Where am I? I’m surrounded by a thick fog and beneath my feet is just solid white. Did I die?

Integration…99%

Oh I guess I didn’t die. Either that or I’m in hell. Wait, did I lose myself and become one with the world? The gravity here is so heavy I feel like I can barely move. What happened with Discord and the element bearers? Is Luna okay?

Suddenly in the distance the thick fog clears and reveals a big piece of glass that turns on like a television and reveals all of Canterlot. Why is my camera so high up? I can’t see shit. Oh there we go, it’s zooming in.

It’s bad. They all look so hopeless, tired, and defeated. I wish the bladesong had picked a song that was like 30 seconds longer, I almost had him. Wait, what are the ponies saying?

“We’ve got maybe five minutes left, Princess. What if we started teleporting everypony out? If we can evacuate the entire city we can warn everypony at camp to run away. We’d lose Canterlot, but we can always rebuild…”

“I’m afraid there’s not enough time, Rarity. We could probably get over half of Canterlot evacuated but I’m fairly certain Discord has a similar barrier to this one over the camp. So, at a minimum we’d lose half of Canterlot and everypony from Ponyville plus all of the Night Guard. Perhaps we should at least teleport you all out of here, though. If the five of you perish then everything we lose today will have been for nothing.” Luna replies with a bit of a somber expression.

“Absolutely no stinkin’ way am I gunna let thousands of ponies die for me! We still got five minutes left right? Let’s stop wasting ‘em and go knock some sense into that fella up there!”

“There is some merit to Applejack’s plan. That’s only the third time I’ve ever seen Discord bleed his true essence. Even for him it must’ve drained him quite a bit to regenerate from that. This might be our best opportunity.” Celestia tries to resolve herself as she speaks to the ponies.

The screen cuts off and I find myself in a memory. I’m in Ponyville…at the library.

Inside Celestia's Mind

“Celestia, my most faithful follower.” An angelic voice speaks directly into the alicorn's mind.

“H-Harmony, what is it? Is there a way I can save my little ponies?”

“There’s always a way, little Light. These are just the idle ramblings of a pony wondering if she could’ve done better.”

“Your Radiance, please. You’ve always done yo-”

“No, listen Celestia. I think perhaps I’ve been a bit too passive with this world. I could’ve given more prophecies or advised more ponies at critical junctions of history. The world has improved so much in the last two or three millennia, but I wonder if my pride prevented this improvement from happening earlier.”

There’s a peaceful silence as Celestia resists the urge to ask her how her pride could’ve done such a thing. “I’ve always been too complacent. Never believing myself capable of failure. When I had my order of Bladesingers I kept the greedy and the wicked in line with power. That entire time I could’ve chosen more followers, perhaps there’d be 10 or even 20 alicorns now. I could’ve unleashed the elements on the world thousands of years earlier. My pride is what prevented these things. My pride and complacency.”

“I believed any other measure was unnecessary since I had my bladesingers and they had never failed me. Until they did. No, it’s better to say I failed them. If I had brought the elements into the world before the bladesingers fell…I wonder what the world would look like today.”

Ignis POV

I remember this, this is when I first saw the runic language. I was using backwards logic when trying to apply the runes to my mana. Then Twilight came in and unlocked a brand new world for me. With just one simple sentence.

“There’s a reason our horns are on our head. You’re visualizing the runes in your head but your mana is in your hand.”

Then I channeled the mana in my brain where the rune is and moved the shaped mana to my hand, instead of trying to bring the rune down to my hand. Switching that process and instantly that little ball of light formed.

“Ignis, it took me 3 days to cast that spell for the first time.” I’ll never forget how stunned she looked. I’d never admitted it back then but hearing her say that did boost my ego a bit.

Celestia and Harmony POV

“Are you implying that the world never had the Elements of Harmony and the Bladesingers at the same time?” Celestia asks with a bit of disbelief in her voice.

“Exactly. Doesn’t that make you quite curious?”

“Curious of what? How would the world look now? I admit I am a bit curious.”

“No, no, I’m curious what would happen if a Bladesinger was one of the bearers. The peak of bladesinging isn’t quite as powerful as the full power of the Elements, but it’s close. What would happen if those two events could’ve overlapped?”

Ignis POV

Now I’m in Canterlot Castle. This is when I was hiding Invisible in the Dining Hall and listening to Celestia argue with Luna about teaching me mana control.

“...we’ve brought a monster into this capital. Ignoring the fact that he learned the runic language and cast his first spell several times faster than the most prodigal unicorn to ever exist. Even if we ignore that, just the sheer size of his mana pool is absurd!”

Ah wow I forgot Celestia called me a monster. In this context she does mean it in a different way though. So, I’m not too upset about it. The citizens called me a monster because they thought I was scary and was going to eat them, but she meant it as a prodigy with too much potential.

More importantly, why am I being shown this?

The memory continues to the point where Celestia temporarily gives me Truesight. That’s when it happens. A question pops into my head that leads me down a rabbit hole of thoughts.

