Anyone who is looking at Ignis has to shake their heads and rub their eyes to make sure they’re seeing things right. One moment he was standing there with two spears sticking out of his body looking like he could collapse at any moment and the next moment he’s completely healed. He looks like he just woke up from the best sleep he’s ever had.

The first thing he does is spin around back towards the unicorn guard on the ground, reaching down he places both hands on the guard. His palms are engulfed in a dull silver light and when he pulls his hands away the guard rises to his hooves. “I can never apologize enough for what I did to you. I really thought there was nothing but changelings in the blast radius. I know you’re not fully recovered but this is the best I can do for right now, I have to go clear out the rest of these insects and then go find both Princesses.”

The guard kinda has a far off look as he stands silently. After a few seconds the guard just gives a small nod and begins slowly making his way over to where one of the guard tents used to be. The Equestrian encampment has been cleared of changelings. Ignis decides to use the last 2 minutes of his detect poison to clear up as much of the remaining field as he can. After that he has a different use for his concentration.

Now that he’s reached level 9 his proficiency bonus has gone up, this makes everything more potent. For example, when attacking with his Moonblade he now adds 11 onto whatever he rolled instead of 10. Some people would scoff at the idea of a single number improvement, but this is all based on a 20 sided die. Every +1 is +5%, when you think about it like that these +1’s can add up fast. On most of these fodder changeling drones Ignis only needs to roll a 3 or higher to hit the bugs. That’s a 90% chance to hit and if he has advantage? 99%.

The next two minutes pass in a blur of steel and blood. At the end of the detect poison spell Ignis points out the last remnants of the hostile changelings to the Equestrian guards. After that he heads over to where the innocent insects are and asks one of them to show him how to get in the hive. Over a chorus of “Help us!” and “Please help the queen!” One drone raises a foreleg and begins walking the elf towards a random part of the colosseum wall. The changeling lowers its head and with a dim, sickly green light the bricks on the wall start to shift and recede into the structure. Eventually a large staircase leading down is revealed.

“Do you know roughly how many of the changelings down there are aligned with the rogue queen?” Ignis questions the drone as he cracks his fingers and does some light stretching.

“There shouldn’t be many, all of her drones are jet black with blue eyes unlike us that have a range of dull colors. You should be careful though, royal drone Chrysalis devoured the entire stock of our love storage. It was enough for the entire hive for 4 or 5 years, so she wouldn’t need any help deposing Queen Aurora. I’m not sure if any of you can stop her as she is….” Well that’s encouraging.

Ignis pulls out a tuft of red fur from his component pouch and rapidly speaks the incantation for a new spell. At the very end of the incantation there’s a slight pause before he says, “Luna Concordia.” After that the tuft of bloodhound fur glows silver before zipping down into the hive. The 4th level spell, Locate Creature, starts to ping in the elf's head. With a burst of wind the paladin disappears from the entrance and descends into the dark.

Ignis scans his surroundings as he sprints towards the sensation of the spell, with how dark it is he basically can only see the outlines of objects and creatures. It’s enough that he can navigate and probably even fight with full confidence, but he can’t make out any colors. He takes note of the different shapes of changelings that are skittering about in the dark corners of the fortress. There’s different types down here than what he saw on the surface, some of these are bulkier with light armor on, some have oddly shaped hooves. Their hooves are more concave with sharper edges, those must be burrowers.

The bulkier ones are almost certainly guards, quite loyal too judging by how many of them are currently littering the ground, lifeless. After turning and twisting his way through a seemingly endless maze of tunnels and drones he reaches a massive opening with dim blue lights scattered about the room. On the left and right side there are massive ornate pillars with embedded spirals that bring emphasis on the center of the room. The center has a dimly glowing purple moss that leads from the entryway Ignis is standing in, to a large set of steps at the opposite end with a shattered marble throne. The back of the throne looks like it was split in half by a boulder, the jagged and bumpy top edge seems to only be halfway as tall as it normally is.

