“That’s one mistake corrected. Step away from my sister so I can finish this.”

As soon as those words left Daybreakers lips she felt something she hadn’t felt for over a thousand years. Fear. It was only for the briefest of moments, it left as quickly as it arrived. It was the look on his face. His head snapped towards her and his eyes were completely dull, almost dead, like a statue. His face expressed no emotion, it was unnatural. In that same instant Daybreaker was hit with a wave of pure animosity.

It’s the same mortal as before, calm down. If his emotions run wild he’ll be much more predictable, like a wild animal. Then it happened, the elfs blonde hair turned into pure fire, just like his father, for the second time in his life.

“So you intend to fight the Sun with fire? You must be joking.” Mana flared and surged around the bladesingers body and Daybreaker was reminded of when the three of them fought Chrysalis together. The final moment of his consciousness he did this exact technique with his mana before moving at nearly impossible speeds in a last ditch attempt to save Aurora.

That eerie, distorted sound begins to pick up in volume as it makes everyone nearby uncomfortable.

An emerald longsword suddenly flies past the alicorn's head and leaves a gash along the side of her neck. She expected him to speak or scream or vent his anger, and then she thought this would happen. That must be it, that’s why she was unable to react to the elf throwing his sword at her. She just wasn’t expecting an attack, that’s all.

Daybreakers eyes widen as suddenly a pair of dull green eyes are right in front of her. She leans back and flaps her wings but feels a surprisingly warm hand grab her by the neck. The alicorn begins to discharge mana in an attempt to separate herself from him. Mentally chiding herself for letting her guard down, she accepts that she is likely to fall under the elfs “Geas” before her shield can expand.

Ignis bares his teeth and the robotic, emotionless look on his face turns into a barely suppressed seething rage. There is not even a single thought in his head about using Remove Curse right now. The elf turns his entire body in the air, transferring all of the momentum and centrifugal force into the arm being used to hold the alicorn's throat, and then throws the alicorn like a baseball towards the wide canopy of the Everfree.

Twilight and her friends gasp in surprise as they watch the princess fly like a blur through the air before disappearing into the Everfree. A loud crashing sound rips through the air and a cloud of dust and dirt shoots into the air from where she landed.

Finally a response comes from the alicorn as uprooted trees enshrouded in a red aura are launched into the sky towards the elf. He dodges them with relative ease, but his movement pattern is exactly as she predicted. After he avoids the final tree he flies headfirst into a massive fireball. She mistakenly still thinks he is immune to Radiant damage even though the transformation from before has worn off, so she opts to keep using pure fire.

Ignis falls out of the sky, upside down, with blood pouring from a new wound on his head as a result of the fireball's explosion. Daybreaker takes off and is able to correctly discern that the elf has passed out from the fireball. Without a moment's hesitation she flies straight at the bladesinger and plans to make use of his incapacitated state to finish this with her most powerful fire spell. Point blank.

Until she’s a few feet away and watches with surprise as both of his eyes turn from white to completely black, with red slits in the middle. With renewed vigor he flips in the air and brings his foot down onto the back of the alicorn's head. Staggering her with a shocked expression.

Recovering from the kick she tilts her head back up to look at Ignis only to be face to face with the end of a staff. A 7th Level Lightning Bolt cracks through the air, completely engulfing the corrupted demigod. Finally being truly enraged, Daybreaker emerges from the lightning with smoke sizzling off of her body, teleports herself above Ignis, and starts to unleash a rapid barrage of fiery blasts from her horn.

The blasts ring through the air with the sound of explosion after explosion as more and more smoke fills up the sky. Until a familiar bipedal body zips out of the smoke and crashes into the ground once more. At this point the elf has been flung far away from Luna and the element bearers.

Far enough that Daybreaker mentally decides to end this once and for all as the sky starts to turn red. All of the standing water and chocolate milk nearby, including the river in the Everfree dries up in an instant as everything in the immediate vicinity heats up and the air dries out completely. The grass and nearby vegetation slowly dry up and wither. The sun starts to set down the horizon until it’s perfectly aligned in the air behind Daybreaker.

Finally, a true Sunbeam screams into the atmosphere as the sun itself releases a flare of energy that the alicorn harnesses. The dark red solid beam is nearly half the size of Ponyville as it slams into the Everfree. The energy of the magic is so vast that the air is literally screaming, it sounds like hundreds of jet’s flying through the air.

