MLP x ALIENS: Feuding Hives

Andrena leapt eagerly through the barren corridors, her mind racing with thoughts of what lie ahead. In her mind, she pictured great treasures, ancient artifacts, and other goodies not discovered by any creature. The ribbed walls were such a strange, eerie sight, but she admired them greatly. She pictured an ancient sculptor going into great detail to carve such intricate detail.

The floor seemed rather drab compared to the walls, but that was to be expected. No great sculptor would want some creature to step on and damage their life's work, she thought to herself. Andrena kept walking, growing tired of her brother's nervous rambling behind her. Andrena turned to face her brother, smiling.

"Who do you think built this place, Attie?" She giggled, her wings twitching with glee.

"Something straight out of Tartarus," The nervous changeling spoke up. "If not, it certainly looks that way..."

Andrena frowned. "Awww, c'mon, don't be like that," she responded. "Maybe it was built by space aliens!"

That was certainly an interesting possibility, she thought to herself. If it was indeed built by aliens, that would explain the strange architecture. Perhaps this massive structure was their spaceship. She wondered what such aliens would look like.

After a short while of walking, she came into a massive chamber, lined with the same ribbed texture as the hallways. She froze, staring into the center of the massive chamber, with a gleam in her eyes. What lay before her was hard to describe, but she thought to herself that if this was a spaceship, this must be the pilot's chair. A massive seat, with an intricate apparatus attached to the base of the chair, aimed at the ceiling of the room.

Her eyes moved down to the chair, and what appeared to be an enormous, alien skeleton, its massive, humanoid hands gripping onto a pair of what looked like joysticks. The long-dead alien's pear-shaped skull was enormous, enclosed by an equally large bubble. The skull's jaw hung loosely, underneath a long, bony, elephantine trunk that ran down the center of its body, and seemed to be an anchoring point for its huge ribs. In some places, the corpse seemed to have fused with the chair, not as if it had died that way, but as if the corpse was part of the ship itself.

"No way...Attacus, pinch me, I'm dreaming..."

Attacus didn't respond. It seemed that he, too, was focused on what sat ahead of them...

"This is so...so...Awesome!"

"Shh," Attacus cut her off. "Your voice is loud in here..."

"What, you think he's gonna wake up or something? Look at him, he's been dead for who-knows-how-long!"

"That's what worries me, sis," Attacus responded. "What killed him?"

Andrena paused, examining the corpse, before buzzing her wings and hovering over to the corpse. The skull of the creature was a lot bigger up close, almost as big as her.

"Maybe this did," Andrena stated matter-of-factly. "There's a big-ol' hole in his chest."

Attacus shivered, wondering if he might end up with a similar fate if the two hadn't returned in a timely manner.

"Well, I guess this means that this place was built by your space aliens...Now if you excuse me, I think we should get going..."

Andrena scowled, staring her brother down. "No way! I wanna explore some more!"

With that, she dove from the top of the skeleton, hovering around the chamber, before spotting something else: A chasm in the floor. "I wonder what's down there..."

Attacus plopped his hindquarters to the floor, crossing his forelimbs. "Whatever it is, I don't want to find out. I'm not moving from this spot until we go home."

Andrena looked at her brother, then the hole, then back to her brother.

"If you're gonna be like that, I guess I'll just go by myself."

Attacus turned away, with a dismissive "Hmph!"

Andrena dove down, dropping like a stone into the chasm, out of sight from her brother. The chasm kept going for about a solid ten seconds, then to Andrena's surprise, opened into the ceiling of a massive chamber. She could see well into the distance. The blue glow of the mist hovering above the ground illuminated hundreds, maybe thousands of garbage-can sized objects lining the floor. Andrena hurriedly spread her wings, buzzing rapidly to slow her descent, before coming to a landing on one of the many protrusions near the base of the wall.

In her mind, the shape of the protrusions reminded her of a butt. She laughed silently to herself at the thought of standing on top of a giant derriere. She then sighed, wishing Attacus could see this and laugh with her.

Andrena huffed, clambering her way down the side of the giant butt, and descending the chamber wall. It’s a shame Attacus stayed up above, this little space below the big chamber above is quite the sight to see.

“Stupid brother of mine, never wants to have fun…He doesn’t know what he’s missing down here…”

The steep wall started to incline inwards, so Andrena began to buzz her wings, slowly descending into the blue mist, and onto the ground next to one of the many ovoid objects.

Andrena eyed the object before her confusedly, before gently poking it with her hoof. It was like a large, fleshy egg, with a pair of slits on the top that intersected into a cross shape. She figured that this must be an orifice or opening of some kind, but as far as she could tell, it was perfectly sealed.

“What is this thing? It looks like one of the cocoons back home…”

Andrena touched it again, looking at the side of the object. “Maybe it’s--“

Before she could finish, the four slits began to ooze, before pulling themselves open. The top of the egg began to peel back into four symmetrical flaps, revealing a veiny, fleshy interior.

“…Uh-oh," The changeling muttered, backing away slightly. "I hope I didn't break it...Please don't be broken, please don't be broken, please don't be--"

Without warning, something in the egg fired out toward her, emitting a shrill chitter. Andrena barely had time to react.

"EEK!”

The changeling recoiled backwards, her forelimbs instinctively moving to her face to ward off her attacker. But the attacker was stronger. Its powerful, snakelike tail slid under her hooves, and around her neck, squeezing so hard it hurt. When her hooves instinctively moved down to free herself, the creature snagged her head with its eight, crablike limbs, burying her face in its wet, fleshy innards. The last thing she could feel before passing out was a thick, slimy appendage forcing its way into her mouth.

Back up above, the time ticked away slowly. Hours came and went, and Attacus began to pace back and forth impatiently. Andrena had been down there for the better part of three hours now. Attacus debated going down to help his sister several times, but ultimately decided against it. She was a good flyer, and a decent fighter. He figured she could escape a sticky situation if need be.

This decision began to eat away at him, so he eventually decided to go down after his sister. He trotted up to the entrance of the chasm, gulped audibly, then began to buzz his wings, descending slowly down the chasm. He paused halfway down, staring what lay before him.

He turned to face the wall behind her, and sat down. Before him sat three murals, stacked vertically. The first depicted the giant seen in the chair, or rather, a pair of them. They were sat parallel to each other, facing a large, ovoid object that sat between them. The second mural showed this object opening up, and a crablike creature attaching itself to one of the giants. The last mural showed only one of the giants, laid out on its back, with a creature emerging from its chest. Attacus shuddered at the implications.

Attacus screamed loudly when he felt something collide into his rump from below.

"Attie, it's me!"

Attacus let out a massive sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, you gave me a scare. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," She responded. "I'm fine you big doofus. I think I've had enough exploring for one day, my stomach's kinda bothering me."

Attacus next to the chasm's opening in the skeleton room, helping his sister out of the hole. "Finally, something I can agree with you on. Let's get out of here, this place gives me the creeps."

Andrena giggled, playfully nudging her brother. "Yeah, I figured."

Attacus debated on whether or not to talk to his sister about the mural he had found, but he was afraid telling her would cause her to not want to leave this place. Right now, there was only one thing on his mind, and that was going home to the safety of his hive, even if it mean he would get chewed out by the guards for being late again.