“You know, it’s not that I dislike you, elf. I simply wish you would stop changing Fate, but the more I observe and the more I ponder, I’ve come to realize that it’s like you’re doing these things on purpose. In fact most of the time you are doing what you consider to be just.”

One second I was in the throne room and time was paused. Discord did something to me and the system shut down. Now I’m here. In Harmony’s pocket realm. “The things you’ve set in motion are going to ruin all of us, unintentional or not. My most devoted though, she defended you. She suggested a change in perspective. “The things that have been done cannot be undone, and your book of Fate might suggest that the world will crumble to nothing. But have you considered that maybe, just maybe, if he’s the one that started all of this. Well, surely he can be the one to fix it, no?””

Harmony does a perfect imitation of Celestia’s voice. I didn’t think she’d do something like that for me. “I think she might be onto something. The book says everything is lost and all will turn to dust. But, you’ve already changed the book. Several times. If you’ve always acted in the name of good then surely you’ll continue to change it, and change it for the better. What’s done cannot be undone, so perhaps I should just support you. Support you and hope that you’ll continue to change Fate for the better and rewrite the ending you’ve set in this book.”

Finally it feels like I can move. I think she had me restrained so I wouldn’t interrupt her. “You know I actually thought about this after our last conversation and I remembered something. It’s not me and me alone that is changing fate. You see when I first came to this realm I went through something called a Tutorial. That tutorial was meant to give me a basic understanding of this strange and unique power I have, but the first thing the tutorial said to me is what piqued my interest.”

“Everything in this world is randomly decided, some call it Fate others name it Destiny. You’re able to slightly influence and bring visual representation of this greater power in the form of Dice.”

“When I roll the dice, that’s when Fate changes. If I had realized the implications of this earlier or maybe if you spoke to me before it was too late. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. You’re right though. What’s been done cannot be undone. Honestly if my changing of Fate is what allowed this Discord guy to return then maybe you should’ve let me die at the hands of Nightmare Moon. He’s tough and I don’t know how we can beat him. He even circumvented this same power that allows me to change Fate. What are we supposed to do against that? Become his friend? You said you’ll support me right? So, how the fuck do we beat this thing?”

“If my little sunshine was here and she heard you use such vulgarity in my presence I think her mane might’ve caught on fire.” The semi-translucent alicorn lets out a small chuckle, despite how hopeless I feel about our current situation. “Come hither, let me show you my support.”

My feet feel like bricks as I slowly take step after step in this astral realm towards the Goddess. Once I reach her she shows me something I’ve never seen from her before, a smile. Her horn ignites. “Chaos might have razed my temple and slaughtered my army, but all of their training and their teachings is still within me. I will pass onto you all of the Bladesinger training that would have previously been impossible for you to receive. This still won’t give you the True Bladesong. In fact you’ve never truly used Songblade Harmony, even against Nightmare almost all of my causality was spent bringing you back from the precipice of death. All I could do was use the nearby elements to augment your bladesong. Empower all of the features you already had, but this? This should be much more of an improvement than what you’re used to. First let me help you with this, though.”

The alicorn leans down and touches the tip of her horn to the top of my head.

Rebooting…100%
System Online.

All of my statistics and statuses and spells roar to life again and I feel all of my energy and power surge up and swell. Then everything goes dark again.

Hundreds, no, thousands of memories and pages of words are flashing in my mind. It’s almost too much, I can feel the blood vessels in my head pulsing. Sword slashes by the hundreds of thousands, the clashing of steel a million times over. Streams of words and techniques flooding every neuron in my skull.

This goes on for what feels like years, but must’ve only been minutes in reality. When I return to the present the alicorn has a serious look on her face. “You won’t be able to use all of that information at once. In fact I have no clue which parts of it you’ll pick up instantly and which parts you’ll have to dig through your memories to find. Some might require you to be on the brink of death to understand them. Nonetheless, this should be immensely helpful to you. I have one last gift for you and then I’m afraid I must rest. This was too direct of an intervention and it’s consumed far too much of my power for the moment.”

Her horn flashes one more time.

