A Glimmer of Hope: Reborn

No, no, no! NICK!!!”

Luna shot up from her bed, eyes snapping wide open, heart racing from what she finally surmised as another nightmare, the third this week. Ever since she found out about other humans in Equestria along with the chance of reviving the wolf, she had a bit of unease about her.

She and Celestia had lived for centuries, all too familiar with the natural cycle of life. And regardless of whether it was the Tree of Harmony performing the ritual or some demonic cult, the whole thing was unnatural.

A female batpony guard came rushing into her bedroom, scanning for any intruders or dangers to her princess. “Your Highness?? Are you ok?”

Composing herself, the dusky blue alicorn breathed out the air she had been holding in, and nodded. “I’m alright Nocturne. It was simply another nightmare.”

The guard felt more at ease that there was no physical danger, but wasn’t as relieved to know the Princess of Dreams was facing her own horrors. Ever since she was stationed as Luna’s personal guard after the death of Nick, she knew that the mare had grieved heavily due to the loss of a lover. She experienced all of Luna’s stages of grief, trying her best to console the princess but overall not succeeding. Multiple times she implored the mare to seek counsel with her sister, but the younger wanting to be independent always rejected the notion.

“Is there anything I can do for you Princess Luna?” the mare asked, hoping to provide some relief to this situation.

The alicorn shook her head, smiling weakly at the mare. “There are attempts to fix this currently Nocturne,” she thought about how Discord had informed her and her sister about the Elements of Harmony’s excursion after that small explosion in Ponyville. They had learned how the Tree of Harmony had apparently spoken to the group, freezing time for some reason. Surprisingly even the Spirit of Chaos was affected by the spell, however was more aware of what occurred which led him to finding out the information he gave them.

Seeing as she wasn’t needed anymore, Nocturne slowly turned around and excused herself, although looking back at her liege in concern. She wasn’t too keen on leaving Princess Luna alone like this, everything seemed strange, especially with the odd rumor that there was a plan in the works to resurrect the fallen wolf. Her take on the whole thing was she didn’t like all of these new creatures appearing out of nowhere and trying to save the land all her and her fellow guardsponies were tasked in protecting.

The whole population was mixed about the recent turn of events, some welcoming their newfound friends while the rest didn’t trust these strangers with all the damage and destruction they caused. The news that there was an ancient god that even the princesses didn’t know about troubled them even further. What else was out there that they didn’t know, what dangers awaited them and how come their technology was primitive?

Once her guard was out of the room, Luna got up and went to her vanity. Looking at her reflection, she saw that she was a mess, bloodshot eyes and messy mane. She sighed. After spending a whole year grieving Nick’s death, breaking things off with Twilight because of it and now with the chance that the wolf would return, she was a mix of emotions. Part of her was excited to see him again, another part was still upset with how he kept his knowledge a secret from her and then there was the uncertainty. How could she be sure he would be the same? According to Starswirl, while he did remember her and Tia from when they were young, their old teacher didn’t seem to be aware that he was stuck in limbo, rather it was just like that spell the Tree of Harmony cast, just a stoppage of time for them.

She currently knew that Twilight and her friends were in the Badlands, and would probably make the trip to the Crystal Empire next. Luna and her sister had already been in talks with her niece and nephew-in-law and the couple was already on the search for Sombra’s artifact, although if she herself saw the tyrant’s horn destroyed, she wasn’t too sure what would be left for them to find.

All in all, she knew one thing. She needed to prepare herself for what was to come.

The low rumbling sound brought Nick and Chrysalis back to attention towards the cavernous hole that appeared in front of them. Looking at each other, they got into place for their makeshift plan, although waiting to see if the beast had changed any from Chrysalis’ memory. Before they knew it, a streak of rainbow and blood red shot out of the hole and rocketed towards the sky.

However, that light looked very familiar to Nick, namely when he first arrived in Ponyville.

“Rainbow Dash?” he asked himself, looking to Chrysalis and holding up a hoof.

Seeing as there was no danger of falling any further, or rather that she and her partner were now rising, the cyan pegasus slowed her flying, looking around to the now blinding white environment she was now in.

“Where the buck-?” she stared, before spotting a very familiar looking bug queen. “Chrysalis!”

Tempest, opening her eyes slowly to see what was transpiring, looked towards the ground, seeing another figure other than the former changeling queen.

“Rainbow Dash… is that…?”

Getting the pegasus’ attention, Rainbow Dash looked to where she was pointing, seeing what looked to be like a wolf.

“NICK???”

“Yes it’s me Rainbow Dash!” he almost could cry from how happy he was to see her. It was a sign that it was possible to meet up with the rest of the group. However, seeing that she was with Tempest, there was clearly some explaining oneeded n both sides. He could clearly see she was apprehensive of Chrysalis and with the overall threat of a cyclops upon them, he needed to speed the two up, and most importantly, how they came here.

Still not sure about him, especially with everything that had transpired when he was alive, she landed a bit of a distance away from him. “Nick, where are we? Why is that… monster with you?”

“We’re in Limbo RD,” he answered, “And I could say the same for you, with that traitor and her Stormking. But most importantly, how are Twilight and Luna? Are they safe?”

“I’ll have you know Princess Twilight and Luna are perfectly fine,” Tempest decided to speak up for herself, knowing why she was familiar with this, Nick, but confused on how he knew about her. She also sized him up, way bigger than the average pony, in fact about the size of her, with white markings on his face and body. She could feel power radiating off of him, although could sense pain within him as he gazed back at her. “Princess Twilight reformed me after saving me from the Stormking, who is now deceased. She showed me the power of friendship and I have been acting as her captain of the guard for a few months now. How did you know who I was?”

Nick took time to process the information and saw no reason to not believe it. With Rainbow Dash being the Element of Loyalty, she wouldn’t be hanging around a villain like Tempest unless she was to be trusted. “I was able to watch over Equestria a bit after I died,” he answered back, trying to figure out how to explain it best. “It was like I was just in the sky above you all. I witnessed everything that happened, Twilight’s and Luna’s grief, the other adventures the girls went on, the last thing I saw was the Stormking’s invasion.” He went silent for a bit, but realizing he needed to explain Chrysalis, he continued.

“Chrysalis is on our side,” he explained to the two, causing the queen to feel safe to approach. She wasn’t sure how this was all going to work out, but she knew how powerful the unicorn in front of her was. Maybe she had been wrong all along, if somepony with such power befriended Twilight and seemed to benefit from it, maybe she could change too. “Well for the time being, I was informed by the Tree of Harmony that I may need to work with the villains I defeated, and she knows what creature we’re up against, a cyclops.”

Rainbow Dash looked at the queen suspiciously, not sure if she had mind controlled Nick or was actually ok. She also knew how Nick hadn’t really lied to them but deceived them all by not telling them about his ultimate demise, which hurt her loyalty to him. However, she did know he had good intentions, along with the fact that he seemed to sympathize with Twilight and Luna after what happened, she decided he could be trusted.

This brought another question to her mind. “Are we dead then?”

That caused the group to pause what they were thinking. Obviously both Nick and Chrysalis had died previous to this meeting, but with Rainbow Dash and Tempest just showing up here after apparently falling into an abyss...

The answer to the question appeared in the landscape shifting around them, turning from pure white to golden sand, craggy mountains and one of the most hideous creatures any of them ever faced.