"Come on, Fluttershy! You're the only one left!" Rainbow Dash hollered to Fluttershy from across the claustrophobic room.

"I really don't want to take my chances... Can't I stay out here?" Fluttershy begged to stay outside of the falling-apart spacecraft.

"No, you can't! Everyone wants to find out what happens when it reaches zero, right guys?" Spike was practically on his knees, trying to convince her to come aboard. The five other ponies who Spike was able to convince to get aboard backed him up.

"Well... I guess if everypony thinks it's a good idea..." She says as she slowly walks through the metal doorway, only to have the doors abruptly shut behind her when she got inside. Fluttershy was taken off guard, made a squeaking sound, and fell face first onto the soft carpeted floor. Everyone started to panic over the lack of an exit. Twilight tried prying the doors open, but whenever she finally got them open, they would close themselves before anypony could safely get through.

0

The number flashed in red, and disappeared among the many other things on the display. Everything besides that number was difficult to make out, words that didn't make any sense to them filled the entire table.

"Welcome wagon protocol initiated..." A male voice informed everyone. The voice sounded like somepony talking through a tin can, although slightly harsher and unpleasant to everyone's ears.

"Hold on-- you can speak Equestrian too?" Twilight shouted aloud in excitement. "Do you come in peace? How much do you know about us?"

Everypony looked around the room for the source of the voice, worried about what he might respond with. The moment of truth, the moment where they'd finally find out what these unexpected visitors came here to accomplish. Twilight waited a half minute before coming to a definite conclusion.

The voice wasn't going to respond.

"Are you still there? What, do you have more important things to do?!" Twilight said, slightly annoyed at the mystery voice's lack of manners.

"Are you crazy? He just said he's going to take us to their 'Welcome Wagon!'" Pinkie Pie shouted in excitement, dancing around the cramped room in joy.

"I hope they aren't planning any tricks, they seem harmless but we still haven't met any of the rulers of their Flying Castle." Rarity said, trying to make out some of the words on the display. She did catch a glimpse of a word that constantly appeared before sinking into the background of nonsense. 'Instance', which was usually followed by a large number.

A sound reminiscent of a generator coming online filled the small cabin. The unexpected sound scaring some of the passengers. The room's walls seemed to come to life, slowly spinning around the floor, and gently vibrating. The weight of gravity increased, which forced everypony to take a seat on the comfortable couch.

"We've made it this far, so I guess you were right about them not being hostile..." Twilight admitted to Applejack.

"Well, we haven't given them much reason to fear us, so I reckon we don't have much reason to fear them." She replied, hoping she didn't just give Twilight false hope.

Rainbow Dash looked over at Spike as he flipped through a comic book.

"'Invaders from Outer Space?' Why read it when you get to live it right now?" She asked.

"I'm catching up on all the aliens in my comics so we can peacefully come into contact when we come face to face." Spike explained, keeping his eyes on the stories, still flipping through pages. "Avoid shining bright lights at them." He read out loud while writing it down on the front page of his magazine.

Dash internally giggled at Spike, as if those filly's stories could be of any use when face to face with real life invaders.

Fluttershy turned over to Twilight, and inquired "So, what do you think these creatures are going to look like when we see them?"
"Well... We know they're capable of constructing flying spacecraft the size of Canterlot's mountain, so... my theory is they'll be larger than us in order to build something of that scale."
Fluttershy whimpered a bit... The thought of a house-sized monster...
"You know... ants may be small, but if there's enough of them, they can make a big anthill." Fluttershy told Twilight, trying to change her mental image of what awaited for her friends and her when they got to-- wherever they were being taken.

"Twilight! Come look at this!" Spike called out.

"What is it?" She said, trotting to Spike and the table that had shown them the numbers.

"I know where we're going, you see this light-table? In the comic books, it's a way to learn more about the world around you, it's called a Terminal."

"That's interesting, but does it say where we're going?" Twilight said, scrutinizing everything visible on the Terminal. It just looked like a bunch of letters and numbers jumbled together, frequently changing their order and value.

"You see this area?" Spike asked her, moving his claw around the area of interest. "It's showing what's below us, does it remind you of anything?" Spike glanced over at Twilight to see her excited reaction.

Twilight looked closer at the area, trying to find out where they were, which was difficult because the 'map' was slowly rotating accordingly with the ship's walls. Twilight saw her Library, and realized they were 'flying' directly over Ponyville, where The Flying Castle was.

"They're taking us right to them!" She said, trying to keep her excitement inside.

The room stopped spinning, and a large clunk was heard by everypony. Twilight hoped that their ride didn't break, she wouldn't be able to fix it in mid-air.

