The Rainbooms ran towards the park and saw a group of people had gathered around the colossal black pillar of smoke where the ship had crashed. They squeezed and squirmed through the people as they tried to get the best vantage of the impact. After wriggling past the audience, they soon emerged at the front and laid their eyes on the chrome wreckage.
The crater that the ship had made completely buried the front end under a large amount of dirt and grass. The wings on the side of the ship remained intact, but they had been damaged by the fight it had been in with the Wolfpack fleet. Small crackles of electricity sparked from the gaps between the serrated edges of the wings. The engines pointed up towards the sky, no longer spitting smoke, they had died down completely and lacked any form of life. At the back of the ship, there was a large steel door which had been dented and battered with the impact. The metal had been buckled and bent completely out of shape and looked damaged enough to the point where humans could just pull it open.
"What the heck..." Sunset Shimmer slowly stepped towards the doors and reached out for them. Her fingers twitched as she eventually touched them and began to pull them open. "This isn't like anything I've ever seen before. And being a unicorn from Equestria, that's saying something."
"Uh, are you sure that's such a good idea to get that close, Sunset?" Applejack raised her finger as she watched Sunset wrap her fingers around the dented door. "What if there are some evil aliens in there?"
"I don't think that there'd be any evil aliens in this ship." Sunset turned back and shook her head at Applejack and the girls. "It didn't look in the least bit threatening, and from the looks of things, it had taken some pretty bad hits in space. And if that's not enough, this thing is practically buried. Even if there was something bad in there, it might've been hurt too much to fight, or just straight up turned into alien goo."
"I dunno, Sunset. Have you ever seen those alien movies?" Pinkie Pie tiptoed up to Sunset and took a peak inside of the ship. "What if there's some freaky alien that forces you to give birth to another alien baby that rips your stomach open so that it can run home to mama? Or what if it has another mouth for a tongue?"
"Pinkie, you watch far too many scary movies." Sunset yanked the doors off of the frame and dropped them down onto the deck inside. "Now come on, girls. We've gotta get to the bottom of this as fast as we can."
The other Rainbooms climbed up towards the entrance of the ship and took a quick glance inside before moving forward. The ship's interior was completely dark, yet small neon lights could be seen flickering on the walls and ground. The girls all crouched down and ducked underneath the twisted frame above their heads before disappearing inside of the ship.
As the group of teenagers ventured into the ship, the sound of sirens could be heard filling the air outside as police cars and black vans darted up towards the site and skidded on the road before coming to a complete stop. Officers burst out of the doors and began corralling the crowd of people, gathering them all up and barking orders at them as they soon surrounded the alien ship. Within minutes, they had managed to clear the area and set up posts and used police tape to cordon off the ship to the public.
"Area secured. You're clear to come out now, sergeant." A police soldier picked up a walkie-talkie and spoke into it before sliding it back into the latch on his belt.
The front door of one of the police cars opened up, revealing a man with white skin and blue hair. Dressed in navy blue officer's garments with a baton clipped to his hips, he approached the alien ship. He had a special badge on his right chest muscle, showing a star attached to a shield, with a golden badge attached to the left side.
"Good work, men." He walked underneath the tape and came within touching distance of the spaceship. He slid his hand over it and gave it a few knocks with the back of his left hand. "Looks structurally intact. Make sure that no-one gets in here, got it?"
"Yes, sergeant!" The other soldiers saluted him and took up defensive positions around the fence, pulling out flashlights from their pockets and flipping the switches on.
Inside the ship, the girls saw nothing but darkness and feint lights as they moved through the long and hollow corridors. Small sparks flew from the ruptured and damaged wires and pipes around them, but they quickly fizzled out as soon as they appeared. The foreboding darkness had all of the girls twitching their eyes as they tried their hardest to remain silent. The only one with any confidence left was Sunset Shimmer, who didn't seem fazed by the dark shipwreck whatsoever.
"This whole place seems rather spooky..." Pinkie Pie's hands trembled and froze up as she looked around. "For once, I don't think it'll be fun to be scared. We should just get out of here while we still can, Sunset."
