“I’m going to enjoy this, Discord.” The surrounding city of Canterlot is so quiet that anyone nearby can easily make out the sound of something dragging on the ground followed by slow footsteps.

Discord drags his tail and lower half as he continues shuffling backwards. “We-..we can talk about this! You wouldn’t hurt a defenseless creature right?”

Ignis just looks down at Discord like he’s an insect as he slowly walks forward, closing the distance. He doesn’t utter a single reply. After staring into the elf’s cold eyes for a few seconds the draconequus scrambles to his feet and takes two steps forward, intending to run. That’s when Ignis decides to quickly close the distance.

The bladesinger grabs the creature by the back of the head and slams Discord into the gravel face first. He rolls over onto his back with black blood pouring out of his nose. His eyes are shaking as he stares up at Ignis.

“You’re just as evil as I am if you do this, you know? These ponies will never look at you the same way after watching you beat a defenseless and magicless creature to death. Is that what you reall-”

Discord doesn’t get to finish his attempt to reason with the elf. Ignis drops to his knees and sits on the draconequus as he lands another fist straight into his muzzle. This time the sound of something cracking can be heard.

“How does it feel Discord?”

THWACK

“How does it feel to be powerless? To despair for your life? Is this the first time your mind has raced with thousands of possibilities, looking for any path, any phrase, any way you can salvage this situation?”

THWACK

Discord makes a gurgling sound as he spits out teeth onto the ground, trying to reply.

“Oh I’m sorry, of course you can’t reply when your jaw is broken and you’re missing half your teeth. Here let me help you out. Cure Wounds.”

Discords eyes shrink to pinpricks as his face shifts and corrects itself. He quickly realizes what is about to happen to him as he remembers what Nightmare did to Ignis while under the mental manipulation.

“Y-Y-Yes-” THWACK “YESH, I feel powerlesh! I underschtand what I’ve been doing to ponies now! Please…please spare-”

A sickening crack rings through the air as Ignis interrupts the begging with a palm thrust into the former Gods ribcage. “That’s good Discord. That’s really good. It must’ve been hard for you to admit that, but that’s a good first step. I’m surprised you still have that spark in your eye though. That spark that tells me you think there’s still a chance you might survive this. I want your eyes to look just as hopeless as countless ponies I’ve seen in the last week. But, don’t beg like this yet. That’ll be step three so let’s hold off on that one for now.”

Discords breathing quickens for a couple of seconds until he’s forced into a coughing fit as more black blood splatters out. “Oh this is your first time trying to breathe with broken ribs? That’s a fun one.” Ignis puts more of his weight onto Discords body as he rests on the creature with his knees in the gravel. “You’re going to die today Discord. I just want you to know that. The only thing you have the slightest chance of influencing is how fast and how painful that death is.”

“Ignis!” The elf pauses his next strike and glances behind himself to see his friends staring at him. Most of them just look disturbed but Luna looks…sad. It was her voice that called his name, and that’s the only reason he even turned around.

“This isn’t going to make you feel better. It’s not going to bring anypony back. If you’ve truly sealed his power then allow us to arrest him and put him on trial. The right way.” It’s Celestia speaking now that Ignis is looking in their direction.

“Can you go away now please? I just about had the hope extinguished from his eyes, but now you’ve foolishly given him something to latch onto. Now I gotta start all over. Cure Wounds.”

THWACK

Celestia starts to call out his name again, but stops when she sees Luna softly shaking her head. “Sister…Discord deserves this. Truly, he deserves more than this, but I think this should suffice. Do you actually believe he shouldn’t get his revenge?”

THWACK

“Lulu, you might be right. But, Discord is also right. Look around us, sister. Half of our citizens look horrified at what they’re watching. Once he starts down the path of revenge it’ll be hard to steer him from that path. His future will have many hardships and if all he can do is resort to revenge then that path will be dark and lonely. As unsatisfying as it may be, he shouldn’t do this.”

“Alright well clearly we aren’t going to accomplish step two like this, so let’s just move on. You can go back to begging for your life.” Ignis pauses for a moment to clean the gore from his hands.

