14: Freefall
The filly scrunches her face in either concentration or effort, or perhaps a mix of both. Her tiny wings buzz ineffectively for a moment before she remembers the motions described and explained by her father. ‘Imagine the air is a ball; grab it with your wings and thrown it down.’ She feels a sudden pull, startling but in no way discomforting; it merely feels like crawling on a slippery surface until a hoof finally finds purchase, bringing a liberating sense of motion.
Her legs stretch tall, merely following instead of supporting her body as it rises. Every flap of her feathery appendages brings her one more inch away from the soft cloud, quickly reaching the point where her front hooves can only reach for the soft cushion below.
“Don’t panic, honey, you’re doing great!”
She can feel her father’s tender gaze upon her back, his soft, calm voice mouthing encouraging words as he watches over her on this day. She stops trying to grab the cloud and lets her limbs fall limp below her. A few more flaps and her hind legs join the other pair in their surrender of their most important role. She will one day learn how proper leg placement is integral to even the most basic flight, but not today; the lesson of the day is both much simpler and fundamentally more important.
“You’re awesome, Baby Dee! Keep going like that, it’s perfect!”
“Dad,” she replies in annoyance, “Stop calling me that, it’s embarrassing!”
“Don’t lose your focus, honey!”
The filly looks down to see she has lost a considerable amount of altitude in the short moment she took to speak. Her legs are now a hair away from touching the cloud again. Her father continues as she struggles to regain the progress lost:
“And I’m sorry for distracting you, but you know you’ll always be my baby. I can’t help it! I promise I’ll do my best to stop, okay?”
The father looks at his daughter as she begins propelling herself in circles above the fluffy cloud. After a minute or so, she feels confident enough in her new skill to dare a reply.
“You always say that but you never do!”
Her father’s laughter comes to her ears, deep and comforting like a thick blanket on a chilly winter night. She finishes another lap to see him smiling warmly at her, his mouth opened to the last gasps of his mirth.
“I guess you’re right, honey. I just can’t resist your cute widdle face.” The stallion brings his hooves to his own face while he speaks, squeezing his cheeks together into an expression reminiscent of fishes.
She rolls her eyes.
“Daaad.”
Another minute passes in silence. The filly is starting to feel the strain in her muscles, but she soldiers on. It’s not every day that one finally learns to fly without assistance.
“Getting tired, honey?”
Darn that fatherly gaze, always so perceptive. The filly wonders what gave it away. She’s not panting that hard, is she? Maybe it’s the fact that she has once again lost altitude.
“Just a minute, okay? I want to try something!”
“Okay, but be careful! Mommy wouldn’t want to lose her most precious little pot of gold! She’d never forgive me!”
The little pegasus flies forward for a second, coming to the edge of the cloud. She looks down, past the few low-hovering buildings of Cloudsdale, and to the distant ground below. There’s grass and trees and other weird things down there, and it’s such a long way down. The filly’s heart beats faster as she creeps over the edge, suddenly keenly aware of just how much empty air separates her hooves from any sort of support. Her little wings flutter faster for an instant, but she keeps going for a few more feet; she knows her father would catch her if she fell.
“Careful, now.” He warns from behind her. She notices he sounds a bit closer than he did before. No doubt he moved as a precaution, a way to be ready for anything.
She feels like her wings are on fire, but she smiles through the pain. She closes her eyes, savoring the triumph of having learned to fly. She is hovering, miles above the ground, with nothing between it and herself, and all under her own power. She wants to be sure to remember this moment for as long as she lives. A breeze blows past her, the wind gently caressing her face on its way to her father. She imagines it is currently pushing her backwards towards him, shortening the distance she’ll have to traverse to get back to him. It gives her just a few more seconds to enjoy the feeling. With her eyes still closed she lets the light wind fill her lungs, inhaling freely…
The sudden rush of air felt like a punch in the gut as the rainbow pegasus managed to somehow forget her air intake for a moment, letting the wind catch in her nostrils with the force of a full-grown mare diving at terminal velocity.
She coughed, expelling the offending gases to a tolerable amount. The first thing her eyes opened up to see was the breathtakingly endless expanse of deep blue sky around her. The familiar comfort of the sky all around her felt so invigorating. The warmth of the sun caressing her coat directed her attention its way, and she squinted as she watched in plummet behind a mountain far to the east.
