NIGHTMARE MOON! Please regain your senses! You are not out of options yet!

Unfortunately the alicorn is just continuing to stare at the corpse beneath her, she’s shut down completely. This is how she’s been for the last few hours now, the sun and moon randomly exchanging places every now and then. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Getting unsealed was supposed to be a joyous occasion. Force had been helping me plan a few different stops for our date. Now…now….”

Nightmare gives up on trying to utter the next few words out loud. Scrunching up her muzzle as she releases a shudder.

Nightmare. You- no, WE are not out of options. There is still one thing we can try.

“What? Should I link our life forces together? Harmony would disown you if you used that spell, it’s one of the most forbidden out there. Doesn’t matter though, it’s too late for that now that spell only works on the living.”

Suddenly the elf’s voice rings out in her mind. Her eyes shrink initially until she realizes it’s a memory. Luna is replaying a memory.

I’m merely a paladin, a conduit for Her power and I was still able to perform this miracle.

“He was greatly exaggerating Luna. That instance of revival was because of his dice rolling power. I don’t even have access to that anymore.”

That cannot be true. If I feel it then you must as well, anytime that Paladin prays, smites, seeks Guidance, or heals himself or another creature. There’s a tug on our connection, sometimes I can even feel a surge of power get transferred. He even managed to channel the moonlight into his blade against the Ursa! If his divine power was purely a result of his unique power then he could not have done that!

“...You might be right. Even then Our power is probably just being fed into him, and his own power is what’s utilizing it. Without that we don’t know how to perform the spell, and that spell is one that unicorns have been attempting to cast well before even you were born. You think we can create that impossible spell in a day when those eons of effort could not?”

We have to try! Do you even hear yourself right now?! If you aren’t going to try then get the hell out of my body and I’ll do it myself.

The alicorn slaps herself on both sides of her muzzle a few times. “I can’t give up. You’re right. Okay so let’s lay out our variables.”

The runic pattern first of all. Starswirl was able to reverse engineer Grogar's necromancy, and found two core problems. It doesn’t return life to the corpse and it doesn’t return their soul. The dark magic merely possesses their body. Even then that spell is over 17 runes. Starswirl theorized that life could be returned to the corpse with the addition of 10 more runes that in combination with each other translate to vitality, blood, and restoration. At that point he mostly stopped his research, 27 runes is far more than anything that’s been done before. I remember asking him out of curiosity why let that stop him when he could use multiple spellcasters in a ritual to accomplish the feat. The method they used to move the celestial bodies, of course.

“It’s the mana cost, isn’t it? That many runes in one spell it’d take who knows how many Archmages to supply it.”

That as well, but even then that was a solvable variable. He gave up on the research because of the soul. There was no runic combination that could even remotely represent a soul. Also it’s more than 27 runes… he said you’d likely need two Strengthen runes, at a minimum. Maybe even three.

“Well what the hell are we supposed to do? Let alone the runes and mana problem, how do we retrieve his soul?”

I think…we already have. His oath. He swore his soul to me. I’m not sure how to act on this information but his soul should be available to us.

“And if we supply the spell with Divinity instead of mana…There should be more than enough in the moon right now. Maybe…maybe we can actually do this…”

Let’s scribe the runes down first and then we can theorize how to actually get around the massive number of them required for the spell. We can do this.

“How are you holding yourself together so well? I barely feel like I can go on, I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was you.”

Because I know we can bring him back. We have to. There is no other option.

Nightmare realizes that Luna is also just barely holding on by a single thread of hope. She silently agrees with the mare trapped inside her own body and conjures stacks of paper and a quill.

Nightmare backs away from the papers and looks at the final draft. It’s like looking at an insurmountable cliff. It ended up being 30 runes total, almost double what a single pony has managed to do before. She just hopes that Luna’s idea works.

“So I’ll layer every other rune starting with the first one, and you’ll layer every other rune starting with the second one? Why do you think this will work when we still share the same horn?”

Because it has to.

Right. “You’ll also need to invoke his soul at the same time. Did you come up with a way to do that, yet?”

I think so. I haven’t done it yet because I’m scared that if I do it and we don’t have the spell ready I might not be able to put it back. If I reach deep inside the well of divine power I can definitely feel something else there, it has to be him.

“So we’re ready then?”

I am if you are.

“Wait!”

What is it?!

