“Where did the light blue dragon that was here go? Did any of you see her?” I lifted up the entire debris field that I left her in, but she’s nowhere to be seen. She actually had enough in the tank to get up and fly outta here?

“We didn’t even know there was a dragon here, sir.” One of the Day Guards responds and I just tell him to not worry about it and continue walking around. Eventually finding the creature I was looking for.

“Vice Captain. As a changeling do you know of any methods to cleanse the mind of any changeling corruption? My therapist, a while back, ended up implanting some backdoors and compulsions into my mind and Chrysalis was able to bypass all of my defenses and took complete control of my body using them. I need to burn all of that away.” Elytra stops healing a pony when she hears me call out to her. “Keep healing, I’ll come to you.”

“If the only things left behind are from the drone that deceived you then yes, I can clear all of that away. If the false queen herself left something behind then I’m afraid it’ll be a bit more difficult, sir.” That’s what I was afraid of.

“I don’t know if she did. I wasn’t even able to tell if the drone did something until I was made aware of the possibility. Is there an easy way to tell? Also, are you using Equestrian magic to heal him? Just use Cure Wounds, you should have it.”

“I was only able to use my spells around eight times before the magic just wouldn’t respond to me anymore.” Ah, so she also has spell slots. Without the system it’ll be harder for her to keep track of things like that.

“Cure Wounds.” The unicorn who had their face scrunched up in pain while hissing and groaning is instantly restored, and they quickly pass out as the tension leaves them. “Can you take a look?”

She looks a bit hesitant before motioning for me to sit down. Plopping down next to the changeling she leans up and hovers her horn next to my head. “I’ll need to go into your mind to inspect it, sir. I just wanted to make sure that’s okay, and you’ll need to allow me in as I can’t even scratch the barrier around your mind.”

I should’ve realized I’d need to let her in to accomplish this. I can feel my heart rate spike at the thought of willingly letting someone else inside. After a tense few seconds I clear my throat. “I trust you, Elytra.” Her expression is a lot harder to read than a pony’s but I think that's a look of pity or sympathy. Likely due to how shaky my voice was as it escaped.

Closing my eyes as I lower my guard and feel something tickling the back of my head. “There’s remnants of something here, but this is more than likely just where Chrysalis broke through. I’ve cleansed that easily enough, but I can’t find anything else, sir.”

“Have you looked deeper or just on the surface?”

“Just the surface, but are you sure that’s okay? If I go any deeper I’m going to see glimpses of your thoughts and memories.”

Luna, I’m about to let the Vice Captain into my mind to look for the backdoors Chrysalis used to possess me. I trust her and I can tell it’s her because she’s a worshiper, but I wanted to let you know just in case.

I’m sending Nightmare over. Wait for her before starting, she’s quite adept as possession and mental magic herself, so she is confident she can detect if something nefarious were to happen.

“Pull back out, Elytra. We’re going to wait a few minutes before proceeding.” She looks a bit dejected and is seemingly aware that I requested someone to oversee the procedure. “I’m sorry, I trust you far more than almost any other guard or pony in Canterlot. But, I just can’t let myself be that vulnerable without some measure of protection. There could be another one of Chrysalis’ drones nearby for all we know who takes advantage of my guard being lowered.”

“No I understand, that’s why I didn’t do it in the first place. I’m honored that you’re allowing me to investigate. Knowing that you don’t feel comfortable enough to let me do this did leave me a bit more dejected than I realized it would, but I know this is the right decision. If I weren’t the one investigating you I’d be the one suggesting you get somepony to oversee.”

Glad she’s understanding.

We don’t have to wait long until Nightmare lands next to us and I watch with amusement as Elytra suddenly has wide eyes and she’s recoiled back like when something strong hits your nose. “Eat your fill, you’ve earned it.”

She nods and I watch as some pink vapor wisps appear in the air and get sucked into the changeling. Weird, I never noticed that before. “Hey Moonie, thanks for coming over here.”

“Of course. Thank you for holding yourself back and actually waiting for help to arrive.”

“Ouch. Just going straight for the knockout punch, huh? I don’t blame you, I definitely deserve it.”