The piece of the throne that was separated has parts of it embedded into the cave wall behind the fancy seat and more parts are scattered into small marble pebbles along the ground. The rest of the throne is littered with a web of cracks and chunks missing. The final detail of note is a large splatter of blood where the back of the throne was broken that trails down the steps and off into a door on the side. The same direction Locate Creature is tugging Ignis towards.

Suddenly the passage to the side has its door sent flying across the throne room, knocking down the closest pillar as a massive plume of fire and smoke roars out behind it. Tightening his grip on the Moonblade, Ignis sprints through the leftover smoke and into the passageway. As he sprints further in the sound of 2 more explosions ring out in the distance followed by a pained scream.

Speeding up the elf reaches the end of the tunnel and slides to a stop into a mostly dark, dead end room illuminated by dark green lights. The first thing he sees is the blue and pink fluffy mane of Queen Aurora. After adjusting to the light he starts processing the full scene before him. Queen Aurora is being held in the air with a green aura telekinesis by her neck. She’s facing Ignis and between the elf and the queen is jet black changeling with a dark blue-green mane that stands as tall as Aurora. The pale white, almost gray colored exoskeleton of the current changeling queen is covered in splatters of bright red. Her pink eyes seem dull and out of focus as they stare over and beyond the usurper into the eyes of the paladin that just arrived.

“R…Run.” Aurora weakly whispers into the air as she stares into the elfs eyes. Chrysalis realizes that the current queen isn’t speaking to her as she drops Aurora onto the ground and turns to face the bladesinger.

Now that she’s facing him, he can see that Chrysalis’s form is much more slender and defined. Her entire body almost seems to be surrounded by a pulsating glow of power. She narrows her green eyes at Ignis and gives him a menacing smile. “You’re earlier than I expected! That was a neat trick you showed off up there, accurately revealing all of my children and slaughtering them. Once I put you in a pod like your pony princess you’ll help me replace all of the drones you efficiently dispatched. You know, originally I was planning to do all of this after all the nations had left, but once the reports came in about you from the food drive… I knew the plan had to be accelerated, you couldn’t be allowed to leave.”

Ignis was just looking behind the insect at Queen Aurora barely breathing on the ground. Once he heard one of the princesses had been put in a “pod” questions and thoughts began racing through his mind as his own heartbeat got louder once again. After a couple seconds of silence Chrysalis elected to continue monologuing.

“Don’t get too angry over there little bladesinger, this hive is mine now I can let you live the life of a king down here! You just ensure my kingdom has the nutrients to thrive for eons and you’ll want for nothing. I know you’re a zealot for your princess so I haven’t harmed her in the slightest, I just needed her for a bit of extra…. leverage.” The new queen began slowly walking towards the unresponsive elf. She halts suddenly when the emitting rage spikes.

“In every plane, every world, every timeline all of you are the same. You blindly move forward in search of power as you destroy and take everything available to you. Changeling, you have killed my fellow guards, taken my princess, slaughtered your own people, and now you have the audacity to think I would willingly do anything to help you.” Before he can continue his speech he realizes that the tugging from Locate Creature is much stronger in this room. Ignis glances to the right and see’s a bloodied and unconscious Celestia lying on the ground against the far wall.

The sight above her is what made him stop speaking, however. It’s a semi-translucent “pod” embedded into the wall and inside of it curled up into a ball is Luna. A few bubbles emerge from her sleeping face and float up into the wall, indicating that she is at least able to breathe in there. Ignis tightens the grip on his sword to such an extent that a thin trail of blood runs down the hilt and onto the blade.

As he turns back towards Chrysalis she smirks and covers herself in green flame. “Relax you don’t need them…..Ignis.” The voice changes midway through the sentence and he recognizes the voice as it says his name.The flames disperse and the rogue queen reveals herself in the spitting image of Luna.

The elf begins slowly walking towards the disguised queen and she tenses up ready to defend herself. The moment never arrives however, her features shift into one of confusion as Ignis walks right past her and squats next to Aurora. The battered changeling slowly moves her eyes towards him and she looks at him with one of the most defeated expressions he’s seen in a long time. “Remedium.” He places his palm on her carapace and with a bright glow some life returns to her eyes. She looks at him questioningly and the elf gives her an inquiry. “As you are now, can you free Luna from that pod, cure her of the paralysis if she’s affected and escort both ponies out of the hive?”

