By the time their ears had stopped ringing all of their anger had wafted away. The bats were much more wary of me after that, but it seems some of the things I had said to them had some effect on them. “So Chancellor what do you say? Let’s start over and try this again.” I call out to the pony from below their podiums.

“While your words may hold some truth, we would still refuse to serve under this knight. We also think he is unsuited to be your personal guard. Since Her Majesty employed you she’s been captured by changelings and nearly trampled by an Ursa Major. You are far too weak to be trusted as the sole protector of her life. If she had a personal retinue of thestrals neither of those things would’ve come to pass. At the very least we refuse to acknowledge you as part of the Night Guard.” They’re intelligence network is… impressive.

“How many of you would be in her personal guard unit?”

The Chancellor looks a bit confused for a moment, “The standard unit is 12 ponies. They would be the best of the best.”

“Do you already know which of your guards would be in this unit?”

“Of course. We were prepared to deploy them immediately following negotiations.”

I start to stretch my arms and chest then crack my knuckles. “Alright, let’s see who’s more deserving to be her personal guard? Your elite unit or me and myself.”

Luna whispers in my ear before the Chancellor can respond. “Do I not get a say in this, Ignis? What kind of knight has a competition to decide who stands beside me?!”

I reply with my normal speaking voice, not caring if they hear me. “I didn’t say the winner would actually be your personal guard, Luna. I just said the winner would be more deserving. Either way it’s fine because I don’t plan on losing.”

“Don’t think you’ll win just because of that cheap trick you pulled earlier. Now that we know you have that capability we’ll be prepared for it.” I just give the Chancellor a smug smirk in response.

“So does that mean you agree to the fight?”

“With one additional stipulation.” Now I’m frowning, this can only mean trouble. “If we win, every demand in that scroll will be met. If you win we’ll acknowledge you as the 2nd in command.”

That’s it? All their requests seemed pretty benign as far as I know, they just wanted autonomy and to be served meat. I stopped listening before Luna got to the 2nd half of the scroll though, so there might be something egregious in those demands. I decide to glance at Luna and see what her opinion is. “Ignis you surely aren’t actually thinking about this, are you?”

“I was… why? Is there something super heinous in there? I stopped listening and seeing through Callisid when cuntface up there blamed all of their problems on you.”

“One of the last demands listed there is that I have to accept one of the thestrals from this colony as my Prince Consort.”

I’m still in the middle of mentally processing that when the Chancellor calls out to me. “Well sir knight, where’d all your confidence about winning go? If you’re so sure of your victory then prove it.”

“Every demand but the consort one.” I respond in a flat tone.

“Hm?”

“I said every demand except the consort. It’s not up to us to decide that, and it’s shameful for you to have even listed that as a demand.”

Persuasion.

17 + 1 = 18.

“Fine. Follow me.” The Chancellor flies down and lands next to Luna before leading us away towards the back of the cavern. Once we reach the back wall of the cavern there’s a staircase on the ground that leads down into a decently sized empty room. Well, mostly empty. There are glowing runes all over the floor with blue torches on the wall, this room is definitely magical.

Sensing that we’re both about to ask what this room is, the Chancellor preemptively answers us. “You lay down on one of the glowing glyphs and anypony that’s asleep on the glyphs will be in the same dreamscape. We commonly use it for tournaments or to settle disputes as it allows you to go all out without needing to worry about killing your opponent. Just wait here while we go retrieve your opponents.”

“Luna… quick question. Can’t most people do whatever they want inside a dream? Only limited to what your imagination can conjure?”

“I’ve seen a few ponies with that ability to do so, but it’s rare. I’d wager most could do it with practice but the difficult part is training yourself to recognize you’re in a dream so you can experiment with it. However, I think I see where you’re going with this, and the answer is no. You cannot control or freely manipulate a dream if it’s not your dream. That’s why I have to use my magic to either fight off and banish the nightmares or to make the dreamer realize it’s a dream.”

“Well it was worth a shot anyways. If I could freely manipulate the fighting arena then they could bring every guard in this mountain and I’d still win.” I need to get Callisid back in here. Waving my hand I summon the raven from wherever he was hiding earlier. “Hey Cal, in a few minutes we’re going to be unconscious on these glyphs. I need you to keep an eye out for anyone approaching us while we’re unconscious and wake us up before anything happens.”

