting hit by everything you could throw at him, which means he didn’t know how strong you are, and it was therefore impossible for him to know if he needs it or not. So possibility three falls out.”

“I think that, by what you told me, he thinks highly of honor. If we also assume that this power he used to affect Equestria is not his own, and I think that is the case since it is highly unlikely that anypony can get this much power all by himself, then he will refrain from using it. He said he wanted to be bested, and I think that he will hold onto his word, which means that he will not use this kind of power in battle.”

Celestia could not be prouder of her student. She just managed to perceive all these little details and managed to do something she wasn’t able to do in a thousand years. She was able to grasp the power of Oran. She knew what Oran wa capable off. Celestia walked over to Twilight and put her wings around her.

“You did wonderful, my student. I knew that you would be able to help me in forming a plan.” She broke the embrace and walked away, back to the other side of the table. “Now for the next point why you are here in this room for the first place. We may know what Oran is capable off, but now we need to gather as much power and allies as possible. Whom do you think we should ask for help?”

Twilight thought about this for a while. “Maybe the griffin kingdom?” Celestia just shook her head.

“Think again Twilight. What use are thousands of normal soldiers against one powerful being?” Twilight lowered her head.

“Nothing… But who do we ask then? There are no real other powerful beings that compare to your power and would be willing to help us.”

“My dearest Twilight, think about what I told you six weeks ago. We need the Elements Of Harmony to persuade some forces. You know what that means.” Twilights’ eyes widened.

“You don’t mean that you plan to ask people like Discord and queen Chrysalis for help, do you?” Celestia nodded her head.

“I am afraid so.”

“But that’s madness. Why would they want to help us?”

“That’s why we need to persuade them, and not just ask them. We may need to make a deal with them in order to get them as allies. So who, do you think, could be considered as a possible ally?”

“Hmm. I think the only two possible beings that would be able to step up to Oran would be Discord and queen Chrysalis.”

“Yes, that is also what I think. Discord and Chrysalis really seem to be the only ones that have enough power. Now the question, whom to ask first?”

“I think Discord only wants to have fun, so it could be hard to persuade him. Chrysalis seems to only care about her changelings. Maybe we should first talk to her, and maybe we could cut a deal. They will be forgiven for their crimes in Equestria and can walk around again without being hunted down and we get her power in battle.” Twilight exclaimed happily. Finally, they made some progress.

“That sounds like a wonderful plan, my student. I will make preparations so we will be able to meet with Chrysalis in a week or two.”

“I am happy that I could help you, princess.” A smiling Twilight exclaimed.

“No, I should be happy to let you help me. Thank you.”

“No, thank you for letting me help you.” Twilight walked up to Celestia and leaned her head against her neck. The princess gladly answered the hug with lowering her own head to Twilights. They stood like this for several minutes.

“Well I am happy that you helped me today. I think it’s time that you go back to your friends.” Twilight nodded her head and walked over to the big heavy gates of the room. Just when she arrived at the gates, they suddenly opened fiercely and threw Twilight across the room.

“I DID IT!” The hall trembled under the power of Lunas’ royal Canterlot voice. Twilight got up from lying on the middle of the table with Celestias’ help. For Twilight, it looked like stars were flying around her head.

“What do you mean, Luna?” Twilight asked.

“I did it! I created the spell!” Luna hopped happily on the spot. Celestias’ eyes widened.

“Already? This normally takes several months and you did it in what, one and a half?”

“Yes, I know, but I got the brilliant idea to let the spell-complexion-calibration handle itself through a spell that controls the controls of the spell that performs the single complexions while I looked into the spell-matrix.” Twilights’ head instantly perked up, and she felt awake again.

“Luna, that sounds brilliant. If you release this theory to the public, we might be able to create new spells in half the time.” Twilight began hopping around the happy hopping Luna. Celestia just smiled happily at them, but then she realized what it meant, if the spell was finished.

“So that means you can perform it right now, and what exactly does it do?” Luna stopped bouncing and looked at her sister.

“Oh yes, I can perform it right now and about what the spell does. It basically searches through every being in the multiverse and brings the one with the most talent here to us.”