Aurora looks beyond Ignis at the false Luna standing there with a befuddled expression. “Not with her still here. I can’t give up the hive, Ignis.”

“I’ll take care of her, just wake those two up.”

Chrysalis begins laughing maniacally, “Oh you really are the best! It's decided. I have to have you. The confidence to think you can stop me long enough to save the alicorns is so cute. You realize with this much love I'm basically a God right? Even Celestia and my dear mother fighting together couldn't beat me.”

Ignis bends his knees slightly and lowers himself into a striking stance as he begins to apply his pre-fight buffs. “You’re not a God, but I’ll help you meet one.”

Ashardalon’s Stride Level 3 spell: the billowing flames of a dragon blast from your feet granting explosive speed. For the next minute your speed is increased by 20ft and moving doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks. When you move within 5ft of a creature or object, it takes 1d6 fire damage.

+20ft, 50ft Movement Speed.

Bladesong, +5 AC, +10ft. 23 AC and 60ft Movement Speed.

Moonblade applies Haste. +2 AC, Movement doubled. 25 AC and 120ft Movement Speed.

The elfs mouth is moving rapidly, but it sounds like multiple voices speaking from it at the same time as foreign and strange words overlay on top of each other. Suddenly two streaks of fire explode backwards from both of his feet, a silver aura with sparks of fire engulfs him as his eyes begin to emit a white light. Then his body emits a burst of wind as his clothes and hair begin to flap and lift wildly.

The current situation is the culmination of multiple stars that have aligned. The global balance is at risk of being upset, two champions of Harmony are under direct threat, and multiple buffing effects have been overlaid with the elfs bladesong. The spike of adrenaline and Ignis internally declaring that he must use everything he has right now, every ounce of strength, as he is prepared to die in this fight to buy as much time as possible. With all of these exact variables aligned in this exact way it has created the opportunity for Ignis to shine. There’s no notification that he has activated the True Bladesong, but this feeling is very similar. All of these buffs combined have managed to elevate the bladesong into something resembling it, heartsong included. Chrysalis and Aurora can both feel that something is different this time. The pressure in the room is much heavier than when he sparred with Celestia.

Aurora starts to run towards the downed Celestia with her curved horn ignited, and as Chrysalis leans forward to begin intercepting her a high pitched chime rings out 5 times. The pressure around Chrysalis increases and she realizes she cannot afford to ignore the elf right now. She makes a mental note to keep an eye out for an opening to blast Aurora and as she looks over to Ignis he quietly says something out loud.

“3. 2. 1.”

He launches towards Chrysalis right after the 1 as multiple instruments ring out, closing the 30ft of distance in half a second with a trail of fire behind him. The elf continues to sing but the changeling is too busy defending to listen to the words. Chrysalis drops her disguise as Luna and puts full focus onto dodging and shielding the oncoming flurry of slashes. There’s a pulsing bass note with a steady rhythm in the bladesong that seems to match the timing of his swings.

She projects a sickly green shield that deflects the first two slashes but on the third he breaks through. Chrysalis still manages to dodge it just in time, but the 4th swing is on her with a speed completely incomparable to the first 3. The blade makes contact with the front of her carapace, if she was a pony it’d be where her fluff is located, and Chrysalis is beyond shocked at the level of impact it makes.

As the edge of the blade makes contact she feels a deep scratch etch itself onto her exoskeleton. As soon as the impact registers she’s assaulted with a wave of purple electricity that surrounds her and then floods into her. Less than an instant later an ear ringing explosion rings out as divine power floods into the scratch and makes it a full web of small cracks in her exoskeleton. There’s no blood so the changeling quickly regains her confidence knowing even a full power swing with that mysterious “smite” can’t fully penetrate her carapace.

He steps back while still singing and says “Shall we start?”

