Equestria Threadfall

by David Silver

15 - Ascension

With a roar of flames, their basket was drawn from the ground. Cherry Berry suddenly yanked a bit of rope, untethering it from a spike that had been holding it in the ground. "Safe flight!" she shouted as they began to lift, the rope trailing down.

Spike grabbed the rope and drew it up into the basket in a coil rather than dangling free. "See you soon!"

Twilight took hold of the dangling hook and drew it down carefully, encouraging more flames and heat and pushing their ride ever higher. "The timing will be just as important as our ascent," she noted as she scanned the sky. "But... we can do this."

Luna set a hoof on Twilight's withers. "I have faith in you. See us to our destination, that we can protect the people of our world."

Maud was seated near the center of it all, watching, but not moving to get a better view of anything. Pinkie suddenly draped over her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"That's a lie." Pinkie prodded her sister in the cheek. "C'mon, you can tell me!"

"I prefer the ground," stated Maud without emotion, as was her way.

Despite her dispassionate tone, Pinkie gasped with alarm and hugged Maud tightly. "I'm sorry I didn't realize! I'm right here for you!"

Spike peered at the sisters from atop Luna. "Uh, is something wrong?"

"She's afraid of heights," blurted Pinkie, rubbing her cheek against Maud's intently in a show of solidarity. "I'm right here."

Twilight tensed. "That was not in the calculations. Do you wish to proceed or should we head back?"

Maud raised a hoof while the rest of her remained still. "We will continue."

"If you're sure..." Twilight glanced back at Maud before resuming her calculations, adjusting the trajectory of their balloon as best she could to arrive where they needed to be. "You're very brave."

"Brave ponies are not afraid," counted Maud flatly.

"Nuh uh." Pinkie shook her head quickly. "Brave ponies do things even when they're super terrified! Silly ponies are not afraid." She leaned in, pressing her nose to Maud's cheek. "I'm a little of both."

Maud did not reply, simply sitting there with fears she did not well express, but her sister seemed to feel as the hug-therapy continued. Luna edged around the outside of the basket towards Twilight. "Are we on path?"

"We are, but we have several things to contend with." Her wings fluttered nervously. "We will surely go through the thread on the way. They could devour most of this balloon, and us, before we get close to it. Are you ready to protect us?"

Spike thrust a clenched hand forward, thumb poking upwards emphatically. "We are so ready!"

"Indeed, as he says." Luna glanced towards the Pie sisters. "They will not be assisting, but we will do as we must. This is not a mission we can afford to fail."

"We get one chance," sighed out Twilight as she redirected the balloon subtly. "Let's make it count."

---

Ponies looked up, their town ravaged, their eyes a mix of haunted and fearful as the incoming force was spotted. One suddenly broke into a bright smile. "The kirin!" That mare charged across the broken and torn remnants of their town. "Hey! We're here!"

The kirin accelerated at the excited cry and soon ponies and kirin collided in warm hugs. One had a more sedate smile and was soon before the leader of the kirin. "Did it hit you too?" asked the older male pony. "You all seem to be here."

"We lost a few," sighed Rain Shine, leader of the kirin. "But if this is everyone..." Her eyes danced from pony to pony, even if many were chatting and hugging and dancing with Kirin, both sides seeming to draw comfort from the presence of the other. "You suffered..."

The mayor shrank. "I failed them... completely. I could have had dragons here, but I didn't act fast enough. They arrived in time to clear the ground, but little else."

Rain's right ear quirked upwards. "What power do dragons have to turn aside what befell us?"

"Flame kills it," explained the mayor as he turned away. "Stone stops it. Metal can turn it away. Wood, no matter how thick, it eats through." He waved a hoof. "You can see how little survived, living or not."

"Living or not," almost whispered Rain Shine in an echo. "We... became flames ourselves when our first were lost. Our village was lost, but the villagers, in large, remain."

Suddenly he turned, a spin so fast he toppled over facing her. "You can do that?"

With a great rush of flames, she roused the anger within herself, becoming a burning Nirik. "Just thinking of those I did not protect incites such furious anger!"

A kirin set a hoof on her side, quiet and supportive. The anger fizzled, Rain Shine becoming a kirin once again. "We... can do that, when we are angry." She raised a hoof and set it down across the kirin that had come up to her and drew her into a soft hug. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome," assured Autumn Blaze. "You looked like you needed a helping hoof. Speaking of that." She looked to the mayor. "You all do. Mind if we kirin lend ours?" She raised a cloven hoof with a grin. "We're offering a two for one special."

"Two for..." Then he noticed how her hoof was split and a little smile appeared on his face, getting the joke. "A most generous offer. We would be deeply honored to have the help of our neighbors."

Other ponies spoke up in agreement, but not all. Some were starting to withdraw, sniffling and shaken. One foal pointed at the kirin and asked what the others had thought but dared not say, "How come you're all here?"

"Did it miss you?" asked a mare, emboldened by the foal.

"Kirin magic?" postulated an earth stallion.

Autumn slipped away from Rain Shine. "Kirin are weird," she started with a smirk. "We're soft and nice most of the time, but when we get really upset..." She had tried to get the anger up in herself, but her sunny disposition wasn't agreeing with her. Heat washed over her scaled back and she turned over her shoulder to see Rain Shine ignited just behind her, looming. "You get that!" she explained, pointing at her leader. "It came at us and we got all scared and upset and then we were on fire and it was a lot of screaming and..."

The same foal set a hoof on Autumn's chest. "You were scared."

"Yeah... we were scared." She leaned in and touched noses with the foal. "We still are, but we'd rather be scared with friends, doing something... So can we help?"