“Luna, that sounds perfect. If you want, we can perform it right tomorrow, when the other Elements Of Harmony are with us.” Luna smiled happily.

“Oh yes, tomorrow sounds great.” Luna lets out an enormous yawn. “Wow, but first I think I’ll go to bed. I didn’t sleep for six weeks.” She turned around and left the room. Celestia turned to Twilight and nudged her to go too.

“I will see you tomorrow then, together with all your friends.” She smiled at her.

“Yes, princess. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, dearest Twilight.”

“So, what did you say does this spell do?” Rainbow asked.

“WUW Dashie, those are a lot of dos in one sentence.” Pinkie got uncomfortably close to Rainbow.
“Yeah… just tell me what this spell does.”

“Well Ah reckon that Twilight said that this spell gets us some fellah that should be able to take this Oran guy down.”

“But then why do we have to be here? If this so called superpony can take this guy down, then why are we still here? Can’t he just get summoned and fights off this Oran guy and all are happy?”

“Rainbow, we can’t risk the safety of the princess. What if this new pony isn’t the most cooperative? Princess Luna said that this spell summons the being with the most talent to take him down. She said nothing about him being nice and cooperative. What if he attacks the princess? We need to wait here with the elements if something goes horribly wrong.” Rarity tried to calm Rainbow down.

“*groan* Whatever.” Rainbow just landed and rolled her eyes. After some time, the gates opened, and the princesses together with Twilight Sparkle entered the throne room. Everypony instantly stood in order and started bowing to their leaders. Celestia immediately gestured them to stop bowing.

“Please my little ponies, you do not need to bow to me while you are living here in the castle. If you would start bowing every time you see me, then you will most likely need more than just a private masseur.” She looked at the blushing Rarity.

“Thank you, Princess.”

“So, now that we are all gathered, I think it’s time to let my dear sister perform her spell.” Celestia nudged her sister to begin, who happily complied. She walked near the center of the throne room and put her horn to the ground. Then she gathered magic. Alot of magic. She just stood there for about five minutes in the same state.

Nothing seemed to happen. There was just Luna lowering her head and releasing magic. Suddenly the light from Lunas’ horn left her and flew straight into the center of the hall. Luna moved back and shielded her eyes from the blinding light. It got brighter and brighter until it bursted into some kind of explosion. Everypony in the room looked away, and when they looked back they saw someone standing there.

There in the middle of the room stood a biped creature. It kinda looked like Oran just younger and cleaner. He had black spiky hair that stood as if he got hit by lightning. On his back was a sword just looking like Orans’ just with reverted colors. The sword had a black edge instead of red, and a red blade instead of black. His clothes looked somewhat modern, with a black jeans west and also black jeans trousers.

He just stood there in the middle of the room and looked around the room. His gaze stopped at Celestia and after some time observing her, he just facepalmed.

“Really? It’s ponies this time? How come every time, when someone summons me to stop Oran, I see the weirdest creatures? Here, I thought that after those lizard-bird-hybride-things, I would have seen everything, but brightly colored ponies, that’s a new high.” Everypony just looked dumbfounded at him. Finally, Twilight asked him.

“What do you mean ‘every time’ you were summoned and how do you know Oran? Who are you?” The human raised an eyebrow and had a smug smile on his lips.

“Why, his apprentice of course.”

Author's Note

First to answer some questions.

No, he will not just simply go gary stu and win this fight alone.

No, he is no random 20 year old guy from an appartment.

No, he is not nearly as strong as Oran.

just wanted to clarify this. Not that people get the wrong idea, about him being the main character.
He is just here to help.

Under Canterlot

He never liked waking up. He never liked sleeping to begin with. Why was it necessary for mere mortals to recharge their energy for seven hours a day? Can’t they just recharge themselves while they are awake? And then always this grogginess in the morning, when he wakes up. That was why he hated sleeping and why he never did it.

Yet, there was one positive aspect in sleeping. The ability to dream. The ability to do anything he wants without being worried about consequences. Pleasant dreams are the best, and he had a remarkably pleasant dream this night. Aren woke up and looked at the ceiling and crooked an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know this ceiling.’

