"What exactly are we doing here?" you asked, as the seven of you arrived at the vast rolling plains below your's and Rainbow's house.
It felt as if no matter what you did, you were always drawn back towards your home.

Twilight gave you a confident smile, "We're going to test your magic by fighting you! In a friendly way, of course!"

That didn't sound like a very good idea.

"Were... What?" Fluttershy asked, quietly. It didn't seem like any of them wanted to fight you, even if it was to improve your magic skills.
Well, except for Twilight.

"I don't really want to fight any of you..." you said, seeing Twilight's idea as strange and a little stupid. As one of the princesses, you didn't expect her to come up with such a violent idea.

"Oh, we won't be hurting each other!" she laughed, "We'll just be acting as targets for your magic, which hopefully shouldn't hurt if you do it right."

If that was the case, then she worded it incredibly weirdly. And even then, you weren't sure you trusted yourself to not hurt any of them.

"Allowing myself to get attacked just simply isn't my style." Rarity exclaimed, pouting at Twilight's idea.

"Yeah, I don't really wanna just sit there and let myself get destroyed." Rainbow added, crossing her hoofs.

Twilight let out a sigh, "Like I said, his attacks won't hurt you unless he intends for them too! You can dodge his magic, but we want to make sure he's trained for when he goes to help Princess Luna!"

Even then, you couldn't see either of them agreeing to it. Rarity cared too much about how your magic may effect her appearance, and Rainbow Dash cared too much about her pride.
There was only one solution to this.

"You know what? You can fight back as long as you don't hurt me, ok?" you explained. As much as you didn't want a real fight, a simple round of target practice most likely wouldn't prepare you for the battle that was to come.

Rainbow looked at you for a second, before making up her mind, "Eh, alright. But don't expect me to go easy on you!"

You would expect nothing less.

"Before we start though, you need to know the basics!" Twilight explained, "All you have to do is focus on some form of attack, like a beam or a magic ball or something like that. As long as you don't intend to do damage with it, it shouldn't."

You supposed that made sense, but you wondered how magical beams would form considering you didn't have a horn to act as a catalyst for your magic.

"So does anypony want to go first?" Twilight asked. You didn't expect her to force anypony into it, as a fully fledged fight was quite a thing to experience, especially among friends.

The Mane 6 looked at eachother in silence for a few moments, before Fluttershy finally spoke up, "I-I don't really like the thought of fighting Storm..."

"Yeah, I'm all for fun, but this doesn't seem very fun!" Pinkie Pie added, skeptically.

Twilight looked as if she was about to consider another option, before Applejack interrupted, "Ah'll go first. Ah may not like fighting you, Storm, but in the end, Equestria may depend on it."

Now that this was really going to happen, you felt a little nervous. You had never used magic to fight before, especially not one of your friends.

"Are you sure about this, Twilight?" Rarity asked, worriedly.

"No, but it's the only way we can teach Storm how to fight with magic!" she exclaimed. There were probably other ways, but you simply didn't have the time to spare to search for them, "Ready, Applejack? Storm?"

"As ah'll ever be." Applejack replied, preparing her trusty lasso like a western standoff.

You gave Twilight a nervous nod, confirming that you were ready to start. For your first ever time using magic offensively, perhaps Applejack was a bit too tough of an opponent.

For once, there was no countdown. Whenever somepony made the first move, it would begin.

Focusing as much energy as you could in front of you, you attempted to manifest a yellow ball of magic. It took a few seconds, but eventually the ball appeared.
Everypony gasped as they stared at you, surprised at seeing your magic first hoof. Apart from Rainbow and Twilight of course, who had already seen your magic in action.

Closing your eyes, you focused on shooting the ball forwards, towards Applejack. Thankfully, she was too taken aback by your magic to react.

The yellow magic orb fired forward at a lightning fast pace, colliding with her in an explosion of dust. Once again, everypony gasped as she was sent flying backwards.
Had you messed up? Had you hurt her?

