Chapter 1: What happened to them?
"Sir, look at this!" A mare said, causing an older earth pony named Planner.
Planer, an elder Earth pony stallion and the leader of this Expedition into the Badlands of Equestria.
. "What is it, Architect?" Planner asked the mare. As he walked over to her, he saw what appeared like a door. "Hmm? What is this?" He asked the mare next to him.
"It appears to be a door of some sort." She said, walking closer as it slid open. The two ponies jumped by this. "What happened?" One of the other ponies asked. Both Planner and Architect just smiled. "We find a way deeper in!" Planner said with a smile. "Me and Architect, will walk through this hallway and find hopefully find something." Planner told the pony, who nodded. "While the rest of you look around for anything of interest."
As the two ponies walked down the long hallway, they seen a flickering light in a room near the end. "Look at this room!" Yelled Architect as they slowly entered the room to find two pods.
"What are those stange objects for?." Planner asked to no one, only to find that the surface of both pods had a thick layer of dust on it. "Planer, I seen something on the the wall. It may open these things" Architect said, pointing a hoof at a stange panel of button. "Let's find out." Planner told Architect. As the older Earth pony stallion walked over to the wall, something happaned to the pods. "What is going on?! What did you do?!" Yelled Architect, but before Planer could say a thing, the contents of the pods began to emerge.
The first pod then slowly opened. "LIFEFORMS DETECTIVE OPENING CRYO PODS." A unknown voice said. "Welcome back, Captain Hodges." The same voice said as the biped placed it's hand on the lip of the pod.
"Damn, why they made me and Sapphire go into cryo, I'll never know." The biped said. "This is amazing, never in my entire life would I be witnessing this historic moment!" Planer said, nearly passing out from the sight. "I guess that is why." He said as Architect recovered from the shock.
"So am I the only one left?" He asked Planner.
"What?" Planner asked.
"How many more are there?" He repeated.
"Y-Your the only one we found." Architect told him. He just fall to the dust on the floor.
"Well then it is your lucky day, you both just found the last remaining member of the human race." He said with a bitter laugh as he walked to open another pod, but instead of another "human" there was a deep blue dragon curled up in a ball. When the pod was fully opened, the dragon started to stretch, only to see the biped and the ponies Planer and Architect.
~Captain Hodges' POV~
As I opened Sapphire's pod, I saw the two quadrupeds continuing to look at me.
When Sapphire finished her stretching, she bolted in front of me. A way of protecting me from unknown creatures. "Can one of you tell me why you wished to find a place of such evil?" I asked them, as the median blue dragon came out with stretched out wings and showing her sharp teeth, causing them to back away.
"What? What happened to the rest of your people?" An older looking quadruped asked me.
"Killed each other." I laughed. "Wh-What?!" They both yelled at me.
Sapphire just looked up at me, then at them. "This bunker's main purpose was to allow some to live, to warn the new peoples who may find this place. A warning about how war can end the world." I said, seeing Sapphire walking towards me. They just looked at me.
"Only it seems that time managed to destroy what was left behind. A little miracle, if one would ask me."
~Later that week.~ (Canterlot)
As the ponies, took me and Sapphire to their Capital know as Canterlot. "And this is the castle, where both Princess rule and live!" Architect told me with a wide smile.
The trip from what they called the Badlands to Canterlot, they told me that they had find several signs of an ancient species that walked on two legs. "Halt! Creature! Miss stay back!" A guard yell at her as he ran at me with spear.
"No, don't!" Architect yelled, jumping in front of me. "I have an audience with the Princesses about my friend." She told the guard as a purple winged unicorn walked toward us.
"Enough guard." She said, causing the guard to stiffen up.
"Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle!" He said.
"Now leave us." She said, as the guard nodded and walked away. "I'm sorry for that. The guards tend to be a little jumpy at new creatures." She said with a smile.
"You should of let the guard do what he needed to do." I said, as I seen her smiling face form into a frown.
"I don't need a kind person to help the last member of a dead race. A race that killed our own." I said, looking into her eyes.
"Wh-What?" She asked me.
"Princess Twilight, this is Captain Hodges and his dragon Sapphire." Architect told her.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle?" I asked, looking at the winged unicorn.
"Y-Yes?" She asked me.
"You have a peaceful world something we never truly had. It is a concept of mind that my people found funny and toyed with it." I started, than Sapphire tripped me with her blue tail. The two mares just looked at the dragon.
"Sapphire, you of all people know I'm right." I said, seeing her mouth open. Taking note of her icy breath.
As we walked closer to the castle with Princess Sparkle, when we heard screaming. "Sapphire! Take to the air!" I yelled, taking my staff from my backpack.
"Princess, I'll help out, something I can do right!" I said, running towards the yelling to see insect-like ponies. I started casting spells.
"Get the fuck away from that mare!" I yelled at the creature. It hissed back at me, but Sapphire attack it, freezing it solid. "Sapphire protect Princess Sparkle!" I yelled at her, causing her to look at me and then nod.