Looking away from the ceiling he looked around the room. It was a spacious bedroom with much furniture that just screamed out the word ‘money’. Sniffing in the air, Aren lifted his other eyebrow too. ‘Smells like fresh air and stone. I am obviously not home.’ Even if the answer to his whereabouts was pretty obvious, Aren hasn’t slept really often and was, of course, confused by this.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Someone knocked at the door. Whom could that be? “Come in.” he simply stated. The door slowly opened and in walked a yellow unicorn mare, who was wearing a maid-uniform. Then Aren remembered. He left Ravien to his vacation in his home dimension, and when he got back he wanted to do something, but got terribly tired for some unknown reason.

‘Wait, I don’t get tired. Never. Why was I tired, and what did I want to do? It feels like I wanted to do something I honestly looked forward to, so why can’t I remember?’ The mare still stood in front of him, waiting to be addressed. Aren noticed this and somehow he eyed the mare strangely. Watching every part of the muscles that could be seen beneath her yellow coat and uniform.

The slightly visible veins on some parts of her body and the feint hearing of breathing. This hypnotizing rhythm of her heart beating. It made him nervous to no end. Aren quickly shook his head in an attempt to clear it. With forced calmness, he addressed her.

“Yes?” Her professional look didn’t change, yet she answered.

“Would you like me to clean your room, sir?” Aren was drawn back at her muscles and the movement of her eyes. Aren put a hand to his head in order to hide his nervous expression.

“Yes, please go on.” He stated with a little shaky voice. The mare didn’t show any reaction, except starting to clean the room. When she moved her muscles. When the hooves made a clack sound at the marble-floor. When her coat rubbed at itself and made feint warmth. ‘What is beneath that hair? How do her muscles look when I tear them apart? How will they look when they are painted with all the flowing blood?’

He slowly started to sprout a creepy grin. ‘Oh what I could do. I could just grab her and tear her apart. I could create something beautiful. Oh, even thinking about it makes me happy.’ Aren stood up and walked over to the mare, who was cleaning a wardrobe, not seeing him. Aren stood behind her and extended his right arm slowly, his grin going wider and wider.

Suddenly he stopped, and his expression changed to horror. ‘No, I can’t do that. I can’t just run around and look at peoples’ organs. No one can do that. Yes, she shouldn’t be bothered by anyone. Not by thieves, not by assassins. Yes, I can’t leave her alone like this. She needs to be protected.’ His malicious grin turned to one that showed complete sincerity and kindness. The mare turned around and saw the happy look on his face, and also looked happy.

‘It seems like there are also some happy ponies in the castle.’ She grinned to herself, not knowing that she avoided death by one second. She was already finished with the cleaning and walked out of the room, bowing politely one last time at the door. Aren didn’t actually notice anything since there was another fight in his head.

‘I can’t just let her be alone. She could get attacked by bandits. She needs protection. She could get into bed, with a false person. She could meet a false person. She could trust a false person. She shouldn’t go to her work since she could stumble and hurt herself. She needs to be protected. I can’t protect her from anything. Yes, I need to protect her from herself. I need to protect her from her own mistakes. I need to protect her from her life. Yes, I need to end her life so she will be protected, yes.’

His grin was already back to malicious. He looked around the room and spotted his sword leaning against the bed. Happily picking it up, he walked to the door. ‘Yes, maybe I can still catch up to her. I need to end her life in order to protect her.’ He rotated the doorknob and opened the door.

“Good morning, Aren.” Celestia exclaimed while standing in front of his door. She looked worried. “Is there something wrong?” She chuckled. “Your face looks different.” Aren still with his malicious grin on his face suddenly felt calmer. His facial muscles relaxed, and he had a normal expression back.

‘I was so tense before, and yet I am calm. Why am I calm all of a sudden? Protecting this maid doesn’t seem relevant anymore.’ Letting out a long sigh Aren entirely calmed down. He looked at Celestia who just sprouted a motherly smile that said “well done”.

Her facial expression betrayed Celestias real feelings. She was in total panic, when Aren opened the door with that grin on his face. It was the same grin he had when she was in his dream. She even thought she was too late, and that he planned to destroy the whole palace. Little did she know that exactly this was his plan. Up until now.