Elytra chimes in before Nightmare can respond and tells me she’s ready so I close my eyes again and lower my guard completely. There’s a familiar tickle on the back of my head that suddenly expands and feels like it’s engulfing half of my head. My entire being is screaming at me that something is wrong, but I just ignore the feeling as I place my faith in Nightmare and Elytra. I do feel a bit small and scared at the moment, very exposed and vulnerable.

“I’ve found it. It’s spread around the core of your mind and it seems like it waits until the false queen’s magic probes the surface before opening your mind from the inside.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

“I…I can try.”

It feels like someone just shoved an icicle through my head as a cold searing pain spikes up. “Ack-aghh!”

“I can’t do it. It’ll do irreparable damage if I try to cleanse it forcefully.” The pain fades almost instantly as she says it’s impossible.

“Can you feel my magic?” I ask her as I circulate and direct my Divinity into my head. “It’ll feel different but similar to mana.”

“Yes. It’s warm and comforting.”

“Can you guide it towards the corruption? I want to try something.” I feel something similar to telekinesis start to pull and redirect the flow of my Divinity as she pulls on it. After a few seconds a sickening feeling washes over me as I make contact with the little gift Chrysalis left me. “Alright now withdraw from my mind entirely.” Within a second or two I feel the sensation leave my head.

In one violent motion I concentrate, compress, and force all of my Divinity into this single spot, trying to completely overwhelm the corruption. I feel that sharp cold pain spike up once more, but activate the divinity as if I was trying to fire a beam.

That sharp and cold pain fades to an intense heat as it feels like I’m on fire inside. That might as well be the case, to be honest. My head hangs low as I’m suddenly even more tired than I was just a few minutes ago. The fatigue is catching up to me. “Alright can you double check and make sure I cleansed it? I used brute force. Knowing that she’s a weaker Deity than me right now made me pretty confident I could cleanse it without any lasting damage.”

“There is not a single trace of changeling magic in here. You burned everything?”

“Yeah. Same way our bodies naturally fight off infections with a fever. Just cook the fucker until it’s gone. Let the Night Guard know we’re having an all call when shift starts tonight. I’m going to talk to the Day Guards as well, but this whole thing kicked off at night just before sunrise which means for the most part it’s our fuck up. I know it’s likely due to undermanning, but we trained and ran through practice runs for evacuations. You guys nailed it when Discord broke free, but somehow we dropped the ball horrendously here. I need to know what went wrong, so this doesn’t happen again.”

“Is that really necessary? I agree that we should determine what failed tonight, but bringing all of the guards together to scold them? This doesn’t seem like the right time for that.” Nightmare asks from the side. Elytra just told me yes sir and I told her our shift is technically over, so she can do whatever she wants, but don’t overdo it.

“It is necessary. I’m going to inform them of my failure as well. If anyone is to blame for the loss of life tonight it’s almost entirely on me. I need to talk with Luna again before she goes to sleep, and then I’m going to help with clearing out all of this debris and any search and rescue efforts we have for ponies currently missing.” When I stand up the Vice Captain gives me a salute before walking off towards a small group of Day Guards that don’t seem to be doing anything. Rookie move to not try and at least look busy, ladies.

Looking around the city with Remote Sense going from follower to follower I try to spot Luna and eventually see her with Celestia by the main gate of the castle. Looking over to Nightmare I tell her where I’m going. “I currently don’t know how to teleport anyone else with me, but I’m going to the front gate of the castle. Looks like Luna is over there with Celestia.”

She ignites her horn and disappears with a pop and I follow shortly after.

“Did you take care of everything you needed to? You should rest, Ignis, you did a lot of good work out there.” Celestia is the one to greet me as Nightmare appears and I arrive shortly after.

“Almost. Just got one thing left and then I’m going to go help some of the volunteers and guards. Luna,” She looks over to me and I throw my arms around her neck. “Are you okay?”

“Yes? I just exhausted a majority of my mana, but I’m fine. What brought this on?”