Long Rest, simulated. Spell slots restored, class features restored, hit points recovered.

3rd Person POV

“Luna what are you doing?!” Celestia shouts as she chases her sister out of the castle and into downtown Canterlot.

“I’m getting him out of this city. If the elements are coming here then who knows what developments will happen here. The entire mountain should be evacuated!” Luna replies while carrying an unconscious elf on her back. Ignis is laying on his stomach, completely limp with his arms hanging off the sides of her body.

“Evacuated where?! Luna the entire world is like this! There is nowhere anypony can go to escape this chaos. We need to stay in the castle so we can prepare Twilight properly. Ignis can wait in the medical wing. Now please, come back to the castle Luna.”

The sisters continue to argue in the populated and panicked streets of Canterlot and the sight of their Princesses having lost their composure drives the ponies to even more panic. Discord meanwhile is just doing the backstroke through the air with a straw in his mouth, and everytime he floats past a cloud he sticks the straw in it and slurps it up. “Tia you don’t get it. Ignis cannot stay here. He can’t!”

“Why?! What puts him in any more danger than the rest of our ponies?”

“HE IS A BLADESINGER, TIA! Discord already wiped out the rest of them eons ago. What makes you think he’ll let Ignis just lay in bed and recover in the medical wing?! Every second he stays on this mountain is another second I risk losing him. And I will. Not. Lose. Him.”

Celestia just pauses, a bit slack jawed at her own lapse in judgment. She hadn’t even considered the fact that Discord might go out of his way to finish the job he thought he did back then. Luna huffs in annoyance and turns to continue running towards the exit path that leads down the mountain.

Before she can take too many steps though, something happens. The elf on her back starts to glow in a bright golden light. The color and life seems to return to his body and the elf starts to hover in the air, his eyes still closed.

Finally his long silver hair starts to whip about wildly as if caught in a tornado until all of that hair merges into one and becomes a silver ethereal cloud.

Just like Luna and Celestia.

His eyes open and there’s no iris, no pupil. The eyes are just pure white, emitting their own silver glow.

The elf slowly lifts up both of his arms and silently gazes at his hands as he clenches and unclenches them. Rotating them around to look at his palm and knuckles. Finally he fully extends his right arm and flicks it towards the ground.

Dust and dirt kick up as a whirlwind of pressure is flung from the force of his swing. Most of the ponies present are staring in awe and even Discord has paused his backstrokes as he looks at the elf in surprise. Luna calls out to the elf, “Ignis! I don’t know what happened but don’t be overconfident. You are still no match for Discord! We need to evacuate.”

Ignis slowly turns in the air and looks at Luna. “I don’t have to win. I just have to buy time.”

He unsheathes his Moonblade and turns towards Discord. Right before anything further happens he glances back towards Luna one more time.

“I love you. Now let me go do my job, as your paladin.”

The golden light finally dies down, but the ethereal hair remains. The golden glow is replaced with a silver aura, the same aura as his bladesong once he unlocked Song of Defence. Now though the aura extends out from the elf. Instead of hovering around his body and inch away it’s now more like a large cylinder. It extends out several inches in all directions from the elf.

“Symphony of Steel.”

What used to be a quiet melody that could be heard by those within a few feet of the bladesinger has turned into a concert. Clearly audible by anyone within a few thousand feet. A voice rings out but it’s not Ignis singing. The mana is singing. This was the next evolution of the Bladesong he had been searching for since the colosseum. He knew it involved mana but didn’t realize he needed to focus on the mana in the air instead of the mana in his body.

The billions of mana particles, invisible to the naked eye, needed to be stimulated. If you simply took the concept of your presence, which he had mastered suppression of, and instead expanded that presence. Place your song into your aura as you push against the world with your very being, and those natural mana particles will begin to vibrate. They harmonize and expand your senses. While the mana in the air is vibrating to your song you are attuned to it. The range of your senses, the capacity of your mana pool, it’s all empowered and expanded by the attuned mana in the air.

Ignis can currently sense the exact mana signature of every creature within 100ft of him. He can feel movements and spells up to 300ft away from himself. This is the true essence of the bladesong. When you harmonize with the world itself.