“This is too far, bladesinger. I know what you went through in this city on the first day of my release. You can’t blame me for that though. I manipulated her memories but I didn’t tell her to perform this torture on you. Doing this just makes you a….a monster.”

A soft silver aura pulses around the elfs fist as he brings it down on the draconequus one more time. This mana infused blow has much more force than the previous blows, combined. “That’s a weird way to beg for your life, idiot.”

The response is so cold and uncaring that several ponies feel a chill go up their necks. Many of the once cheering civilians slowly take a few steps back out of instinct. “I don’t mind though, that just means you get to try again. I’m fine with being a monster, Discord. I never took much offense to being called such a thing when I first arrived here. Plus I’ve already told some of these ponies exactly why I’m not a hero. Why I’m something closer to a villain. Now take it from the top, I want you to really beg this time.”

“Wh-whats the point you sick bastard? I know you just want to hear me beg so you can force me to reflect on all the times creatures begged me for mercy.”

Sudden two cracks ring out as Ignis grabs both of Discords arms and breaks both of them at the wrist. “Then how about you beg me to end this quickly? I’m glad we’re on the same page, but it’s really not in your best interest to ignore my demands. None of these ponies are going to save you Discord. I’d wager three of these ponies, max, have the willpower to take even a single step towards me at the moment.”

Ignis rises to his feet while holding the creature by one of his horns before throwing him at the closest wall. “Anyone else want a turn? I can heal him at least 12 more times.”

As he walks over to the prone draconequus he calls out after a few moments of silence. “Alright but don’t say I didn’t offer. Weird, most of you were ready to commit treason and kill one of those bearers over there not even 20 minutes ago. Now all of a sudden you’re all going to act self righteous? Like none of you want to give this piece of shit what he deserves?”

“I do.” Luna quietly replies from right next to Ignis, startling him. She was completely silent on her approach. “But, I also don’t want to take this moment from you. I think nothing I planned to do to him is worse than what you plan to do. I am satisfied just watching.”

Ignis finally cracks the emotionless mask and gives her a soft smile. Then he holds his hand up and casts Acid Splash at Discord. Causing him to spasm a bit as he hisses in pain on the ground. Then Ignis proceeds to fall into a steady rhythm of punches that rain down onto Discords skull.

“Princess…no pony deserves this. Please, we have to stop him…” The bearers and the princesses look over surprised that Fluttershy of all ponies was the one to speak up.

“You’re right Fluttershy, no one deserves this. I surely didn’t deserve it just a few days ago. I think Discord does actually deserve this. If this is too much for you all I don’t mind just flying him somewhere else until I’m done with him. I don’t really need the satisfaction of you all watching this, but I know we’re a bit strapped for time.”

That’s when a purple aura appears and yanks the elf off of the draconequus. Ignis turns as he’s yanked and looks down at the pony who had the balls to do such a thing. It’s an angry Shining Armor.

“How about you get over yourself and this pity party, and go help my sister. You said you would after he was defeated!”

The rising anger Ignis felt evaporates in an instant as he stares at the unicorn. “I will help her. There is something else I need to do beforehand though. Defeating Discord wasn’t actually my main goal today.”

Before Shining can question what he’s talking about, both of their attention is drawn over to Discord as a few ponies approach the prone and bleeding creature. They look at the elf with cautious and hesitant faces.

“I wasn’t joking, if you guys wanna take a few swings at him then be my guest. Just don’t kill him yet, it’s too early.” Ignis then looks back to Shining Armor. “I’ll wrap this Discord thing up a bit earlier than I was planning to and then I’ll go finish that one last thing. After that I’ll revive her.”

The unicorn's eyebrows furrow with a bit of frustration still evident but he nods and backs away. After that Ignis goes over to where the crowd of ponies has grown to over 50. He gently pulls them away from Discord as he wades through the mob. The draconequus is in rough shape.

Both of eyes are swollen shut, his chin and neck are stained with blood, and his breathing sounds like that of a elderly patient that just got taken off the ventilator. “At this rate he might not survive what I plan to do to him. Cure Wounds.”