When he calmed down, she calmed down too. ‘Seems like the crisis has been avoided.’ She thought to herself. Aren then said something.

“Good morning, Celestia. Is there something you need?” He asked in his typical normal demeanor.

“Yes. I decided that we should take the leave of Disc- eh Ravien as an opportunity, and take some vacation ourselves.” In truth, she just didn’t want to let Aren near her guards or the Elements Of Harmony. He was just too dangerous right now. Aren didn’t look convinced.

“Are you sure? We need every day of training in order to stand up to Oran. We can’t just simply make a vacation.” He seemed a little annoyed by this.

‘He’s not giving up. Hurry Celestia, think think think think.’ Suddenly she got an idea.
“I really appreciate it that you train my guards, but I don’t want them to waste all their life to be soldiers. They are just guards. So I wish for them to get the opportunity to live their lives to the fullest.” Aren still didn’t look happy, but apparently accepted that. It was her kingdom after all.

“Alright, if you think this is right, I can’t stop you.” He simply stated. Suddenly Celestia could hear chatter. She turned her head and saw two maids, talking happily with each other while walking down the hallway. They made a short bow before Celestia and passed them. Not giving it a second thought, she turned back to Aren. With all of her willpower combined, she was able to hold back her gasp.

He was grinning madly again. ‘Look at these muscles. The fibers. Oh, I love this sounds when muscle tissue tears. This lovely sound, similar to tearing fabric. What beautiful thing could I create with tearing it apart? Oh why can’t I just go there and hear their muscles destroying?’ He watched the passing mares with intensity.

“Aren, hello? Why do you space out again?” Aren shook his head and looked normal again. Looking back at Celestia he felt kind of sorry.

“Oh sorry, won’t happen again. Did you say something?” Celestia sighed inwardly. This was too close. She needed to do something about him. There had to be some way to make it possible for him to control himself. She perked up when she heard more chatter.

‘But first I need time to think.’ She quickly looked in Arens’ eyes again. “Aren, how would you like to eat breakfast with me?” She hoped that he wouldn’t take this the wrong way since she wasn’t in love with him. She just needed him to be away from anypony. Maybe if, they are alone, she can manage to get him to open up to her. Opening up to other ponies is always the first step to getting better.

Aren crooked an eyebrow. Normally he doesn’t need to eat anything. Why should he eat now? Yet, he felt inclined to accept. He needed to accept. Something in his mind screamed at him to go eating with her. “Alright.” He just simply stated. Celestia was relieved beyond belief. What would she have done, if he wouldn’t have accepted?

“Good, then I will port us to a nice place.” Just when she wanted to use her spell, she got aborted.

“Tia!” This was the last pony, she wanted close to Aren right now. Luna walked up to Celestia and Aren. “Where were you this morning? I missed you when I was lowering my moon.” Celestia was in a mixture of panic, annoyance, fear and a little anger.

‘Why did she have to show up now?’ Celestia grinned nervously. “Oh eh, was this, this morning?” Luna looked skeptical.

“Yes, it was this morning. Like every other morning.” She just simply stated. Celestia laughed a little bit nervously.

“Oh it seems like I forgot since I had to tell Aren about my decision of vacation.” Luna lifted an eyebrow.

“Vacation? What vacation?” Celestia made a short glance to Aren to see if he had everything under control. His left eye and his mouth were twitching slightly. She needed to hurry. The last thing Equestria needed was an all destroying immortal.

“Luna, I decided that since we wait for Discords return, we might as well give the guards a last vacation before Aren trains them again.” Luna switched her gaze to Aren, obviously being exceedingly disapproving of him. She looked closer and hummed a little.

“It seems you are back. Say, why did you even do this to the Element of Generosity? You know, sharing your soul.” Luna waited for an answer while Celestia panicked in her mind. Aren just didn’t react. He just continued staring at Lunas’ body. Luna got uncomfortable pretty quickly.