“Let’s try this one more time, Discord.”

“You really think this power up is enough for you to win? All you’ve done is cement the fact that I cannot allow you to exist in the world I want to live in.”

“I don’t know. I feel like I can do anything right now.”

Discord snaps his fingers and all of the lamp posts in the streets, the mailboxes, the park benches, they turn into all sorts of creatures. Timberwolves, manticores, giant insects, massive spiders.

The ponies that were watching in awe start to panic and scream and begin to run around aimlessly again as they watch the transformations take place.

“A state of chaos and disorder is upon us.”

Ignis snaps his own fingers and whispers out a phrase that vibrates out like a shock wave. All of the transformations never complete, they all stop prematurely and the objects return to normal. “Counterspell.”

“Will you take up arms?”

The ponies hear the words and see the power that’s been flexed before them and some of them even start to feel inspired. Guards that were previously directing traffic or hiding in shame start to step forward, feeling empowered.

“Will you help us make our last stand? The time is now. Let us be heard as we sing our way into battle.”

A roar of voices and battlecries can be heard spreading throughout the filled streets and alleys of Canterlot. An instant later and the elf disappears. He reappears directly above the draconequus and swings his Moonblade like lightning, aiming for the creature's neck.

The blade cuts through nothing but smoke as the Chaos God avoids the slash. Discord then performed his usual move and floated in the ethereal plane, where he could talk to the ponies and observe them, but they were none the wiser.

I thought we had a deal, Harmony. I put this brat in his place and you don’t meddle with my game I intend to play with the Elements? Discord thinks to himself as he continues to hide in the ethereal plane. He considers what he should do now. Since if he eliminates the bladesinger wouldn’t that still be doing what Harmony wants? He considers just teleporting the bladesinger to the other side of the planet and locking him in a nullstone prison cell.

All of Discord's thoughts come screeching to a halt when he watches the elf slowly turn and look straight at him. I didn’t think he had truly achieved the evolved bladesong, but if he can tell where I am then he truly has attuned to the mana. Discord is entirely right, since mana exists in the ethereal plane as well that plane is included in the radius of his senses.

In an instant the elf appears right in front of Discord and he smirks wondering what the elf thinks he can do. He might be able to tell where I am, but he still can’t do anything to me. He can’t cross the plane to even try and touch me.

Unfortunately for Discord, Ignis is a human. A human from a world without magic. This gives him the unique property of lacking common sense, he has no baseline for how magic should work. In his mind Ignis thinks, Well, if mana exists in both places at once at the same time then I should be able to do that too, no? If I’m attuned to the world then why can’t I just….

The bladesinger reaches forward with his empty off hand and wraps his fingers around the air. Then he simply snatches that arm to the right, as if he was ripping open a curtain. Ignis simply grasped the mana, which exists in both planes at the same time, and used their vibrations to reach between planes. He tears open the sky and exposes the draconequus.

Caught completely and utterly off guard at the absurd situation the monster was entirely unprepared to be grabbed by the same hand and yanked back into the material plane like a ragdoll. “Wha- You DARE?! Unhand me you barbarian!”

“I don’t have any levels in barbarian. I’m a wizard, Harry.”

While still grasping Discord as tightly as he can, he channels a level five smite into his hand.

That hand glows a bright silver and thunderclap of divine energy resonates within the chaotic creature's body. For the first time in a long time, he felt pain.

“No more playing games, then.” Discord mutters quietly and the words send a shiver up the elfs spine.

Quickly flying backwards away from the God, Ignis comes up with his next plan.

Ignis grabs his Staff of the Magi and channels its power to cast Fireball at 7th level. As the fire swirls and grows he decides to try something a little risky. He projects two Strengthen runes in front of the fireball and starts to channel as much mana as he possibly can into the runes. Based on how much mana Fire Bolt needed to be Strengthened, when that was just a cantrip?! This fireball might very well empty half of his reserves, but luckily the attuned mana in the air just fills the gaps in his mana pool as they form. Sucked in like a vacuum. While he’s attuned it’s his mana, he’s just letting the world borrow it.

