3rd Person POV

“How are you already standing again?!” The changeling drone outside of the colosseum cries out the last question it’ll ever ask as a silver haired elf quickly gives it two slashes. Ignis hastily proceeds around the outer edge of the colosseum and enters through the archway. The changeling on deaths door behind him stumbles forward a few steps and is suddenly engulfed with purple lightning as a crack of thunder sounds out and the changeling drops to the ground dead. +450 XP.

The first thing the elf sees when he re-enters the colosseum is chaos. Stalls from every nation are shattered with wood everywhere, tents on fire. There’s not a single changeling in sight, it's just every race fighting every race including members of their own race. There’s no way to tell who is who with ponies fighting ponies or any other way around. Ignis holds the hilt of his Moonblade in both hands and activates the minor feature of the sword, projecting his voice to be clearly audible over 300ft.

“If you’re a changeling and you don’t wanna die then get to the north east of the field undisguised or get back in your hive, I don’t care which.” After the announcement he does surprisingly see several previously unseen undisguised changelings suddenly take to the air and begin flying as quickly as possible to the north east. A few seconds pass as thousands of thoughts fly through the elfs mind about how to handle this situation, but suddenly his eyes open wide as an idea hits him. He reaches into a pouch on his waist and pulls out a leaf from a yew tree. Closing the yew leaf into his hand he begins to mutter a short incantation.

Once the spell is finished casting he’s elated to find the idea worked. While he’s concentrating on Detect Poison he can differentiate between the true members of each race and the disguised changelings. Time to do as much damage as possible in the next 10 minutes. Turning and sprinting towards the Equestrian camp he gives occasional slashes to any changeling he passes and interrupts any fights if none of the combatants are changelings. No sense wasting time killing each other over paranoia.

As he sprints through and jumps over corpses he gives quick scans to see if he recognizes any of the downed ponies. For a split second he considers stopping to cast cure wounds on the ones that are mortally wounded but not yet dead. However, he instantly makes the decision that finding Luna is the top priority right now. He wonders why none of the changelings are disguised as himself, but quickly realizes they have no way to duplicate his sword or shadowblade.

Rapidly approaching the entrance to the royal tent he enters the densest area of fighting. It’s dense enough that it actually starts to slow him down, forcing Ignis to start twisting and weaving through the crowd. Any ponies that are fighting genuine ponies he taps them both as he passes and yells out “Neither of you are changelings, help the others.” Some of the guards actually follow the command, but some are too caught up in the paranoia to trust anything told to them.

Once he’s close enough to the tent he shouts the magic words to misty step straight through the slightly open entrance of the tent. The first thing he sees is Celestia laying on the ground on her side with her eyes wide open looking around in panic. Unlike the creatures outside he can’t discern her true nature with just detect poison. The creatures outside couldn’t have been poisoned victims because they were moving but that’s not the case here, he has to figure out a way to prove it’s her.

He decides to try Divine Sense. Divine Sense will allow him to know the location of any Celestial, Fiend, or Undead within 60 feet. He has no clue if Celestia is truly a celestial but she fits the qualities in his mind. If she pops as a Celestial he will be 99% sure that this is the real princess, but if nothing happens he is still completely unsure because he has no idea if the real Celestia is, in fact, a Celestial.

He kneels down next to the alicorn, closes his eyes, and begins to channel the divine power. Within seconds he feels a calming presence that turns into a tingling feeling that attempts to tug his vision downwards. He opens his eyes and follows the instinct and his eyes land on Celestia, she is a Celestial. Putting both hands on her barrel he uses the last 5 remaining Hit Points in his Lay on Hands pool to cure her of the poison. “You should be able to move now.”

Celestia rapidly blinks before jumping to her hooves. “It’s a rogue queen, Ignis! She was disguised as Luna and got the drop on me. I’ll infiltrate the hive and find Luna, you just need to settle down the chaos out there.”

Objectively speaking, keeping him out here is the right call, Ignis is likely the only non-changeling that can reliably tell apart who is fake or not. However, something in his gut tells him this is the wrong call, but he chalks that up to ego and responds to Celestia. “Fine, but contact me when you find her. The codeword is Selene. If you don’t say that I’m attacking you on site.”

Thankfully once Ignis cured her she was no longer signaling the detect poison spell so he relaxes knowing with full confidence that’s the real her. She has a conflicted look on her face, likely doesn’t enjoy the fact that Ignis accidentally made a demand of her, but really he just wanted to use as few words as possible. Time is of the essence. She gives him a nod and with a flash of her horn she’s in full battle gear and the entire tent disintegrates as she launches herself into the fray.