The changeling conjures 3 sickly green daggers and beings slashing and stabbing at Ignis with her telekinesis. He bats one away with his sword and jumps to the left to dodge the second one. Ignis starts running a circle around the changeling as he hits the 3rd dagger with his Moonblade but it’s still able to graze his arm. His right eye narrows a bit as he gives a slight wince before jumping into the air towards Chrysalis. She launches a solid beam of green energy at the airborne elf, but he sticks out his empty left hand and conjures a shield.

The shield splits the beam as he continues to descend towards the rogue queen, all while singing something in a completely foreign language to any creature present. She stops channeling the beam right as the elf is about to swing his blade against her head and she jumps back avoiding the swing. Ignis speeds forward and while the changeling is still in the air sends a vertical slash under her barrel. It connects with a resonating explosion sound as the cave is filled with bright light for a moment, this time only leaving a large scratch embedded into the chitin.

Chrysalis lands on the ground and spins around to face the elf but is rapidly hit with 2 Booming Blade slashes imbued with Smite. Chrysalis clicks her tongue in annoyance at all the scratches and electric scorch markings decorating her body. She responds with another barrage of her incorporeal daggers. Ignis deflects the first one and as the second one slips past his defense and embeds itself in his gut there’s a loud tearing sound behind the changeling. Accompanying the tearing sound is a torrent of liquid splashing on the ground followed by a few coughs. Chrysalis wants to turn around and deal with the now free Lunar alicorn but she’s too confused to turn around. The third dagger dug itself into the elf's shoulder but he put his free hand against his chest at the exact same instant the dagger went in. What is he doing? She thinks to herself.

From Ignis point of view he knew there was a constitution saving throw the first time he was cut by those daggers, which means they likely have the same paralyzing poison as changeling bites. Ever since then anytime a dagger has come close to hitting him he has always made sure to have his open off hand pressed against him in some way so that he can instantly cure the poison if he fails the saving throw. He’d been lucky for the first two but he failed the third one. In an effort to keep his concentration up for Ashardalon’s Stride he made sure he was in a position to use his last 5 hit points from Lay on Hands to cure the poison the same instant he failed the saving throw. He hoped that would be good enough to prevent the paralysis from disrupting his concentration.

As the magical daggers fade out of existence and reappear next to Chrysalis the elf smirks, his plan worked. Unfortunately that was the only time he could use that trick, the next time he got poisoned it was lights out. Ignis sings out “Warning Warning.” As the changeling fires another beam at him, but this time the beam breaks apart into 5 smaller beams.

A new feminine voice starts singing in the same foreign language behind Chrysalis as she watches the elf spin, jump, twist, and slide around all the attempts to hit him with the blast. The elf dashes to the left out of her vision and as she turns to the right to keep track of the bastard the air is blasted out of her lungs as it feels like a train just hit her barrel. She glances over in shock to see Luna has landed a full force double leg buck onto her body. As the impact hits the alicorn sings out, “Left side!”

Recovering her breath she twists her body in mid air only to realize too late the alicorn kicked her straight into Ignis. He has his sword arm wound back as far as it can go. He belts out a guttural scream, “RIGHT SIDE!” as he steps forward and puts his whole body into this slash. It connects straight into her midsection and although the blade is still unable to cut all the way through the chitin, the impact is incomparable to the last few hits. Unbeknownst to her, that hit and the very first one were critical hits. This hit blasts out another web of cracks.

As the rogue queen begins to roll and bounce like a ragdoll across the room she closes her eyes and reaches deep into her internal reservoir. I wanted to make sure I kept enough love for the hive to survive a few months after this takeover, but the situation has changed now. I can’t hold back.

Luna and Ignis are unaware of what the changeling is planning as both of them dash after the ragdoll changeling while both are still singing a quite catchy, but foreign chorus. They catch up to her and Luna flits her wings and goes a few feet in the air before performing an aerial flip and kicking the changeling into ground, “Left side!” She sings out with a laugh after her part and watches as her paladin follows up the blow with his own.