"Ah'm fine, everypony! Just knocked me back, that's all!" she exclaimed, regaining her balance. Twilight gave you a quick smile, as if congratulating you on your first successful attack.

Distracted by the purple Alicorn, you didn't notice Applejack's lasso being flung across the air, directly towards you. Without enough time to react, the rope bound tightly around you, restricting your movement greatly.

"Looks like ah win, Storm." Applejack bragged, competitively. At first, it felt like there was nothing you could you could do, but then you recalled the primary focus of your magic.

Speed.

Focusing all of your energy towards your wings, you began to flap them as fast as you possibly could. Everypony watched with shocked expressions as your wings began to glow yellow momentarily, and you ripped free from the restraints of Applejack's lasso.

In a burst of speed, you soared into the air, turning around to make your way back down. These seemed like it would be a good time to end it.

As you continued to rocket downwards towards the ground, you once again focused your energy, this time on a magical beam. A few seconds later, a large yellow ray of light appeared in front of you, firing downwards at a faster speed than you could fly.

Applejack, taken aback by your sudden burst of flight, didn't react to the incoming ray of magic, and was hit head on. She fell to the floor as the collision knocked her to the side, ending the fight.

"That was... Awesome!" Rainbow exclaimed, staring at you as you landed on the ground, panting. As cool as it may have looked, that took a lot out of you, and you weren't sure if you could go for another round.

"Applejack, are you ok?" Fluttershy asked as Applejack got up from the ground.

To your surprise, she smiled proudly. Even if your magic didn't hurt her, surely her collision with the ground must have, "Nice job, Storm!"

"Didn't that hurt?" you asked, worried that you unintentionally hurt her.

"Nah!" she replied, "Besides, it'll make up for it when I watch you beat Rainbow Dash!"

Rainbow crossed her hoofs, letting out a sigh of effort, "Hey! I could destroy Storm if I wanted to!"

You weren't sure whether to take that as a threat, but you were hoping she didn't mean it. Even if she did, you were about to have a chance to prove her wrong.

"Rainbow, are you going next?" Twilight asked, looking up at her with a nervous smile. Seeing her natural competitiveness was making her further question whether this was a good idea or not.

"You bet!" she replied, as she landed on the ground not far ahead of you. Although it wasn't a real fight, this was battle you weren't going to be forgetting any time soon.

You looked at her nervously, but she didn't reciprocate that nervousness in any way. All you saw on her face was confidence.

Once again, there was no countdown. Whoever made the first move would begin that battle.

Naturally, Rainbow was the first one to make a play, firing towards you at a lightning fast speed. Luckily, you had a feeling that she was going to use her own speed to her advantage, and leapt out of the way of her incoming attack.

For just a moment, you felt pride that you had successfully dodged her, only to turn around to see her flying towards you at an even faster pace.

This time, you weren't as lucky, and she launched you into the air upon collision.

Right now, you had two choices you could consider. Either you begin flying, as you instincts are telling you to do so, or you counter attack. As much as you wanted to ensure your safety, the first thing you did was focus your magic on a large beam, which soon manifested in front of you.

The large magical blast fired down towards the ground, tracking Rainbow Dash across the field as she flew around, attempting to evade it.

Second by second, the yellow beam slowly but surely began to catch up with her. Unless she did something, then it would eventually hit her.
Unfortunately for you, the brief flightless air time you had been experiencing was coming to an end, forcing you to take flight once again. As fast as you could, you began flying in the direction of Rainbow, attempting to keep your magic trained on her at all times.

Now it was like a game of cat and mouse, one chasing the other. Rainbow flew forward quickly, attempting the occasional roll to evade your magical blast, while you gave chase.
You weren't sure how long you could keep this up for, so you had to hope that your attack would hit her at some point.

Expecting the chase to go on for a while longer, you weren't prepared for Rainbow performing a 180 degree turn, slamming into you and sending you crashing in the opposite direction.
Unless you thought of something fast, this fight was over. Even your wings wouldn't stop you at the speed you were going. Thankfully, Twilight and Rarity were at the ready in the event that one of you happened to drop out of the air at any given time.