"Now lets play!" I said with an evil smile, showing the true side of humans; the side that destroyed us.
"Princess Celestia?!" I heard a pony yelled. I looked up to the sky, to see a pure white winged unicorn.
"And Princess Luna?!" A different pony yelled, seeing a dark blue winged unicorn.
"We need to push them out!" The white winged unicorn yelled.
"I'm on it!" I yelled, making both of the winged unicorns looked down.
"Now let's have some fun!" I yelled, creating a dome of magic. This caused the winged unicorns to back away, while the insect-like ponies started to run my way.
"Attack and capture the unknown creature!" One of them yelled. I smiled at them as the dome neared them and behind me, passing through buildings and ponies while destroying anything and all of the insect-pony creatures. They all ran away from it.
"This creature is too powerful! Return to the hive!" The same insect said. I stop the spell to see the winged unicorns landed in front of me.
"No! The Queen wishes this creature captured. The Queen wants to creature alive! Now attack and capture it at all cost!" A larger insect-pony creature yelled.
"From old to new, fall with honor and except defeat, because by my hand I will win." I said, causing the the insect creature to change at me with a magical blade formed from its horn. "I must commend you on following orders, but even you must realize you alone can't win. "I told it, dodging it's attack. "Fine if you wish to die in combat then I will gladly do so." I said, summoning a magical energy blade, cutting through it's protection. "Even in this new era. It seems like war never changes."
(In the castle)
"We must thank you, creature for helping us." The white winged unicorn told me, while I bowed in front of them.
"Yes, Captain Hodges!" Twilight said, running to me with Sapphire in tow.
"It's nothing for a mage like myself." I told them, standing up only for a blue dragon to jump on me.
"Careful, Sapphire." Twilight said, noting her claws digging into my back.
"It's fine, Princess Twilight. She can't hurt me; I'm a draconic mage." I told them. "I'm part dragon, born with the powers of a dragon." I continued to say. "I'm also the last human alive and it thanks to this mare here." I pointed at Architect, who then blushed.
"Why?" The dark blue winged unicorn asked me.
"War." Was the only word I said, causing them to just looked at me. "We killed ourselves, because we wanted to prove who was the strongest and to prove who the strongest is to destroy other equal strong opponents" I said, refusing to look at them.
"Friends turned on one other. Family killing each other for basic survival or just for fun. A world wide war leading to our extinction." I continued, only for Princess Celestia and Princess Luna to hug me tightly.
"Princess Twilight, please take the Captain with you when you leave for Ponyville." Princess Celestia told the younger winged unicorn.
"Yes, Princess." The purple princess said.
"I did have one question: what are the three of you called?" I asked, pointing at them.
"Alicorns." The dark blue princess said with a smile.
"I sense great magical power within the three of you." I said, making the three of the alicorns blush. As we talked about some of my past, I felt very tired and asked for a place to rest for the time being. They allowed me to rest in a guest room for the night.
Once in the room, Sapphire looked around at the room. "You heard the Princesses we leaving in the morning." As I heard a knock on the door. I walked to it and opened it to see both Architect and Princess Twilight.
"Come in please." I said moving out of the doorway. They both smiled and walked in.
"Sapphire, Princess Twilight is here is to check on us." I called back. The dragon then saw both Architect and Princess Twilight lay on the bed. Who than started to also climb on the bed to lay next to both of them.
"It seems Sapphire likes both of you." I said with a smile. "I'm glad she found another per---." Sapphire than shot me with ice before I finished. Both of the mares laying on the bed just looked it her.
"Its ok, she does that. She hates when I talk bad about myself." Which caused Sapphire to turn her nose up. We all laughed.
As the night want on, I found myself wondering if something could have changed, would this have been different. Though before continuing with a deep thinking, I felt a hoof poke my back. I looked back to see Architect. "You should be resting right now." I told the earth pony mare. "As should you." She counted. "I've been asleep for 50,000 years, Architect. It'll do me some good to look at a city in true peace."
"So is peace really something your people never experienced?" She asked, looking at me.
"Well that is a rather difficult question to answer correctly." I said, causing her to look at me with a confused look. "To understand one's ways. One must first understand how and why." I said as Twilight awoke from her sleep.
"Yawn What time is?" The purple alicorn asked us.
"A little past 6 o'clock, your highness." I told her, causing her to sigh heavily.
"Is something the matter, Princess?" I asked her.
"You aren't required to say things like that." She told me, getting off on the bed.
"I'm sorry, Princess Twilight, but it's that way I was trained. Trained to show proper respect to others with a high profile and being royalty is one of those profiles." I said, walking to the door.
"Where are you going?" Architect asked me with Twilight's face mirroring the question.
"Didn't Princess Celestia want you to take me to 'Ponyvile'?" I asked them.
"Yes, but you just arrived in Canterlot and not to mention you and Sapphire must be tired from traveling and the skirmish with the Changelings." Twilight said. "Why do you care for a creature like me, knowing what we did to each other?" I asked her, only for something that I haven't seen since I was 20 years old. Both Princess Twilight and Architect wore a smile.
