“You sure this is fine?” I ask Force as she walks out of the library with me.

“Yeah Cadence said if she’s getting a few months off to plan her wedding then I deserve a few months off too. Don’t tell me you’re gonna complain about it?”

“Of course not, Force. I’m just worried you might get sick of me if we’re gonna spend this much time together.”

“Weren’t you supposed to have a cute pet name for me by now?”

“I could call you Pilim if you want?” I offer her basically the only name I came up with that made some amount of logical sense, but it’s not cute. I can tell from her look of confusion that I should probably explain. “It’s the elven word for arrow, but more importantly it’s the shorthand incantation for Magic Missile. When you use your special talent that’s what it reminds me of, you look like a giant Magic Missile. They also don’t do elemental damage, they do force damage, and they never miss. They're also practically unstoppable...”

“I wouldn’t exactly call that cute…”

“No, but that pout is.” I tousle her mane and stand up from the bench we’re sitting on. We’re currently in Ponyville and we’re about to break the news to Trixie that I can’t take her to Manehattan until I get this poison joke situation resolved. “C’mon let’s go tell the magician the bad news.”

“And then go to the Everfree. No offense but I like your other appearance more.”

“Yeah that’s fair.” Pretty harsh, but I know my elf form is much more alluring than my human body. Plus, they’re both me, so it’d feel weird to be jealous of myself. Before we continue we arrive at Trixies wagon and I knock on the door.

We hear something thud, likely the mare got startled by the knocking and hit her head. But, a few seconds later the door starts to open. “Welcome! Welcome! Would you like some more tea before-” She just stops and looks at me wide eyed. “Who are you?”

“Long story, but I’m Ignis. I stepped in some poison joke and now I’m like this. I can’t take you to Manehattan until I’m cured. We’re hoping that’ll be later today, but yeah…. sorry. If you don’t mind waiting I can take you there once my situation is resolved.”

“Well if it’s just a few hours… Trixie supposes she can wait. Just don’t take too long.” We say our goodbyes and walk away. Part of her seemed disappointed we were leaving so quickly, but another part seemed to understand the sooner we left the sooner I could get cured.

“Nightmare is right, she’s totally into you.”

“Yeah yeah, and I already shot her down. Let’s go grab Twilight or Fluttershy cause I don’t remember how to get to the zebra’s place.”

“Fluttershy don’t look at me with that tone of voice.”

“I’m waiting.”

Sigh. “Alright I’m sorry. You were right… we should’ve gone to see Zecora before we left the forest yesterday. Although in my defense we would’ve taken way longer to find out about Rarity if we did that.”

Her eyes open a bit wider. “Oh, I suppose that is true… so you need help finding Zecora I assume?”

“Yep. You mind?”

“Not at all! Come on, it’s not that long of a walk.” Force and I follow her out and she turns to the other pegasus. “You’re Princess Cadence’s knight right? I think we briefly met at the gala.”

“That’s me! I’ve been authorized to help with the war instead of guarding Cadence, so I’m making sure to spend plenty of time with Ignis. Luna and Nightmare always get more time with him than me.” She looks back at me and gives me a pout like it's my fault somehow, but I know she’s just joking.

“Oh well that’s good, I’m happy for you two. Hopefully this whole war business ends soon, it’s dreadful.” You don’t know the half of it. Hell, does anyone outside of the crown even know about Grogar?

“I doubt it’ll end anytime soon, Fluttershy. In fact it’s been concerningly quiet for long enough that I think something is going to happen any day now. That’s why it’s imperative we treat this poison joke. If they attack while I’m like this it’s gonna be bad.” I chime in as we go through some thick foliage.

Grrr.

My head snaps to the right and spots a timber wolf in a defensive posture growling at us. Fluttershy immediately starts walking up to it. “Aww, hello there little one. We’re just visiting our friend-”

She doesn’t get another word out because the creature pounces and digs into her foreleg, causing her to scream in pain as her fur is dyed crimson. “I don’t understand! They were….. they were friendly last time! Help!”

I quickly leap forward and wrap my hand around the dog's head, covering its eyes. Hopefully this works without the system, it should since I have all of my memories as an elf and some of Ignis personality. “Fire Bolt!”

Nothing happens. I guess it doesn’t matter if I remember how to do it because I don’t have the Weave. It’s fine, Celestia taught me the runes for the Equestrian version of Fire Bolt that first night after we left the Summit before I broke off with Luna and went back to rescue Force and the others. An instant later and I have the runes aligned and with the use of a Strengthen rune I fire away.

The top of its head and half of its body is engulfed in a roaring flame as it yelps and releases the element bearer. It lands on the ground and rolls a few times as the flames go out and rises to its feet before its legs wobble and give out, causing it to collapse. I turn and look at Fluttershy and see she’s sobbing while resting on her haunches, Force is holding up her foreleg and putting pressure on the bite. “I don’t understand…” is all she can mutter out between sobs.

“It’s not just the wolf, Fluttershy, the entire forest seems darker than it did last time. Something is different....... wait.... I just remembered I can’t see in the dark anymore.”

“No, you’re right, something is wrong.” She manages to confirm my theory between whimpers.

“Ignis what are we doing? Should I take her back?” Shit. I don’t have the system and I don’t have divine perception. This poison joke shit sucks.

“Yeah Force, take her back. Fluttershy which way do I go from here?”

“You can’t. You can’t take me back. I don’t know if my bite needs to be treated, if it does Zecora will be the only one nearby that can do it.” Well shit that’s a pretty decent point I suppose.