“You blew open the changeling hive and wiped out enough drones that Chrysalis lost a Divine Rank. A lot of those drones were pretty small, and from what I can tell they’d spent their entire lives just worshiping Chrysalis and helping out with minor duties around the hive. To just kill thousands in an instant like that…I thought…sorry.”

“I did what needed to be done. There wasn’t enough time to figure out a less violent strategy. I hope you don’t think any less of me for having such a cold response.” She averts her eyes for a moment, and I can tell this must be a specific issue from the time prior to her banishment.

So, I just give her a soft smile. “No. You saved me. The only thing I can feel towards you is gratitude and love. If it does start to weigh on you, please tell me. I want to listen the same way you did for me.” There’s a chance this is another one of those opposite gender things where mares don’t want to show weakness to their stallion so they don’t open up to them about things like this. Just in case I add in another bit at the end. “Remember, I’m not a stallion.“

Celestia looks confused, but Luna seems to understand what I’m getting at. She returns my smile with her own. “I…I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for checking on me.” I nod at her and start to fly away, but stop when she calls out again. “You really should rest, Ignis. You’ve had a long night.”

“Compared to what is yet to come, I know this is nothing. I’ll be fine, Lulu.” This time before I fly off I give Moonie and Luna a quick peck.

Quickly flying over the city I try to spot Shining Armor to see where he needs me, but decide I don’t wanna deal with his attitude. Especially when I know I’m competent enough to decide where I’m needed. I spot a familiar hospital that’s been reduced to just the left side of a hospital. The entire right side collapsed, I hope no one was left in there. The street in front of the hospital seems to be where the worst of the injured are being lined up, and there’s ponies inside the hospital with hard hats on. Likely determining if it’s safe to start letting patients and staff go back in.

Quickly landing and looking around I grimace at all the sounds of pain and the sheer number of injured. This makeshift medical area has enough patients to take up nearly three blocks with cots and ponies. Flicking my hand I look in the system to see my spell slots.

Ignis Ferrum - Divine Rank 5
Bladesinger 12/Paladin 2
Experience: 172,000/165,000 - Level up available!

Quest rewards pending!

Followers: 6,800/9,000.

Spell Slots: …

I’ve got all of my First and Second level slots, and two slots left for Third and Fourth level, each. Completely out of Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Level slots. Let’s exhaust all of my slots to heal as many of these ponies as possible and then use the level up. I suppose I should check the quest rewards first, might be a free spell scroll or something in there.

Main Quest - Defend Your City. Completed. Claim rewards?

Main Quest - Dragon Slayer. Completed. Claim rewards?

“Claim.”

Defend Your City:

• Party Function Unlocked
• One Miracle

Dragon Slayer:

• After personally dispatching so many of their kind, dragons can instinctively smell the scent of death from you. Gained permanent Advantage on any Intimidation rolls against creatures of draconic origins, excluding Deities, regardless of Rank.

Kind of a mid reward for the dragon slayer quest, but beggars can’t be choosers. What is “Miracle?”

Miracle - A miracle can do any of the following things:

• Duplicate any cleric spell of 8th level or lower (including spells to which you have access because of your domains).
• Duplicate any other spell of 7th level or lower.
• Undo the harmful effects of certain spells, such as feeblemind or insanity.
• Have any effect whose power level is in line with the above effects.

At the cost of 5,000 XP you can request an exceptionally powerful Miracle. Examples include:

• Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies to continue fighting.
• Moving you and your allies, with all your and their gear, from one plane to another through planar barriers to a specific locale with no chance of error.
• Protecting a city from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, or other major natural disaster.

So instead of Wish it’s more like wish.com, got it. I already know I can’t revive every pony that died today. Not only would it be beyond the power of the spell, since the number of dead is in the hundreds, maybe even thousands. But, Harmony would also have a stroke and I really can’t deal with that right now without a risk of becoming violent. As the holder of all those souls she can easily reject the spell anyways.

“Miracle,” As soon as I activate the spell I feel an immense surge of power. “Restore the city of Canterlot and its injured citizens to how they were before the dragons attacked.”

That should make it ignore the dead, so it won’t fail. Hopefully.