Unfortunately for her, Callasid was nearby, ready and waiting. He instantly dumped the elf's last healing potion into his mouth as soon as he hit the ground. Ignis opened his eyes and saw the immense attack coming down at him and casted “Otiluke's Resilient Sphere” purely on instinct.

The barrier that surrounded him was only capable of being destroyed by a Disintegrate spell, and so it rattled and vibrated as it withstood the full force of the sun. Despite that attack being more powerful than Disintegrate, the elf correctly assumed that the sphere would survive. Since it specifically only says a Disintegrate spell can destroy it.

Once the solar flare narrows and dissipates Daybreaker clicks her tongue in annoyance at getting overzealous and glassing a huge section of the Everfree. She makes the completely reasonable assumption that the elf has been so thoroughly killed that not even a cell of the creature remains, and turns her attention towards her student and her friends.

Returning our attention to the currently exhausted elf, currently laying inside of a magical hamster ball in the middle of a huge glassed crater of earth. He’s huffing in desperate gulps of air as his entire body screams at him for how much abuse he just exerted on it by imbuing all of his muscles with mana for such an extended period of time. Now completely out of spell slots he lays there completely dazed and out of it.

“How dare she?! She has brought so much death and destruction upon all the animals in my forest! Mortal, I gave you a hint of my power to prevent you from dying, and that was all I intended to do. But now, that whorse has completely eradicated a huge chunk of my territory! I have no more conditions to my power, I request no Pact. Just merge with me temporarily and we can put this alicorn in her place.” The silky smooth feminine voice that asked to form a Pact with Ignis asks him directly in his mind.

Although the elf has regained a sliver of reason, he is still completely overwhelmed with rage and grief. The only reason he’s coherent is because of how much pain his body is in combined with his inability to move. Ignis is still completely unable to comprehend anything being said to him. His still black and red eyes are shaking as he wills himself to fight once more.

“Level Up.”

The air resonates once more as a surge of mana shoots out of the glassed crater. Daybreaker, who had finally made it back within line of sight of her student, snaps her head in the direction of the surge. Eyes wide in complete disbelief. She’s sure it has to be something else. Her sister perhaps? Maybe even some new third party.

Turning in the air, the alicorn immediately flies back to the glassed crater. Her surprise is evident on her face when she sees a completely unscathed elf laying on his back. The mana is still surging and flaring out of control, but his eyes are closed. Unable to resist the curiosity of the situation, Daybreaker silently flies down and hovers a few feet in the air over the elf. He’s truly completely unharmed. Did something protect him?

Well whatever it is can’t protect you twice. I’ll make sure to end it properly this time and watch you die with my own eyes. The tip of her horn glows bright red as the mana compresses into a single dot. Ignis immediately disappears as he teleports to the left of Daybreaker, in the air. Out of the corner of her eye she watches as his own eyes snap open and she feels something slam into her. The spell she was channeling is disrupted in an instant as Ignis uses both hands balled up together to spike the alicorn dowards like a volleyball. Landing on her back and sinking a few feet into the dirt she thinks to herself. What is this strength? Isn’t he an agility based swordspony that relies on reflexes?!

That thought is interrupted as a foot lands squarely in the middle of her stomach. Coughing up bile from the impact as the air is knocked out of her she starts to reconsider the decisions she made up to this point. Her memories told her Luna and Nightmare were in separate bodies and Nightmare had betrayed Luna. So why did Nightmare sacrifice herself to save Luna? Why were they in the same body?

That thought process also doesn’t get to find a conclusion as a barrage of blunt force from two fists impact her muzzle, repeatedly. With pure telekinesis the alicorn lifts the elf into the air by his head. He flails about and fires two bolts of ice at her that she ignores as she rises out of the crater. She then proceeds with the elegance of a bull and repeatedly slams the elf into the ground over and over. Front, back, front, back, after the 7th or so slam the flailing stops. Daybreaker then flies up and spots a few boulders in the Everfree and throws the elf as hard as she can into the rock formation.

She noticed something peculiar about him as he disappeared from sight though. The fiery hair that mirrored her own seemed to be turning…black? She’s probably just seeing things.

“That’s it, I’m done waiting for your permission! I’m merging with your mind.” Ignis hears that silky voice of the woman in his head again as he floats in a sea of black. Suddenly the void turns into that familiar clearing in the forest. Only now there’s a floating…. shadow core.

