Everything hurt. Even his mechanical limbs hurt. Wait, those never hurt. Nexus' eyes slowly opened and he found himself back in the realm he'd hoped he'd never see again. The sky was filled with dazzling stars that covered every inch of the blackness that surround him. Beneath his hoofs, actual hoofs, soft grass blew in a gentle breeze that moved his longer mane out of his eyes. Great, he was dead. This was where he was the last time he died.

"You're not dead Nexus." an unknown yet familiar voice called. "Not yet."

Nexus stood and looked around. No pony stood anywhere near him. The world was full of pale moon light yet still nothing could be seen in this empty field.

"What are you talking about? I was here last time I was dead."

"As was Ephialtes."

"So…what. You brought me here?"

"I was needed. We were needed."

"We?"

Nexus heard a rustling behind him and he quickly turned to come face to face with somepony long forgotten, but not long gone. A black unicorn with a gray mane and blue eyes stared back at him. His silver shield surrounded by light blue flames made him instantly recognizable to Nexus.

"Dad?"

"Hey son."

"Y-You brought me here?"

"Not just he." another voice called from behind.

Nexus turned to meet it and saw Goldenchord, Prince Goldenchord standing next to a cliff he hadn't seen before.

"General?"

"Yes. I brought you here at the request of your father."

"Why now?"

"Because you need us." Nexus' father said.

"Why do I need you?"

"You have gone astray from the path that you have followed since your birth." Goldenchord said. "It is not coincidence you are the new Element of Honor. The lessons I learned that made me who I was have been passed down from generation to generation, all leading up to you."

"But why me? Why does it have to be me?"

"Because you're the only other to serve the night in her full power. You are the next to bring change."

"But why me!?"

"Your potential." His father added on. "You are the greatest of all your ancestors. Even in death we guide the lost to their paths."

"I haven't lost my path."

"Haven't you?" Goldenchord asked. "Suicide is not a part of what I taught my daughter."

"And it isn't how I raised my son."

"So what? I don't have anything left to fight for."

"Then why keep fighting?" Goldenchord asked. "You believe you have no physical thing to fight for, this is true, but you fight for an idea. An idea that I only have longed to see be a reality."

"What idea is that?"

"A United Equestria." Nexus' father and Goldenchord said in unison.

"I have dreamed of it since the war started."

"It ended a thousand years ago."

"No it hasn't." His father added. "The distance between the sisters is growing once again, and you are their binding force."

"No I'm not. I've been driving them apart."

"You can fix what you have done Lunar." Goldenchord said. "Everything done may be fixed by you. With the help your friends of course."

"I don't think they're in a trusting mood General."

"They're your friends, they'll stick by you through everything. They always have." His father added.

"It's up to you however to keep them together and lead them. We cannot tell you anymore. But remember these words. Words you have said."

" We, under sacred truth," they all said in unison. "swear to protect and serve honorably in the Evening Guard with courage and strength. No matter the circumstance, we will fight for all of Equestria and will always be on call for her people. As Soldiers of the Night, we swear to fight for honor and for all; day and night, forever we fight. All hail the night."

They both started to fade as they repeated it. From the other side of the cliff, eleven mares and stallions of varying race floated up into view. Nexus wasn't sure what he was looking at until he noticed his dad's father near the front of the random formation. It was all thirteen generations of soldiers. Nexus saw at the back a black mare in ancient Celestian Guard armor. That must have been-

Now the throbbing pain was replaced by a total resonating pain that spread across everything, real and artificial. Though a sharper pain seemed to be coming from his right wing. The world slowly began coming back into focus as Nexus realized he wasn't laying anywhere, more swinging by his right wing lodged between a desk and what was once a floor. Looking down, he saw the ground around ten feet bellow as the smell of burnt wood and coal wafted into his nose.

He looked down to his left foreleg and watched the foot long blade pop out of its case. He reached around to his back and quickly jabbed the tip into the joint. He shouted in pain as the electric pulse shot through his system. The wing above was useless to start with, so there was little gain to trying to preserve it. Nexus wrenched and gritted his teeth against the pain as he started prying the wing out of the socket and severing the wires. The pain was near unbearable. With a quick jerk, he popped his wing free from himself and fell strait down to the ground with a thud.