That is beyond the capability of a Miracle.

“Oh so you can protect a city from a natural disaster, but you can’t undo one? I call bullshit but okay. Let’s try removing the buildings from the equation. Miracle, fully heal all of the injured in this city, excluding dragons.”

This will consume 5,000 XP. Confirm? “Confirmed. That’s a small price to pay to try and fix my own mistakes.”

Everything goes white an instant later.

“You should talk to him about it, Luna. I know it’s bothering you, and since your return you’ve been more open with your feelings. So, I’m surprised you lied to him. He wants to be there for you and it’d make you feel better to vent to somepony.” Celestia tries encouraging her sister to be more open to the elf.

“I didn’t lie. I did do what needed to be done, and my response was cold. I just completely omitted my feelings on the matter. His state right now is worse than mine I fear, and I don’t want to add to that burden with my own problems. It’s enough just knowing that he wants to lend an ear.”

Before Celestia or Nightmare can respond or retort, all of their eyes snap open wide as they feel an intense surge of magic. Before they can question what’s happening there's a blinding flash of light, followed by a giant golden cylinder that reaches up into the sky. That cylinder rapidly expands and covers the entire city as it passes through buildings and debris out to the edge of Canterlot.

All three alicorns look at the faint green energy coming out of the ground and floating in the air before realizing all of their minor scrapes and cuts are rapidly closing. Their mana pools instantly topped up to full.

Without saying a word to each other they all individually teleport to where the cylinder of golden light first appeared. As soon as they appear they look around and see a massive crowd of ponies slowly rising to their hooves looking confused and tired as they stand up. The only creature laying on the ground is Ignis, right in front of what's left of the hospital. There’s one guard and one nurse standing over him.

Luna and Nightmare blink to the Knight and immediately start questioning the two ponies. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty. I saw him land and was going to come greet him to see if he was here to help with the healing, but something happened before I got to him. My horn started to feel all tingly and a wave of dizziness washed over me and all of the unicorns standing nearby. He floated a few feet in the air with his mane going straight up, and golden beams of light pouring out of his eyes. He held out his hand and then that golden wave washed over the city. As far as I can tell he’s just passed out from exertion.”

His chest is rising and falling at a steady rhythm, so he is alive. Luna picks him up in her telekinesis before looking towards Celestia and Nightmare. “I’m going to lay him down and watch over him. Can you go find Cadence and her Knight and update the pegasus on what’s happened? I didn’t spot either of them this entire time.”

“I teleported them away to watch over Twilight. With her mental state I didn’t want her to see…all of this, or risk her getting injured again. Sending Cadence was the only way to make her feel comfortable with leaving the castle, and her Knight insisted on not letting her Princess leave unprotected. All three of them should be Ponyville.” Celestia informs them of Force’s location and in response Luna and Nightmare nod at each other before both of them teleport away. Each one going to a different destination.

Luna floats the elf over to their bed, and rests on her belly next to him. Looking down at him with a mixture of pride and concern. “What did you do Ignis…?” It’s only now that she realizes his hair has reverted back to normal silver hair instead of the ethereal gray and silver it was before.

“Whatever you did it must’ve drained you dry for your mane to revert like this.”

“Get away…”

“Hm?” The alicorn is unsure if she actually heard something from how quiet the mumble was.

“Chrysa-...stop..please”

Immediately Luna frowns as she notices forehead sweat accompanied by small twitches and jerks all indicative of a nightmare. She ignites her horn and presses it to his forehead and the mumbling stops instantly as the elfs sleeping body fully relaxes.

“I thought you didn’t dream anymore? Perhaps it’s because you lost consciousness as opposed to sleeping normally? It could be because of how drained you are, if your mane reverted it’d make sense if your inability to dream reverted as well. Rest easy.”

Luna goes back to her thoughts and considers something else Celestia mentioned to her.

1st Person POV - Luna

It is highly likely that Ignis will be investigated for this. And it’ll almost certainly be substantiated enough to have him put on trial for dereliction of duty. If he publicly reveals his truth detecting abilities that alone will likely bump the charge down to an accidental dereliction of duty. That'd be revealing a powerful capability that has managed to stay secret for now, though.

