As soon as I appear it feels like time slows down as I evaluate the situation. Celestia is battling what has to be at least “Ancient” on the power scale. Inferno was an Ancient Red Dragon and this blue one is even larger than Inferno. Thankfully it seems like Celestia has successfully guided the fight away from the city.

Nightmare is battling a white dragon dangerously close to the castle, and I don’t see Force or Cadence anywhere. They might have been on a foreign relations visit or maybe they were part of the force that got directed towards the badlands due to my idiotic leadership. There’s another white dragon far above the city that is seemingly content to just circle way up there. I’m not sure if he’s just observing or if he’s waiting for something, but I’m going to prioritize the dragons killing civilians first.

There’s at least 100 dragons that I can immediately see that are either wingless bipedal creatures with strangely shaped bodies, or they’re flying over the city and raining fire down. Why is no one leading an evacuation? Ponies are just running for their lives with no place in mind. I’m happy to see some dragons already laying dead in the streets, so the guards have done well. The lack of an evacuation is a failure on all of our parts, though.
“True Bladesong.”

It still doesn’t work. Right, if I can’t use True Bladesong because I have no mana to vibrate…

I can still use Symphony of Steel! I don’t have any mana but I still have a mana signature! It’s just not in my body because it can’t coexist with divinity, but if I force the mana around me to vibrate at my frequency it'll still let me establish the mana domain needed for the technique, but it won’t be in my body. While I’m preparing to activate the technique I’ll check in on Luna super fast. It’s only been less than three seconds since I teleported away, but she shouldn’t have been too far behind me with her own teleport.

Luna, I'm back in Canterlot, are you okay?

Breaking through the colosseum and bedrock took a lot more out of me than I thought it would. I’m fine, Chrysalis isn’t pursuing me and I’m on my way back now. I hear a pop in the air and feel Luna’s presence in the courtyard of the castle. I’ve used over half of my mana. I plan to take care of the last Elder that’s high in the sky and after that I’ll likely be running on empty.

Could you lead the evacuation efforts then? There’s no coordination at all down there and we’re losing ponies fast.

I should be capable of that. Just give me a minute.

A blue blur shoots straight into the sky after she says to give her a minute. As she flies up I accelerate down and fly towards the densest cluster of dragons and ponies. I grab the hilt of my Moonblade and the Staff of the Magi and pull the hood and mask up on my Knight uniform.

“Symphony of Steel.”

Using the charges in the staff I cast the spell at 7th Level and manage to line it up just right to hit three different dragons. The dragons have corralled the ponies into the center of this wide street where they were standing on all sides surrounding them, but thankfully not in any particular shape. They’re just haphazardly standing around them and taunting them. “Lightning Bolt!”

The slow intro of the song starts to build as the three bipedal, almost humanoid looking, dragons start to convulse as the lightning passes through them. Two of them look exceptionally charred and struggle to continue standing while the third one seems less injured and throws a glare at me.

I’m not trying to use the True Bladesong anymore, so I don’t need to hold back on my emotions. When seven of the dragons turn and charge at me I unleash my Divine Aura to its maximum range of 50ft and scream at the lizards as I charge at them all head on.

Now, here we go, it's the end of the show.

Three dragons on the other side of the clumped up ponies jump onto the nearby buildings and two of them use their breath weapon, fire and ice, while the third gathers what looks like an aura in his open mouth before firing a raw magic beam at me. As soon as the beam leaves his maw it fizzles into nothingness mid air. Thank you Spell Resistance.

Hear them, they’re calling your name…

I push outwards with as much force as I can muster with telekinesis and the elemental breaths stop and flare out as if they’re colliding with a shield. All seven of these fuckers look like they intend to fight me at the same time instead of being stupid and charging in one by one, so let’s fix that.

Because in the end, it's you and your friends…

Now that I’ve moved past where the elemental breaths were going to hit I can grab the middle white dragon and yank him towards me with my telekinesis. “Huh?! Whaaa-!”