"You have arrived at your destination, please follow the red arrows for your--" The tin can voice said, before it was drowned out by Pinkie.

"IT'S SAYING FOLLOW THE RED ARROWS FOR AN ALIEN PARTY!" Pinkie shouted to her friends before taking off like a flash, following all of the red arrows that appeared on similar Terminals like the one they saw in the room.

"Let's follow her before she gets lost in this-- whoa..." Rainbow Dash said, getting out of the waiting room, and getting a better look at the room that contained the arrows.

The room was unusually... familiar.

The miniature screw was docked in the middle of the new room, which looked much like the inside of an office building. All the cubicles, desks and filing cabinets were mostly intact though some of them were out of place and knocked over. The floor was made of simple black and white tiles, which was littered with all sorts of paper.

Twilight picked up a piece of paper, and read:

'Aristoxenus Inc. Quarterly Intergalactic Excise Tax Return Form #29A'

"Huh, I guess even aliens can't escape taxes..." Twilight jokingly said, tossing the paper back on the floor.

"This Equestrian design can't just be a coincidence, could it?" Rarity said, looking inside of the cubicles where smaller terminals lay on the desk.

"Well... I guess we should just follow these arrows to find Pinkie..." Fluttershy said, taking a left turn where the first red arrow asked her to.

"Alright, but let's make sure the rest of us stick together, okay?" Applejack asked, already galloping in an effort to catch up with Pinkie Pie.

THE THIRD DAY "DECK C- CRYOGENIC STORAGE" 10:09 AM

"Brr... Did it just get colder for anyone?" Spike asked, covering his torso with his arms to retain heat.

"Y-Yeah... I just hope it doesn't get even colder." Twilight replied, thinking of spells she could use to get warm quick.

"Don't yall worry, this arrow says we've only got three more to follow." Applejack told her friends, trying to ignore the cold that caused her breath to become visible.

"There you girls are! I've been wondering why you were taking so long!" Pinkie Pie said, trotting towards her Ponyville friends.

"Where did you go, Pinkie Pie?" Rarity asked, thankful that she had put on clothing before coming aboard The Flying Castle, though feeling a little guilty she didn't pack anything extra for her friends.

Pinkie took in a deep breath, and started explaining herself in a rushed voice. "Well-- It got really cold, and then I started freaking out, but then I got to the final arrow which is where that voice said there was going to be cake, but there wasn't any cake! There was just a flashing button next to this weird-looking alien all curled up in a--"

"You saw the aliens?!" Spike interrupted, not giving much thought to manners.

"Oh yeah! We were playing a game together, he's really good at it!"

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go get some information out of him!" Rainbow Dash shouted, flying faster towards the arrows, her friends on her tail.

There was another metal doorway, except the room on the other side was nothing like the offices they had explored to get to the final arrow. It was a dark, cold, and cramped room with three large containers in it. Two of the three were empty, but the third one?

Inside of it was an alien.

A tall, long, hairless alien with slender fingers.

It was connected to many different pipes and wires, some of which went into it's naval, down it's throat, even connected to the back of it's head. A monitor on the outside of the container measured his heartbeat, which was at a very slow rate. He was curled up in the fetal position, so as to fit inside the container that was small, given his size.

"What is that thing?" Rainbow Dash said, approaching it in curiosity.

Dash's friends caught up with her, and stared at the frozen extraterrestrial.

"See! He still hasn't blinked! He's the king, I tell you!" Pinkie shouted, not knowing that her competition couldn't possibly lose.

"He froze himself to stay preserved over long stretches of time." Spike quoted one of his stories, slowly walking closer to the being that was significantly larger than he was.

"So... What are we doin' about that?" Applejack asked. "I mean, is that why we were brought here? To thaw this feller out?"

"Of course... If he's frozen, and we're the only other things on board, he must want us to revive him!" Twilight realized, shouting it loud enough for everyone to hear.

"He doesn't look that bad, he kind of reminds me of an ape." Fluttershy said, finally entering the room and coming closer to the frozen alien.

A beeping sound could be heard by everypony, Rarity turned around to see a large red button flashing.

'Reanimation Procedure'

"And I think this is how we should go about it..." Twilight remarked, trotting over to the button. She didn't pay attention to her worries about wars, about ponies being enslaved. If this creature could understand Equestrian like the ominous voice did, she knew she could talk him out of doing anything rash.

Twilight brought up her right hoof,

and pressed the button.

Author's Note

First fan-fiction I've ever written, so if anything seems off, that's why.