It’s a shame that Celestia can’t be the judge for this one. In cases where the Princess cannot be impartial it becomes a trial with a jury of guards. Shining Armor will be the one presiding over it. Even if we convince them that Ignis made the best call he could’ve made with the information he had, they might still be able to have him relieved as the Captain of Night Guard due to a loss in confidence in his ability to lead.

But, did he truly make the best decision he could’ve made with the information he had? If he had waited for me and Tia to go with him we would’ve recognized that there’s no town where the debris was located. The dragon still would’ve spotted us and alerted Chrysalis though. If she truly was stronger than Ignis in that moment before his follower count increased… Would Tia and I have been able to win against her, a mind controlled Ignis, and Inferno a formidable Elder Red Dragon?

There’s an even worse case scenario. Perhaps even if we were able to defeat her the fight might have taken long enough that the dragons would’ve attacked Canterlot anyways, but in this case all three of us aren’t there instead of just Ignis. That would’ve been disastrous.

In reality he did make the actual best choice, but based on the information he had it was not the choice he should’ve made. It’ll be up to the jury at that point to decide if that’s egregious enough to deserve punishment. Even worse than that it’ll be up to the court of public opinion. If they decide to pump out headlines placing the sole blame on him he’ll likely lose a majority of his followers and likely won’t even want to leave the castle for years.

The most concerning bit is that he won’t be able to go out and defend against any further attacks from the dragons, nor will he be able to perform his duties as Captain until the investigation and trial are completed. Can we afford to have him out of commission for that long? Tia, Nightmare, and I will likely be able to handle whatever may come.

That’s what I would’ve said until today. Tia and I were both essentially drawn to a stalemate. Her opponent was too fast for her to target and I was running nearly empty on mana. What happens if the next foes are even more powerful? What if they coordinate a multi-pronged attack and target several major cities? All of us can only be in one place. In that case, we’ll just have to grant him an exception to policy and authorize his continued work while under investigation.

How will Ignis react to all of this though? Considering how much he’s already blaming himself he might just plead guilty to everything in some effort to atone. I suppose if he’s no longer in the Night Guard at all he’d still be able to defend Equestria, but they could give him confinement if he pleads guilty to everything. Not just a discharge.

Ah, things have become so complicated.

Author's Note

Due to popular demand (This is a lie, I was already considering all the possible problems and complications for this for a while now. But, decided on how I want to implement it so I brought it back) the Party Function has been unlocked!

I found this Miracle spell in the 3.5e spell list and it's honestly perfect for what I needed. I've been hesitant to give Wish as a big quest reward because it is far, FAR too powerful. But this was able to accomplish what I wanted while not also being reality warping. Wish is capable of time travel and all sorts of wonky shit, but Miracle is pretty straight forward. You're just requesting an exceptional miracle from a God. Basically Divine Intervention on crack. In this case Ignis was requesting the miracle to...himself....the system...? Idk, but either way I'm glad I found a happy medium I could use to heal everyone, while also avoiding the constant FOMO of "Why didn't I have him use Wish for this or that or X or Y? That would've been way cooler and solved everything even better than what he did."

Other than that, not much happening this chapter. See I can still take things slow even if we're in the middle of an arc, no biggie. Next chapter and maybe the next several chapters are going to exclusively be either 3rd person or 1st person POV's of everyone but Ignis. This is cause it's hard to show differences in tone of voice or way of speaking, posture, etc from his own POV. A lot of times when we undergo minor changes like that we ourselves aren't even aware of it unless it's pointed out.

So I'll be driving us around through some different perspectives instead.

Also... listen I haven't done this for the entire 400k words so far, but Imma do it right now. If you like the story and have read this far, can you give it a thumbs up? <.< This story is sitting in nearly 500 Favorites lists, and barely half of that have actually liked the fic. We're close to 300, and Ill be brutally honest, I just like watching the number go up. Bigger number = more dopamine.

But also if you don't feel like it then hey fuck it, dont worry about it, lmao.

Thanks for reading! <3