Equestria Threadfall

by David Silver

16 - Approach

"You're most of the way there," assured Spike. "But you want to teleport us to the rock, and the balloon gets smashed, right?"

"That was the idea," admitted Twilight, rubbing a cheek with a hoof. "What's yours?"

He pointed to his magnificent steed. "Twilight, you're not alone. With you and Luna, I bet you could take the whole thing."

Luna's ears perked at that. "I would be delighted to be of assistance. I am well aware of the teleportation spell." Her head craned as she looked up at the craft they flew in. "Usually not with such a large thing attached."

Twilight's eyes were on the space rock, coming towards them at frightening speeds. "We don't have much time. I'll take the balloon if you can safely see everypony else other than me to the ground. We'll meet up there." She pointed at it. "By my calculations, the thread shouldn't be at, or near, the ground there, or they wouldn't be able to get back into space again. They don't have propulsion."

"One can only hope." Luna moved to the center of the balloon, close to all the passengers she would take. "Good luck." And she vanished.

Teleportation was typically done to static objects, but the hurling rock was not at all stationary to them, moving far more quickly than anything else they had interacted with before. Spike could dimly see in that nowhere space they were in the rock. It was more of an impression than sight, and its movement made his tug feel like it was taking forever to do in relation to how quickly it would be too late.

They appeared with a loud pop, energy crackling at their edges. Maud and Pinkie were thrown clear onto the rock as wind howled violently around them. Luna landed on her hooves, but the same wind threatened to undo that, leaving Spike clutching wildly to her mane to avoid being blown free. "Find cover!" he shouted. "Twilight didn't mention we'd be going into a storm!"

Pinkie was suddenly at their side. "I bet she didn't know!" she hollered, but she stood strong against the wind. "Where to now?"

"Cave." Maud was pointing the way towards a dark crevice. Without further preamble, she began walking there at a calm rate, the wind unable to unseat the earth mare. She was back on ground, even if that ground happened to be a space rock hurtling through the void.

Luna began towards it with far more uncertainty than her companions. There was perhaps some comfort to be had in Spike's grasping presence. He was struggling with her. "This wind is... more than I had imagined."

"You imagined any?" Spike pulled himself forward into the wildly billowing star field that was her mane. "I kinda thought it'd just be, you know, a rock."

"Moving so swiftly, I imagined some wind." The rock beneath her right hoof gave way suddenly, causing her to slide forward. Her wings shot out to catch herself, but caught the wind instead. Suddenly she was in the air, fighting the currents.

"There!" Spike pointed at where a rope reached up towards them, wafting on the wind helplessly. "Pinkie has a rope!"

Luna banked her entire body, trying to adjust her flight. "Can you reach it? It's taking all I have just to not be... thrown aside..."

Spike kept one hand firmly enmeshed in her mane, but stood up against the battering wind. "I'll... try." He reached out with his other hand, making a grab, but the rope brushed his fingers and fluttered. "C'mon..." He grunted as he made a little hop, the rope falling into his grip, but the wind grabbing him. He fell back and away, dangling by his grasp on Luna, the rope lost.

Muttering dark things, he scrambled back on top of her and took a few rapid breaths before daring to stand. "I can do this..." He leaned up on tip-toes and swiped the air. Pulling his hand back, a rope dangles from it. With a jubilant cry, he got to tying it around Luna's barrel, working in a big fat knot to keep it there. "Alright!"

"Alright?" Luna couldn't look over her shoulder to see what he was doing. "We're still... stuck."

That changed suddenly, the two of them being yanked, then again. Down below, Pinkie and Maud were reeling them in, one bit at a time. Pinkie was giggling as she worked. "Wow, what a catch. I never thought we'd see a wild Alicorn-dragon. Do you think this beats some kind record?"

Maud did not reply, focused on drawing Luna and Spike back to the ground. With their combined efforts, the two were drawn back to the ground. Luna hunched down a little to catch less wind, her horn undoing the rope around her. "Thank you, all of you. Let us get inside quickly," she shouted over the wind, hurrying towards the cave Maud had pointed out before.

She arrived first, or so she thought as she turned in place and spotted Pinkie already starting a little bonfire with wood she had certainly not seen. "Where did you get that?"

"I keep wood in case a bonfire would make things more cheerful." With a soft crackle, the fire began to light the cave. "See, already more chipper! Did any of you see Twilight?"

"Twilight!" Spike poked free of Luna's Mane. "She's either out there, in that storm--"

Maud arrived at her sedate pace. "--or she's been dashed against the rocks," she proposed with her flat tone. Spike fainted off Luna, flopping to the ground. "It could have happened." Maud walked over to the little bonfire and sat beside it a moment before standing right back up and approaching the wall. "Hmm."

Luna gently lifted Spike in her magic. "I have faith in Twilight's ability. She is likely seeking shelter much as we had. We need only find her in this maelstrom."

"That sounds like a challenge." Pinkie clopped her forehooves together. "I like a challenge. Maud, what do you see?"

"Rock." She pointed along the wall. "You brought me here to examine it. I'm doing that." Her eyes swept over the wall as she advanced deeper into the cave. "I need to go deeper to see if it's uniform." And off she went, vanishing into the darkness that became a little spot of light, a miner's helmet on her head, its lamp turned on.

Luna inclined her head faintly. "It must be a family habit, to bring all manner of things just in case."

"You betcha!" Pinkie hopped up, plucking Spike out of Luna's magic and putting him up on her back in the same leap.

"Huh what?" Spike Started awake, almost falling free before catching himself. "Oh right! We have to find Twilight!"

