„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