It’s time to light up the sky with fire!

The Fireball goes through the first rune and expands several times larger. Instantly he exerts pressure on the spell with all of the vibrating mana in the air and compresses the ball back down, until it passes through the second rune.

“It’s like a second sun…” Cadence says to herself as she spots the giant ball of fire from the complete other side of the city.

Discord snaps his claw multiple times and all the nearby trees and clouds are sucked in and transformed into sheets of glowing metal and radiating shields. Unfortunately he place all of his attention on the elf and forgot about the hundreds of ponies and guards below him that were inspired by the Symphony of Steel. As soon as they get a whiff of vulnerability from the Chaos God in the sky, they let loose.

Any of the guards trained in artillery and combat magic dump all their mana into bombs and blasts of magic towards the unprotected back of Discord. All the while he continues to snap his fingers and create more defenses for himself while also hurling spears of raw Chaos magic through the air.

Ignis spots the incoming barrage of magic and arrows from the civilians below and smirks. Then he slams both of his arms forward and hurls the massive mini-sun straight at the God. The ball collides with the random assortment of transmuted objects that have been randomly turned into different forms of shields. Metal groans and fire roars as the two forces push against each other.

Then it happens.

Hundreds of bolts, blasts, shells, and bombs of magic slam into the God from behind, catching him completely off guard. Arrows turn into water as they harmlessly bounce off his body. In reality the ponies did not do much damage, if any, to the God. But, they distracted him. For a split second the God turned his focus away from the Force of Nature in front of him.

That distraction was all he needed. Ignis had been bluffing the entire time. He never actually launched the Fireball. If he did it would’ve exploded on contact with the shields and metal and armor floating in the air. He simply continued to channel it and pushed it forward as if it was launched. As soon as the draconequus glances away the elf misty steps directly above him, bypassing all of the shields.

The Fireball teleports with him and suddenly appears inches away from the God. Discord panics for a tenth of a second and the mini-sun goes critical. Supernova.

Everyone sees it before they hear it, the giant ball of fire in the sky compressed down into the size of a gold coin and then in an instant the entire sky was filled with white light. No one could see anything as all of the ponies below covered their eyes from the intense flare. Then they heard it.

It was like nothing anyone on that planet had ever heard. It sounded as if a hundred trains slammed into an unbreakable wall at supersonic speeds. The ponies that were closest to ground zero felt as if their entire body was being violently vibrated by the soundwave.

Of course light is the fastest thing in the universe, so they saw it first. Sound is impressively fast as well, so they heard it next. The last sense left was to feel it but thankfully for them they don’t have to. Ignis was well aware the full brunt of the explosion would likely level everything in a ten block radius, so he took a page from Twilights book.

He flicked his wrist and formed a giant bubble shield around Discord. The explosion instantly filled the space and spread cracks like a spiderweb all over the shield, but the attuned mana in the air filled in the cracks as quickly as they formed. Once the explosion ran out of room to expand it started to roar and shake and consume itself alive as the fire ate away all of the precious oxygen inside the shield that it needed to survive.

The explosion turned into hundreds of smaller explosions as the pressure of being contained made pockets of air reignite and cause a chain reaction of flash burns and mini explosions all over.

Once the rumbling inside the shield had stopped Ignis dropped the shield while slightly panting for breath. Being able to use the world's mana from the air around him helped immensely but that still took a lot of power to keep it together. Ignis is silently hoping that the explosion either killed the God or that he’d look down and see Twilight and her friends.

Neither of those things happened though. Instead everyone gaped and stared with wide eyes at the floating draconequus. Patches of fur missing, left arm gone, blood stains all over his body, and bloodshot eyes seething with rage.

Snap

In one snap the missing arm is replaced, but instead of a lion foreleg and paw he now has a blue reptile arm with a hand that has three claws and a thumb. The missing fur grows back in all the wrong colors and all the blood vanishes completely. If you hadn’t seen what Discord looked like a few minutes ago you’d think this is how he normally looks, and he’s completely unharmed. All the damage done to him seems to have been undone in an instant.