"Come on, Pinkie Pie, we haven't even gotten to the heart of this ship yet." Sunset put a hand on Pinkie's stomach and gave it a few pats. "Besides, we've faced worse than this, right? What's waiting for us inside can't possibly be worse than three demon girls, three evil sirens, and an over-competitive school, right?"
"Plus, we've got the Magic of Friendship. No need to worry about a thing, Pinks." Rainbow Dash slid her hand against Pinkie's back as she gave her a wide grin. "Nothing's gonna scare you or try to eat your brains while I'm here."
"I know you're pretty brave, Rainbow, but this is legitimately terrifying." Fluttershy held Rainbow's hand as tightly as she could as she pressed her body against her friend's. "All this darkness and quiet is just too much. Why, at any given moment, the aliens could be hanging over our heads or ready to attack us from below. Oh, please keep me safe!"
"Calm down, everyone." Sunset Shimmer waved her hand and slid down to the bottom of the corridor. She came to a stop at another door that automatically opened, but shuddered and jolted as more sparks fell behind it. "We're here. The pilot's room." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small gold necklace with a blazing sun on it. "Put on your Camp Everfree Crystals now and stay on your guard. We don't know what's on the other side of this door.
The other Rainbooms reached into their pockets and pulled out their own necklaces with their own corresponding emblems emblazoned on the front. They held them up to their necks and clipped them on, feeling them gently collide with their upper chest. Once they were all dressed up with their magical artefacts, they all slid into the open crack in the door and entered the pilot's room.
The pilot's room was in no better shape than the rest of the ship. More flickering lights and sparks could be seen in the large room, with a oval-shaped seat impaled into a glass screen with nothing but dirt, worms, and rocks on the other side. A metallic table could be seen on the girls' right with part of the ceiling torn off and hanging above it with more embers tumbling from it. A small glimmer of a holographic image could be seen above the table, but it had been distorted and didn't many any discernible shapes as the ceiling panel dangled above it. Just beneath the chairs, there were a series of consoles with buttons that didn't look like anything human at all. Circles and symbols were all that could be seen instead of letters and numbers, but none of them were broken, despite the rest of the room's disrepair.
"Hello? Anyone home?" Sunset Shimmer called over the noise of static and electricity as she stepped into the room and walked up towards the chair. "We come in peace. We're not gonna hurt you."
"Sunset! Look!" Applejack's eyes shot open as she saw a human arm dangle down from the chair in the glass. "They might need some help!"
"Good catch, Applejack." Sunset immediately saw the hand and fingers draped over the edge of the chair and quickly ran down towards it. She grabbed the chair with both hands and tried to free it from the glass, but it didn't seem to budge whatsoever. "C'mon, girls! Give me a helping hand!"
The other Rainbooms ran down to the chair and put their own arms around the sides. Together, they all pulled the chair as hard as they could, but they only managed to budge it slightly, even with the added strength they were supplying. After a few more tugs and yanks, the girls all began to sweat as they tried to dislodge the chair. Finally, when Applejack's crystal pendant began to glow, the seat finally came out of the wall. Once it did, the girls all tumbled backwards and let go of it, hearing it crash above their heads.
"Thanks, girls." Sunset Shimmer stood back up and used the ship's console to prop herself up. She walked up to the chair and saw a human teenager sitting in it, with shining white skin and a black bowl-cut hairstyle. "Now then. Let's see what we're dealing with here..."
"Ugh..." The girl in the alien chair groaned and rubbed her head as she groggily opened her eyes and looked around. The impact had left her with a massive bruise in her head and the dark purple clothes around her body had been ripped up at certain parts as she opened her eyes. "Where am I?"
"It's alright. We're not here to hurt you, alien." Sunset Shimmer put her hand on the girl's chest and watched her eyes open all the way. "You look really beat up. Do you want us to take you to the hospital and get you patched up?"
"Wh-what? Who and what are you?" The alien teenager opened her eyes and got up from the chair. She tried to stand upright, but a sudden loss of balance in her legs caused her to topple and fall over Sunset's shoulders.
"Hey. Take it easy." Sunset held the girl up and helped her keep her balance. "You were just in a spaceship crash, weren't you? Why don't you sit down for a bit?"