“Do you decline to answer our question?” She asked with a hint of anger in her voice. Aren still didn’t answer. Little did Celestia and Luna know that he was reasoning in his head and that he didn’t hear anything.

‘I hate her. I don’t want to protect her so why should I end her life? I don’t need to protect her. So why do I want to end it so badly? If I end it, I’ll end up protecting her, but what if I just end her out of hate? Just out of creating my own piece of art? Yes, she always hated me, so why shouldn’t I start working on her? Yes, I will just grab her and create something new.’ Slowly Aren formed his grin again.

Celestia seeing where this face-motion was going, quickly reacted. “Aren, you are zoning out again. Aren, hello?” She hoped that this was enough. Upon hearing her voice, the human stopped and looked at Celestia. Just registering what she said, he shook his head violently to clear it.

“Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t quite hear you. Could you repeat that?” He asked while scratching his hair with one hand. Luna groaned once.

“I wanted to know, why you would share a soul with the Element Of Generosity?” These motions. These motions of her mouth that made sound. Why does she make them? Why doesn’t she stop making them? ‘Why can’t she just show me her blood? I need to know what’s in there, so I can start on working on her, NOW.’

“Aren, are you alright? You don’t seem to be yourself today. Is something wrong?” Celestia asked innocently, even though she knew the answer to this question. Aren shook his head again.

‘Not myself? But I am always myself. Wasn’t I always like this? Maybe she isn’t herself.’ While Aren was thinking again, Celestia quickly thought about a plan. Finally, she got it.

“Luna, I know that you are worried about me, but I need to get Aren to a doctor. He clearly isn’t acting like his usual self right now. Maybe an aftereffect from his coma?” She looked back at him and saw him growing back his evil smile. “Need to go.” And then she used her teleport spell on Aren and herself. Luna couldn’t even ask a question before they teleported away.

“What was that all about?” Luna just simply asked the air. Shaking her head, she continued on her way to wherever she wanted to go.

Celestia and Aren appeared at a green hill. Aren looked around, and when he looked up, he saw Canterlot above him. “We are at the Creators Hill. One of the most beautiful places around Canterlot.” She exclaimed with a relieved and proud voice. Thinking about what Celestia said, Aren could see kinds of trees, he never saw on Equestria before. Unique flowers were also adorning the makeshift garden.

There was a low table carved out of stone. Celestia nudged Aren to sit down. Aren walked over and sat down at one of the small ends of the table while Celestia sat opposite to him. Realizing something, Aren looked around again.

“Where are the others?” He simply asked. Celestia had to think up an excuse why she wanted him to be with no other pony right now, without showing that she already knows about his condition.

“Oh there are no others. I wanted to have a private breakfast just with the two of us.” Realizing what she just said, she began to worry. ‘I hope he doesn’t think this is a date. I don’t have romantic feelings for him, and it would be awkward if he thinks that I try to create something between us.’

‘Why are we on a date?’ Aren just simply asked himself. ‘Does she have feelings for me and why so suddenly? Why couldn’t she just ask me to date her? Well I obviously don’t have any feelings for her. I don’t think she’s different from everyone else. Yet, I am not nervous around her. Why?’ He furiously scratched his head. Celestia saw this and thought that he will loose his sanity soon, and she needed to do something, NOW!

“Aren, you are different. Is something bothering you?” She asked innocently. Aren shook his head again.

“Oh eh no. NO, nothings wrong.” He simply answered. This was it. This was the opportunity Celestia hoped for. ‘Let’s hope this goes well.’

“Aren, there is something wrong with you. You aren’t acting like your usual self. Please, you can tell me. I am worried about you.” ‘A statement that shows, that I am concerned about him and that I like to share his burden. Works every time.’ She thought proudly to herself. Aren just sighed.

“No, really, everything’s alright.” Damnit, he didn’t take the bait. ‘Well I just need to throw out another one. A stronger one.’ With that said, she changed her facial expression to one of sadness.

“Don’t you trust me?” Aren was a little taken aback by this question. Such a direct question coming out of nowhere. He seriously considered saying no, just to be done with this, but for some reason he couldn’t tell it to her this directly. ‘Well there is always lying.’ He sighed.