He flails his limbs as he zips through the air and I just hold my sword out in front of me, directly in his path. His final yell of confusion is abruptly cut off as he gets impaled on the sword, and apparently his scales are much weaker than the true dragons because he sinks all the way down to the hilt and coughs up blood on my arm before going limp on the blade. His feet dragging in the gravel. “Gross.”

You’ll Find Your Flame.

Flicking the Moonblade causes his body to slide off the sword and roll across the gravel.

We won’t~ back down, we won’t

That leaves six charging at me and at this point they’re pretty close. I’m no stranger to fighting large groups on my own, but the group has never consisted of this many actual threats at once.

“Conjure Minor Elementals.” 5th Level.

A circle with a radius of 15ft shoots out from around me and to my surprise I don’t get to choose a damage type. Unlike last time when little wisps of fire emerged this time it’s just golden orbs rising out of the ground. Does that mean it’s using my Divine Energy, so it’ll be Radiant? That’s pretty sick.

Alter Size. Turning myself from a Medium sized creature into a Huge sized creature, triples the area of space I occupy. This has a min-max effect of increasing the radius of my Elementals because the radius is 15ft from the edges of my body which is now three times as large.

We won’t~ back down, we won’t

This also instantly closes the distance between me and the six lizards charging at me. Now I’m taller than all of them and my sword has grown with me. Throwing my arm back I get ready to make a sweeping strike in front of me, aiming to hit all of them at once. When the Moonblade starts to swing forward at them, multiple golden orbs attach to the sword and seep into the blade, making it glow a brilliant gold. At 5th Level this spell causes any attack I make on anyone with the radius to take an extra 4d8 damage from the attack.

Combined with my increased strength from the larger form and the unknown damage bonuses this empowered Bladesong seems to provide, I might just end this now.

They’re all staring up with wide eyes at my sudden growth but realize what’s about to happen and attempt to dodge or run away. Unfortunately this radius of Elementals also acts as difficult terrain for enemies, the orbs are attaching themselves to the dragons and slowing them down. Just enough for my sword to strike true on all of them.

I’m here to go beyond my limit, not to compromise.

The sword cleaves through four dragons as I sweep at all of them and all four seem to disintegrate as a golden fire washes over both halves of them from the open wound caused by the sword. Unfortunately a shield appears after the fourth one and although it’s shattered as the Moonblade slams into it, it slows me down enough to where I only manage to cut off the fifth dragon's arm and cut deeply into his torso.

And you can tell me if I mean it lookin’ in my eyes.

I know they’re dragons but this is ridiculous. Selune was a Lesser Deity and I’m only one rank away from that…is this really all I amount to? I can still hear so many voices crying out in my head that I wanna scream. I have to be using this Divinity wrong. I’ve used it like mana this whole time, but maybe that’s the wrong way to use it? Luna can channel hers from the moon and cause the literal stars to rain down. I’m thinking of this Divinity as something from the system, but it replaced my mana which is from Equestria.

With my sword still embedded in this dragon who is pushing against it with his other remaining arm. I let out another roar rapidly twist and spin finishing the cleave. The sixth and seventh made use of that time I was thinking to escape my emanation and they’re both making their way back towards the crowd of ponies. All of the ponies are looking at me with wide eyes and bated breaths.

‘Cause I been waiting for my moment to strike,

But her domain is the Moon or rather the Night itself. How can I materialize hope in the form of an attack? Maybe it’s not meant to be an attack.

The two dragons that were nearly downed by the Lightning from earlier have managed to gather their bearings and joined the two who just ran away from me and now they are all pointing their claws at different ponies and yelling commands at me. The two that launched their breath at me earlier open their jaws and threaten to do so again. “Do all of you believe in me?”

So, come close, let me show you what it’s like.

The dragons look confused at the random question but the ponies realize I’m staring directly at them. The two dragons launch their breath weapons again as the ponies sit in a fearful silence. Right before the elemental weapons hit me I hear a mare yell out, “Yes! You won’t lose!”

Relentless Faith.

You can try to stand in my path, but you’re gonna regret it

The cloud of smoke and dust is blown away in the wind and everyone sees I’m completely unharmed and unphased. Glowing brightly. The dragons trying to hold the ponies hostage look terrified and drop the ponies they were holding as they take off down the road. “Believe in each other, like you believe in me. You are all stronger than you realize, especially together.”