Ignis swings at the prone and stationary target, making use of his elven accuracy as he smirks and belts out, “Right side!” Leaving another web of cracks across the changelings chitin. Suddenly said exoskeleton is covered in pulsing pink veins as Chrysalis taps into the full power of the love she stole from the storage. All the cracks in her carapace fully heal in an instant as the changeling looks up at Ignis. The sudden dump of such a large amount of love leaves her in a state comparable to intoxication, the thirst for battle she was displaying earlier is turned up to eleven as she eyes him down with a crazed look in her eyes.

“You really are the best, Ignis Ferrum!” Her frenzied speaking turns into singing as she unknowingly joins the heartsong and finishes the chorus, “BE MY KING!”

With a speed no one was expecting she charges forward and rams the elf directly into the cave wall leaving him embedded into the stone as he coughs up a bit of blood and loses consciousness instantly. She then returns the buck she received earlier to Luna as the alicorn was charging at her to separate Ignis from the changeling. Luna slides across the floor into the wall opposite of Ignis and she slowly tries to stagger back up onto her hooves.

Now that she has a second to breathe, Chrysalis turns towards Aurora on the far side of the room. “No matter what else happens today, the most important thing is killing you, dear mother.” Aurora is hovering over the downed Celestia trying to give her what little mana she has left in the form of a healing spell, but as she looks across the room and sees the elf and the lunar alicorn currently attempting to stand her eyes begin to well up with tears from pure terror. Buzzing wings launch the love drunk Chrysalis directly at Aurora.

“Please, no! Stay away! HELP!” The Queen screams out as a green beam of magic impacts her barrel launching her into the wall on her side of the room. Ignis watches as the queen is launched into the wall and her eyes roll up into the back of her head. She might still be alive, but with Chrysalis still flying at full speed towards her she definitely won’t survive the second impact.

He still has the Haste effect because the sword didn’t lose concentration, but the bladesong and Stride spell both ended early when he lost consciousness for a second. He had gotten himself back up to 11 Hit Points with a natural 20 on his death save plus a level 2 Cure Wounds right before he watched the initial magic beam impact Aurora.

Time seems to slow down as he lowers himself back down into his stance and as he re-activates Ashardalon’s Stride and Bladesong he screams out inside his head, “Harmony, PLEASE!” He’s calculated that if he misty steps he can hit Chrysalis in time but there’s no guarantee that will actually stop the changeling. He needs to move faster than he ever has before, the same way he did versus Nightmare Moon. Then with that momentum he can throw Chrysalis off course. Ignis needs the real True Bladesong.

Chrysalis is milliseconds away from ramming herself into Aurora at full speed when the room lights up with blue mana and Ignis disappears in a blur that moves towards the changeling. Less than instant later the elf appears in the air to the right of the changeling as he lowers his shoulder and rams directly into the rogue queen. The room is filled with dust from the huge crater Ignis and Chrysalis made, preventing anyone from knowing what has truly happened. Luna feels like a rock is in her stomach as she realizes that the brief instance of music from that second bladesong is no longer present.

She yells out, “Ignis! Answer me!” A golden aura is barely visible in the brown dust cloud currently occupying the room. A bipedal body is gently laid down next to Luna wrapped in that same golden aura. Suddenly a magical wind spirals into the room and carries the dust out of the only exit the room has. Luna sees Celestia standing up and staring at the deep crater in the wall where Chrysalis is currently embedded with a shocked look on the changeling's face.

The next thing Luna see’s is Aurora lying motionless on the ground next to Celestia. Only the whites of her eyes are visible as 3 incorporeal green daggers are embedded in her body. One of them in her neck. She must’ve launched those the instant she felt the explosion of mana from Ignis. All of his effort was for nothing….

Chrysalis, laughing like an insane person, dislodges herself from the wall and Celestia jumps backwards landing next to the unconscious elf and Luna. “Lulu, we cannot defeat her as she is right now. We need to get ourselves and our ponies out of here. Do you have enough mana to teleport yourself and Ignis back up to the surface?”

“Aye, I have plenty of mana. Are you sure though sister? I know Aurora was an old friend of yours. If we coordinate perfectly we can likely outlast her supply of love.”

“Yes, but then we’d doom the entire hive to death. The love she holds within herself is all the hive currently has.” The solar alicorns’ mask cracks as a few tears begin to stain her coat. “You will pay for this, Chrysalis. I’ll make sure of it.”

