I open my eyes as my ears ring. While the ship crashed, we’ve fell on the floor, and the air is colder.

Twilight runs over me, and she helps me up. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” I say,

There’s a large hole in the wall. The outside world looks like a frozen landmass.

“Where’re the others?”

“They’re outside.” She replies, “Come on.”

We run through the hole in the wall outside the ship, and we slide down the snow. We regroup with the others who are now outside the wreaked alien Cruiser.

“Is everybody okay?” I ask,

“I told you you couldn’t down the ship.” Faust says with her extreme cold weather outfit,

“Sorry.”

“Where are we by the way?” Nick asks,

“Somewhere in Antarctica.” Faust replies, “As I was about to tell you before we land.”

“Sorry.” I say,

“Don’t worry. I’m not mad.”

“So is that where my Element is?” Twilight asks,

“Follow me.”

We follow Faust up the snowy hill away from the crash site.

“So do you know what happened before the attack? You’ve met Abbas, right?”

“Long story short...” I then tell her what happen from during the changeling invasion in Canterlot to our journey to find the remaining Elements of Harmony.

“So the reason why you’re after the remaining Elements of Harmony is because Chrysalis is launching an invasion in two different worlds after you changed her back?”

“Well we tried to kill her, but it backfired.”

“That’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“But why didn’t you tell the audiences about Chrysalis being secretly an alien?” Nick asks,

“I’m about to, but I don’t want to cause total panic even to the kids.”

“So what do you know about these things?” I ask,

“I’m no astrobiologist, but I do know about their biology. The reason why they’re evil in nature is because they’re a war-like race like Earth’s ants. Their planet is warmer than Earth with less oxygen and more carbon dioxide, has no ozone layer, and has three major continents.”

“That’s impossible. I thought insects can survive with more oxygen like the Carboniferous.”

“Well they’re not insects, but they’re still arthropods with skin that protects their exoskeleton from ultraviolet radiation even their planet's fauna can survive in this environment. Sometimes when planets are slightly less habitable than Earth, they can be life here.”

“Well that makes sense.”

“While they adapt in their environment, they build hives across the globe in order to survive, and they evolve into Eusocial creatures with one of their hives have one queen.”

“And the queens control her brood with her hive mind until death?”

“All except the younger queens called Bishops. They leave their old hive after mating, and they build new ones. However, these aliens become war-like as they attack other hives, and then enslave the queen’s brood after her death. After the queen is killed by her opponents and her brood dies with her, the offending alien brood steals the corpses and eggs, and bring them to their hive. After that, their queen uses her telepathy to bring the corpses back to life, and then they become her support.”

“Well this is why they came here to enslave half of the human race, but why they enslave jerks?”

“The queen’s hive mind control only functions on antisocial or war-like races like them, but the other races are immune to her mind control. If you’re a Changeling, well the abductee ones, you’ll become a worker. However, not all Changelings are hostile, but when a subject’s hostility rate is lower than the hostile changelings, they will start acting like jerks non-stop during the attack while they’re under control of the hive mind. The hostile Changelings are only their puppets, but the non-hostile ones are used for harvesting.”

“Harvesting? For our blood?”

“Maybe. But plain blood is harder to digest since they’re outside of their home world. So they mix their nutrition, alcohol, into the blood in order to make it eatable for their offspring.”

“So they only harvest alcohol mixed blood to feed their offspring?”

“Until during metamorphosis. The larvae is the second stage after an egg, and they can be fed from blood on other lifeforms until during a pupil state. They later become a juvenile called a Nymph, and they can be trained by nursery workers for hive support or being a warrior until they metamorphosize into an adult.”

“So is their any history about the aliens on their home planet?”

“Well as they raid other colonies, their population decreases making them endangered so some of the hives will have multiple queens and one older queen called an Empress, and as the Empress dies, her queens will leave the hive, and make more hives. However, in about a million years, the resources become scarce as their technology becomes more advanced so they decide to leave their planet, and colonize other worlds by enslaving hostile civilizations and consume every natural resource to grow their fleet, and move on. Unfortunately for them, as they continue to invade planets, the Arcturians destroyed one of them as they try to protect planets from invaders, and then the aliens decide to destroy some of the planets including habitable worlds with peaceful lifeforms to mine planetary resources to make their technology more powerful than the Arcturians. For millions of years, they were are war against each other as the Arcturians struggle to protect planets from the aliens, but some of the Ark planets like Equis were destroyed by their powerful weapons.”

“Just like what happened sixty-five million years ago. The Empress Mothership lands over the Yucatan, and then it starts drilling to the Earth’s core, but then it was destroyed by the Arcturian fleet, and Chrysalis’s mothership escapes from the war, and lands on Equis.”

“And then they attack my world.” Twilight says, “And when you changed her back, she attacks two different worlds without magic.”

“And if we can’t stop her, humanity and ponykind will be as extinct as the dinosaurs.”

“Don’t worry, Brandon.” Faust says, “Once we find the last Element, we’ll defeat the aliens, and save Equis and Earth.”

“And humanity and ponykind will coexist.”

“And then I will be president.”

“What!?” We says,

“You didn’t tell us about you becoming president of the United States.” Nick says,

“What else can go wrong? Santa Claus becomes the mayor of New York City?” James says sarcastically,

We look at James confusingly,

Kelly punches James in the arm.

“Ow! Sorry.” James says,

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I have to. It’s too dangerous to become the good president.”

“So what?” Lauren asks,

“For example, when Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, John Wilkes Booth, who is one of the early hostile Changelings, assassinated him to prevent peace in America. John F. Kennedy, who wants to tell the public about the aliens and their plans, was shot by one of the Changelings. And Ronald Reagan, who wants the world to get ready for an alien invasion, was shot too. If I get to be president before this attack, I’ll be dead just like them.”