Nexus ground as he rolled onto his stomach and retracted the blade. The stone orbs lay on the ground surrounded by a black smoke. The ship seemed to have fallen through the desert floor and into a cave long hidden by the desert. The stones were blackish-blue and emanated a soft glow into the shadows.

"A pity all that power went to waste. Such an ignorant little foal trying to stand against the most powerful being in the world." Sombra said as he formed a few feet away.

Nexus groaned and started to try and stand. His right foreleg suddenly locked up and he fell to his stomach again.

"You are pitiful. Still trying to fight even with everything falling apart."

Nexus tried to use his left foreleg but that one wasn't responding.

'Come on. For a United Equestria.' Nexus thought.

Looking down, he saw it half dislocated from the socket. He tried using his left wing to prop himself up enough to get his locked foreleg underneath him but Sombra wasn't going to have that. He summoned his scythe and slashed off Nexus' other wing. He shouted in agony as the shock went up his spin and caused his neck to snap to the right quickly. The left half of Nexus' face started to seize up from the amount of electrical charges being put through him.

"Why do you continue to struggle? It is over. you have lost."

"I…I'm a…Stubborn bastard aren't I?" Nexus coughed. The muscles in his chest shouted in protest with every breath.

"That you are. A thorn in my side until the end it would seem." Sombra kicked Nexus onto his back with his foreleg and looked down at the metal on his armor plate. "Your ancestor put that to great use. Perhaps Luna was wrong in thinking you the Element of Honor. You are no leader. You are hardly a soldier. You are a selfish child, looking for revenge against somepony that has wronged him. You don't deserve that metal."

Sombra raised his scythe over his head and buried it into Nexus' chest, straight through the metal. The dark blue stone that made Nexus' cutie mark in the metal shattered and fell onto the ground around him. The metal rested on the right side of his chest, so the blade missed the heart and its vital networks as he pulled it out. Blood poured through the metal plate over his chest and his breaths became short and shallow.

'Thanks a lot Dad. Let me live long enough to die a crippled dog.' Nexus thought to himself.

"You are nothing more than a corpse. And that is all you ever will be."

"That's what you think." Ephialtes' voice called from the shadows.

Sombra looked up in time to see Ephialtes land a flying kick to his jaw. The blow sent him reeling as a two shots rang out from Silver Bit's and Thunder Clap's rifles. The bullets knocked him back further as Hestaria and White Knight flew in with their lances and, from opposite sides rammed them all the way through him. Sombra shouted and launched them back with a blast of magic. Ephialtes went to Nexus' side and started administering as much medical magic as he could.

"I can keep him alive, but not for long. He needs real medical attention." He said as the pain dulled from Nexus' whole body and blood flow slowed. Good spell, numbed pain and slowed heart rate. So long as they could keep some blood in him he had a shot of living.

Hestaria and Knight landed on the right and left of them as Thunder and Silver jumped down from the wrecked ship in front of them all. Sombra pried the lanced from his chest and was about to attack again when Thunder shot off his horn. He shouted angrily and held his distance as his horn started to reform. Nexus faded out as the spell took full hold and put him under to conserve his strength.

Nexus was alright, for now. He wasn't going to die here on Ephi's watch. He knew what he was doing, right? Silver made a note of the walls and the remaining ammo in her Thunder Strom Rifle. It was much more controllable than her design, but she still preferred her rifle. She also noticed something about the walls of the cave. She knew what the rock was but couldn't quite put a hoof on it.

"Why do you defend this fool? He has brought you nothing but misery." Sombra asked.

"He's not just a fool you mascara wearing fucktard!" Ephilates said about to fire a bolt of magic.

That's when it hit her. "Wait!" She said putting a hoof on Ephialtes' horn. "The rocks are azurite."

"So?" Ephi asked.

"Azurite enhances magical energy to immense proportions. If you hit it with the wrong spell, it might combust and turn us all to ash. Fixette told me about it when we had to send off a custom pistol with that as its handle for maintenance." Silver explained.

"It would be a pity. I would have lost the pleasure of killing you myself." Sombra taunted.

"Then we'll do this the old fashion way." Ephi said rearing up onto two hoofs into a fighting stance.

"Yes we shall." Sombra said with a grin as his horn fully reformed.