The new official queen sneers at Celestia, “Bold of you to think I’ll let either of you leave, but if you give up that creature on the floor….. I’ll let every single other creature walk out of this colosseum, unharmed.”

Without warning both alicorns go airborne and ignite their horns. Chrysalis quickly makes a mad dash towards the elf as Luna positions herself in front of Celestia. Both of the sisters' eyes begin shining light from an influx of mana as both sisters yell out at the same time.

“ECLIPSE”
“ECLIPSE”

A large golden beam flies over the tip of Luna’s horn and suddenly the entire room is plunged into darkness until a silver beam appears and expands. The room is lit up once again with a beam made up of gold and silver light swirling together. The combined magical attack crashes into the changeling and continues forward pushing her into the same crater Chrysalis had just dislodged herself from. After the initial explosion from the first impact, the beam just roars louder as it pushes her further and further into the bedrock.

Finally the beam begins to grow smaller until it eventually dissipates. Celestia looks over to Luna and tells her, “Take him and meet me in the center of the colosseum, we’ll double check and make sure the other nations are stable and their leaders are alive. Once that’s done we evacuate as fast as possible."

As the 3 creatures glow and begin to teleport there’s a loud scream of rage heard from deep within the cave wall. Chrysalis re-emerges from the wall but it’s too late, she’s alone in the room.

Ignis 1st Person POV

Oh man, I succeeded in my death saving throws but I’m still unconscious. I trust Luna was able to do something after my kamikaze charge to save Aurora and get everyone out of that hive. My only concern is that I haven’t gotten any XP which means we for sure didn’t defeat her, but we still likely escaped. I hope so at least. Fuck me I used just about everything I had there. Completely out of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell slots. I have 2 first level spell slots and that’s it.

Reviewing the fight in my head I try to hold onto the feeling I had at the very end of the fight. The first bladesong felt so similar to the True Bladesong, but it’s pretty obvious I still have a long way to go. When I activated that second bladesong though, that feeling is the one I’m desperately trying to hold onto. I activated everything and then I reached into my mana pool the same way I did my 2nd night here when I managed to use the Light spell. I forced my mana to violently expand and embed itself deeper into my body than it usually does. It felt like someone was squeezing me like a super empty tube of toothpaste. There was so much… pressure throughout all my limbs, to the tips of my fingers and toes.

Once that happened, I could feel it. My entire perception of reality slowed down to a crawl and I could feel every muscle twitch, every individual hair on my body brushing against the air. I looked at Chrysalis and decided that’s where I wanted to be and it felt like I kicked the ground several times in an instant. After that I remember everything just blurred and my entire vision just stretched and tunneled onto that bitch. Then suddenly I was just there. It’s a miracle I didn’t miss her entirely.

Honestly compared to what I felt when I fought Nightmare this was completely different. I’m 99% sure that this had nothing to do with my bladesong and instead was just a metric fuck ton of adrenaline dumping into my system. That combined with my muscles and veins getting forcibly expanded with imbued mana allowed me to not only perceive everything in slow motion, but move fast enough to actually act on it.

After coming to that conclusion I let go of the feeling, I am much more confident now that the Equestrian bladesong does require mana, but I’m also confident that what I experienced had nothing to do with the bladesong. Whatever it was didn’t even register with the system, it just gave me a system error as soon as I forcibly circulated and expanded the mana.

+1 Hit Point: 1/32.

+1 Hit Point: 2/32.

My eyes snap open to the sight of a random guard pointing their lit horn at me. Ah they’re healing me. Wait, why is my Hit Point maximum 32? It should be 63.

I attempt to sit up when it feels like my entire body is suddenly electrocuted. I start writhing in pain as the guard tells me to take it easy and don’t move. What the fuck is this? Ever since coming here it was like the system was dulling my pain and preventing fatigue. I’ve never been unable to move after a fight…. Is it because of what I did with my mana?

Exhaustion Level: 5. Movement Speed: 0ft.