No, it was morning; the sun couldn’t be setting. She looked down to the distant ground below, the scattered embers of foliage glowing in the sunlight outside of the mountain’s shadow, beneath her; and the miniscule white dot between herself and the shadow-blackened earth.
Her blood froze in her veins, the chill of terror clutching her heart more starkly than the mountain’s shade as she finally plunged in it.
For the first time in her life, she understood the fear of heights; the dreadful terror of imagining oneself end in a single brutal meeting with the cold uncaring earth; the keen knowledge of just how much empty air separated her from a bloody death and the fact that none of it could do her any good.
The certainty that she would die this day.
She could now see two more dots far below, plunged in the same shade as them; one orange, one purple.
She decided they would not die this day.
She gathered the various packs closer to her body, holding them tightly with one leg while stretching the other in front of her face. She placed her body like an arrow pointing down, increasing her speed.
Soon the dots grew, each second spent catching up to them an agony of anticipation; she couldn’t help them until she reached them. She only hoped she could touch them before the ground did.
Closer and closer she got, eventually capable of seeing their individual limbs, most of whom were flailing madly. The features of their faces revealed themselves to her in tandem with the sound of their screams, their terror setting hers ablaze; turning it into a blazing, furious determination.
She would not let them die.
Her years of flight experience came rushing to her, the moves and techniques and rules not yet forgotten from misuse. Wing cramp response, emergency landing tactics, air rescue procedures… It could be done. Nothing had ever prepared her to attempt all three at once. No manual, no instructor had foreseen this scenario.
She would find a way. She had to.
“Rarity!” She screamed just in time to bowl into her friends. They spun once in the air, and a simple wing flap stabilized the bundle of beings. “You need to do exactly what I tell you, exactly when I say it, and without questions! You. Are. My limbs, all of you!” She grabbed the white unicorn’s barrel firmly, from behind, and shouted into her ears. “Now Rarity; stretch your legs as far and wide as you can, and just catch as much wind as you can! Now! Don’t ever stop until I tell you!”
Rarity did as instructed, shakily extending her limbs to the sides, and as far back and forwards as she could reach. Rainbow extended her hind legs as well, making sure they didn’t line up with her friend’s. Proper leg placement was an integral part of her rescue attempt.
“Scoots!” Rainbow shouted over the howling wind, “Now you get up here and grab onto my back!”
The orange filly did as instructed, crawling over her friends, clutching tightly to their bodies to avoid being blown away from them. She soon found herself gripping her idol’s shoulder loosely, standing just above the horrific stump.
“Grab on as tight as you can!” Despite the shiver these words brought to her, the filly immediately complied, her hooves wrapping around the withers of the older pegasus. The twitching stump poked at her belly, reminding her of the misfortune of her friend.
She soon noticed the disturbing movements of the scarred lump of flesh matched the ones of the remaining blue wing. “Flap your wings as hard as you can!”
For a single second, an infinitesimal fraction of a moment, Rainbow’s words snapped Scootaloo’s mind in half, filling it with a deafening explosion of rage. What in the unholy flaming pits of Tartarus did Rainbow expect her to do? Why was she expecting her to solve this problem, to save them all?
The anger passed in a blink, making way to a myriad of other emotions, each just as fleeting as the first. Indignation fluttered once, reminding her that she could not fly; and asking why Rainbow thought otherwise. Confusion flashed next, wondering what the older pegasus was thinking; mild disappointment bit at her heart, opening the way to self-pity. Why was she destined to fail her idol? Why was she, in this most crucial moment, unable to provide the help that a normal pony could have?
The flare of emotions passed too fast for Scootaloo herself to register properly, but it nonetheless left her with a single question.
“Rainbow you know I can’t fly! What am I even sup-“
“It doesn’t matter! There’s no way we’d fly anyway! We just need to slow down! Just flap as hard as possible and hopefully we’ll balance each other out so we don’t end up spinning too much! Think of the air like a ball; grab it with your wings and throw it at the ground!”