“We need a diamond. A valuable one, that was the only thing he used then that we haven’t tried to create a substitute for.”

You’re right. Do you feel the ping I’m releasing? That’s where the most valuable diamond I could find is. I’ve had it prepared there ever since he asked for one in the colony.

Nightmare does see the location flashing in her memory, and conjures the item to her side. The alicorn gawks at the sheer size of the gem, it’s at least the size of a soccer ball. Instead of the typical round cut that has a point on one side, this gem is more spherical. It almost resembles that 20 sided dice she’s seen before, but this one has more than 20 sides.

She hovers the diamond over the elf’s chest and starts to layer her portion of the runic pattern. She almost cries from the relief that washes over her when she sees Luna’s runes start to take their place as well. She knew that runes could be projected into the air instead of the horn, but she was unsure if Luna could even perform the task while locked in her own body.

The reason the runes have to be projected into the air is because you can only layer one rune per layer of the spiral on one's horn. Despite being an alicorn she could still only channel 13 runes through the bone-like organ. The downside to this is that it requires much more concentration to maintain the layers properly compared to the horn that resonates in tune with the rune, and locks the rune in on its own.

As the layers of magic circles finish stacking on top of each other in the air, Nightmare can feel beads of sweat forming. Channeling 15 runes at once is no small feat, and it’s draining her mental stamina at a steady pace.

Next she reaches into her connection with the moon and starts to pour the power directly out of it. While she does that Luna searches for that foreign feeling she felt within her own power, and starts to tug on it. Both actions have an immediate impact.

The sheer volume of divine energy being channeled has caused Nightmare to begin floating without using her wings. One by one the magic circles start to slowly spin and glow. Then a giant silver ball of fire appears over the elf’s corpse. It’s probably twice as big as the diamond currently floating an inch off his chest.

“Luna, are those normally that big?”

How would I know? I haven’t seen a soul before either. That's definitely him though I could tell as soon as I reached out and grasped it.

As the runes start to all glow and spin in activation the air begins to hum with power. The floating soul compresses down into the massive diamond and causes the diamond to glow extremely bright.

Finally a massive pillar of completely opaque moonlight roars through the air and slams through all of the runes. It starts to channel into a single point at the tip of Nightmares horn. From there a second beam, much smaller than the one from outer space, shoots out of her horn and directly through the diamond into the chest of the deceased elf.

The beam continues to pour down from space for several minutes and Nightmares' entire horn is completely obscured from how bright it’s now glowing. She starts to grunt and wince from the strain of the spell.

“It’s too much p-gah power Luna! There’s a reason it’s stored in the moon grrrk-ah and we just draw from it! We’re almost done right?! I can’t take much more! Tch”

Luna knew it had only been 8 minutes and she wasn’t sure how to break the news to Nightmare about how long this spell takes. They need to endure for another 52 minutes.

Can you adjust the output? The only reason this is happening is because we’re taking in the divinity faster than you’re sending it back out. Too much of it is building up in our thaumic system!

Nightmare lets out a painful scream as she cranks up the output. Eventually reaching a point where she doesn’t feel like the internal pressure is increasing anymore. “I can’t go higher than this! I think this is enough to keep it from getting worse, but I can’t purge what we’ve already taken in. Not until the spell is nearly finished. Please Luna, how much longer?!”

Just…just a bit more. You’re doing great, Nightmare. This is going to work if we can just finish the spell I can feel it.

Luna has the advantage of currently not being in control of the body being crushed by an impossible volume of divine power, and she knows it. She wishes she could trade places with the former villain but despite the manipulation spell being broken she still can’t take control of her body. If she forces it there’s a chance it doesn’t make her trade places with Nightmare, it might just send Nightmare back to the moon. So, it’s not an option right now.

45 minutes later.

Screams of pain fill the air, sounding as if someone is getting all of their teeth pulled with no anesthetic. Nightmares horn has small cracks that have formed in it as the spell continues to cast. This is nothing compared to what I put him through. I can endure this. Luna it’s almost over right? We’re almost there?

Yes. Just…. A bit… more.

Despite not feeling the physical pain herself, the spell was starting to take its toll on her as well.

6 minutes later.