“That’s it. I’m really done playing around now.” The creature snaps again and Luna appears. Flailing in the air angrily with a panicked look on her face. “Since you seem to care for both of those Lunar mares so much why don’t I do you a favor. See, I really liked her the way she used to be, so I’m gunna get the band back together!”

Another snap and a cloud of stars shoots down into the atmosphere from the moon. Ignis falls out of his bladesong due to fatigue, but almost instantly tries to jump back into it as he realizes what’s happening.

“NO! Let her go, you bastard!” The elf flings himself through the air in an attempt to stop this from happening but he’s too late.

The miasma of stars collides with the Princess and completely enshrouds the mare. Her eyes turn draconic, her teeth grow two fangs, and her coat turns pitch black. Nightmare Moon has returned but in a way that none of them wanted.

“What have you done, Discord?! I finally had my own body! I was going to be free! What is the meaning of this?! Undo this right now.” Nightmare lays into the God with a tirade of words and a string of curses.

Suddenly she goes quiet and Ignis looks and sees Discord's eyes have been replaced by strange swirls that remind of those mind control designs he used to see in old cartoons. To his horror, Nightmare's eyes mirror the swirls and Discord puts a claw on the tip of her horn.

Poor Luna, or should I say Nightmare. You trusted that knight of yours to free you and protect you. You even gave him your heart. For him to reveal that it was all a trick to get you sealed back inside Luna, so she could absorb your power! For over 100 years you’ve been trapped in Luna's body, slowly getting weaker and weaker as the elf and the alicorn taunted you. Tormented you. Now I have freed you. Returned you to the peak of your power just like 1,100 years ago before your initial banishment. So, what will you do with your new freedom?

Discord grabs the mare by the chin and turns her head towards Ignis who is moving his mouth, screaming something, but it’s not audible for her. She feels a pang of sadness and love when she sees how much despair he’s in. Ignis knows that something is happening to her mentally, cursing himself for running out of power at the worst time.

All of those pesky emotions are gone in an instant as thousands of fake memories flash in front of her. The only thing she feels is rage and a need for revenge. The unarmored Nightmare Moon tears herself away from Discord and gives the elf a death stare.

“Alright little bladesinger, hope you and your special somepony have fun!~ This should keep you occupied for a while. I’ll come find whichever one of you is still left when I finish playing with the elements.”

Celestia looks up at the newly empowered and corrupted alicorn, her eyes well up with tears knowing that if Twilight and her friends don’t hurry… Her sister is either going to lose her life, or lose her sanity when she sees what she’s done.

In either outcome she loses her sister again, forever.

Author's Note

For the record: Yes I did START writing this chapter about an hour after I uploaded the last one. So 4.2k words in a couple of hours.... what I'm tryna say is, there's a decent chance there's more mistakes in this chapter compared to the last one. I wrote this VERY fast.

Also holy fuck season 2 got dark quick, and the powerscaling is already going nuts. Hopefully none of you actually thought Ignis would beat Discord, cause that would be CRAZY. I wonder if any of you remember a certain dream Ignis had way way earlier on in the story? Would you believe me if I said that was actual foreshadowing and I had been planning for this moment for months? Believe me or not it's true!

I'm dropping lore bombs and revealing shit and finally uncorking everything I've been bottling up since early Season 1. Hopefully it's a bit more understandable why I NEEDED to solve the Get Home thread so the romance could actually start and for relationships to form now? It's regrettable that I started the thread on that way too late into season 1, but I've been locked in on this path for a while now.

Anyways, enjoy your double release two chapters in one day shit. Sorry for the dark turn of events, but this arc is just getting started. I mean it, this discord arc is a beast and still has a lot of runtime left. I've got more things planned to reveal that are on the same level as "The spellbook was made by someone really really powerful oh and also The Weave and Chaos magic are the same thing. Oh and also the spell book has been acting as a Weave battery for Ignis and all of his magic items and the system, so he can keep doing D&D shit." Otherwise he woulda ran outta spell slots in like chapter 9, long rested, and still had no spell slots left haha.

Okay enough rambling, I need to get ready for bed. Hopefully you all enjoy this arc as much as I am.

Thanks for reading! <3