There was one way you could see of getting out of this situation, but it was something you had never tried before, and you weren't even sure if it was possible for you to do.
Watching Rainbow hover idly as she watched you fall, crossing her hoofs as if she had already won... It made you feel more determined than ever.

With every last bit of energy you could still muster, you closed your eyes and ignored the impending approach of the ground. You focused on the exact point above where Rainbow Dash hovered, and pictured yourself appearing there, and just like that, you felt yourself warp.

You had successfully teleported. It required work to make it more time efficient, sure, but you were technically the first Pegasus to ever teleport, or use magic at all for that matter.

Almost as if in slow motion, Rainbow turned around with a shocked expression only to see you above her, ready to strike. In the blink of an eye, your hoof collided with her, sending her flying down towards the ground.
You just hoped that punch didn't hurt her.

Surprisingly, Rainbow didn't let out any screams as she fell, indicating that she was probably fine. Either that, or she was unconscious.
You were hoping for the first one.

As she neared the ground, it was becoming obvious that was no longer able to make a comeback. Mere moments before imminent death, a purply-blue glow wrapped around her, catching her, and lowering her safely to the ground.

Rainbow stumbled around as she regained her senses, unable to stand up straight, "I-I've never fallen that far before- Dizzy..."

Everypony let out a laugh, as the fall had made her that dizzy that she was unable to talk in clear sentances. You didn't laugh though, as you were just glad that neither of you had been hurt.

Swooping down towards the ground, you set your hoofs on the grass and let out a heavy pant. It was safe to say that you didn't want to do anymore of this.

"Ah'd say you know what you're doing now, Storm!" Applejack said, giving you a proud smile. Her hoof rested on Rainbow's back as she attempted to recover from her dizziness.

"Yeah, I'd say your about ready to take on Null!" Twilight explained, suddenly filling you with a familiar feeling of dread, "If you still want to that is..."

You appreciated that she wasn't forcing you to do this, but you felt like you had to do it. It almost felt like you owed it to them for all that they had done for you.

"Wait!" Rainbow called, seemingly returning to normal. You were almost expecting her to ask you to not go, once again, but to you surprise, she didn't, "I want a rematch!"

Of course she would. Right now, you didn't feel like fighting anymore. Even during that brief time, you had been worried that you were going to hurt her. Thankfully, you didn't, but you might not have been so lucky the next time.

"I'm... Not so sure that's a good idea, Rainbow..." Twilight replied.

"Yeah! Plus Storm's got something really important to do!" Pinkie added enthusiastically, despite the 'thing' you needed to do being incredibly dangerous.

"Ugh. I guess you're right." Rainbow sighed, finally admitting her defeat.

Now if felt like the time had arrived. The opportunity you had been waiting for was nearing. This was your chance to defeat Null before he can take his plan any further, and with Princess Luna's help, there was no way you could fail.
Right?

"Ready, everypony?" Twilight asked, preparing to teleport everypony back to the Golden Oak Library. You thought that she couldn't teleport things long distances, but perhaps in this situation she was making an exception. It must've required a lot of magic to do such a thing.

Everypony nodded, including you. There was no point in delaying it any further, as once again, time wasn't infinite.

"Then let's go." Twilight said, her horn glowing purple. In a blinding flash, the seven of you teleported back into the main room of the library...

Just in time for the greatest fight of your life.

Author's Notes:

50 chapters? Time sure does fly.

I'll be the first to admit that having Twilight suggest that her friends fight does seem pretty out of character, I really couldn't think of any other way to add this scene. Sure, there would've been alternate ways for Storm to practice magic combat, but this felt like the most interesting route to take. It's been a while since I wrote a fight scene (I think the last time I wrote one was when Storm and Rainbow Dash defeated the Stone Golem in the Everfree Forest), so I also wanted to see whether I had improved before I write the next chapter's fight scene.

A small side note: I added Princess Luna to the tags. I don't know why it matters, but I'm putting this here anyway.