I’ll be the one who laughs last while I’m making my exit.

Several of the civilians in the large group of ponies get a shimmer of golden light around them for a brief moment. After that they all stand tall with renewed vigor and they begin helping those that can’t stand while calling out which direction to head in. Maybe that’s my role in this? If I just give them Hope they can help each other.

‘Cause this is only for the strong of heart, not if you get it.

The golden light fades away and it’s the last time I can use my D&D Domain power again. That means whatever that was just now was my own power. Casting Haste on myself I shoot back up into the sky and empower my vocal chords to try and recreate the royal Canterlot voice.

And no matter what the outcome, you better accept it.

“When Nightmare Moon attacked, you ran! When the Hydra attacked? You ran! When Discord broke free? You ran and turned on yourselves. JUST LIKE NOW! WILL YOU CONTINUE TO RUN?! To place the burden on your Princesses and Heroes?! There’s no more than 100 overgrown lizards in this city right now, and we outnumber them by at least 250 to 1! Help each other! Together you are strong, more of you will escape if you do it together. More of you will survive if you FIGHT together. This is your city, your home, your livelihoods! If you can’t help others escape and you can’t fight then at least believe in ME!”

I can cut right through steel, I can bury the pain,

I see several flashes of light popping up around the streets and inside of buildings, and my own mental fog starts to clear. I begin circulating and flaring the Divinity as if it was mana and imbue it into my body causing me to glow in similar fashion. “WE’RE GOING TO WIN!”

So go down for a second, just get out of my way.

Rocketing forward back down into the city streets I expect to feel a strain on my body, since I’m not invulnerable to damage like I was against Chrysalis. But, I just feel a little tired. I hadn’t even tried this since I just assumed it would tear me apart even worse than mana, but my body can withstand it now?! This changes everything.

You cheat, and you steal, I’m not letting it go,

If I’m empowered like this I can take out most of these humanoid dragon’s in one slash. Undoing my altered size I drop back down to normal. If I can take them out in one hit I can try out this strategy even if it’ll take so much concentration it might kill me. As soon as a prayer comes in use Remote Sensing and Greater Teleport. I can do both of those an unlimited number of times per day, but I can only Remotely Sense two places at once. So, I’ll be constantly shifting my vision and teleporting every second. Easy right?

So take this as a lesson, ‘cause it's all that we know.

As the next wave of desperate prayers everything that happens for the next few seconds is a blur.

Will the whole world know your name,

Remote Sense, Greater Teleport, slash.

Sense, teleport, slash.

When we reject destiny?~

Over and over I appear between a pony mere moments away from death and slice through the dragon responsible before it can even register I’ve teleported. From a birds eye view it probably looks like I’m just casting Steel Wind Strike on a colossal scale.

I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it.

After around 30 dragons I feel something dripping down my face after I slay another lizard. Rubbing around my upper lip and pulling away the hand I’m shocked to see blood. I know this is information overload, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. I found out after the first two that I don’t need to Remote Sense for every teleport because my Remote Sense is for five miles. So is this purely from spamming teleport while imbuing my body with Divine Energy? There can’t be too many left, I have to keep going.

I’m never gonna stop believing…

Not every teleport puts me within striking distance as sometimes the pony calling for me is getting rained down upon by one of the dragons with wings. I wonder why some of them have wings and some don’t…figured it’d be pretty universal.

You’ll find your flame.

After another 20-ish dragons I notice it’s not just cries for help in my head anymore. For some reason I can also hear words of encouragement. I hear the voice of the colt from the hospital telling me to make the scary dragons go away.

It’s like I’m seeing double vision, take a seat, I’m on a mission.

A couple of seconds pass by and I don’t hear anymore creatures calling out for help, but there’s definitely still dragons in the city. That just means my worshipers are safe, but now my progress is going to be slowed significantly. I decide to fly straight up and observe the city to try and triage where I need to be.

We got everything to gain.

All of the alicorns are still fighting the same dragons they were engaged in combat with when I first got here, which is rather concerning when compared to how long Luna’s fight at the Summit lasted.