"There's no time. He is coming." The girl fluttered her eyelids and woke up all the way as she pushed herself off of Sunset's body. She tried to make it towards the hologram table, but she ended up falling onto her hands and knees as her balance was severed once again. "I need to find a group of brave warriors to fight the coming war."
"War?" Rainbow Dash ran up to the black-haired teen and squatted down so that her eyes met with that of the visitor's. "What do you mean by war?"
"An army is coming. Mar'zek and his followers are going to tear this planet down until they find me." The girl pushed herself up with her arms alone and ran over towards the table. She pushed the hanging panel up and held it in place before climbing up onto it and welding it back in to the ceiling with lasers from her eyes. "If I don't find some heroes now, the Wolfpack will destroy this world!"
"Alright, dear. Just slow down for a second." Rarity walked up to the glowing white girl and patted her back. "You seem a little tense. Would you like a spot of tea to help you relax?"
"I would usually indulge in a relaxation activity, but time is of the essence." The girl jumped down from the table and began typing away at a small console on the side. "I need a group of beings strong enough to fight off the forces of evil. Do you think you could point me in the right direction?"
"You're avoiding our questions." Sunset Shimmer walked up to the girl and put laid her hand on the alien's arm. "Let's see what the problem is, shall we?" And without another word, her eyes flashed a bright shade of white as she began to peer into the newcomer's mind and memories.
All that Sunset could see in the alien's mind were explosions and sparks as she watched ships around her get blown up, one after another by the Wolfpack's fleet. She saw the way that the survivor had managed to outrun the wolves by flying into a rainbow-coloured vortex before being hit by the last few homing missiles that had followed the ship through the wormhole.
As the planet broke through the atmosphere, she watched the alien retrieve six diamond-shaped crystals from a hatch by the chair and clutched them tightly as she ran out of the pilot's room as clouds and sky began to fill the screen. Alarms blared in her ears as she saw the life-form running through the corridors and arriving at the small trap-door hatch that the crystals had fallen out of.
"Mar'zek will never get his hands on these..." The alien said as she gave the crystals one last glance and threw them out of the bottom of the ship, down onto Canterlot High's grassy field. "Because they'll soon belong to their rightful owners!"
The memories finally came to an end when the ship crashed into the ground and buried itself underneath the grass, sending the chair flying into the screen.
Sunset broke out of the alien's train of thought with her mouth agape. Complete silence fell between the whole group as Sunset took everything that she had seen and let it swim around in her mind. She felt a sharp tingle in her chest as she saw the alien girl sigh and droop her shoulders down.
"What did you see, Sunset?" Rarity asked, noticing Sunset's distress almost immediately.
"This girl was... running. Running away from some giant ships." Sunset began to shed some tears as she turned to Rarity and the other girls. "I watched as her pursuers destroyed every other ship that travelled with her, then threw crystals down onto Canterlot High just as we were running away from the stargazing event."
"How do you know about that?" The alien girl jumped off from the table and looked Sunset in the eyes. "Do you have some sort of telepathic powers that I'm not aware of?"
"Yeah. I can see into people's minds thanks to the help of this little trinket here." Sunset showed the girl the necklace with her Cutie Mark grafted onto it. "But let's get back to the manner at hand. First of all, who are you?"
"My full name is Sla'ri'sek Midrel'gea; child princess of the Aeonic Unity of Harmonites from the planet Utopia in the Correllias Galaxy." She bowed before the humans and stretched her arms out to her sides.
"That's an awful lot to take in." Sunset gave the girl a smile as she put her hand on her chest. "Why don't we call you Elaris?"
"Elaris?" She tilted her head.
"Yeah. It's much easier to pronounce, it rolls off of the tongue better, and, you do kinda look like an Elaris to me, girl." Rainbow Dash nodded.
"Hmm... A simple name, yet delicate at the same time. I like it." She smiled and clasped her hands together. "Very well then, you may call me Elaris, if that so suits you."
"Alrighty then, Elaris!" Pinkie Pie bounced on the spot and pulled her into a tight hug. "I can just imagine that you and I are already gonna be the bestest of friends!"
