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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you really that old?” Celestia chuckled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“WHAT?” Everypony exclaimed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How old is she?”

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

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

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

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

“So, how much?” Oran chuckled.

“5960.”

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

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

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

“What do you suggest?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He told me that my talent surpasses his.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s over 9000.”

Author's Note

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

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

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