To become everything you’re not,

The last half of these weaker dragons below are pretty spread out at this point, but if I draw a path out from up here… I can get over 20 of the ones remaining.

(A/N: Kinda annoying but pause the music here if you care enough to, it’s gunna come back at some point but we’re switching perspectives.)

3rd Person POV - Celestia

Why can’t I hit him? Somehow he’s become physically attuned with Lightning, and it’s made his speed outrageous. Celestia thinks to herself as she tries all manner of attacks to try and hit this dragon with something. The only thing she hasn’t tried yet is that prism attack she used against Blazewraith. She’s trying to gauge this dragon's full capabilities before jumping to that though.

“Are you satisfied now with how far you’ve pushed us away from your city, pony?” The dragon asks before unleashing a torrent of lightning out of his mouth.

“I’d like to be a bit further, to be truthful. I suppose I should be satisfied, though, with how far the three of us have managed to divert the most dangerous threats away from the city.” The alicorn replies nonchalantly as she holds her battleaxe in the air in front of herself with telekinesis and rapidly spins it like a helicopter. The lightning shoots off in all directions as it’s deflected by the weapon.

The dragon merely chuckles which causes an uneasy feeling to shoot up the Princesses spine. “What’s so funny?”

“If you wanted to get the most dangerous threats away then I’m sorry Princess, but you have failed. The most dangerous dragon we brought with us is down there in your city.”

He’s bluffing. There’s no way one of those dragons without a hoard is the most dangerous out of everypony fighting this morning. The alicorn seems pretty sure of herself as she fires a volley of golden-orange fiery bolts at the dragon, trying to cover as wide of angle as possible But, the dragon is suddenly enveloped in lightning before turning into a blur that goes straight up, allowing the volley to fly under him.

(A/N: Ok, resume song.)

1st Person POV - Ignis

I’m using magic propulsion and as much focus as possible to keep myself from flying into any buildings as I sweep through the streets down the path I drew in my mind. Slicing dragons left and right as I bounce around the city like a pinball.

You just give it all you got, and take the pleasure with the pain, yeah.

Suddenly my entire view gets tilted as I’m forcefully pushed out of nowhere, crashing through a stone wall that causes half of the building to collapse.

Hit Points: 46/120.

I can feel my fire awaken, no time for being complacent.

Shoving away the brick with telekinesis and shooting up to my feet I throw out an angry glare as I start looking around. “Which one of you has the balls?”

There’s a sudden force on my forehead that sends backwards, causing the rest of the building to collapse.

Hit Points: 21/120.

There’s a dream on the horizon, you know we gotta chase it.

Blasting straight up into the air while using my last 5th Level slot for Cure Wounds I frantically look all around.

Hit Points: 72/120.

“That’d be me.” Instant I snap towards the voice and find a light blue dragon almost half my size with horns curving downwards. I think this is the first dragoness I’ve met so far. What magic did she learn to toss me around like that. “You look confused. I know I’m not big and strong, but I am powerful.”

And when we get to where we’re going, then we stop the invasion.

Whatever magic she’s learned is powerful. Something strong enough to overcome my spell resistance twice in a row and throw me through a building. “I’m confused cause I’m trying to figure out what magic you used. It almost feels like telekinesis but…something’s off. Oh well guess I’ll never know.” I fly at her but it’s a feint, one second after I leave the ground I teleport behind her with my sword already readied.

Best me? Nah you must be mistaken.

Right as I’m about to connect with my sword she glances backwards and something strong barrels into my gut, pushing me back several inches. “I thought Bladesingers were supposed to be neutral parties upkeeping the balance? Shouldn’t you be fighting villains or something?”

“Is it wind? That’s the only thing that makes sense, but how can you generate wind that strong?” I unleash a Frost Bolt at the dragoness.

You know I’ll turn you into rust, grind you right down to dust.

The Frost Bolt looks like it hits an invisible dome as it suddenly flares out about a foot away from her. “For the record I am fighting villains, literally right now.”