“You? Why didn’t you just tell me that you were that shadowy orb from the Everfree? What actually are you?”

The scene of the clearing shifts to the moon and then to the Feywild. Tendrils launch out of the orb in every direction, sinking into the ground and trees of everything surrounding itself. “I thought it was self explanatory. Listen, you just close your eyes for a while and when you wake up everything will be fixed.”

The creature now occupying the elfs mind was under the assumption that in this nearly dead state with his mind already bordering on shattered that the merger would be one sided. It assumed that the merged personality would mostly consist of its own ego, influenced slightly by the emotions and memories of the elf. That was okay though because the merger was only temporary and in the past there had been no lasting side effects.

Which is why the shadow core was so surprised when the scene shifted once more to a grassy field located behind a small house. In the distance was the skyline of a massive city it had never seen before. The merging process continued as more tentacles emerged and started to occupy this portion of the creature's mind. Until an unfamiliar bipedal creature similar to Ignis but with rounded ears and shorter hair that was nearly black suddenly appeared and thrusted his hand into the core.

“W-what?! There were already two egos in here?” The human seemed incapable of intelligent thoughts as it just screamed at the core and started pulling power out of the core. The spirit of the Everfree realized at this point that the merged ego was no longer going to be entirely in its control. In fact this might as well be a new creature entirely. The core could feel the rage and animosity seeping over the line between their minds and started to be overwhelmed with the emotion.

Character Profile Updated!
New Class Configuration Confirmed!

Feeling confident that the fight was truly over this time, Daybreaker used magic to stop her bleeding nose and clear up any scuffs still on her. She had to look presentable for her student and her friends, after all. Flying down towards Twilight, Daybeaker was happy to see that her sister had regained consciousness. Luna looks distraught as Twilight talks to her and helps her to her feet.

“Sister, no, Daybreaker, do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” The solar alicorn is confused as her sister screams this question at her as she lands. Why is she crying so hard?

“I have saved Equestria and corrected two of the only mistakes I made this year. I know you think you were in love with him,” Daybreaker rolls her eyes as she says this. “But trust me. I’ve done you a huge favor. Now let’s confirm that my dear student is no longer under the effect of that Geas spell and dispel it if she still is.”

Luna realizes there’s nothing she can say anymore, and completely collapses. Sobbing into her forelegs as the recent events replay in her mind over and over. She keeps trying to reach out to the elf through her Divine connection, but that only confirms her worst fear as the connection seemingly no longer exists.

Daybreakers ears pin back at the raw display of grief and her eyes flash between her own eyes and Celestia's eyes rapidly. Finally settling on Daybreakers eyes as she turns towards Twilight and the others. Only to be hit with another emotional arrow as all six of the bearers step back and flinch upon seeing the alicorn move towards them. “I know you all think you realize what has happened here, but let me dispel the magic on you. It is regrettable but it had to be done. Twilight, my little pony, come here.”

The next words that Twilight would utter were words that Celestia never, never thought would come from the unicorn's mouth. “P-princess…you’re a monster. We tried to tell you we were never under any spell. You’re the one being manipulated Princess.”

Daybreaker rapidly blinks a few times as the words from her student, that essentially worships her, hit her like a ton of bricks and she goes through her memories over and over again. She looks over at the inconsolable Luna lying on the ground with Fluttershy and Rarity trying to comfort her. And that does it, the alicorn is finally mentally pushed far enough to give in, and she casts her most powerful dispelling magic on herself. Although in reality Discord had been silently watching with a bucket of popcorn from the Ethereal plane, and decided to stop channeling magic into the mental spell on the princess. Purely so he could see her reaction to everything.

The fire in her mane returns to an ethereal mane of pastel colors as eyes return to a normal purple and they well up with emotion. Celestia returns to reality with only one thought, “What have I done?”

Watching both alicorns turn into emotional wrecks sends the draconequus in a laughing fit until he feels something. Something new hundreds of feet away. Grabbing the air an oblong oval appears that Discord pulls open like a window, and he slides through, teleporting himself to the location of this new magic.

With a twisted fascination he watches as the elfs teeth become sharper, the entire upper half of his head is covered completely in a black, inky, darkness. Two large yellow slits appear in the darkness as this new creature starts to writhe in pain. The darkness surrounding his head perfectly transitions to his hair that is still crackling and moving like it’s on fire, but it’s now completely black as well.