The screams have stopped. There’s still a minute left on the spell, but the mare's throat has just been completely shredded to the point that her screams are silent. Glowing, jagged silver lines have started appearing on her body as well. The Divinity trapped in her mana pool has grown more violent. Divinity isn't meant to share the same space as your mana and cycle through your mana circuits. It has it's own metaphysical space. If the spell had to continue for more than another 30 seconds, it’s not certain that her physical form would withstand it.

But thankfully, the spell has finished. The pillar of light coming from the sky narrows down into a thin line before finally dispersing, and the trapped Divinity leaves her body with the final burst of the spell. All of the cracks that had appeared on her horn and body vanish as well, a side effect of the healing power of the Divinity that had be cycled through 30 runes of healing and vitality as it finished coursing through her.

With an unceremonious thud the alicorn drops out of the air a few feet away from the elf. She passes out for a fraction of a second before slowly finding the resolve to pick up her head. Nightmare has to see if it worked.

For a moment her mind is blank as she scans for any signs of life, but the diamond is gone so that should be a good sign right? That’s when she sees his chest start to slowly rise and fall with life giving breath. All of his scars are gone as well. This is because, unbeknownst to anyone on this planet, the pair of alicorns went far beyond what would’ve been necessary for a 5th Level Raise Dead spell.

In their efforts to give the spell everything they could offer it they supplied it with far more than enough. Even the diamond with its auction price of 110,000 bits, was far far too much. What they had done was more comparable to the 9th Level True Resurrection spell. Comparable because it was likely even more powerful than that, but there’s no other metric to compare it against.

Nightmare attempts to stay conscious for just a few moments longer, hoping to see him wake up. Something beyond just breathing. There’s a chance they returned life into the body but did not properly deliver the soul. Unfortunately that is when her adrenaline runs out and she collapses back down to the dirt.

Ignis 1st Person POV

Hit Points: 82/82

Exhaustion: 2

XP: 126,000/120,000. Level Up Pending!

Instantly my heart rate spikes and I sit up like lightning. “Nightm-”

Where am I? It looks like a massive tent with bunk beds on one half and hospital beds on the other. There’s thestrals and changelings, but where is she? How am I alive?

“Sir! Calm down! We’re on the border of the Undiscovered West. Princess Celestia informed us where Her Grace and yourself had crash landed, and we abandoned the inner mountain to come evac the two of you. What happened out there, sir?” My mind is still processing everything around me as her words slowly register.

Eventually my mind catches up and I don’t answer the Vice Captains question. Turning to my left to look her in the eyes I just ask the question repeating itself in my mind. “Where is she?”

Elytra’s eyes widen a bit. “When did you get green eyes? Sorry, not important. I’m not sure where Her Grace is. She woke up around 12 hours ago and just said she needed some time. Are you okay? We couldn’t find any wounds on you, or even scars for that matter, but that didn’t match what we’d heard from Captain Armor.”

“Green? Wait that is important, do they still look like thestral or draconic eyes? Slitted instead of a circular pupil?”

“No they’re just a really bright green with a small dot for a pupil…”

Nightmare? Can you hear me? After a few seconds I dig around for my Sending stone. Luna, are you there?

I can still feel the divine connection, but Nightmare no longer has her minor possession on me. Why? “Why are we in the Undiscovered West? Why not take us back to Canterlot? If Luna left 12 hours ago then how long have I been out?”

“Well sir, first off, Her Grace was….she was Nightmare Moon. It’s been about two and half days. We didn’t go back to Canterlot because the city is gone, it’s floating a few hundred feet above the mountain. The elements lost, sir. They’re actually just outside the tent right now. They managed to recover the elements but apparently they couldn’t get them to activate. They’re also all acting strange according to the ponies that have known them.”

Holy shit. We lost? Of course we lost, I don’t even know how they sealed him the first time. My juiced up Fireball did 600d6 damage to the fucker and it looked like it hurt him but he just snapped the wounds away. What the hell do we even do now?

“I take it Celestia stayed at the mountain?” Elytra gives me a nod. “Okay. Walk with me, I need some air.”

Getting out of the hospital bed I quickly realize I am, in fact, still shirtless. Right, armor got shredded. Who cares, they're all mostly naked anyways, and I’ve still got pants. Walking out of the long tent I’m greeted with a sight that surprises me. This is almost a small village. We’ve got 300 ponies here, easily. I was expecting it to just be the Night Guard.

