//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: You're a- What? 
// Story: How Equestria was made. 
// by BritishAmerican 
//------------------------------//

As the figure stood up, Dawn took a step back. He was much taller then she imagined a lot taller. The figure stood there, he already knew his posture and his body shape was causing the little pony to be intimated. Regardless, he took a step into the light and that’s when Dawn’s jaw just dropped. There standing before her was something beyond her imagination, and she’s seen dragons and minotours; The figure had a mane, at least that’s what Dawn thought it was, it was flat and spread across his head, his left eye was covered by it, his mane connected to a beard that showed how long he’s been down here. His head shape was different to anyponys Dawn has seen; it was round and didn’t trail off into a snout, more downward, especially his as it looked so long and thin, with a straight nose. The figure seemed to be wearing some form of make-shift armor made of spare machine parts, no doubt made from the very machines that hunted Dawn.  An ocean blue eye looked towards Dawn; behind it was the feel of years of anger and sorrow. 

“W-what are you?” Dawn managed to ask the figure, her voice trembling. Fear finally set into the girl and has clearly taken control.

“Let’s say I’m the last of my kind but what I am isn’t important right now. We need to get you out of here before any more machines come.” The figure responded, his voice was aggressive. “I know a way back to the stairs and back to the surface but you must promise me that when you’re back up there you don’t tell anyone anything you’ve seen, okay?”

“Okay” It was obvious that if she went around telling everypony that she found a ruined underground city with a mysterious and weird creature, they’d form a lynch mob.

“Good. Now, can you walk?” The figure asked, noticing her injured leg.

“It might mean we have to go slower” Dawn shamefully admitted.

The figure shook his head as he walked to the window. He squinted his eyes as he peered through the fogged out glass then walked over to Dawn and picked her up. Carrying her like a rugby ball, the figure charged through the doorway and almost flew down the stairway, every floor just blurred past in a second before Dawn’s eyes. 
After about thirty minutes of blurry floors, they finally met to a doorway but the figure slammed himself to the side against it. “Shh” the figure said to Dawn, with his finger to his mouth. He pressed a button and the door slid open. Peeking round the corner, the figure slowly moved outside but immediately turned round to see another machine just standing there. 
“Illegal life form detected: Objective: Kill” The machine spoke and the familiar whirling sounded. The figure just ran up to the machine, ran along the wall, and kicked the machine to the floor then he pulled out a device from his make-shift armor. He pulled the trigger and a blast came from the device which made the machine explode. 

The figure continued his sprint to the stairway. “What was that?” Dawn asked the figure. “What did you use on that thing?”

“Something I hope your kind never gets familiar with.” The figure replied.

The explosion had echoed throughout the whole chasm so now every machine was now alert to activity and on their way to where the figure and Dawn was. But still he ran towards the stairs. Dawn looked into the eye that was visible and never saw such determination. Such focus. This made Dawn question more as to what creature this figure was, till a jerk shook her out of this questioning. “Sorry, almost tripped over a stone.”

The stone the figure kicked flew off into one of the alleyways, bounced off an approaching machine, knocking it over, down into an empty doorway and tumbling down a flight of stairs where it landed on an console which both machine and console fizzed as both metal and wires combined and a row of green light shun down into the darkness. A blinking red light that read out: “Cyro Aborted” shun above one of the tubes, stream creeped out as the capsule opened. A hand grasped the edge of the tube as the sound of large inhaling emitted. 

Finally the figure and Dawn reached the stairway and begun they ascent out of the machine hell and towards freedom. Hours passed away as they climbed and climbed, back tracked the way Dawn had came from, but instead going a different way into a separate tunnel which was a hole to one of the tunnels the cave split into. 
“Here we are, don’t suppose you could reach?” Dawn asked him, what with him being much taller.  

Perhaps, let’s see.” The figure walked up to the hole and reached upwards with Dawn in both hands. Going on his tiptoes, he almost reached but Dawn easily walked up onto the other tunnel with her legs. “Alright, just go back down that way and you’ll be out” The figure begun to walk back towards the underground city.

“Wait! W-may I know your name?” Dawn quickly changed her wording of the question but was eager to know. The figure stopped in his tracks, thinking about it. He sighed and pulled out a small oval shaped device and handed it to Dawn which she took with her mouth.

“When you get home, and you really, really want to know. Play that. You just hit the centre and it’ll play. But I warn you, knowing me comes with the price of knowing everything, some things that might be hard to bear.” The figure warned Dawn and continued his walk back to the city.

Dawn watched as the figure disappeared and looked down to the discus in her mouth. A minute or two later she ran down the tunnel right back to the cave entrance, at least a cave entrance that wasn’t blocked by rocks. She was walking back to Ponyville where she was met with Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Applebloom, Applejack, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Duskshine.

“Dawn! You’re okay!” Duskshine shouted and ran towards his daughter, they hugged before he looked to her. “How did you get out, the girls said the tunnel collapsed?”

“I found one that wasn’t” Dawn, slightly joked.

Duskshine lightly laughed. “At least you’re okay, you got to be more careful next time, at least take an adult with you next time” He turned to the others. “Sorry I got you guys up so late, but thank you.”

“We couldn’t leave anypony trapped in a cave, besides least we know she’s okay” Rainbow Dash said as she hovered.

“c-can we go home now?” Fluttershy said, shyly hiding behind Applejack.
They all smiled as you can be sure they all thought “oh Fluttershy” as they walked back to Ponyville together. 
Once home, Dawn pulled out the strange Discus from her mane, which she hid before meeting up with Duskshine and the others. Making sure her father was in bed, she hit the middle of the discus with her hoof. A light shun onto her wall as a video played. It was the figure without a beard. “Recording Log 1. Science Officer John Cooper:-“