Thin black lines start to form all over the elfs torso, forming some kind of symbol, and the lines merge into a much thicker line at his shoulders. Those thick lines run down the back of both arms until they reach the forearm. At that point they completely engulf his hand and wrist like a pair of long gloves. His now shadowy fingers crack and bend unnaturally as they turn into sharp claws. Both elbows and shoulders sprout small black fires as the transformation seemingly finishes.

“Now what do we call this one? Nightmare Ignis? No~ that’d be in poor taste, it’s too soon.” He laughs at his own joke before continuing. “How about Ignoctus? That sounds proper evil, doesn’t it? What do you think?”

The transformed creature just lets out a low rumbling sound as he opens his mouth and smoke pours out between the sharp teeth.

“Well no that’s not a good name at all. We can’t just call you “grrr” that’d be ridiculous! Actually on second thought I quite like the idea of ponies addressing you as Grrr. You know what? It’s grown on me, I like it.” If anyone could actually see this scene they’d wonder why Discord is talking at all, since he’s still in the Ethereal plane and the creature can’t see or hear him.

The creature stands and starts to move towards the direction of the Element bearers. Discord ponders on if he should try mentally manipulating this creature like he did the sisters, but realizes it's not needed when he hears the creature finally utter a single word.

“ᗫᕔᎽᗹɌꗛᕔҜꗛɌ…”

Discord releases a small gasp of surprise as the creature just disappears.

All eight ponies gathered at the edge of the Everfree freeze and go silent as an ominous pressure weighs down on them. It’s murderous, heavy, and feels wrong. Then they notice a familiar pair of legs emerge from the darkness in the forest. Luna feels her breath catch and her eyes widen, she feels immense relief upon seeing what she assumes is Ignis.

Then they see his arms and his claws, and they all start to realize this feeling is coming from him. They feel their hairs stand on end, instincts screaming that something is wrong.

He steps out of the clearing fully revealing himself now, and Twilight is the first to make any kind of connection. It’s only natural since the only other pony that could’ve made the connection is no longer present. “His hands and his head, those yellow eyes, he looks like the Wraiths we fought in the old castle…Princess where are the elements? We need them now.”

The creature just stands there, slowly breathing, and exhaling smoke with every breath. Even Luna is hesitant to say anything, she still doesn’t feel the connection to her paladin. Swallowing those foolish thoughts she rises up and starts to slowly walk towards the creature. “Ignis? I thought I lost you as well…I still can’t feel our connection. Is something wrong?”

He just stares at her in silence. His mind is trying to find Daybreaker but his confusion is growing as he looks around and doesn’t see her. The blue one calls out to him again, but that name means nothing to him. She says it again and he realizes she must be talking to him.

“Ĭ ᕔᙏ ᙁꗞꞆ ĬǤᙁĬꕷ. Ĭ ᕔᙏ ᗹԸᕔⱿꗛᙡɌᕔĬꞆዛ ᙁᎽ𐠷ᗹԸᕔᗫꗛ.”

Character Profile: Blazewraith Nyxblade.
Fiend Patron Warlock - Level 13.

Luna takes a step back as an instinctual reaction to the guttural rumbling that makes up his voice. His words barely understandable. The memories of the personalities that make up the new creature finally catch up with its brain and it puts together that Daybreaker is Celestia. Celestia is standing right there. The black fire that makes up his hair and the small flames resting on his elbows and shoulders suddenly flare up as a strange, ear piercing, high pitched sound ripples out of the creature's mouth in waves.

The air starts to hum and vibrate as mana all around them begins to exist on the same frequency. They harmonize and vibrate as one and the air is filled with what sounds like a children's choir, singing in a foreign language. It just adds to the ominous feeling surrounding them. Except for Luna who realizes that this creature just spotted her sister, and even more disturbing is that it’s still capable of performing a Symphony of Steel.

“ᙅꗛԸꗛꕷꞆĬᕔ!!” He drops down onto his claws, like a beast as the fires flare up more. The smoke coming out of its mouth increases in volume and a loud thumping can be heard. Its heart sounds like a train engine.