“Yes, I trust you.” Celestia was happy deep inside. He took her bait, but she didn’t show her happiness to the outside. Changing her expression from sad to worried again, she looked at him.

“Then why aren’t you telling me what’s wrong?” Aren got nervous again, but not the same kind of nervousness he felt before. It felt more like, he was surrounded by spotlights. She shifted uncomfortably while sitting on the grass. In the end, he sighed and decided to tell her the truth.

“Because you wouldn’t understand. No one could understand.” He sighed again, suppressing the sadness that wanted to come out to the daylight. Celestia was partying in her head. It worked. She got him to this point so she will be able to get him to tell her the rest. When he will tell her everything, she will just tell him that she still liked him, and he would feel relieved. This should stop his will to tear everything apart.

Placing a comforting hoof on his shoulders she looked him in the eyes. “I may not understand, but I can still share your burden. Please tell me.” This should break him. Aren just shook his head.

“No, you will cast me away, like everyone before.” He nearly shouted while still suppressing the tears inside of him. He was done for. He didn’t want to keep this in any longer. His whole personality. He wished nothing more than to just tell her everything. Tell her of the constant fight in her head. Tell her that he is a psychopath, but then she would hate him.

‘Why am I this concerned about her hating me? She isn’t different to all the other people I met. Why is it this important to me that she likes me? It’s not important. I will just tell her and prove that she is not relevant to me. I won’t be held back by some useless thoughts such as friendship.’ He made up his mind.

“Alright I’m going to tell you.” Celestia led out a loud YES in her mind, but on the outside just smiled approvingly. “I am not whom you think I am.” Celestia showed purposely a confused expression. “I altered my personality the whole time we knew each other. This,” He gestured to his body. “Is whom I really am.” Celestia playing the innocent filly just asked him.

“What do you mean exactly?” She voiced with a warm tone. Aren just sighed.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but I sort of have a problem. Normally I can escape this problem by altering my personality, but right now I can’t do that since I need to be careful with using magic.” He sighed again. Maybe he could back out again. Celestia realized that he could start backing out now and took the initiative.

“What problem?” Suddenly there was a lump in his throat. He couldn’t say it. It was just too hard. If he would tell this, she would start hating him, and would cast him away like every other being he told. She is no different.

‘She is not different to anyone other! I just need to tell her, and it will prove that she is just like everyone else.’ Grabbing all of his resolve, he was able to get enough braveness to finally tell her of his problem.

“I enjoy killing people.” Even if, Celestia anticipated something like this, she still felt a little uneasy. This showed in her perfectly managed expression. Suddenly her warm smile, looked more like a nervous grin. Aren quickly spoke up.

“It’s not as you think. I also want to do good things. I want to protect everyone as good as possible, but I just can’t come over the desire to end lives. I just want to help someone, but I just can’t.” He began to break into tears. “I can’t help them, because whenever I start looking at them, I get this desire to kill them.” He looked over to the other side of the hill, where a mother with her two foals had a picnic.

“Those movements of those muscles. The beating of the heart. The flow of the blood. The voice of breathing. Everything seems so interesting; so fragile; so intoxicating. These moving muscles. How do they sound when I just grip them and tear them apart? What would they think for the last seconds they are alive, when I just take them and rip them apart? Why does the heart keep beating, even if their body is destroyed?” He lifted an arm and held it out to the foals who were at least 50 meters away.

He held his arm like he was walking to the light at the end of the tunnel. “This longing feeling of just seeing them spread across the room. The sight of their blood, flowing out of their open bodies, being unable to reach the other side. Just flowing out and stopping at the floor. This beautiful sight is just intoxicating.” With his wide eyes, he looked at the foals and started smiling again.

A wickedly smiling man with tears running down his eyes. Suddenly he turned his head to Celestia again, who looked more than troubled, and jumped to her, grabbing her shoulders. “I can’t stop it! I can’t fight against this feeling. I need to do it! I need to see them ripped apart, just like my parents!” Celestia was deeply shocked by what he said the whole time. She knew what was wrong with him, but it was just impossible to feel nothing for someone who poured out their heart to her. Especially the last part.