“So you’re harboring a fugitive that tried to end the world, and you killed the Dragon Lord and his second in command for no reason. And, we’re the villains?” She concentrates a massive amount of nearby air into a spear, and I’m only really able to make it out because I know what I’m looking for. It’s damn near invisible. She flicks a claw in my direction and the wind spear blasts towards me.

You thought you were the best, well, you haven’t met us.

Swinging upwards with my right hand, diagonally, starting from my left hip and extending my right arm straight up into the air, I hit the spear inches away from me and the air disperses. The dragon opens her eyes a bit wide before putting on a more serious expression.

“A fugitive who already served her sentence. She spent 1,000 years on the moon, alone. I bet you wouldn’t even last a week before the insanity consumed you. Also at that Summit we entered an approved and consensual three on three duel. Consisting of three one versus one matches. As soon as my match ended and it was time for your Dragon Lord to fight he was instantly overwhelmed and lost within minutes. I’d hardly say we’re villains for killing him in a duel he requested and agreed to.”

Persuasion Check

16 + 2 + 2 = 20.

I see her face falter a bit as she looks hesitant.

I’ll bring the fire and rain, call me “the hurricane.”

“That can’t be true. Why would my father lie to all of us? There’s no way we…no I won’t be swayed by your false words.” She fires another wind spear and I slice it just like before, only this time there are four more accompanying it. They all go down and then swing up into my gut again, launching me into the air. Then the second one hits, launching me higher and the third one.

Hit Points: 39/120.

I’m not letting it go, cause it’s all that I know.

I get my bearings and block the fourth wind spear only to see her zooming towards me at speeds almost as fast as mine. She’s eliminating air resistance in front of her entirely while funneling everything behind her for extra propulsion. Her use of just wind is…impressive honestly.

Will the whole world know your name, when we reject destiny?~

I know how to defeat her pretty quickly, but I think I can actually convince her to back off. She seems to think she’s on the morally correct side of this conflict. “You know I’m telling the truth, you’re just terrified to think of all this blood on your hands being caused for selfish reasons.”

“Shut up!” She swings both arms and two massive wind slashes fly at me.

I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it, I’m never gunna stop believing.

I swing my Moonblade at the center of the “X” formed by the two slashes and am surprised when my sword makes a CLANG sword and sparks fly as the slashes keep pushing in. Putting in a bit more force I manage to parry the wind.

You’ll find your flame… GO!

This is taking too long. I need to kill the rest of the dragons, after I parry the wind away I don’t even bother looking for her. Glancing down I spot the path I was flying earlier and drop back down into the streets before zipping forward.

“Oh no you don’t!” It turns into some bullet hell game as I weave left and right, dodging the dragon's wind attacks while making sure I land my slashes on the dragons passing by. One of the wind slashes I realize will hit a small group of ponies if I dodge it so I’m forced to slow down and parry it. This makes her smirk and I start to worry what strategy she just came up with.

Will the whole world know your name?!

From that moment on all of her attacks were aimed as ponies running around underneath us, slowing me down considerably from killing her comrades. Is it even worth trying to talk her down at this point? Maybe I should just kill her…

I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it, I’m never gunna stop believing!

“Fine, you want my attention?! You’ve got it.” I grab the next three dragons with telekinesis and throw them at her as she fires the wind slashes. Her eyes go wide as she realizes her three teammates are directly in her line of fire.

She finally shows an opening as she reaches out her hand in an attempt to stop her own slashes, but I teleport directly above her and swing my sword down onto the back of her neck.

You’ll find your flame…

I hear the sound of those three dragons getting sliced open and realize she gave up on trying to do that, which means she knows I’m here. I brace myself and add all of my force into the downward swing. Right as the sword makes contact I can see air pushing up so strongly that there’s a shell of wind that it seems like my sword is pushing down on.

Suddenly in an act of desperation I feel strong gusts all around me and realize she’s not even controlling her magic right now, she’s just dumping everything into pushing up.

Oh, we can save~…the day.

Unfortunately no matter how strong her magic is, she’s a mortal and I’m not. And, I’m actually trying to kill her this time. I let up and stop swinging my sword down, causing it to point straight up in the air as it’s blown up with my arm holding it. Now that I have all this room to work with I swing down again, and this time when the sword makes contact I see some blood and then the dragon is sent shooting into the ground.