Spike could only watch as both pegasi began working their wings relentlessly, the flaps sporadically shaking his grip whenever Rainbow’s single powerful appendage beat simultaneously with Scootaloo’s weaker, faster ones. Latched onto Rarity’s neck, he did his best to look up, avoiding downward glances at all costs. His eyes, of their own volition, helpfully opted to remain shut most of the time. He could feel every wingbeat tugging at his insides, each one providing a sudden pull.
They were slowing down.
Or rather, he hoped they were slowing down; a cynical, despicable part of his mind kept whispering that he might have been imagining things in his state of desperate terror.
“We’re still going too fast!”
Scootaloo’s words echoed in Rainbow’s mind, as a simple reminder of something she already knew full well. Of course they were still falling too fast. If somepony who had never flown in her life could intuit this fact, an experienced athlete like her was sure to be aware of it at all times.
She didn’t know what more she could do. Gliding was out of the question with such an imbalanced set of wings; they’d probably only manage to corkscrew themselves until the centrifugal force threw them apart. She already had enough trouble keeping the rotations to a minimum with her one wing. Her large coat might have been used as a parachute of sorts, if doing so didn’t mean such a monumental use of time spent figuring out how Spike could be used to hold it securely without simply being flailed around by the coat’s flapping.
She… she might be able to manoeuver at the last second to be the first one to touch the ground. With any luck her destroyed body would break her friends’ fall enough for them to survive…
The ground was rising up towards them at an incredible speed, and for a moment she felt like a microscopic thing looking up, in awe, at a gargantuan pony’s hoof about to step on her. She was just a frail little speck, about to get crushed beneath the hoof of an unseen colossus so titanic that the bottom of his hoof covered the entire horizon.
He had better bring it on.
Rainbow was distracted from her thoughts by Spike. The young dragon’s hand constantly clenching and unclenching below her throat. A quick glance at his face showed he was frantically looking at the ground and at herself, then back at the ground and so on. He seemed hesitant about something, unsure. Then he turned his head in her direction once more, his teeth gritted and his face set. She noticed he was not actually looking at her; his eyes were focused on the large, green duffel bag hanging from her shoulder.
He suddenly sprang up, opening the bag and rummaging inside. He drew out a grey steel cube, pushing the bag aside and out of his way. His hands let go of Rarity’s neck, his only grip provided by his legs and tail; and he opened the cube. Inside were three wooden pegs and a compass embedded in the steel. Spike held the box in one hand, his other one moving hesitantly between the three pegs, until he finally clamped it around one of the three.
His hand clenched, and a crack was heard; almost too soft to be heard over the deafening wind. His other hand came up from below the box, slammed on the surface, and pushed.
At the same time, the other hand, the one closed around the peg, pulled.
With a loud snap and a crunch of metal, the peg was ripped out of the device, leaving a short trail of wires behind. Bits of wood flew out of Spike’s fist, still tightly clenched around its prize. A hasty throw returned the box to its place within the bag, and Spike brought his arms back to Rarity’s neck.
His right hand still clenched, he crawled further forward, placing himself between the unicorn’s ears.
“Spike!” she screamed, “What are-“
“I’m sorry Rarity!”
And with these words, without giving anyone any time to respond, he slammed his fist on Rarity’s forehead.
She screamed in pain, her limbs instinctively curling on themselves. The wooden peg disintegrated when Spike let go of it, the thin bits of wood flying away in the gale of the group’s fall.
“What are you do…” Her shout of indignation died to a strangled breath as she looked up to the source of her pain. “I… IS THAT MY HORN?!?”
The unicorn’s horn was indeed present, the last flecks of the hollow wooden tube that once hid it from sight scattering away. A sliver of metal embedded in its base was now also plunged into the stump that had replaced it on Rarity’s forehead. It was slightly crooked, held a scrap of broken wire jutting out of the seam, and was an abominable sight; but her horn was there.
“I’m so sorry! I can’t think of anything else to help! Use your magic to slow us down!”
“Have you completely lost your mind? Are you absolutely, irredeem-“
“Rarity!” Rainbow interrupted her, “Shut up and try it! You can yell at him all you want once we’re on the ground!”