I shake my head. “These aliens are behind all of this conspiracies just to keep their plans a secret until they attack.”

As we reach the top of the hill, we then see dozens of armed men wearing winter outfits gather around the area.

“Who are these people?” Lauren asks,

Faust pulls out her binoculars, and she looks through it to see what the men are. She then gasps. “Changelings! Hostile ones.” She hands me her binoculars,

I look through the binoculars to see then. From behind their glasses, I can see their green glowing eyes, and they’re armed. Some are teenagers while others are adults, men and women. “Son of a buck!” I lower the binoculars and hand back to Faust. “We’re not the only ones here.”

“Is that the location where the last element is?” Applejack asks,

“Yeah. Right on the other side of those Changelings.” Faust says,

“What do we do now?” Rebecca asks,

“The only way how is through them.” I say,

“Are you sure about that?” Lauren asks,

“Oh yes.” I draw my hard-light rifle. “Let’s do this!”

After we slide down hill, we cover behind the crates, and we open fire at the hostile Changelings. The Changelings rush for cover, and they fire back. Some of them develop laser weapons. They’re four types of these hostile Changelings: Operatives are equipped with assault rifles and Frag grenades, or elite ones also have laser rifles and plasma grenades; Medics are equipped with assault rifles, medkits and smoke grenades, or elite ones also have laser rifles; Heavies are equipped with LMGs and rocket launchers, and the elite ones also have heavy lasers; Snipers are equipped with sniper rifles, and the elite ones have laser sniper rifles.

“Why the aliens aren’t here?” Lauren asks,

“They only adapt in warmer climates, but they can’t survive in colder climates.” I reply,

“That is why they’re terraforming the Earth to make it look like their home planet.” Faust says,

“What?”

“They’re using one of their puppets to spew much more carbon dioxide for teraforming.”

“Teraforming?” I take out the operative ahead of me, “You mean they’re causing global warming even before the invasion?”

“We thought humanity is killing our own world, but we were wrong.”

Rebecca fires her hard-light launcher at the changeling squad killing six of them.

“So they’re teraforming Earth just to make it habitable for their species?” I ask,

“They do breath oxygen, but not too much oxygen. And they can’t survive in cold climates.” Faust says,

“They’d should've moved to Venus.”

“Venus is way too hot for them, and there’s no water here.”

“Yeah good point.”

Just then, a Changeling heavy draws his rocket launcher.

“WATCH OUT!” Twilight shouts,

When the heavy fires his rocket towards my direction. I get away from it, but then it hits our cover disintegrating the crates. The blast knocks out Faust, Twilight, Lauren, Fluttershy and me on the icy ground, and then suddenly, the ground cracks, and then it caves in through a fault line.

“Brace!” I shout,

We then fall through the fault fifty feet down, and then we land inside the icy cave as the opening above us closes. What’s left of us inside the cave are Fluttershy, Twilight, Faust, Lauren and me.

“Is everyone alright?” I asks,

We stood up.

“Ow! That hurt.” Lauren says,

“Never better.” Twilight says,

“Still in one piece.” Faust says,

“I’m doing okay.” Fluttershy says,

I look up at the closed ceiling. “Great. Now what?”

Twilight turns on her radio. “Applejack, do you copy?” She pauses. “Darn! It looks like we’re on our own.”

Lauren walks over the thin icy wall. “Looks like we can bust out of here.” She kicks the wall, and the ice shatters into pieces leading a tunnel on the other side.

“That’s where it leads to the last element.” Faust says, “And our way out.”

“Lead the way, Faust.” I say,

After Faust turns on her flashlight, we follow her through the icy tunnel.

“It’s getting colder in here.” Faust says, “At least your nano suits will help you survive.”

“Yeah.” I say,

After about two minutes of exploring through the cave, we hear voices coming from up ahead.

“Did you hear that?” Fluttershy whispers,

Faust turn off her flashlight. “Quiet. It could be one of the Changelings.”

We move to the edge of the end of the tunnel where it leads to a chamber inside. Two Changeling snipers are on top of the rocky platform.

“Do these hard-light weapons have silencers or something?” I whisper,

“It doesn’t matter. They’re just scouts.” Faust says, “Once you take them out very quickly, they won’t notice you.”

“Alright. Twilight, take the one of the left; I’ll take the right.”

Twilight nods,

We aim at one of the snipers, and we take them out without them alerting the other Changelings.

“Good shot.” Lauren says,

“Let’s move.” Faust says,

We move throughout the chamber, and then through the tunnel on the other side.

As we walk through a short tunnel, we’ve come across an icy bridge, but they’re two Operatives walking across it.

“I got this.” I run towards the operatives while changing my gun to hard-light sword mode.

As the operative shoot their weapons at me but no effect, I jump onto the one in front, and then impale the second one without any blood gushing out. But after his corpse fall over the edge, I hear a beep coming from the operative I’d jumped on.

I look at him. He has a plasma grenade in his chest. “Oh shoot!” I run towards the others.

But before I could make it, the explosion knocks me forward, and then the bridge starts to collapse.

“Brandon!” Lauren shouts,

The bridge tumbles carrying me with it, and then I fell one hundred feet down the bottom.

The others run over the edge, and they look down at me. “Brandon, are you alright?” Twilight asks,

I stand up. “I’m fine.”

There’s another tunnel behind me.

“Brandon, you stay safe; we’ll find a way down to you.” Lauren says,

“Hopefully, the tunnel behind me leads back to the surface.” I say,

“I’ll create a bridge that leads to the other side while you’ll find a way out.”

I nod before I walk through the tunnel behind me.

“Be careful.” Twilight says.

Author's Note

So what will Brandon do if we finds a way out alone? Find out in the next chapter.