"Oh. Is this something you do on your home planet whenever you greet someone?" Elaris lifted her eyebrows as she broke out of Pinkie's embrace.
"No. That's just a Pinkie Pie thing." Fluttershy shook her head and let a small chuckle slide from her lips. "But we do occasionally do it whenever we're happy."
"Anyway, let's get back on track here." Applejack walked in front of the other girls and took her hat off. "Who's this Wolfpack you were talking about? And why were they tryin' ta kill ya so badly?"
"The Wolfpack are widely renowned as some of the most feared pirates in the galaxy." Elaris shuddered as she began to talk about them. "Led by a commander named Mar'zek, the Wolfpack attack, pillage, and destroy whatever they can find. Anything that they think is important to them, they will try to capture." She looked out at the chair where she had stowed the crystals away. "I managed to steal something from them in return for their continued crimes across the galaxy, but they must've caught wind of my plans, as they all chased down and destroyed my allies with little remorse or any chance of negotiation."
"You mean those crystals?" Sunset tilted her head. "But why? They look like ordinary jewels to me..."
"The most important lesson for any intergalactic being is never to judge things by their appearances." With a few taps on the holographic table's screen, she materialised giant images of the very gems that she had thrown away. "What you may call crystals, we see as a way to end the Wolfpack. For these stones allow the wielders to transform into a legendary group of colour-coded warriors. I hoped that if I could return them to my people back home, we could've trained some of our people to find out who was worthy of using them, but the Wolfpack destroyed my entourage before I could even lock on to my planet's co-ordinates with the hyperdrive."
"Colour-coded? You mean like the Power Rangers?" Pinkie Pie smiled and waggled her butt from left to right. "Now I REALLY wanna find them! I was gonna go get 'em anyways, but now that you've said that we can become Power Rangers, I'm all over that!"
"Pinkie Pie, Power Rangers don't exist." Sunset Shimmer shook her head and held Pinkie at the hips. "The whole show was just a localised version of a show with the same plot from Japan. The only difference was that they added some elements of a high-school drama in the version here."
"Aw, c'mon, Sunset. Learn to let your imagination run wild a little more." Pinkie Pie gave Sunset a wide smile as she clapped her hands together. "Anyway, I think I saw those crystals back at Canterlot High. We could go get 'em for you if you want, Elaris."
"Even if you do get the crystals for me, I would still need to find the right people to learn how to use them; to control the vast powers that they would have." Elaris tipped her hand at Pinkie Pie. "It is still a very kind gesture, though, but I won't let civillians get caught in the way of my business with Mar'zek and his wolves. You could end up getting yourselves killed if they find them first."
"Just leave it to me. I'll get those crystals back here in ten seconds flat." Rainbow Dash pointed towards her chest and turned towards the door. All of a sudden, her crystal glowed bright blue and she left the ship at the speed of light, leaving a rainbow trail behind her as she disappeared from sight. She returned just as quickly as she had arrived, with the six gems sitting delicately in her hands. "See? What did I tell ya?"
"Incredible..." Elaris's gaze was more fixated on Rainbow Dash than it was the gems as she retrieved them from her clutches. "So some of you are telepathic while others can move at reality-bending speed? Of all of the planets I have visited, I never thought I would've come to one with such extraordinary life-forms on it."
"Oh no, it's just us." Sunset Shimmer chuckled meekly as she rubbed her necklace. "Everyone else on this planet is perfectly normal."
"Still, I suppose that I should thank you all." Elaris bowed before the Rainbooms and closed her hands up. "If there is anything that I can do for you, let me know."
"Well, I suppose that I wouldn't mind giving those crystals of yours a quick feel." Sunset leaned in closer to Elaris's hands and saw as the jewels all glowed through the cracks in her hands. "I'm not sure what's up with them, but I don't think that they were as shiny as they are right now..."
"Well... I suppose that there's no harm in letting you just touch them." Elaris opened up her hands again and held them out towards Sunset and the Rainbooms. "Just pick one, though. You never know just what could happen if you choose them all."
"Only one, huh?" Rainbow Dash looked at the shimmering gems in Elaris's hands and watched as the necklaces around her necks and the other Rainbooms' necks shone in response. "Hey, girls? Maybe we should touch the ones that are the same as our own."