The unicorn twisted her neck to look at her friend. “But what…” She trailed off, the impending impact with the ever-approaching ground brought to her mind by the sight of trees at the corner of her eye. She looked down, the terrifying proximity of her death freezing her breath.
She closed her eyes, grit her teeth, and concentrated. Although self-levitation was as patently impossible as an earth pony learning to fly by flapping her hooves with great speed, it was nonetheless theoretically possible to focus on her friends and push them upwards. As long as Rainbow held her sufficiently tightly, her descent would be slowed as well.
Remembering such a fundamental part of a unicorn’s life was far from difficult; the difficulty came from trying to use a horn as heavily damaged as this one. The metallic spike running through it made it immensely more sensitive while simultaneously causing interference. The mere act of channeling magic through the appendage was both painful and overwhelming to her senses, the throb of the stab’s pain sending a nauseatingly electric chill down her spine.
Blue sparks flew from the jagged seam, and Rarity gritted her teeth. A blue haze reached out to her friends, indistinct and uneven. Once she held their bodies in her grasp; once she knew they were firmly within it, she pushed. The most basic, raw impulse upward, attempting to shove them away from her.
A few things happened at once, sending her heartbeat soaring somehow higher than it was already going; Rainbow’s hooves seemed to slip slightly, her grip loosening for an instant before she reaffirmed it; Rarity’s horn ever so minimally flopped downward, a microscopic movement she could feel as jarringly as if her entire spine had been set on fire; and most importantly her stomach stirred as though she had been lightly punched in the intestines.
An unimaginably distant day flashed in her mind, akin to a lone bubble popping on the surface of a still pond; a far gone day of happiness where a young unicorn filly had ridden a rollercoaster with her parents.
The sudden pull, startling; the disturbing inner tug of inertia. A sudden change in velocity.
A smile found its way to her lips, and a single tear of joy came to join the ones forced out of her eyes by the blinding, rushing wind.
It worked.
“Rarity!” The blue pegasus’ cry of her name was unlike anything she’d heard before; it was torn between two completely separate feelings. The pleading, desperate hope in her friend’s voice reminding her of the most important thing she could think about.
It worked, and she couldn’t allow herself to stop anymore.
Rainbow Dash could barely believe it. Their descent was slowing down, every magical punch in her gut hammering it deeper. Despite the ground’s terrifyingly fast approach, despite the still rapidly-shrinking distance between it and them, and despite already being close enough to it that she could distinguish the individual branches of the trees below; they were slowing down. Her wing, rejuvenated by hope, increased its cadence. She heard Scootaloo’s own doing the same as well, and the filly’s hooves tightened around her neck.
She couldn’t help but do the same, gripping her white friend’s barrel; a grip that was reciprocated by a right foreleg suddenly clutching her own. Spike looked her in the eyes, and the glance they exchanged felt like centuries; a single instant frozen in abject, unimaginable terror. He was but a child thrown to his death, and he could only powerlessly hope to survive.
She did not feel much different, truthfully.
She broke the stare, closing her eyes to focus entirely on the effort of pushing her wing to its limit; to strain it harder than it had ever strained. She felt like her wings were on fire, but she couldn’t possibly stop yet. She screamed, involuntarily; the exertion making her push out a low groan that gained in power over the few seconds she could feel were left before the impact.
They were still going too fast; dangerously fast, terrifyingly fast.
But if her wing kept beating, if Scootaloo’s kept buzzing, and if Rarity’s telekinetic bursts continued slamming into them; they might slow down enough to survive.
They just had to keep going slower.
If they could go…
Just a bit…
Slower…
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Next chapter: our heroes pick up the pieces!
5425030 Oh lord.. *facehoofs*
See? This is why you always bring a towel. Someone is going to have to wipe up a lot of pony jelly at the end of this fall.
I do hope Rarity gets to keep her horn. It might even present a temporary solution to the broadcasting: "Wrap your horn in tinfoil to block the dragon's mind control beams". I really look forward to her complaints about how it fused back on crooked.
Also, I must ask: Where are the Windigos? Given that the 'Fires of Friendship' are pretty well doused at this point, it seems like a great time for them to come back and chill out.
Now they also have to get that horn off Rarity pretty quickly once they land... then Spike has to rebuild his Signal-tracker...
