From One Villain to Another

"Purple? Oh, excuse me. My name is Twilight Sparkle," Twilight introduced herself confidently.

"The 4th Princess and the pony who defeated Tirek, oh how I teased him for that," the Warden chuckled to himself as he poured a cup of tea and handed to Twilight who gladly accepted. As she sipped the tea, she began to cough uncontrollably.

"Yummy, salt is delicious in drinks," he began to laugh at Twilight. "Oh I am going to enjoy this". Twilight put the cup of tea back on the tray and sat down on near the fire.

"Please, sit down," Twilight pointed at a pillow with her hoof.

"Oh thank you very much," he said in a very posh accent. "I say, shall we have some crumpets my dear fellow". Twilight looked at him in confusion.

"So, Celestia tells me that you used to be one of the royal guards?"

"Yes, before I broke my chains I had to protect sun butt from being hurt".

"Sun butt? That's not very nice!"

"Oh no, I am so sorry. How's Fusion Flank? Plasma Plot? No?" The Warden attempted to stifle a laugh as Twilight just sat unimpressed. "Oh come on give me a smile".

"Ugh fine. Do you want me to give you my history?" The Warden groaned.

"That would be a nice start," Twilight smiled.

"Well, I come from Earth. Good planet. My species are the most advanced creatures on there. We created things incomprehensible to you pea brained hay eaters. We all stuck together, even if there was a small falling out from time to time. That's what makes my species so unique is that we require human interaction".

"So how did you get to Equestria," Twilight scribbled on her notepad as the Warden explained.

"Well, I didn't want to come to this cursed planet. I was dropped here after... wow I actually don't remember".

"Tell me more about your life on this Earth".

"Well, I was an astronaut. Basically people who occupy and maintain spacecraft and study the cosmos. My job was an engineer, basically fix stuff, build stuff. Solve practical problems," the Warden raised his hand to his temple and began to massage it.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, anyway if I put me being stuck on this primitive planet and me being an astronaut it makes sense that I crashed an escape pod here."

"So you mean that human technology could be around here?"

"Ha! Even if you did find it, the thing would be useless. To prevent reverse engineering it has a self destruct button, which I pressed shortly after escaping!"

"That technology could of helped all of us!"

"You got magic anyway, Humans only have their brilliant minds!" the Warden then rubbed his chin in thought. "Wait, I have an idea".

"This has been very interesting and a brilliant opportunity for me to learn about other culture, you have made a great contribution and for that I thank you," Twilight went in to hug the Warden. He froze in shock and began to panic.

"Stay away!" He pushed her away, he began to hyperventilate and back-pedalled into the corner of the room. He then fainted as blood began to drip out of his nose.

The Warden's Mind

A bright and sunny day. Trees swayed in motion with the soft wind and the birds chirped merrily in the sky. However the ground was much different. Skyscrapers filled the horizon and faint mechanical noises could be heard in the distance. The Warden looked down at his hands and saw they were a pinkish colour.

"I...is this Earth?" He asked himself. A small male child skipped towards him. He was similar to the Warden. Except he had blue eyes, brown hair and no scars littered across his face. A woman than chased after the child. She had green eyes, long brown hair. She was tall and thin.

"Aiden!" She shouted as she began to cry and ran towards him. She lunged at him and put him a firm hug. "You came back".

"My memory isn't that good, who are you?" He asked.

"How could you forget your wife and child?"

"You what".

"Well they did say that the treatments did have possible amnesia," the woman placed a hand on her chest. "Chloe if you forgot". The small child pulled on his trouser leg. He looked down and smiled. "And this bundle of fun is Lucas".

He proceeded to lift him up.

"My child," he whispered to himself. Suddenly a loud explosion was heard. Avian creatures began to dive-bomb the city, as he studied closer they were pegasi. A gigantic replica of the escape pod floated above the city and thousands of pegasus began to bomb the city. Out came a large disfigured head of Princess Celestia who laughed manically.

"Thank you very much for the technology, now we can rid the universe of your pathetic race!"

"Pathetic? How dare you, you primitive grass chewing barbarian! Come down here and my foot will give you a warm welcome!" Suddenly a large weapons crate dropped near him. He unlocked it to find a map of Equestria with an x in a certain location.

"This is the location of your escape pod, it has became the most mysterious object in Equestria and nothing has opened it yet. This  is your chance, in the name of the human race. I order you to active the distress beacon!" A voice ordered him.

"Yes sir!" He replied and his dream began to fade.

Equestria

He woke up in panic to find that Twilight and Celestia at the bottom of his bed.

"Ah you are finally awake," Celestia said, stating the obvious.

If I am going to escape I have to be reformed. The things I do for you human race. Oh well, can't be that bad.

"Yeah, just had a flash back," the Warden waved his hand in dismissal.

"We have finally got your first treatment, it is a memory spell that we used in the discord crisis".

"Well, I said I had to cooperate. Hit it," the Warden lowered his head and Twilight cast a small spell on him.

I have to show some resistance

Images began to flash back in his mind. A gigantic spacecraft floating through the cosmos. A woman, a child and a gigantic city. What was even more intriguing was several blueprints flashed in his mind. Weapons, machines, medicine. All of the human technology he known returned.