"Huh?" The other Rainbooms tilted their heads at Rainbow.
"Call it a weird hunch or something, but I get the weirdest feeling that these things are supposed to be ours." Rainbow Dash took her necklace and placed it by the blue crystal, watching the shine get even brighter as the two were inches away from each other. "Yep. Definitely a hunch. I'll take the blue one. Rarity, you can get the white one, Fluttershy'll have the yellow one, Applejack's gonna have the orange one, Sunset? You'll get the red one, and Pinki—"
"Ooh! Ooh! Let me have the pink one, Dashie!" Pinkie was practically running on the spot as her grin grew more and more. "I wanna be the Pink Ranger and get a super-cool pink animal-shaped Zord and everything!"
"Alright, alright, Pinks! Calm down!" Rainbow Dash chuckled and gave the pink one to Pinkie. "I was about to say that you'd get the pink one anyway. No need to get so demanding about it."
"Hey, wait!" Twilight raised her hand and pushed through the other girls. "What about me? Isn't there a seventh one for me?"
"I apologise, but Mar'zek must've hid the last one pretty well, because not even we were able to find it during our espionage mission." Elaris turned towards Twilight and frowned. "If we ever do find it, I'm sure that we'll let you have it."
"Hey, don't feel bad, Twilight." Sunset put her hand on Twilight's shoulders and gave her a warm grin. "Once we get out of here, I'll get you some nice jewels from the sho—" Before she could finish, a sudden jolt of pain struck her stomach as the gem in her hand glowed even brighter "—Hey! What's going on here?!"
"Sunset? Are you al—" Rarity was about to help Sunset up, but the same affliction struck her as well "—GAH! What's happening to us?!"
One after another, the other Rainbooms underwent the same process. They squeezed their stomachs as the pains inside of them grew more with each passing second. The gems shone radiantly through the cracks in their hands and illuminated the entire ship, shedding light onto a once-darkened husk of machinery and otherworldly alloy.
"What's happening?!" Twilight turned towards Elaris as she watched the Rainbooms writhe around on the floor.
"The crystals! They're reacting!" Elaris squinted her eyes as she adjusted herself to the light. "These friends of yours; they're the chosen ones. There's no other explanation for it!"
"The chosen ones?" Twilight saw the girls gain auras in the colour of the crystals they were holding. "But that means—"
"Yes. These new heroes, the ones that Pinkie Pie calls Power Rangers, they're about to appear! Our prayers have been answered!" Elaris couldn't help but smile and cheer as she got down onto her knees and began to bow up and down repeatedly. "Hail! Hail the heroes chosen to fight the Wolfpack! Rise to your feet, don your armours, and prepare to transcend your humanity!"
After a while, the girls were levitated into the air, halting the pain within their bodies. The crystals that they were holding floated out of their grasp and hovered in front of them. The light that they were shining began to project jumpsuits onto the girls bodies, starting with their feet and moving up towards their waists, then their chests, until their arms and heads were covered up with the new suits. With a final blast of light, both Elaris and Twilight were knocked back a few inches and slid on the ground from the power of the radiant burst.
Each of the Rainbooms was now dressed fully in a spandex outfit that matched the colour of the gems that they had been holding. Their suits all had the exact same patterns on each of their chest pieces. They all had a chrome belt which housed the crystals that they were holding, with a small golden disc that they could slide to conceal the geodes. The only different parts of their uniforms were the helmets, which had black visors in the shape of the girls' individual Cutie Marks.
"No... way..." Pinkie Pie was the first one to break the silence as she looked at her new pink suit. "She turned to see the other girls and threw her arms up high, spreading confetti everywhere. "We're the Power Rangers!"
"Power Rangers?" Twilight gave her glasses a quick rub as she examined the girls' new suits. "What's going on here?!"
"The chosen ones have been decided." Elaris stood up and knelt down on one knee as she looked up at Sunset and her friends. "Praise be to you all. We are not worthy to be in your presence!"
"What?" The other girls looked down at their new bodies and felt the soft spandex move in tandem with their arms. After one quick examination, they all chorused, "WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO US?!"