Blazewraith disappears and reappears in the air right in front of Celestia, and right as he appears the air vibrates with pulsing low bass notes from the bladesong. There’s a blur of motion as he turns his whole body and suddenly Celestia is flying straight up. Her body flipping uncontrollably as it rises, her head vibrating from the impact of the creature hitting her chin. Just as she manages to stabilize herself and stretch her wings she’s hit with a loud screech in her right ear.

Then she feels something extremely hot on her horn. Blazewraith squeezes her horn as if his life depended on it, and while still holding the horn he barrel rolls away from the alicorn. Celestia can only get pulled along for the ride as she tries to clear the disorientation she feels. She’s dragged through the air by the biological makeshift handle sprouting from her head.

Having built up enough speed from completing a few rotations, the elf does one more half rotation before slinging the alicorn into the ground at dangerous speeds. As soon as she craters into the dirt there’s not a moment’s respite as he instantly buries her even deeper with a kick to the gut. The demon throws his arm back getting ready to thrust his claws forward when a voice…a familiar voice calls out to him.

Now that the memories have had more time to sink in he can’t help but to be compelled to look at Luna as she calls out to him. “Please! I know you’re hurting even more than I am, but please…! Please don’t make me lose two sisters on the same day! Celestia is freed from Discords corruption, you know it wasn’t her fault, so please!” Luna is a bit surprised herself that she’d call Nightmare a sister. Things really have changed over the last month and a half.

The words take a few seconds to register with the Wraith-Elf hybrid but his arm relaxes slightly and then straightens again. It’s like there’s an internal battle on what to do. Finally his arm straightens up again and snaps his gaze back to Celestia and starts to bring his claw down.

Before it pierces her neck though Celestia finally fights back and blasts the demon into the air with her radiant magic. She flies up in the air and conjures a Forcecage, its walls made up of golden magic. Nyxblade merely screeches and the walls start to crack. He slams a hand forward and the claws pierce straight through the wall. One more thrust and the cage shatters. The instant it shatters a purple and golden beam from the student-mentor duo slam into his chest and launch him back into the Everfree.

He re-emerges from the dust cloud and spits a bit of inky black goop onto the ground, but his form is different now. On top of his head there are seven black motes of fire orbiting his head slowly. The spell is Crown of Stars.

Then he holds a hand out in front of him with his palm towards the ground and mutters an incantation as a large red circle about 30ft across in diameter appears under him. With himself in the center of the circle, this spell is Conjure Minor Elementals. Normally little sprites of magical flame would rise from the circle in a constant flow, but as this circle stays open the primal magic of the Everfree mixes in and Mephits of black fire rise out of the circle instead.

Crown of Stars 7th Level Spell: Seven stars appear and orbit your head for one hour. You can launch a star at a creature and deal 4d12 ~~Radiant~~ Fire damage per star. Each Star is a one time use only.

Conjure Minor Elementals 4th Level Spell (Upcasted to 6th Level): You conjure spirits that flit around you for up to 10 minutes. Any attack you make deals an extra 6d8 Fire damage, empowered by the spirits. The area of spirits around you is difficult terrain for any enemy.

Elemental Adept (Primal Fire): The dark and primal magic of the Everfree mixed with your fire allows your attacks to treat Fire Immunity as if it was Fire Resistance. Fire Resistance is ignored. A creature with no immunity or resistance becomes vulnerable to Fire Damage.

Everyone that was planning to help restrain the former elf becomes extremely hesitant when they see and feel this new magic. Nyxblade slowly walks towards Celestia, in a very casual manner. Suddenly one of the black mephits compresses down into pure energy that’s absorbed by one of the stars floating around the creature's head. Then without warning the star hurls into Celestia. She manages to summon a shield in time, but it just goes straight through and lands a direct hit. Thankfully not a critical hit, though.

56 Fire Damage. Celestia is normally immune though so the damage is cut in half, down to 28. That amount of damage isn’t enough to significantly stagger the alicorn but her eyes are still wide from shock.

That…that BURNED me? That shouldn’t be possible. Her thoughts are interrupted as six rays of fire appear in the air over the creature. Scorching Ray at 5th Level. All six rays become empowered by the Minor Elementals. Celestia takes to the air and attempts to make herself harder to hit. She summons a shield as well, and it actually stops the first two rays. The third ray smashes the shield to bits and hits her right under her wing. The fourth ray hits a fraction of a second later on the side of her neck, and her wing locks up from the pain of the third ray hitting the base of it.