Y-yes, I will keep the both of you safe.

“Cal… are you.. Scared? Of me?”

I just need some time, sir. Before your coma you were such a diligent and nice boy, and I just never expected to feel that much rage and killing intent from you.

“Oh right I guess you were killed before I went into the changeling hive and I didn’t resummon you until well after it, so that was the first time you’ve seen that side of me.” That reminds me, my hair is fucked up again. Is it easier to trigger the transformation now that I’ve done it once? It’s a bit of a problem because now that I’ve transformed it’s harder to maintain my suppression again. “Sorry about that buddy, I just didn’t appreciate them shitting on Luna and using her as a scapegoat. They’re lucky I cut off the connection when I did because if I had heard about that consort bit while I was still actively enraged… it would’ve been bad.”

By the time I calm down my mana to return my hair back to silver the Chancellor has returned with a decent number of guards. Once everyone is in the room they seal the chamber and we all lay down on the ground above the glowing glyphs.

Opening my eyes I find myself in the everfree forest on a cold night. It’s strange though because there’s no stars or moon in the sky, but it is technically a dream so I guess it’s fine, right? Looking around I see several Scrying orbs scattered around, is that for the non-combatants? When do we start the match? Well while I’ve got a few seconds let’s test my idea, even if Luna said it won’t work.

I try to imagine a dying ancient red dragon appearing next to me. Of course nothing happens. Looking at my XP bar I try to imagine the number just rapidly increasing to 400,000, but that doesn’t work either. Alright well it was worth a shot.

Perception.

15 + 6 = 21.

Crack-snap. A twig just broke several feet behind me, did the match already start? Turning around I see 4 of the guards positioned in the tree’s with 2 on the ground and they all scatter as soon as I see them.

Roll for Initiative.

11 + 5 = 16.

I can barely hear the sound of something whizzing through the air above me and it’s getting closer. With a quick hop to the right I watch as one of the bats zips through the area where I was standing. An instant later I hear the same sound but from several directions at once. “Shield!” Sparks are sent through the air as several bats have their wing blades deflected by my shield, but one slips through giving me a pretty deep cut on my left arm.

-10 HP: 65/75.

Ignoring the stinging sensation I quickly look around and try to lock in on 5 of these bastards. My best shot is going to be taking out as many of them in one move as possible. There’s 3 above me that are banking in the air to come back towards me and 2 that were too close to the ground after getting deflected by my shield so they ended up landing and sliding. All 5 are within 30ft of me so this is perfect.

I take in a huge gasp of breath as I flourish the Moonblade and everything blurs as I start zipping through the air towards the 3 bats above me.

Roll to hit: 3 targets, 3 rolls.

10 + 9 = 19. 14 + 9 = 23. 12 + 9 =21.

Within a fraction of a second I can feel the blade slash and cut all 3 targets as everything blurs again and I teleport to the 2 bats that were on the ground.

Roll to hit: 2 targets, 3 rolls.

17 + 9 = 26. 11 + 9 =20.

Appearing next to the 5th bat on my feet I flick my wrist and throw all of the blood off the blade. Next I hear the sound of high pressure liquid spraying, it’s their blood spraying out from their wounds.

Roll for Damage: 5 hits. 6d10 times 5.

1. 36. 24. 43. 35 Force Damage.

3 of the bats poof into thin air which I assume means they died, it was 2 in the air and the one I landed next to on the ground. The other two don’t seem to be doing so hot though, the last one that was in the air dropped out of the sky and collapsed back down after trying to stand. The other one has dropped onto her knees for both forelegs and has stuck her wing blade into the ground to keep herself propped up.

Glancing around I spot a few more of the thestrals hiding in trees or hovering high in the sky, with 3 dead and 2 currently incapacitated that leave 7 more to find. Out of those 7 I’ve spotted 6, so I’ve just got one bat unaccounted for. Well I’ve learned my lesson from the Ursa Major encounter, I still have my bonus action so I’m using my Bladesong.

I let my mana run wild as an ominous song starts to shred through the air. Apparently now that I’ve gotten much better at mana control the wisps that used to form around me are instead appearing as a slightly opaque silver aura forming a 5ft circle around me that goes 2 or 3ft above my head. AC: 23. (Click here for bladesong music.)