There’s no crater though…did she concentrate all of that wind into a single point right as the sword made contact, so that I would cut skin deep. Scale deep in this case, I suppose. Then when the blowback sent her shooting into the ground she made a cushion of air and landed on it.

This instrumental seems to be going on for a while, but I won’t complain. I shoot down and she flies up, looking pissed. This time I break through her wind slash instantly and she realizes she can’t face me head on. Eliminating her own air resistance while increasing mine she starts to fly away from as I chase her. Constantly slashing at wind spears and wind slashes, as I slowly close the distance to the sound of a high speed drums pedal.

The music dies down as I start to swing my blade at her one last time.

Now, here we go, it’s the end of the show.

She makes one final stand and starts rapidly throwing everything she has at me in a panicked flail. I have to swing my Moonblade around several times per second to keep everything at bay.

Hear them, they're calling your name…

“How can you hold your breath for so long?!” She screams out as I continue inching closer swinging violently through her attacks.

“You’ve been preventing me from breathing? I don’t have to breathe, haha.”

Seems like I was just a bad matchup for her then. She’s finally overwhelmed and as my sword swings at her from the side I watch as the sword and my arms glow golden and a thunderous crack goes through the air. The dragoness gets sent into the city so fast that it sounds like a jet as she crashes into a building and disappears in a huge cloud of dust and debris.

At the last second she used wind on her entire body to move with my swing and traveled in the same direction I was already going to send her. As a result she hit the ground much harder than she would’ve, but the trade off is that I know I didn’t cut nearly deep enough to kill her. She’s actually a combat genius.

Cause in the end, it’s you and your friends…

I look down at the war torn city and only see a handful of dragons left. Celestia seems dead even with her opponent, Nightmare seems close to victory against hers, and Luna looks like she needs help, badly. She probably ran out of magic. “Gimmie 5 seconds, babe, I’m almost done taking out the trash.”

Taking note of all their locations in the city I teleport down to the first one.

You’ll find your flame…

Will the whole world know your name?!

The music picks back up right as I slash the first dragon into two.

When we dance with destiny?

Using teleportation and high speed flight I start to go from dragon to dragon.

Yeah I’ve been there, and I’ve seen it, I’m never gunna stop believing.

The remaining few dragons all start to take flight out of the city, making it way easier for me to spot them. You’ll find your flame…

The refrain repeats itself as I slash and cut my way through the last of the weaklings, heavily breathing at this point. It feels like I’ve been going full tilt for nearly 7 minutes.

You’ll find your flame…

I feel a bit of oomph in my chest as the guitar solo kicks in and blast straight up towards Luna and her fight with the massive white dragon. She has bits of frost all over her fur and I can see her breath as she exhales.

Neither of them seem to notice me approaching until I’m just a few feet away, but for the dragon that’s already too late. I use the same trick I used on Inferno, and Alter Size, growing up to the Colossal size. The Moonblade growing to it’s appropriate size as well means that even this big son of a bitch could get cut in two in one swing if he isn’t careful.

The enlarged sword meets his vulnerable belly as I fly past him, but it doesn’t manage to cut through. I look at Nightmare and Celestia and realize that with how big I am now, if I move closer to Celestia all three of these dragons are within 30ft of me. That’s exactly what I do, pulling my blade out of the dragon it staggers and looks like it’s barely able to fly as it roars at me. As soon as I’m close enough to Celestia’s fight I activate Mystic Arcanum and use it to cast Steel Wind Strike, without using a spell slot or any components. Right as I activate it I yell out to everyone.

“With this…IT’S OVER!”

None of them expected a guy over 64ft tall to instantly move between all three dragons at once, slicing them simultaneously. Luna’s dragon goes limp and only the whites of its eyes can be seen as it plummets to the ground. Nightmare's dragon also loses his ability to fly as he roars in pain.

Nightmare and Celestia are surprised but still aware enough to capitalize on the opening I gave them. “Ah, you finally slowed down.” Celestia comments before engulfing the entire dragon in an orange-red beam of magic.