The noises of agreement came more powerfully then. Ponies and kirin began to wander off in little groups. Rebuilding the pony town would begin.

Not a word of complaint was raised when kirin houses began to sprout up with them, their two damaged communities growing together into one, perhaps stronger than the two it was replacing.

---

The sky was growing dark all around them, except below them. They were leaving the atmosphere of the world, entering the deeper atmosphere of outer space. It was chilly, their breath misting the space-air in front of them. Below them, Equestria and the world around it was in view, a precious marble at the center of their universe.

"It's... like a star," breathed out Twilight, overwhelmed in the moment of taking in just how small it all seemed as they rose ever higher and higher.

Luna's wing fell down over Twilight and drew her closer. "It is easy to see the space as the other, but we are in it. We are space."

Twilight's lips curled up in a little smile. "Most ponies see you as the princess of space. Doesn't that make you grander than Celestia?"

Luna laughed, a single soft note. "Do not allow her to hear you say that. I am Luna, of the moon, not all of space, even if I do have more power when the stars are in view. Spike, our mission will begin soon. Are you ready?"

"Chilly," he gusted, mist flowing from his mouth. "But ready!" He gripped her back all the more firmly. "Let's fight some thread."

"Let's," she agreed as she jumped free of the basket and her wings caught easily, carrying them on a circling and rising pattern around the balloon. "I do not see them yet. Ah..." Her words failed, beholding the great rock that hurtled vaguely towards them. Around it was what seemed to be static at first, but it was more like dust.

Little specks of relatively tiny rocks, each quite significant on their own, but so far away and many that they were impossible to make out individually. "Our target..."

"Wow..." Spike grabbed onto her mane firmly. "That's all thread? How do we fight it all?"

"Shortly, we do not." She landed carefully atop the balloon. "Our mission is to see our friends to the hurtling planet there. If we can reach it and get away again, we have succeeded. Not I nor any other imagines we will defeat them directly."

Maud was standing, looking in the same direction. "It appears constructed of..." She paused, eyes narrowing faintly. "It is difficult to tell from this far away." She approached the edge of the basket as if trying to get a better view. "It's coming."

"Impact in five minutes," advised Twilight as she played with the dangling hook. "It looks far away, but it will, very suddenly, be really close. We're going to shoot through that cloud and quite possibly crash into the rock."

Pinkie tilted her head. "That sounds like a bad idea, and I know a thing or two about bad ideas."

Spike leaned over the side of Luna. "Did I hear that right? If we're going to smash into it that fast, there won't even be any time to fight anything. We're just going to go splat against the rock. Why do you sound calm about this?"

Twilight circled slowly around to bring the rock that seemed to so slowly be approaching them. "Because we'll be fine... I have an idea. The only problem will be getting home afterwards."

Pinkie blinked softly, tapping her hooves as she mentally worked through how that could be. "Wait... Do you mean? Aw, come on! She'll never give me another card again!" She threw up her hooves in dismay. "And we'll be stuck on a floating rock. Both of those are bad ideas, lemme just say."

"Less ponies will be lost," spoke Maud calmly. "You were right, this is a better idea." She turned to Twilight. "I'm ready."

Luna descended on flapping wings back to the side of the basket. "Am I to understand correctly that, after all that, we will not do battle with the thread?"

"We may never have a chance."

"Unless!" Spike had a big grin on his face, one finger up, the other hand holding his place firmly. "Hear me out--"

Author's Note:

Cutting that right there. What is Spike's great idea?

I'd live to hear what you'd do.

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Comments

[Chrome Masquerade]

"Nuh uh." Pinkie shook her head quickly. "Brave ponies do things even when they're super terrified! Silly ponies are not afraid." She leaned in, pressing her nose to Maud's cheek. "I'm a little of both."

It's called courage; even though you're afraid, despite everything going on, you do what has to be done because it needs to be done. In the words of Prince Lir from The Last Unicorn (yeah, I am actually making that reference) " Heroes know that things must happen when it's time for them to happen. A happy ending can't come in the middle of the story."

Sorry for going off on a rant, there.

[PonyBrony1]

"I'd live to hear what you'd do"
So if we don't tell you, you die?

[badninja]

I bet Spike is going to suggest a Dyson Sphere. The rock on the outside and a star and moon on the inside to give a day night cycle.

[Speckle]

This is SO EXCITING!!

[Booster Spice]

Something tells me were not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Dont worry sir, I have a cunning plan.

[Telwyn Freecolt]

10181696
Wonder what it's like for the ponies whom are not alicorns.

[David Silver]

10181715
Those stopped existing. There was only one tribe of pony, alicorn.
Perhaps two (crystal alicorn and not-crystal alicorn).

[Telwyn Freecolt]

10182222
What would happen if a non alicorn pony end up in that world, Like my oc earth pony character Telwyn Freecolt what he ends up in such a world as the only pony not an alicorn. ( Telwyn is a collector he enjoys collecting old things from the past like history books, weapons, magic items, etc.)
In a world of Alicorns I'm guessing the mlp story happens the same way sort of with plenty of differences mainly cause they all can fly and use magic. In that world Telwyn would just be awed of their being so many alicorns, and how such a world came to be, and the history her nd this version of Equestria. Telwyn Freecolt would just be fascinated by this world.

[David Silver]

10182534
The way the mirror portals work, poof, you are now an alicorn! Just like Twilight->human Equestria = human.

[Telwyn Freecolt]

10182548
Ah okay that makes sense.

[Frustration in Excelsis]

assured Autumn Blaze

Oh thank God.

Not a word of complaint was raised when kirin houses began to sprout up with them, their two damaged communities growing together into one, perhaps stronger than the two it was replacing.

What a heartwarming touch.