Holy shit. I’m really at my limit then, huh? The guard stops healing me and my Hit Points are sitting at 7 out of 32. If I had gained 1 more level of Exhaustion my heart would’ve stopped on the spot. Exhaustion is a super nasty mechanic, at Exhaustion level 1 you get disadvantage on all ability checks. Level 2 your movement speed is cut in half, level 3 you gain disadvantage on all attacks and saving throws. Level 4 your hit point maximum is halved and at level 5 your movement speed is reduced to 0. Level 6 you legitimately just straight up die, no rolls, no checks.

So, never doing that move again then. “Can one of you ponies help me sit up please?”

One of them ignites their horn and I feel an invisible force start pushing on my back. Once I sit up I realize I’m in the royal carriage. Looking around I spot both princesses across from me. Celestia is staring out the window with an absent look on her face. Has she been crying? Luna is just staring at me with the most exhausted look I’ve ever seen from her. “Why are we in the carriage? Have I been asleep for days and missed the meeting to discuss this incident? Did we already help the changelings repair the damages and healed all the injured? Where’s Queen Auro-”

“Ignis. We are retreating for now, Chrysalis was too powerful for us to defeat and we didn’t want to risk adding more numbers to our loss count. You’ve only been knocked out for an hour or so. We did make sure all the other nations leaders were safe and able to evacuate, but I have no clue how many of their soldiers were lost. You were commendable out there though, Equestria and even myself are proud to call you the Lunar Paladin.” Celestia interrupts me and gives me most of my answers.

“Okay so is Aurora being treated in one of the other carriages?” Celestia’s face scrunches up and falls as she returns to looking out the window. Luna answers instead.

“No. Chrysalis launched multiple daggers the exact instant you made contact with her. Queen Aurora is dead. To be completely honest none of us are sure if she was even alive after the first hit she took from the raw magic.”

I feel my eyes glaze over as grief pounds at my chest. “No….no I-I stopped her. We just left her there?! Chrysalis still draws breath and WE LEFT?!” I try to stand only to fall onto the floor of the carriage between the 2 rows of seats. Images of the changeling queen smiling at me during the meetings and in the donation tent. The embarrassment from being called cute. I told her I would handle Chrysalis, and she trusted me to save her and her hive. I failed.

The grief begins to turn into blinding rage and everything goes black.

3rd Person POV

Luna and the medic both yell out in panic as the elf stands and falls onto the floor. The medical guard slides off the flat seat onto the floor and begins trying to help Ignis back to the seat for him to lay back down. But when Luna tries to grasp onto the elf with telekinesis there’s a sudden shockwave of mana from the elf as he starts screaming and writhing in her magical grasp.

He breaks out of the telekinesis and while kneeling on the floor he reaches towards the door of the carriage when Luna steps in and wraps him up in her wings and forelegs. “Ignis please your body is already shattered you need to rest, I’m sorry we couldn’t save her but you’re not going to accomplish anything like this!”

“CHRYSALIS!” He shouts rivaling the Royal Canterlot voice.

The changeling queen standing on top of the Colosseum directing her new subjects in repair efforts actually manages to hear her name. She looks towards the pony formation marching away in the distance and points a scrying spell at them. Once the spell activates she bites her lip and smiles as she watches the elf somehow manage to stand and expel mana from a body that is clearly beyond its limit. Celestia detects the spell and instantly dispels the magic out of the air.

Ignis and Chrysalis then both make declarations at the same time, unbeknownst to each other.

“I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO! I WILL HUNT YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH AND I WILL KILL YOU!”
“Ahh my wonderful food source, I will find you again and I won’t let you go next time. You will be mine!”

Luna tries to force Ignis to sleep with magic but it seems to just keep failing. Like he just has an inherent resistance to sleep or something. After a few seconds Celestia radiates a calming light that illuminates the entire guard formation. The elf rapidly becomes more and more quiet before finally collapsing back down onto the floor of the carriage. He chants the word Remedium two times and then very slowly crawls towards and onto the seat in-between Luna and Celestia. Leaving the medical guard alone on the other side of the carriage.