“I saw them. I was on the chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the room. I saw everything. My mother said that everything would be alright before the men came and started ripping her apart. I saw it, how her blood started to spring out of her form. It looked so beautiful. After they ripped apart my dad, they left the castle. I climbed down and examined the remains.” He suddenly jerked his hands back and grabbed his head.

“I couldn’t protect them. I wasn’t able to save them from those men. I was too weak. Yet they became something beautiful. Why would I need them to be protected from being this beautiful? Their unmoving remains looked so peaceful. They just didn’t move, but I still felt pain. They needed to be protected, but from what? I trained years, to protect someone and to be able to create art like those men.”

“Some years later, I found those men. I made them to art, just like my parents. They also looked so beautiful. Then I started working as a mercenary. I could protect people, and I could tear them apart. It was so intensely fulfilling. For nearly 10,000 years, I worked as one, but then I was too strong. Everyone surrendered without fighting us. I couldn’t create art anymore. So I started to help the whole world, but when I killed everyone that was considered evil, there was nothing else to do. Nothing else to tear apart.”

“I lived every day, not knowing what to do. Arguing with myself. Should I just make art out of those I protect? But then I don’t protect them anymore. I can’t do both, but I need both. Then Oran came and showed me how I could help myself. I was changed. I was free from the urge to protect or kill, but now I am back to whom I was.”

“Why can’t I control myself? Why do all of these ponies have to look so tempting? Why can’t I just tear them apart like the nothing they all are? But I can’t do it. I need to keep them safe. I just can’t tear them apart. Yet, I need to tear them apart. I need it in order to survive. I-“ He got aborted by a sudden hug from Celestia. Everything was frozen for him. He was just shocked. What is she doing?

Celestia felt deeply sad. Here, she thought that it would be easy to just change a pony, but it wasn’t. She planned to hug him just because it was needed to protect Equestria. Yet, she felt the need to hug him for what he went through. All this sorrow Aren had to go through in his childhood. Nopony should see their parents killed. She felt genuinely scared from him for a while, but this soon was replaced with eternally deep pity.

‘He needed to protect himself from the heavy guilt of not being able to protect his parents. He probably killed himself with this guilt every day. It was so much that he just couldn’t take it anymore, and he decided to make killing look appealing to him. Being this deeply devoured by guilt, he told himself that he didn’t fail to protect his parents. He is only killing because he has seen too much sorrow.’ Celestia realized and also started to cry. Aren was still in shock by the sudden hug from Celestia.

He couldn’t believe that someone would still touch him voluntarily. ‘Why does this feel so warm? Why do I feel so comfortable?’ Suddenly the warmth destroyed all his boundaries. He started to let everything out and just cried furiously in her embrace. It felt like all the sorrow was washing away. After some time, he hugged her back and both stood like this for several minutes.

‘Here he wants to protect everpony, and yet he is the one that needs the protection most.’ After some time, they parted, and Aren looked into Celestias’ eyes. “Thank you.” He said in an unusually soft voice. Celestia was deeply moved by this mere thank you. It felt like she honestly saved someponys’ life.

Aren turned his head back to the mother with the two foals. He watched like in trance. Celestia hoped that this helped him. She looked at him as he began to twitch again. This didn’t look good. She decided to take action and put her hoof at his arm. He then turned to her and his twitching ceased. He was back with a relaxed expression. She asked worriedly.

“Did it help?” He looked back at the mother and her kids and sighed.

“It may have helped a little, but I still can’t control myself.” He then looked back at Celestia. “But I think with you by my side, I can manage.” He said warmly. Celestia couldn’t hold back a blush.

‘I wonder if he knows how wrong this just sounded.’ Yet, she was still deeply moved by this simple statement, and for the first time in a long while, she smiled with a genuine, hearty smile.

“Then we should work on it.” She simply told him, and he just nodded.

Up on a certain mountain, a certain human watched this and also couldn’t suppress a smile to cross his lips.

Sequel Time

Alright, sequel's up. This will be the story that gets my main focus for now.

Where Are The Ponies? is the name and I hope you are all up for another adventure story of mine.

I hope you will enjoy it.