Ignis gives a slow look around at the carnage surrounding him, and spots two genuine guards sprinting towards him with hostile intent all over their faces. He holds out his left hand, palm out, signaling them to stop but they obviously refuse. After a split second he decides that it’ll be a trivial matter to prove to everyone in this field that he is not an imposter. In the dimly lit massive area a small pillar of silver light appears briefly illuminating a quarter of the area before dying back down into a small aura of light around the elf.

As blue wisps of light begin to rapidly orbit the man in random patterns a rapid set of notes from a piano ring out.

Electing to preserve the Haste stored in his Moonblade he quickly launches himself into the densest area of fighting in the Equestrian camp. As he arrives in the middle of the chaotic pit of fighting a chorus of foreign instruments begin to play as the blue wisps turn red and increase their speed. Everything that happens next is a blur to any outside observers, for the unaware it looks like he just begins indiscriminately killing every creature on the battlefield.

Two changelings are passing a battered guard back and forth inflicting small cuts in his blind spots every time he adjusts to their movements. The guard stumbles back and braces himself for the next slash across his body, but instead watches as one of the ponies he’s fighting is swiftly run through by an emerald longsword. Before the injured changeling can even cry out that he isn’t the imposter in this situation the sword is pulled from its body and swiftly slammed into the back of its neck. The blade sinks in 6-7 inches severing the creature's nervous system and as its eyes roll into the back of its head the disguise falls off the changeling in a burst of green flame. With a sickening crunch the sword is twisted and pulled away from the insect as it drops to the ground, lifeless.

The other changeling thrust forward with a spear but the elf just looks at the changeling with disgust as he pivots to the side, dodging the spear. Ignis then quickly slashes the insect across the throat and it drops to the ground, undisguised, while attempting to put pressure on its rapidly bleeding wound. The elf turns to the battered guard sporting a swollen eye and tens of small cuts, and notices the guard is just staring at him with awe.

The guard mutters a thank you and Ignis just gives him a small nod before continuing onto the next encounter. The next 3 encounters are handled in a similar fashion but before the 4th one can start all the changelings in the immediate vicinity seem to stiffen up and turn their heads toward the elf. Seems somehow they were all just made aware of the fact that he can discern their true identity.

“For the true queen!” The one closest to Ignis screams out, and with a roar they all start attempting to charge at the elf.

“Oh for fucks sake! Hey dipshits, every single creature charging at me right now is a changeling. They’re aware I can tell them apart. If you don’t believe me ask the tired ponies behind me. Every single one that I struck and killed was a changeling.” With several small nods from the guards attempting to catch their breath Ignis continues. “If you’re not a changeling get the fuck away from here, no offense but you’re mostly just in the way.”

The ponies that were slowing the oncoming mob of changelings look back and forth at each other in confusion before breaking away and retreating into the other nations' camps to attempt to help out. With the closest changeling being about 7 feet away and rapidly approaching, Ignis points his left index finger into the middle of the group and offers a small chuckle as a tiny mote of fire appears. It begins to rotate and grow and grow until it’s about the size of a fist and the elf announces at a normal speaking volume. “To whom it may concern...” He flicks his index finger and the rotating ball of fire zips into and disappears in the mob of imposters.

A split second passes and right as the closest changeling, disguised as a minotaur, starts to wind back a swing of its greatsword, the world flashes white for an instant. With a roaring explosion the fireball engulfs 70% of the mob, including half of the minotaur. A chorus of hissing and screams follows the explosion as the echoes of its initial blast taper off.

A large majority of the creatures caught in the blast, including the minotaur, now lay on the ground motionless as charred changelings. The ones currently alive have minor burns as it appears they were able to just barely escape the explosion in time. Those are still looking around in a state of shellshock, however. The changelings that weren’t caught in the blast have ceased their charge as they stare at the elf that is now walking towards them. The ones that were able to quickly move on and begin processing information again find themselves slowly leaning backwards, as if they intend to flee. They’re all unsure why, but it quickly becomes apparent.

All changelings have the instinct to flee from an enemy that is emitting zero emotions.

With a quick shake of their heads they overcome the instinct and manage to begin charging at the bladesinger again. Their sudden charge snapping the other changelings out of their stupor.

Ignis quickly gets a headcount and estimates there to be around 19-20 changeling corpses in the small crater from the fireball. Including the shell-shocked changelings that seemed to barely survive the explosion, there’s another 10 or so charging at him. He decides to hold off on another fireball for now as there’s still plenty of enemies remaining and he wants to conserve his spell slots unless absolutely necessary. He does a quick recap of how many rounds of combat have passed since he started the bladesong and realizes it’s been 8. He has 12 seconds left.

Leaning forward he lets out a sigh and begins to sprint towards the changelings charging at him. He quickly slashes along the side of one of the burnt creatures and continues running as it drops its disguise and collapses. His next obstacle is a minotaur charging at him with its head down in perfect tandem with a griffon dive bombing him.