Ignis leans against Luna and just silently sheds tears. “I’m so sorry Ignis. You barely knew Aurora, I didn't think you’d be in this much despair over her loss.” She does her best to replicate the uncomfortable bipedal sitting posture that the elf uses and wraps a wing around him.

“Luna…” After a few seconds he continues, “I’ve been here for nearly a month, and in that time I can count on both hands how many creatures, not just ponies, have actually treated me like they treat anyone else. Even fewer are the number of creatures that have actually shown me kindness, given me a compliment, or actually made me smile. Aurora was one of those creatures. I had promised myself that if it was possible to save you and help her then I would do both. If I had just spent less time on the surface or given her more healing before engaging with Chrysalis... It’s just so frustrating, Luna. I’ve never suffered such a loss, felt so hopeless against an opponent before. I told you during my first day in the castle, I would save all 6 ponies from the train even if it kills me. So, why am I still alive when ponies are dead? Aurora is dead. I almost killed a guard with my fireball because of my own recklessness!”

Choking up a bit the elf sniffles and continues, “When she slammed me into that wall, it was truly the first time I felt that level of hopelessness, if I hadn’t had that explosion of mana I would’ve been insignificant. I just…. “

“Shh. Ignis you saved so many lives on the surface. Nopony blames you for making an inaccuracy in a split second decision. I can definitely say nopony expected you to subdue a jumped up changeling queen that was running on more love than any other changeling in history. An enemy that even Tia and I couldn’t subdue. I’m sorry that your first true defeat had to be one so overwhelming and crushing, but I promise you everypony feels the same way you do right now. Resent and disgust at ourselves for our weakness. Just rest for now my paladin and I will give you pleasant dreams.”

The elf shamelessly grabbed the edge of Luna's wing and pulled it closer as he gave the alicorn a nod and closed his eyes.

“Well, I will say I didn’t expect you to do this. Especially with how embarrassed you were the night you saw me raise the moon.”

Ignis opened his eyes with a blush and he wordlessly tried to shimmy out of her grasp, but she just kept him in place and whispered, “I didn’t say I hated it though. Rest easy, Ignis.”

Author's Note

Sorry for weeb music, I'm just trying to make sure I use a WIDE variety of music for the bladesongs. So far we've had Western Cartoon song, Video game song, and now anime song.

For those of you less familiar with D&D I'll explain what he took with his level up since it's not explained completely in the chapter. He added a level to wizard and was allowed to learn 2 new spells. He learned the 3rd level spell Ashardalon's Stride and the 4th level spell Locate Creature. After that he rolled a 1d6 to increase his max HP and rolled a 4. This brought his max HP to 63.

But that's it! The global summit arc is officially over! Ignis got pretty close to achieving the true bladesong for a second time but it was just missing something.

Also let me explain some of the retcons I took for changelings here. Chrysalis in show canon honestly just feels evil for the sake of being evil. Like to a stupid degree. So, I retconned the motivation for her evil deeds to be an infinite thirst for power and a love for fighting. Second changeling canon I hated was the implication that changelings existed for hundreds, maybe thousands of years and just never got the idea to try loving each other? So my retcon for that I'm implying in this arc that changelings are not a hostile nation, they have plenty of food, and are fully integrated into society.

This atleast gives them some type of explanation for why they haven't evolved, because there's been no need. Now the Chrysalis has essentially made an enemy of seemingly every nation(?) that might change, who knows. Also if anyone thinks I went too overboard with how horny Ignis makes Chrysalis, it's not him that does it, it's his use to her as a tool. That's how much she loves power, the thought of having a reliable, consistent, and potent food source that would allow her to be at peak power at all times is enough to drive her up the wall. She does like his spirit, willpower, and combat ability though.... so I guess she does also like him as a person, but it's mostly the first thing.

Last thing, I'm fairly confident the timing of the lyrics in the fight will line up with the song if you consider each turn is 6 seconds, but I definitely put too many descriptions and expositions between the combat actions so most of you will be done listening to the song before you even get to the chorus in the story. I'll try and get better with that if/when I do another heartsong in the story, but it's quite hard to align properly.

Thanks for reading!