If the Weave is Chaos magic then that explains why the requirements for spells are so seemingly random. It even explains why Wild Magic is a thing. I bet Wild Magic Sorcerers are just more compatible with Chaos magic than normal magic users. However, if the Weave is Chaos magic then doesn’t that mean mana is Harmonic magic?

I guess it’s not necessarily meant to be a direct counterpart to Chaos magic. But, why are they so similar? For Chaos magic I use hand movements, incantations, and materials to “shape” the magic into the form I want so it can do what I command of it. For Harmonic magic I use runes and sometimes even incantations to “shape” the mana so that the spell has the result I want.

There has to be a critical misunderstanding here. Discord doesn’t even use components for his magic, he just snaps. Telekinesis doesn’t even require runes, just mana and Will. When I use my Symphony of Steel any of the mana within range that adapts to my mana frequency essentially becomes my domain. I can sense everything in that area and just like with those wooden swords, I can interact with things in the domain much more freely. That has to mean something.

Why does the Bladesong and Telekinsis require no runes? The only thing they have in common is Willpower, but I tried that before. I perfectly pictured and imagined the exact scientific process to create fire while commanding the mana to follow that train of thought. Wait, that's the difference, no?

Thought. I don’t think when I use telekinesis. I did at first but that explains why I struggled so much, and I definitely don’t think about the mana in the air or controlling it when I perform the Bladesong. Can I just use mana without runes as long as I exert enough Will onto the mana? No thoughts, just exert my Will. I bet it’s similar for Discord. That guy’s a crackhead so I doubt he thinks when casting.

He probably just thinks “Oh I want to be over there with my stupid ugly face.” Then he snaps and he’s over there. That sounds insane for both systems of magic though. You’d basically be a God if you could just freely exert your Will onto the mana. Telekinesis requires you to send out your mana into the air to envelope the object, and Symphony of Steel requires you to force the ambient mana to become your domain. So, perhaps you have to claim the mana first?

I’ve got it…

Back to Celestia and Harmony

“I…I don’t know. Why are we even hypothesizing something that isn’t possible anymore? Your Order of Bladesingers doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Oh Celestia, why would it matter if he’s in my Order or not?”

“Wait…Are you implying…?”

“Like I said, I’m just curious what would happen. Do you know the real question, Celestia?”

The solar alicorn hums in thought before Harmony gives her the answer. “The real question is, are you ready to find out what happens?”

Ignis POV (A/N: Last POV Switch this chapter I swear!)

...That’s the true essence of magic. It’s all the same! It’s so simple! Haha…

Integration…100%

There’s a bright light around my forearms and when I look down I’m shocked to see that my Illusionist’s Bracers have transformed. Instead of two solid purple gems now each bracer has one large intricate purple gem, and it’s in the shape of Twilight's cutie mark.

Integration Complete!

New Title: The Element of Magic.

Title Features: Manasight for up to 300ft, and the ability to understand the true essence of all forms of magic.

The entire inside of this prison looks far different from before. The thick fog just looks like black particles moving around erratically and bouncing off of each other. I can see why they call it Chaos magic now. There’s so much of it coming from my spellbook. That makes sense though, I wouldn’t have been able to continue casting spells and regaining spell slots if something wasn’t upkeeping the Weave for me.

Well, let’s get out of here. I can see the density of magic particles is much lower in this area, so this is likely the weak spot of the prison. Now let’s just…inject my magic into there and break this bad boy open.

Oh my God why is it so bright? Fucking relax! As soon as the prison collapsed there was an earth shattering sound and shockwave that rippled out from where I’m at. As soon as I could see though I was blinded. Is that Celestia’s mana?

Oh it’s mine. Wait, hers must be extremely blinding then! Can I just…filter this out? Yeah there we go. That's better. The world looks so different…

Oh they’re all staring at me. All of them have their own unique color to the aura surrounding them, this would be good for spotting changelings. Even just the air though is so different. Compared to Chaos magic, mana is…softer. It’s floating around like it’s just a leaf in the wind, and compared to that sickly black color this is a very calming blue. Maybe that’s the real reason the sky is blue. In Equestria anyways.

Alright well, thumbs up, let’s do this.

“True Bladesong.”

Author's Note

Ha woops I lied... Guess this isn't the finale of the arc. I wanted to reinforce the foundation I'd been slowly building so there'd be a logical, believable reason for why Ignis is the new Element of Magic. Is it temporary? Who knows...

I have another hour or so I could spend writing or editing, but it's literally impossible to stop a chapter in the middle of a Bladesong because I link a real song to go with it, and if I started the Bladesong we wouldn't have a chapter today.

So, apologies for it being slightly shorter than usual, but that's probably fine... this was all of the buildup and stuff so next chapter we'll probably start in 3rd Person POV so I can explain the changes in Ignis' visual appearance and presence. After that we'll just jump straight into the Bladesong. Hopefully it's enough to save the city /shrug

Thanks for reading! <3