"I need several things. A workbench with some tools and the raw materials I ask for. I will cooperate but I need these to be useful in my time," the Warden informed. Twilight looked at him in joy.

"You think that I will fall for that?" Celestia asked.

"Wait, he is an engineer. He could help us!" Twilight interrupted.

"Why do you need these?"

"It's easy. Necromancy is on the rise and I can help create machines that can solve this problem," the Warden smiled as he began to pick up sheets of paper and stationary.

"OK, you are using your talents for good which I am grateful," Celestia walked out of the room.

"What's wrong with her?" The Warden asked.

"She is just on edge, this necromancy business has shook the entire city," Twilight informed. She looked at the blueprints the Warden was drafting. "What is this?"

"These are much stronger weapons that you currently have, instead of using spears or swords you can use these from a long range," he pointed at the blueprints of a Arquebus. "It fires a small pellet at the speed faster than any bow can create and can penetrate through nearly all variants of your current armour. However being a human weapon, I have to devise an adapter".

"Why would we need these?" Twilight asked in shock.

"To pick your teeth with them," he said sarcastically. "It's to eliminate any hostile beings from a good distance with a good efficiency".

"We will never use such a thing! It goes against everything we stand for".

"You stand for. Your drones will have no problem forcing a lead pellet down the throat of a troublesome cultists".

"What did you do to me before I fainted?" The Warden asked in suspicion.

"I just hugged you, no enchantments or spells," Twilight reassured him. She gave a small grin to him and he gave one back. Resist, do not blow your only chance of getting out of here!

"I want to go back you know. The human world once more, to see humans again. To be home, this is not my home".

"We can try our best, if that is what you want then we will help you. I cannot allow you to go home like this though".

"Like a demon, monster? Yeah I know, try to do your best," the Warden began to glow a bright yellow and his skin began to change from crimson red to his old human coloured skin. His eyes turned from the deep red to brown, his hair from black to blonde. As he was about to transform, he shifted back to his evil form.

"Ha! You won't succeed. Ponies are too small minded for space travel!" He scoffed, going back to his blueprints.

Four Hours Later, Private Room

"Princess, the spells seem to be working. He actually began to change form," Twilight informed in glee. Celestia gave a smile.

"You mean that Aiden could be back?" Celestia asked with hope.

"Possibly, he still needs to get used to the spells so we don't cause any damage. The last thing I want to do is cause him more pain than he is already through".

"I thank you Twilight, you really are helping us all," Celestia gave a friendly hug.

"Princess, what is Aiden now exactly?" Twilight asked in curiosity.

"He is a demon, a creature of pure evil. It is not Aiden but something possessing him, we need to use the memory spells to rejuvenate Aiden and expel the demon inside of him," Celestia explained. "He was possessed when he was on a necromancy raid. However he got captured and he was corrupted".

"I see. Were you and Aiden close?" Twilight asked hesitantly. Celestia looked down at the floor, she let out a heavy sigh.

"He was my personal bodyguard to everypony else. To me however, he was my only true friend at that time. Luna was never happy with me, everypony feared me rather than liked me, everypony just exploited my title. Aiden, he just wanted a friend too. He said that ponies called him a freak and cast him out, I found him in the plains, wanting a friend too. One thing lead to another and we became best friends," she took out a pendant from behind regalia with a small half of a heart with the letter F engraved and another F only half engraved. "He has the other half, I hold on to it, keeping the memories to hope that one day. He will return back to himself".

"Princess, I didn't know. I am so sorry," Twilight apologised. She went in for another hug but this time Celestia was much tighter. A small tear began to drop from Celestia's eyes.

"It's OK Twilight, I know you will get Aiden back and rid him of this monster," Celestia gave a small smile as she backed off and walked out to a window. "Most nights I wonder if any other of his kind are in Equestria, Aiden said that could find out but he was corrupted before he said so".

"If so, I hope they are OK".

The Next Day

The room had been transformed into a workshop. Massive amounts of raw materials were scattered around the floor like a child with toys on their birthday. The Warden sat, hunched over a workbench tinkering with the new invention he had recreated. He lifted it into the air and put the butt into his shoulder. He smiled for a moment as he loaded it with black powder and a small lead ball. He pointed it at the wall and pulled the trigger. It went off in a cloud of smoke, sending the ball hurling towards the wall which then cut straight through the brick.

"It works, took it's time to work," he muttered to himself as he put it down on the workbench. Twilight burst through the door, she began to cough as the smoke entered her body.

"What happened?" She asked as she opened the window.

"The sound of progress my friend," the Warden replied with a mock German accent. Twilight gave a confused look as she saw the Arquebus. "The Arquebus is functional and ready for mass production, all we need now is to figure out how to get you ponies to shoot the thing. Unicorns is pretty obvious, but Pegasi and Earth Ponies?" He rubbed his chin in thought as he stood up and observed Twilight.

"Perhaps you could make a stand of some sort?" She suggested.

"Some sort of deployable stand that attached onto the rifle? Yes that would work, just some modifications to the human version should work for you," he sat down and waited for Twilight to leave the room.

As she walked out, he took out a map and laid it across the table. He closed his eyes and thought back to his dream. He looked at the map and saw the x mark over a mountain range in a desert country. A country that is shrouded is mystery.

"Zebrica," the Warden muttered.