Ignis heals him just enough to stabilize him before picking him up by the neck. That’s when he hears Luna’s voice speaking to him telepathically. “Why can you not revive my sister's student before you do whatever it is you plan? I’m not going to order you to revive her now, but I’m just genuinely curious.”

“I need her to still be dead for what I have planned. That’s all I can say right now. Once I’ve finished up with Discord I’ll tell you more.”

That’s when the dull purple lines across the elfs torso start to glow and his hair starts to whip about as if it's in a strong wind funnel. The translucent unicorn horn reappears on his head. “Alright Discord, let’s get you to your final stop.”

Closing his eyes he pictures a specific clearing in the Everfree. A particularly large one where echo’s of a spectacular battle can still be heard. Then he performs his first long range teleportation spell. Landing right in the middle of the resting place of the ancient bladesingers.

Ignis feels Discords breathing quicken. The draconequus starts to mutter the words no and not this over and over. “Oh! You remember this place? That’s good, that saves me the explanation. You see, a couple of days ago I found this place and spoke to a few spirits who told me some interesting tales about this place. This clearing is occupied by mana that was harmonized thousands of years ago and somehow still maintains that frequency. You know that part, surely? What I doubt you know is that in this harmonized mana, more than just the sounds of their last battle is being stored.”

Discord starts to flail his two bottom legs as he tries to take swings at the elf with his two broken arms. The creature devolving into a panicked prey animal. “That’s good, I’ll admit I did want to see this side of you as well. Anyways, I figured these guys have been holed up in this mana domain for thousands of years, so they could probably use some new company. What do you think Discord, you think you can get along with these ole bladesingers as permanent roommates?”

The only sound heard in response is a unique and ear scratching scream. The draconequus finally, truly falls into despair. A wicked smirk starts to crawl across the elf's face. “That sounds like a yes to me, let’s do this.”

Ignis grabs Discord with both hands and starts to channel his mana into the creature. Since Discord no longer has any magic of his own, Ignis is hoping he can temporarily “possess” Discord by flooding him with his mana. Unbeknownst to Ignis, this process has been done in experiments in the past and is extremely painful.

That doesn’t really make him stop though, it just makes him chuckle a bit. Once that’s done, Ignis activates True Bladesong while still holding onto Discord. This time he does it the proper way and changes his own very being into a state of nothingness. A state that allows him to change his own mana frequency to match the surrounding mana’s. By extension the mana inside Discord also changes to match.

Now that both of them are harmonized with the ancient mana in this clearing they can both see it. Standing and sitting all around, some propped up with their blades, some leaning against trees, are the ancient bladesingers that died in this place. There’s at least 40 of them in total and they all look quite surprised that the elf actually pulled it off. Minotaurs, Griffins, Ponies, and even a few smaller bipedal dragons pick up their translucent blades and start to approach the two new arrivals.

Ignis just smiles at them and then looks at Discord. “One of you helped me achieve the peak of bladesinging in my fight against this bastard. I’ve already beaten him to near death a few times so I figured I’d come by here to give my thanks to the voice that helped me.”

All of the spirits seem a bit confused and it appears none of them were the voice that helped him in Canterlot. That’s when Ignis slaps his forehead. “Duh, those voices were the bladesingers that left this clearing and became corrupted into wraiths. I completely forgot! Oh well I still think you all deserve to have some fun with the guy for a few thousand years. Have fun~”

Ignis uses his mana imbued form to start pressing on both sides of Discords head. Cracking and popping sounds can be heard for a split second before his head is crushed and pops like a watermelon. His body drops to the ground limp and lifeless, but the shape and outline of Discord is still standing there as if he didn’t just have his head crushed.

That’s when Discord and the spirits realize what Ignis has just done. He’s just trapped Discords soul in this place with no power and no magic, surrounded by a group of creatures that hate him just as much as Ignis. For millennia they’ve been desiring revenge and now they get to have it, eternally.