“We took a detour to Ponyville after grabbing the two of you. We got the hospital beds from there, and Her Grace summoned our bunks from the barracks before she left. All of the civilians you see came with us when we left Ponyville.”

After a few seconds more and more of the ponies around the campsite have noticed me, and a wave of silence permeates outward. The guards are all silent, but the civilians are muttering and whispering amongst themselves. Apparently there’s all kinds of rumors about what I did in Canterlot. Wait, what is this look on all of my guards faces?

After the colosseum I got looks of pride, a small applause, a few ponies asking questions. None of them looked like this though. Why are they looking at me with such awe-stricken faces? Do they think I’m a hero?

“Hey Mr. Ignis! It’s Applebloom, you ‘member me?” The first pony I met when I came here interrupts my thoughts and runs up to me, waving.

“You’re hard to forget. How are you holding up?”

“...I’m okay. Sis hasn’t been herself though, she’s startin to worry the rest of us. Can you help ‘em like you did at the Summer Sun Celebration?” Her happy tone quickly turns somber and she looks up at me with big puppy eyes. That should be a war crime. “I miss the farm and the clubhouse, and how things used to be. I wanna go home.”

“That’s the plan. I was just about to go find Twilight and see what’s going on with the elements.”

“She’s been weird lately too…” Applebloom's voice trails off and her ears swivel a bit as Applejack calls her name off in the distance. “I gotta go.” If AJ is over there then Twilight probably is too.

I return my gaze to my guards. “Thank you. All of you. For recovering Luna and myself. I’m impressed with what you all have managed to do with this situation. Evacuating Ponyville and having the presence of mind to get all of us as far from ground zero as possible is exactly what I expect from you. You all managed to stay cool and react quickly to an impossibly chaotic situation and… I’m proud.”

Performance

11 + 6 = 17.

I grab the Moonblade and channel the ability to project my voice for 300ft. “Now it’s my turn to do what I’m expected to do. This time next week we’ll all be back at the castle, complaining about how boring it is during our shift. Discord will pay for what he did to Her Grace, and he’ll pay for what he did to us.”

“B-but how, sir? Not even the Elements could win…” One of the changelings sitting closer to the front asks the question that probably everyone else is thinking. I need to work on remembering everyone's name.

“The Elements were going to lose to Nightmare Moon too, but I was there. They lost to Discord and I wasn’t there. This time I’ll be there. You think anything in this entire realm can stand up to all three Princesses, the Elements of Harmony, and the two Knights of Equestria? I can’t think of anything that could take that on.”

There’s a few cheers but not nearly as many as I was hoping for. In situations like this morale is the most important resource. “I didn’t think you were the type to give speeches, sir.”

“Well if they’re all going to look at me like I'm a hero I thought I should at least try to play the part. Do we have squads set up to go hunt and forage? If it’s been two days I can’t imagine our food situation is good.”

“Yes sir, around 60 of us have been going out there whenever the sun is up. We wanted to send more than that, but considering we have to do a muster before we leave and a muster when we get back to make sure we didn’t lose anyone…well it was a bit inefficient to do more than 60.”

The Vice Captain holds her mouth open for a second and it looks like she’s hesitating to say something. I don’t think I’ve seen her like this since she was about to get executed in the hive. “Sir, can you really save us?”

“No. I can’t. If it’s me and the Elements then I’m much more confident. If Luna, Nightmare, Celestia, and maybe even Cadence are there then I know we can win. I can’t do shit alone though. I already tried that and the guy just shrugged off anything I hit him with. I’m going to go find Twilight and see if we can get a plan together.”

Elytra gives a quick nod as I turn and walk away. I do need to find Twilight, but first I have to do this. It’s eating me up inside to not know what’s going on. Grabbing my staff to use as a focus so I can ignore any material component that doesn’t have a monetary value specified, I cast Sending. “Are you okay? Where are you? What happened, and can you come back to camp please?”

It’s not 25 words but I send it off anyway. There’s no point in asking too many questions, I just need to know she’s ok.

C’mon… say something.

Maybe she’s just asleep right now. Yeah, I’ll try again in a few hours. Let’s go find the elements and see what the hell happened.

Author's Note

Didn't get as far as I was hoping to get this chapter, but 3.8k words is good enough. I'm a bit exhausted from work today so I'm going to bed a bit earlier than normal which means I'm calling it quits on the chapter earlier than normal.

Thanks for reading!