“You deal with injured animals all the time you’ve never had to treat one with a timberwolf bite?” I ask curiously as I crouch next to the two pegasi.

“No, that’s why I’m concerned. If there wasn’t some type of secondary effect I should’ve had at least one bite victim come in.”

“Time to stress test then.” I turn around and present my hunched back to Fluttershy. “Climb on.” Force helps her climb up and she hooks her good foreleg over my shoulder.

“Stress test what, exactly?” Force asks with a tinge of concern.

“My human body of course. I know about how well it works without mana, time to find out if it can handle mana being imbued better than the elf body did at first. Imbuing mana into my muscles when I first got here tore my shit up bad. Anyways, Fluttershy, you’re steering alright? Tell me if I veer off the wrong path.”

“Is that really necessary?” Forces ask and I just sigh, she should know better.

“We don’t know if something bad will happen, if something bad is going to happen we don’t know how much time we have. Yes this is necessary.”

I allow no room for further argument. I feel a familiar sensation in my limbs as I imbue a small amount of mana for physical enhancement and then take off. This is underwhelming. It doesn’t hurt, but I’m also going insanely slow. I didn’t think my human body was this bad. I dump more mana into my legs specifically and move at a more acceptable pace, and as far as I can tell there’s no strain from imbuing the mana like this. Which is weird…

“Ignis you’ve got six more timberwolves approaching from the right. I’m engaging but some are still going to get through.” Force calls out from a few feet above me and then tilts to the right and banks off.

I glance down at my rapier. It’s probably not the best weapon for wooden creatures. Plus this body is shorter and slower than my elf body, but I’m pretty sure it’s stronger. Let’s try unarmed combat first.

Four of the wooden wolves burst out of the foliage to my right, looks like Force only intercepted two of them. “Hang on Fluttershy, this is gonna get a bit bumpy.”

The mare in question just whimpers next to my ear as she hunkers down on my back. “Don’t kill them Ignis… please.”

“Close your eyes and spare yourself the view.”

All four are charging next to each other which should make this easier. My next step forward I land on my heel and pivot to the right and immediately launch towards them. This actually seems to startle them as all four slide to a stop, but it’s too late I’m already on them. I land right next to the one on the far left of their formation and kick it square in the middle of its body. Launching it with a resounding crack into the wolf next to it.

Both creatures make some kind of garbled noise that seems similar to a yelp before entangling themselves into each other and rolling like a lumpy soccer ball into the third wolf. There’s a loud impact noise as they impact that third wolf but it doesn’t get entangled into the other two it’s simply knocked back a bit. The two entangled wolves deflect off to the side and roll across the ground before stopping. One of the two lays on its back with the green glowing light in its eye sockets completely extinguished while the other one flinches a bit on its side before standing up and growling.

“God this body is weak.” I glance towards where Force should be and see her flying back towards me. Seems like she already dispatched her two. Whether or not she killed them or just scared them off I’m not sure. “Already done?”

“They kinda just ran off when they realized I wasn’t letting them get past me. It’s kinda weird. They didn’t even try to hurt me or fight back, they just really wanted to get to you two.”

“Wait… really? Can you take Fluttershy for a second? I need to test something.” I continue having a tense stand off with the three timberwolves until Force picks up the pegasus off my back and when they fly away the three wolves still just glare at me. “Are they pissed at me specifically? Force take Fluttershy to Zecora and see if you can find an Everfree creature that isn’t being uncharacteristically aggressive. She needs to ask them what’s going on.”

To be honest I don’t know why we didn’t just let Force fly her to Zecora in the first place. Bad call on my part. “Alright little wolves. Let’s not get overzealous here….”

A minute or so later and there’s four unmoving timberwolves on the ground. I’m not sure if they’re dead or knocked out since they don’t really breathe in the first place. I turn and take off in the same direction I saw Force take Fluttershy, and after several minutes I arrive at a familiar hut I’ve been to exactly once.

“Ignis! I was starting to get worried.” Force is waiting for me outside the hut alone, seems like Flutters is inside.

“I was starting to think I got lost, but I made it. Did you two find any critters she could talk to on the way?”

“We did…… but what they said doesn’t make sense.” She looks pretty confused so I believe it.

“Well? Go on, maybe I can make sense of it.”

“Apparently your original form is the Spirit of the Everfree? Whatever that means? The manticore said you have the lingering scent of the Spirit and most of the animals are interpreting that to mean you’ve injured or killed the Spirit since they can no longer find it anywhere.”

“Oh shit. That…….makes sense. Kinda. I think I became the Spirit of the Everfree when Nightmare died and I became that….. thing. Once I got control of my body back the shadow orb thing I saved from the old castle in the Everfree was completely inert and drained when it fell out of my chest. Sounds like that’s just another reason I need Zecora to cure me. Let’s go inside.”

Author's Note

I know it's not a long chapter considering it took 3 weeks...... I'm sorry.

I had a test I took a few days ago that was riding at 22% pass rate among my classmates so I was kinda tweaking the fuck out preparing for it, and the writers block is still in full effect to be honest. Passing that test has kinda relieved alot of pressure on my brain though, so I was able to crank this out over the weekend. The last 3 chapters I've said that I'll be back to my old release schedule and I have yet to actually do that, so I'm gonna stop saying it. I might be back, I might not.

One thing is for sure, the plan is to alternate between this story and Twist of Fate, so this one won't even have a new chapter in progress until Twist of Fate gets its new chapter written and pushed out. So, might be a few days, might be 2 or 3 weeks.

Sorry again :( but, thanks for reading <3