She’s falling out of the air with a locked up wing and the next are both natural 20’s. One lands right between her eyes and the other at the base of her horn. In total the Minor Elemental empowered, upcasted Scorching Ray did 258 Fire Damage. Thankfully the solar alicorn is quite sturdy to heat so that’s reduced to 129 Fire Damage.

Celestia crashes into the ground for the fourth time today and this time she doesn’t get up. She stares at the creature with half opened, hazy eyes, and mumbles that she doesn’t blame him for his anger. Fully ready to meet her fate she closes her eyes and waits for the end to come, but it never does.

She opens her eyes again a few seconds later and sees a blue dome around her with a purple dome around that dome. Luna and Twilight have doubled up their magic to shield her from the next three stars that shoot from his crown. Twilight's dome shatters after the first star and Lunas just barely manages to withstand the next two. Blazewraith raises his hand to signal another volley of attacks but freezes as Luna puts herself directly in front of her sister.

“That is enough Ignis. I cannot just sit idly by and watch you do this. You are strong. You are my Knight, MY Paladin.” Her voice cracks and she ends her sentence early to reaffirm herself. “So, I order you to break free from this animalistic state, and return to my side. Please…”

The possessed elf raised his hand again and Luna just stared with widened eyes, but refused to move from her spot. Strange sounds of exertion and teeth grinding can be heard from the shadowy elf. His arm is violently shaking as if parts of himself are fighting each other.

The creature bends over as if in pain and grabs at his head with his claws while screeching. Apparently some part of him was considering actually attacking Luna. This is enough of a distraction for everyone to pile together with Celestia and allows just enough time for Luna to teleport everyone away with a flash of light.

The creature screams, enraged that he let her get away. After smashing the ground a few times the elf turns and takes a massive leap to the west.

The group pops into existence back in the Night Guard camp at the edge of the Undiscovered West. The plan to get the elements, the Princesses, and the two knights into one surmounting force to take on Discord has officially failed. They left as six ponies and a knight, and they returned with six ponies and two alicorns. Under normal circumstances that would probably be considered a victory, but they still don’t have the elements. And, they lost far too much.

The entire camp goes into an uproar when they return but they’re instantly silenced at the sight of both princesses losing their composure, and all of the element bearers have their ears pinned back with wide far off stares. Not a single one of those six woke up today and thought they’d watch somepony die. Celestia wracked with the guilt of what she’d done combined with the pain she inflicted on the elf. Remembering the state her sister had been in when they all thought Ignis had perished as well.

Luna was by far in the worst shape. Still emotionally reeling from watching her own body torture her knight, being unable to do anything. Watching his lifeless form fall from orbit. Losing a member of her herd and the uncertainty of the entire situation with the possessed Ignis.

“Y’all is it really okay to just leave him there when he’s like that? I know Ponyville is empty, I’m not talkin’ about that. Y’all could hear how loud and fast his heart was beatin’ right? Is he gunna be okay if we just let him stay like that for who knows how long? We didn’t even manage to get the elements and that’s what we went there ta do.” Applejack is the first to break the silence among the group.

“It’s the only thing we could do, Applejack. You saw how he tossed around the Princess like she was nothing! Without the elements we were just waiting for the Princess to die. Who knows what would’ve happened after that! He might’ve even turned on us!” Rainbow is the one that is the least emotionally distraught. She barely knows Ignis and never really agreed with unsealing Nightmare in the first place. She’s mostly just a bit shocked at watching somepony die, and any sadness she feels is because she hates seeing her friends and the Princesses like this.

“He would not have. That, I can assure you.” Luna reels back in her emotional state to try and be productive in this conversation. To hopefully help formulate a plan for the future. “If he had managed to… to kill my sister. He would’ve almost certainly passed out or dropped out of that form instantly. Applejack is also right to wonder if he’s safe in that state. He was constantly pumping mana through his muscles and blood vessels to enhance himself physically, and last time he did that it nearly killed him. Back then he only did it for a few seconds, but that confrontation was nearly 15 minutes.”

Luna pauses for a second as her mind starts to go down the dark path of imagining Ignis in that state rampaging through the Everfree until his body just gives out and he collapses. “If that shadow thing possessing him has him constantly doing that even outside of battle… I doubt he’ll make it to tomorrow. Young Twilight, could you properly explain what happened to him in the old castle?”