5426430
Too dangerous. They won't know that it's worked until Rarity unaccountably fails to turn omnicidal; at which point, if it doesn't work, it's far too late.
5425030 wait . . . What?
5425030
Joymas...
Ha. Haha.
5426430
Oh, the Wendigoes?
They're too busy...
derpicdn.net/img/2012/8/10/71006/medium.png
... Chilling out.
YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
But yeah, it's a really legitimate question that too few dark/grimdark stories choose to address.
I chose not to include them in the plot for many reasons, namely:
1: I forgot/ignored/didn't care about them when I outlined the story,
2: I didn't want to put Spike and the gang on an actual time limit on top of everything else that they're dealing with,
3: It's not a problem that can be dealt with friendship and a song, so even shutting down the signal wouldn't make them go away; even further limiting the time in which Spike and Co. could save the world and then still have time to shoo away the wendigoes before everyone froze to death.
4: Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure this is enough bad mojo to attract them. Aside from Cloudsdale (and even then it's probably not unanimous), very few ponies actually hate each other. Even the unicorns only do because they kinda have to; when they're not in front of a target, they usually don't hate anyone else than themselves for being monsters.
The general emotion running through Equestria is still mostly "Holy buttnugget I'm fucking terrified and/or sad", and I don't think it's the kind of emotion they're most keen on.
And i'm free! Free falling!
T
This chapter is hardcore as Tirek. Absolutely love the moment with the horn. Keep it up!
Ouch. Nothing like having a chunk of metal stabbed into your head. Oh and that impending sense of doom brought on by free-fall and knowing with some degree of certainty the effect of slamming into the ground at high speeds.
It's terribly sad that some malicious action by a few dragons has upended the nation of Equestria in such a short time with an economy of power that neither Tirek nor Discord could have managed.
I wonder how many unicorns will survive this. Between violent conflict, execution by fellow ponies, suicide (I assume a few at least, maybe more later), and committing atrocities + emotional pain it doesn't seem like there wouldd be a single living, sane, functioning unicorn at all.
5431761
Oooh, are you going to be one of those readers who binges a story, commenting on every chapter along the way? I love that!
Theoretical knowledge rarely beats actual experience. He might have read something about edible wild fruits/wilderness survival at one point, but to expect him to remember this particular information in perfect enough detail to be useful is kind of a long shot.
Furthermore, the keyword here is "might". He hasn't been shown in the show to be as adamant as Twilight about learning things; I think most of his knowledge comes from Twi's extreme scholar tendencies rubbing off on him. I don't think he would normally study up on things so far outside his normal priorities. He probably never expected to have to venture on an epic hike across the land.
And yeah, Rarity is quite capable. I just don't think she'd have actual survival skills, hence Scoots' words.
Personally this mind control stuff is completely terrifying. Loving the story so far.
Any chance of us seeing Luna or is she in the same boat as Mighty Whitey?
Duuuuuude I fell in love with this series ;-; I screamed out in anguish when I realized that the next chapter wasn't finished. Bravo good writer, Bravo.
Happiest... moment... of... my life!
*Internal screaming* Damn. I love these stories. The chapters come out kinda slow but I mean damn. I prefer it with as much excitement and fervor you can pack into it!
Keep up the good work and take your time with these. Can't wait for more chapters! Gets me all excited when another comes out. Haven't got to it until now because, well, I've been preoccupied longer than I like. I'll be on my merry little way now and I'll definitely be watching for the next chapter! 
I need more of this, so so much
Wow! Fantastic story and I really hope that we can see this continued. That's quite the cliffhanger there.
When is next chapter?
I like this. Please continue it at some stage.
Is this going to continue at some point? I ask because I've just finished the first one, and I want to see justice done for another who has lost his childhood to something out of his control.
Could you perhaps think about finishing this?
;-; I don't wanna read this without it being complete. So with that being said...
I'm sending you a pm.
No, No, NO! I NEED MORE! PLEASE! I HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK OR DEMAND THIS, BUT PLEASE WRITE MORE! THIS IS WRITTEN BETTER THAN ALMOST ANY OTHER BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!
5425030
Will they?
Author has a long blog post detailing what was going to happen in the rest of the story.