Ignis drops and does a baseball slide under the minotaur and then uses his empty hand to push himself horizontally to attempt to roll out of the way of the griffon. The griffon is about 6 inches away when Ignis realizes he won’t be able to dodge it, so he misty steps into the air directly above the griffon. Maintaining his rotational momentum he spins in the air and slashes a deep wound across the back of the flying creature. Out of actions he ceases his spin and twists his body so that he can put both feet down on the griffon's back.

The disguised griffon lets out an undignified squawk as it slams into the ground with 160lbs of unexpected weight on its back. The minotaur that missed its charge quickly spins around and starts another charge at the elf. Ignis looks to the right at the minotaur charging towards him and to the left at the two ponies beginning to thrust their spears. He jumps backwards towards the charred circle and dodges the two spears but gets a blunt impact to his ribs from the side of the minotaurs horns. With no time to recover 3 more changelings are on him. With absolute focus on his face he tilts his head to the side and dodges a set of sharp talons and curves his torso to dodge a spear. However, he’s unable to dodge everything this time as one spear impales him completely on the right side just above the hip.

The last two changelings still have a small bit of distance to close. Ignis continues backpedaling when he notices from his detect poison that something is right behind him, but when he glances back all he sees is a unicorn with black singed fur weakly wheezing on the ground. The elf turns around and drops to his knees next to the unicorn, and the oncoming changelings recoil a bit from the sudden wave of despair that hits them. “N-no…. I could've sworn there weren't any bystanders in the way of the blast. Oh fuck what…. have I done…?” The changelings decide to take advantage of the elf that is now seemingly stunned in shock.

As they all swarm and descend on the elf he quietly mutters a single word and a shield pops up around him. Most of the attacks are deflected away but one spear lodges into the elfs back, just below his shoulder. With two spears sticking out of his torso Ignis puts one hand on the unicorn and speaks an incantation as his hand begins to glow in a silver light. After casting Cure Wounds at second level the unicorn appears to be more stable. His breaths are stronger and less labored, his face muscles are no longer pulled taut in silent agony.

Ignis knows if he just leaves him here the unicorn will likely still die or disappear, but he has no other way to cure the poison now. He glances into the air at seemingly nothing before whispering, “46,500…. Just need 1,500 more.” The elf looks back down at the still clearly terrified guard and reassures him. “Just sit tight for a bit, I’ll fix this I swear.” As he stands back up and turns to face the changelings he coughs and then spits a wad of blood onto the ground. The light and wisps flowing around him die down as his bladesong comes to an end.

The changelings have renewed vigor as smiles crack their faces, realizing their chances have gone up now that the bladesong is over. Ignis flicks his longsword and all the blood coating it is flung onto the ground, and he sheathes the Moonblade.

The creatures all begin to start their next barrage of attacks when they notice the elf pointing his finger at them again. They all know what it means, but none of them can respond in time as the fireball roars past all of them and detonates. The edge of the explosion stops just short of Ignis and when it dies down all the changelings except 1 are dead. The last one remaining staggers over to the elf and makes a haphazard swing of with its spear as it remains barely standing.

Ignis just takes a step forward and reaches up to grab the back of the imposter guards’ helmet. With a cast of Shocking Grasp the disguise drops and the changeling collapses. The elf then takes a slow look around and notices a few onlookers from different reaches of the colosseum have paused their fight and stare at him with mixtures of horror and awe.

He knows what he’s about to do next is by far one of the stupidest things he’s ever done but as he looks back down at the charred unicorn guard, he reaffirms himself and whispers.

“Level Up.”

Author's Note

I swear I proofread this one in its entirety. Also, I'm not done writing for the night but this was way too good of a stopping point, so I'm uploading this now while I work on the next chapter.

There's a 50/50 chance the next chapter is also done tonight and gets uploaded within a few hours, who knows.

Honestly I feel like I should stick to 3rd Person POV's, this chapter and A Mothers Love was written in 3rd person and I feel like that chapter and this chapter are by far my best writing. I'll likely stick to 3rd person much more often for now, but will still use 1st person POV when I want a chapter to have slower pacing and when I want to show a characters full thought process and observations on things. I can still do that in third person but I feel like I can portray more characterization from 1st person POV. So, still expect to see 1st person POV, but expect it to be less common than 3rd person.

Unless I'm way off the mark, if you prefer the 1st person let me know and if enough people prefer it I'll stick to that, but I definitely feel like 3rd person is my comfort zone.

Thanks for reading! Like I said, tonight might be a double release, we'll see.

EDIT: Nah no double release tonight. Next chapter is about 40% done but I ended up crashing hard and it's bed time now. It'll be up tomorrow for sure though