Twilight goes on to explain the entire encounter with the super wraiths, the vines, and the shadowy core. Luna has a barely noticeable soft smile when she hears what he said about being a hypocrite. Once she finishes the story and says that the core flew inside of his chest she looks to her mentor. “Do you have any idea what that could’ve been, Princess?”

“If that is truly what has possessed him then teleporting away was the right call. That core is the Spirit of the Everfree. She protects the forest from any large, major threats, and she supplies most of the forest with its magic. I’ve only seen her once and my mentor explained what she is. Harmony also gave some insight into the wraiths several centuries ago when they were first spotted. Apparently there are some lost spirits in a deep, deep section of the forest. If they leave that section they succumb to their negative emotions and are corrupted by the ambient magic of the forest.”

Looking down at the ground for a moment, Celestia takes a second to wipe her eyes before continuing. “Those wraiths are the result of that process. The Spirit of the Everfree absorbs the wraiths anytime she finds them and uses them to patrol important sites and particularly dangerous areas. The ruins of our old castle is one of those places. It seems like after Ignis slayed the wraiths patrolling the castle the first time, she went there herself and ended up getting trapped by those vines. It sounds like the vines were taking her power and even took control of her wraiths.”

“But uhm, sorry Princess, but why would she possess Ignis then?” Fluttershy asks the obvious question. It doesn’t sound like this core was an evil entity so this outcome is confusing.

“It’s likely because I, as Daybreaker, glassed nearly an entire square mile of the Everfree. She likely offered to merge with him on the assumption that she would be able to control their new combined form. The impossible part to me is that Ignis was able to overwhelm her ego with his rage alone. That creature seemed like it was an entirely new ego. Neither of them were in control, it was just some combination of their personalities purely driven by the singular purpose to kill me. The good news is that if that truly is the Everfree’s Spirit then Ignis will be fine. She is likely taking the brunt of the burden being placed on his body.” For the first time in what feels like years, there is a bit of good news.

“But what do we do now, Princess Celestia? We don’t even know where the Elements are to begin making some kind of plan?” Twilight instantly brings everyone back to the grim reality of their current situation.

“I’m…I don’t know, Twilight. Discord is an arrogant creature and enjoys giving ponies hope just to snatch it away. We can maybe make use of that and get him to agree to another game or riddle of some kind. You all are more familiar with his ways and tactics now, and I trust you can use your friendship to overcome whatever challenge he presents to you. So, if you can get him to agree to a rematch you just might be able to do something. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

Silence reigns over the camp as the conversation dies off. Luna stands up and starts to walk around the camp. Celestia initially thinks of accompanying her but decides that her face is probably the last one Lulu wants to see right now. Luna combs through the memories of her body while Nightmare was in control and uses those memories to figure out where they kept Ignis while he was unconscious. Finding the location in her memory she turns and heads that way.

The Lunar Princess reaches the medical tent and silently enters. A couple of thestrals attempt to follow her into the tent to try and comfort her, but they are stopped by Elytra who just shakes her head no. With the entire tent to herself, Luna lays down in the hospital bed Ignis had previously occupied for nearly two days. She buries herself into the sheets and finds a modicum of comfort from the familiar scent. Then the dam finally breaks and everyone in that corner of the camp can only grimace at the sound of grief.

Author's Note

The situation reaches a new rock bottom as everyone is crushed from the defeat in Ponyville. The beginnings of a new plan are formed and just maybe a spark of hope has been reignited. Also holy fuck that last paragraph hurt to write. That shit actually made my chest hurt.

Also yeah, I totally leaned HARD into the edgy this chapter. I told myself to just go all out when thinking of Nightmare Ignis design and name and cringed a little after putting all down into words. By the end of the chapter though, it grew on me. I've explained it before but Ignis Ferrum literally means Fire Iron, to be interpreted as Fire Sword. Not necessarily a fiery sword, but the theme of his character is Fire AND Swords (bladesong). So his Nightmare-version name just cranks up both of those factors, Blaze-Wraith Nyx-blade. I even got to throw a little nod to Nightmare in the last name.

I imagine some people are probably like "holy shit how many chapters in a row are they just gunna get hit with L after L after L" and like... I get it. Things always get worse before they get better though. It's always darkest before the dawn.

Thanks for reading. <3