Nightmare just silently uses her spectral scythe to behead the white dragon she was fighting.

The intense guitar finally dies down as all three dragons plummet. Quickly confirming they aren’t going to fall on the city, I just let all the tension leave my body and float in the air, shrinking back down to my normal size.

Will the whole world know your name, when we dance with destiny?
I’ve been there and I’ve seen it, I’m never gunna stop believing.
You’ll find your flame…

That fight was so strange. Although I got more and more tired as it dragged on, I also felt like I was swelling with more and more power.

Luna lets me lay on my belly on her back with my head resting on top of hers as she flies down to the city. I can’t help but point out the obvious. “It’s only been a week since Discord, and just as it felt like the city was starting to shift back to normalcy everything turned to ruin again. I can’t even imagine how many we lost.”

Luna stops flying down when she hears the crack in my voice. Internally my frustration swells because I let my emotions get the best of me, but as everything that happened with Chrysalis finally starts to sink in, on top of this scene of Canterlot in ruins. I just squeeze the alicorn I’m laying on and bury my face into the back of her neck as I finally crack and break down.

“Luna…Luna…I killed all of these ponies. Every single thing that went wrong tonight and into the early morning. Is…entirely because of my arrogance. Why did I just believe that bitch without even questioning it? Why did I insist on going ahead by myself? I even saw the dragon contact Chrysalis before I engaged him. I fucked up. Monumentally! And I can’t even bring them back?!”

It feels like Luna is tilting her head and pointing towards the ground, after a few seconds she flies back up and settles down on a cloud. She doesn’t even say anything, she just loaf’s on the cloud, sets me down next to her and pulls me to her side with a wing while rubbing the top of my head. I want to get mad and frustrated at being babied like this, but my emotions betray me. Breaking down even more.

“Why does this keep happening? Why do we have to keep going through these life or death events? You getting taken at the Summit, Aurora, Discord, Daybreaker, Nightmare, Chrysalis again, and now this?! Why was I even brought here if this is what happens because of my fuck ups?! The only good thing that has resulted from me being brought here is Nightmare apparently getting her own body and being free. I keep hoping I’m going to wake up at any moment the morning after the Gala and find out this was all a dream… I just don’t know how much more I can take, Luna. Now we have to go to war? I have to watch even more ponies die for some stupid pointless reason? A reason that is once again indirectly my fault?! I hate this. I hate all of it so much. Why am I even alive?”

“Shhh. Don’t say things like that. I knew you’d blame yourself for this incident, but I hadn’t even considered you blaming yourself for everything that’s gone wrong since you arrived all because Harmony said you made her book wrong. You didn’t ask to be brought here, Ignis. You didn’t come here on your own. You…were reckless last night, I won’t sugarcoat it. But, everything else you’ve done since you got here was only done with good intentions. I know deep down you also know that, but if you just want to vent it all out I’ll sit here with you until you’re ready to head down.”

After a couple minutes of embarrassing myself and giving Luna a patch of matted fur I finally pull myself together. “I have to change Luna. I mean it this time. We need to cleanse my mind of her hooks and then I’m going to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. No more half measures.”

Author's Note

Listen, Nightmare didn't technically attack Canterlot. In fact she probably never even showed up there, but it doesn't change the fact that when Celestia teleported back with Ignis the entire city was a fucking mad house. Plus he needed more examples to really put the emphasis on it.

This is definitely the longest bladesong of the story. I debated on just scrapping it and splitting this chapter into two separate chapters with two separate bladesongs, but I've been trying to find a good place for this song and I think this fight was high speed enough for it to fit well.

Also yes that is Ember and No, she isn't dead. I mean Ignis even says she did a genius tactic to avoid being fatally wounded by the sword. So that's not really a spoiler but fuck it I'll spoiler it just in case.

But this is it, we are officially in the next arc. "This is war." Ignis is OP enough now that I can start putting less emphasis on the fights and more emphasis on his decision making, leadership, and deteriorating mental state. Oh also we passed 400k words, woahhhh~

Thanks for reading! <3