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.