A sight Ignis thought he would never see unfolds in front of him. Tears start to well up as the former God begins sobbing in his grasp. With a look of disgust Ignis just tosses him like a ball into the center of the clearing. “You guys have fun with him. He won’t be able to leave the clearing like you all can. He has no magic or power of his own to sustain him, so he’ll cease to exist the instant he leaves the clearing. That means he can’t turn into a wraith, but it also means you all need to keep an eye on him. You can’t keep having fun with him if he stops existing. I’ll drop by in a few years and give him a few smacks, probably.”

With this Ignis picks up the physical corpse of Discord and deactivates the bladesong as he waves goodbye to the spirits and sobbing spirit of Chaos. Once he walks out of the clearing he casts Disintegrate on the corpse and it turns to ash that scatters in the wind. “Good riddance.”

“Alright Luna, Discord’s dead.”

“What did you end up doing with him?”

“I trapped his soul in the same place where all of the ancient bladesingers were wiped out. They were happy to see him. Then I turned his corpse into ash.”

There’s a brief pause of silence as the weight of his words settle in for Luna before she speaks into his mind again. “So what else did you need to take care of?”

“You’re really not gunna like it, but it’s the only thing I can think of if I wanna revive Moonie.”

“What? I can’t imagine there’s much you’d plan to do that could truly upset me…”

“Well, most of you were here with the intent to fight a God. I woke up today prepared to fight two.”

Ignis closes the telepathic channel before Luna can try to potentially talk him out of this. Then he channels all of his focus into the Element of Magic. Look for a thread, one that stands out from the rest…

There it is, a tiny thread going from the Element to…just a couple of miles to the East? Using the Element of Magic he reverse traces the energy back to Harmony. As soon as his mind's eye reaches the entrance of a specific cave his vision goes white.

“You didn’t need to do that if you want to talk, Ignis. With the Element you just needed to use it the same way you’d use a Sending stone. I’d have happily pulled you in here.” Harmony states with a bit of a somber tone as she faces away from the elf.

“You really killed him. I can’t believe it. Even more unbelievably, I can’t tell what you did with his magic. It’s just…gone. Is that what you wanted to talk about? I was actually hoping to talk to you as well. I wanted to let you know that I permit you to revive Twilight Sparkle. No, that’s arrogant of me to say. I… would appreciate it if you could do so.”

“I’m not here to talk about Discord, but I am here to talk about Twilight.” Ignis wants to actually look at her and make eye contact for this conversation, so he walks around and stands between her and one of her magic TV Screens.

“I need you to either give me Nightmare Moon's body, which I assume is on the moon. Or, I need you to place her soul in me so that I can allow her to possess me like before.”

“What does that have to do with Twil-” Harmony’s eyes widen. She quickly becomes enraged. ”Do you intend to hold Twilight Sparkle hostage until I help you revive NIGHTMARE MOON? How dare you?! If it was for Luna or even that pegasus… I could at least understand where you’re coming from, but for her? For that… that-”

The temperature in the spiritual demiplane plummets several degrees. “I would choose your next words wisely, Goddess. Because it sounded like you were about to say something that both of us would regret.”

They stare into each other's eyes and Harmony realizes this isn’t a bluff. He’s not joking. He’s actually threatening her.

“I’m not even asking for a lot here. Don’t act like I’m being unreasonable. You said you oversee all of the souls as they come and go through the cycle of life and death. I know you have her soul. What is your problem here?”

“My problem is that you didn’t even try to ask first. You just traced my energy to my home and tried to break in so you could…negotiate a hostage release. Who wouldn’t be enraged?”

“We both know you would either refuse my request or just flat out lie and say it’s beyond your capability. Don’t sit here and try to lie to me. You know exactly what you would’ve done.”

Her eyebrows furrow in anger and she squeezes her eyes shut as she sighs. “Yes, because it is not your place to decide who lives and who dies. Are you going to revive everypony that tragically died in this incident? Are you going to revive anypony who has a family member come request it of you? What gives you the right to decide that?”

“Hypocrite.”

“Excuse me?!”

