Legacy of Man

Bullets whiz overhead as my unit desperately tries to retreat.

"THIS IS DELTA 2-2 TO URBAN, COME IN URBAN!" I shout into my helmet's headset. "URBAN, DO YOU READ!"

"Urban to Delta 2-2, we read you loud and clear." The response comes through a little scratchy.

"WE NEED IMMEDIATE EVAC!" I respond, "WE ARE PINNED DOWN IN NORTHERN NEW DELHI! BRAVO IS KIA!" I take a breath. "I REPEAT, BRAVO IS KIA!"

I woke up in a cold sweat. Unable to fall back asleep, nor wanting to, I decided to take a walk in the cool night air. I got dressed and departed.

I ended up covering a lot of ground. My long legs taking me to the edge of the Everfree Forest. Why I thought it would be a good idea to enter it at what my watch said was 1:23 AM eludes me. I walked down the well worn path, taking in the smell of moss. Sure, I saw timberwolves, but they seemed to not be sure if I was a hostile or not, so they ignored me. As long as I didn't make myself a threat to them that is.

For some reason, I felt like I had always wanted to napalm the ever loving crap out of this place, but that thought soon left my mind.

Before long, I came across a small stream. Feeling thirsty, I took a drink. I didn't realize how thirsty I really was, but I soon left the area. And continued down the thinning path.
It wasn't long before I recognized my surroundings and continued over a rope bridge. Into a structurally deteriorating castle. Clearly I am very smart.

Surprisingly, the castle took me for a little nostalgia trip as the decaying structure reminded me of the time I had visited Gettysburg in my youth. This made me think of the George Santayana quote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." While walking through the halls of the old throne room, I thought of how I could teach the young of the many great achievements of the human race, as well as their most brutal mistakes.

I left the ruins and followed the transponder beacon from my craft. When I arrived, I found that Twilight and co had tried to force their way into my craft, putting it into lock-down mode. "XR-71 Blackbird 2, Enter authorization code Gamma Delta Sierra 0 1 1 7." The sleek craft whirred as it left the lock-down mode. The cockpit opened up once more and I climbed inside. As I seated myself at the controls, I saw that I only had enough fuel for one flight. And I wasn't walking back. I turned the craft on and enabled VTOL mode. The twin engines slid forward and pivoted up. A powerful roar emanated from them as I lifted off and retracted the landing gear. As I soared across the roof of the Everfree, I noticed a certain cyan speedster fly up next to me. I could see her lips moving, but couldn't hear a word she was saying. I put the craft at a hover, a dangerous thing to do with the limited fuel reserves, opened the cockpit, and told her to get inside quick. As the cockpit hatch closed, Rainbow Dash asked me a question.

"How is thing flying, I don't see any wings, and if there are any, I don't see any flapping."

"My race was born without wing's, so we had to use technology to achieve flight." I replied " That's the only reason why we're in the air and not on the ground."

I landed my craft just behind Twilight's castle and answered Dash's questions on the history of human flight. I then felt exhaustion take hold of me once more and I reentered the castle and fell back asleep.

The next morning, I awoke to a commotion down the hall. I got dressed, and left my room to head to my craft. Twilight stopped me from leaving the castle because of reports of a dragon last night. Knowing full well that it was my ship, I instructed her to follow me. A brief walk around the castle later brought us to my craft.

"How did that get here?" Twilight asked.

"Easy, that roar you heard was the engines on my craft as I was flying." I replied.

"How did you get in then, we couldn't." She continued.

"I used the vocal authorization code." I replied back.

"Could you demonstrate it's flight?" Twilight asked, "I'd certainly like to see how it achieves it."

"I depleted the rest of the fuel getting it here, so unless you can use magic to make it work, it isn't flying and what are you doing." I said.

"Giving it magic."

"God this is such a mcguffin." I say. "Is there a long stretch of flat land nearby?"

LATER

"Rainbow Dash, i have a bet for you." I announce.

"Yeah, what is it?" She replies.

" I bet you that I can make it to Canterlot and back faster than you." I say.

" And when I win?" She asks.

"I tell you an embarrassing secret," I continue, "But if I win, I get bragging rights."

"You're on."

I hop into the cockpit and fire up the engines. at the firing of Pinkie's confetti cannon we take off. The cyan speedster gets an early lead, but that is broken as I shatter the sound barrier and continue to mach 5.2 I pull a wide turn just as Rainbow breaks the sound barrier herself. but it was too late as I had already landed my craft. It took Rainbow another half an hour to get back.

"THAT THING CAN PULL OFF A COLORLESS RAINBOOM!?" She shouted.

"It's called a sonic boom," I reply, "Besides planes 40 years older than me regularly broke the sound barrier. Though you've broken the visible light spectrum so I guess that's something." My thoughts are interrupted by a massive yawn as I'm hit with a sudden bout of sleepiness. I felt naturally drawn to my room in Twilight's castle. Little did I know the horrors that would befall me the next morning.