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.

“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.”

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.