To an outsider this must look a bit intimidating because the two injured bats have started shuffling away from me with their eyes wide open. “That’s three down.” I decide to lean into the intimidation.

“Formation Delta Three!” One of the injured bats on the ground shouts out loud and I watch as 3 more bats take their position in the sky above me. The 3 of them form a rough triangle before angling themselves upside down, heads pointed at me. Then while they’re starting to fall all 3 of them open face towards the center of the triangle they’ve formed and lock one of their wings halfway open. They’re effectively becoming an ultra sharp rotating drill that’s barreling towards me. Another 3 are flying straight at me from 3 different angles, and all 3 of them are just a couple of feet above the ground, I see what the point here is. They’ve cut off all routes of escape, no matter which way I dodge I’ll be moving straight into one of their wings.

I start to sprint towards one of the bats flying above the ground and the injured one on the ground shouts, “Formation close!” The bat I’m running towards squints and speeds up, all of the other bats have tilted and angled themselves to pincer me.

“Shield!”

Acrobatics Check (Advantage Bladesong.)

8 and 15. 15 + 9 = 24.

While sprinting towards the bat right in front of me I leap into the air and pull my legs up while casting my shield spell. Thanks to this leap the other bats are forced to fly at me in awkward directions. Performing a snappy somersault I land with both feet onto the bat I jumped towards, within an instance I jump towards the other 2 ground bats and the drill formation bats. Since the 2 other ground bats had to pull up to keep flying towards me and drill formation going straight down had to tilt themselves diagonally there’s now a perfect gap for me to jump through as I leap off of the guard I landed on.

To an outside observer I just ran towards one of the ground bats, jumped onto his back and then leaped diagonally through a small gap formed by their altered trajectories. It becomes my turn while I’m still in midair and time slows down as it registers in my brain that 7 bats are all grouped up right below me. Instantly my mind is made up.

As I cast this spell for some reason my body calls out an incantation that I haven’t used before, but it just feels… right.

“IGNISS!” I hurl the level 4 Fireball straight into the grouped up mass of thestrals and grin as it explodes on impact.

44 Fire Damage.

The smoke clears and only 2 of the 7 bats remain, but both of them are collapsed on the ground with singed fur and smoke wafting off their bodies. That’s two collapsed with a third one immobile a few feet to my right, the one that’s propped up on her wing blades. That means 8 are dead and 3 are out of the fight. There’s only one left and it’s the one I couldn’t locate.

I land on the ground and glance around in every direction trying to find the last bat, when suddenly I hear a feminine voice chuckle behind me. “Not bad, elf. Honestly we didn’t think we’d have to resort to our own cheap trick, so I must commend you for pushing us this far.”

Turning around I look at the mare and I’m extremely confused to see a thestral mare… with a horn? A thestral alicorn? What is going on right now? Above her are well over 50 corporeal swords and spears hovering in the air pointed towards me.

It was a trap all along. This dreamscape isn’t a neutral battleground; it uses one of the participants as the origin point and brings every other creature into their dreamscape. I’m not sure how you can win this one, bladesinger.

Author's Note

Part 2 of the double release! I bet you guys really thought I was gunna do that trope where the protag and some other character do a competition to win over the love interest while completely ignoring their opinions and treating them like a trophy. Haha I was tempted to, but decided it's a stupid trope so we went this route instead.

A long long time ago I actually intended for "Ignis" to be the incantation he uses for Fire Bolt, because that spell is actually attached to his racial traits and not his Wizard Spell List so it just felt right for his name to be the incantation for his "signature spell" as it were. This was around the time when I had the personality of Ignis lecture the MC about his refusal to use the cantrip that belongs to his name sake rather than Booming blade, but when I went to go callback to that moment I realized I wrote the dialogue in a way that the cantrip he's referring to is Green-Flame Blade, which still works, but isn't what I originally intended.

So I decided to make Fireball his signature spell and attached his name as the incantation. Cause ya know Ignis literally means fire, so... /shrug

Anyways, I gotta go figure out how to write myself out of this doozy I put myself in. Not even plot armor might be enough to get Ignis a W here...

Thanks for reading :D