Luna threw her head in Maud's direction. "Do you not worry for your sister?"

"Are you kidding? She is in the zone. She lives for this kind of thing." She bobbed her head rapidly, looking instead towards the exit. "We'd only get in her way, which I do a lot, but she likes it, sometimes. When she doesn't like it, she throws me outside. That's how I know!"

Spike scratched his head with his free hand. "Yeah, that checks out. Alright, Maud is doing what we brought here for, that's good. We just need to find Twilight."

"More easily said than done." Luna walked near the exit, where the howling wind rushed past, its moan echoing off the cave walls. "I had feared the presence of the thread, but it seems this place has guardians in its stead. I fear wherever she may have ended up, she will have an entire balloon to contend with."

Pinkie drew some binoculars from her mane and popped them into her eyes, looking around. "It's all dark and windy," she quickly reported, still looking around as best she could. "And dusty..."

"And cold," added Spike, watching his breath puff in the air. "We have to at least look for her. She's counting on us."

"Pinkie." Luna looked towards her. "You seem to be more... firmly rooted than I. Tie me up again and hold surely to it. You will serve as our anchor in our search."

"Ooo!" She tossed her binoculars aside and got out the rope. "I never thought I'd get to tie up a princess. The safeword is 'Cupcake', alright?" And with wild gales of giggling, she got to securing Luna, the other end in her mouth. "Ta da!"

Emboldened, Luna strode free of the cave with Spike atop her. "So long as Pinkie remains firmly planted, we should be relatively safe." Behind them, Pinkie followed at a sedate pace, paying more mind to keeping the rope from looping around anything.

Spike nodded and pointed to the sky, wind-filled though it was. "Since we know we can get back down, going up may be the best, I mean, fastest way to find her."

"I think you may be correct." Luna looked over her shoulder. "We are taking flight. Hold surely."

"Got it!" Pinkie saluted briskly before slapping down all four hooves as if to root herself all the more securely.

Luna spread her wings, driven into the sky instantly. That time, she knew it was coming and ascended almost gracefully, looking around for signs of the balloon or the princess charged with transporting it to that little miserable world. "We need to secure it, and her."

Spike was looking much as she was, combining their senses as best they could to find a hint. "T..." He trailed off, squinting into the dark. "Is..." He thrust a finger out.

She craned her head to look where he was pointing, but saw only darkness and wind, the dust biting at her eyes. "I don't--" But there it was, a tiny flash. "Yes!" She banked and flew against the wind, or tried. It felt impossible to properly fight the wind.

Then she was tugged from below. Somehow, Pinkie had sensed which way Luna was trying to go and she was pulling them along. Luna laughed. "I feel like a great pony-shaped kite. It would seem--" she shouted over the wind. "--that Pinkie is moving in the right direction. Let us keep our eyes trained on the target."

"Pinkie is a force of nature." Spike grabbed on with both hands. "Good thing, too, seeing as we're fighting one of those." He leaned over a little, raising his voice louder than the shout it was already at, "Good job! Keep going!" Whether or not she had heard was impossible to tell, but they were being tugged along closer and closer to that little mote of light. He let go with one hand, instead shielding his eyes with an arm. "That really hurts."

"It does," she softly agreed, squinting as best she could. "But we need to see. Had we but thought to bring protection. Just think of what Twilight must be suffering."

The hand on Luna's mane tightened as Spike went rigid, visions of what could be happening to Twilight in his mind. "Y-yeah. We have to be strong, for her... We're the only help she has."

Their conviction renewed, they flew, or were flown, towards that little speck.

Pinkie could see it long before they could. It was the balloon, landed and slapped up against a stone wall. Its cloth was caught under another slab of stone. The whole thing wasn't moving. The light came from its gas-powered little engine that would normally have sent hot air up into the balloon. It gave off intermittent little spurts that got lost in the wind. "Twilight?"

But nopony replied. "You in there?" Pinkie hurried, the rope still in her mouth. She hopped up and peered into the basket, but there was no Twilight in there. There was no Twilight anywhere around the balloon. "Oh no..."

She began quickly reeling in her friends to tell them the troubling news. They had found the balloon, but Twilight was still missing.

Author's Note:

The story, it continues! Welcome to where the thread comes from. It's as friendly as you may have expected. The ponies approach this in a uniquely pony way. This is not how the residents of Pern had to approach this.

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Comments

[Venerable Ro]

And we make land-fall.

Space-fall?

Thread-fall?

Whatever, they've arrived.

[Speckle]

Noooooooooooooooooooooo, Twilight

[Booster Spice]

Just have to hope Twilights self defence shield magic is working, given Luna being flipped away on automatically opening her wings. Somewhereaccross teh surface, Twilight might be playing pinball, or stuck in the entrance of another one of those caves?

[Chrome Masquerade]

"Rock." She pointed along the wall. "You brought me here to examine it. I'm doing that." Her eyes swept over the wall as she advanced deeper into the cave. "I need to go deeper to see if it's uniform." And off she went, vanishing into the darkness that became a little spot of light, a miner's helmet on her head, its lamp turned on.

lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/22_sWYiL2xaMjPa7OtqcGEod6hTm0bOz9xebzgIRoGo98SO82cPpGZdYUyKhd4XWhP7l_9nMVB0TIzDTGFuu8laYcw9GORP_2frjMKvBh69WLQnhyWBp7rJqqD6WvIRmgcBnLin1i_MS4MObn05YcW8FNn8PKsvhKRQ

[Cross Lament]

At least it has breathable air, unlike the Pern version.

[David Silver]

10199348
This is truth. The Equestrian universe lacks that whole... actual space-space.