“The first thing you said to me when I showed up was that you REQUESTED me to revive Twilight. If I can’t cherry pick who gets to cheat death then why do you get to? Why don’t you just make every pony an alicorn? Why even let them die of old age? Fuck it Harmony, let’s just let ‘em all be invincible!”

“BECAUSE SHE IS IMPORTANT. FAR… more important than you could ever realize. She is meant to be the last wielder of the Element of Magic. She was never supposed to pass away on this day.”

“And you think Nightmare Moon isn’t important? I’d say she’s important. I don’t think she was supposed to pass away this week.” Ignis gives a sarcastic reply as he closes the distance and gets in Harmony’s face.

“She’s important to you. This is not the same. Ignis, she is meant to become the Goddess of Magic. Her domain is magic. I’m not sure why the element allowed you to completely grasp the inner workings of magic, but that power is Twilights. Once she ascended and grew into her power she was meant to naturally develop that power. At that point the Element of Magic would cease to be. Twilight Sparkle is magic. You cannot condemn millions of lives in the future for the sake of…. Of your special somepony!”

“I’m not a hero, Harmony. I will do whatever it takes to save her. Nothing will stand in my way, not even you. It’s actually a small blessing that Twilight died here, originally I was planning to come here and make the same demands. In that scenario though if you had refused then I was going to threaten to teleport back to Canterlot and personally kill all of the element bearers.”

“What is wrong with you? How can you be so delusional…so selfish?! Tens of thousands die everyday Ignis and you are the only one threatening to burn the world down to save a single one out of those thousands.”

“Because where I’m from, it’s only natural to revive a friend or a loved one if they pass before their time. You all are the ones that seem insane to me. If someone dies of sickness at 120 then that was their time. If they were to die of natural causes at the age of 16, then that was their time. If an alicorn who was meant to live for thousands of years dies after ONLY ONE MONTH, THEN WHY…why is it so weird to think that she should be entitled to have her life back? Every creature who dies before their time deserves to have their life back.”

There’s an awkward silence as the two enraged beings stare at each other, breathing heavily. Finally Harmony clicks her tongue in annoyance. “Her body will be next to Twilights in Canterlot when you return. This argument is pointless to continue because there is no right or wrong. We just have two different views of how the world should work.”

Ignis lets out a sigh of relief and all the tension leaves his body. Until it suddenly feels like his entire body is being squeezed by thousands of giants at once. The pressure is incomparable to anything he’s ever felt. His Wisdom saving throw automatically fails as his eyes begin to shake.

“I just want you to remember this mercy, Ignis. You walked into my home and threatened me, and I am allowing you to leave unharmed while complying with your demands. But, know this, after this stunt you just pulled, Nightmare Moon will be the last creature on this planet I allow you to revive. The only reason I even chose to cooperate with you for the revival of Twilight is because if you weren’t here to begin with then she wouldn’t be dead. This was not her fate.”

Ignis starts to fade as he’s forced from the demiplane, but before he vanishes completely he speaks up one more time. This time he’s quiet and timid. “How is that any different from the reason I gave as justification?...

…You really are a hypocrite.”

Author's Note

<.< Ignis really is ride or die, huh? Also new "Merged" Ignis seems to want the smoke just as much as the "Old" Ignis did.

I guess the real question is, will any of the ponies find out what he just did? And if they do...what will they think about it? What will they do? What will Celestia do?

I really did try to write this in such a way that neither Harmony nor Ignis is truly in the right or wrong. I think different people will probably side with either of the two. The only egregious mistake here was that Ignis didn't atleast...ask before holding Twilight hostage. Then again if a guy with 20 INT and a +13 to Insight thinks she was going to say no and that asking was pointless to begin with...he's probably not wrong?

Anyways, bet none of you guessed this is how he was going to go about reviving Nightmare, huh? I personally really like this route because it leaves a ton of different what if scenarios and choices and branches, and I can easily see this being on an ongoing thing that slowly progresses in the background across several arcs.

Hopefully I don't get any 12 paragraph comments in all caps talking about how this is stupid writing >.>, but we were getting close to Gary Stu levels of fuckery with Ignis so this is a good change of pace.

Thanks for reading! <3