„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.