21 - Not With Malice
Maud lifted an ear. "Something's coming." She stepped to the left, a casual sidestep.
The ground where she had been burst upwards, revealing a great rough pod that thrummed gently. It had no eyes, at least none that could be easily made out, but it seemed to be examining them.
Spike raised a hand slowly. "Uh... hi? Is that thing alive?"
"It's mostly rock." She took a step forward. "It is alive." The two facts were stated with simple certainty.
"Well, hiya!" greeted Pinkie, coiling on herself and throwing out already-filled balloons and confetti twirls. "Welcome! Good to meet a new friend."
Fine filaments slipped free from the sides of the pod, not just any filaments-- "Thread!" squeaked Spike, hopping back.
It used the thread to draw on the nearest wall, making a single mark, then moving and making two marks together, then three together, then four.
Spike blinked at the display. "Uh... it's... counting?"
Pinkie tapped at her cheek. "Maybe it's, uh... showing off?"
"It is," agreed Maud. "It can do math." She reached up and began thumping the wall, making a single hoof mark, then two, then three, imitating the display, but continuing to five to show she understood the pattern. "It can think."
Spike rubbed behind his head. "Alright, so it's a thinking rock. That's kinda cool... but... it's also thread?"
"Part of it is thread." Maud canted her head to the left, examining the rock-creature. "Part of it is not. It can think. It is talking."
The pod seemed to notice Maud's reply message and several filaments waved. With joy? With anger? With... maybe acceptance. It was impossible to know. It did not speak.
But Maud was approaching on steady hooves. Filaments reached for her and she ducked under the first, avoiding their touch, but still coming closer. She reached out a hoof and gently set it on the side of the pod and things became quiet and still, as if the two were communing.
Spike looked entirely baffled. "What is she doing, besides risking being devoured by thread?"
Pinkie sat down next to him. "It's a Maud thing. You know, like a Pinkie thing, but calmer."
"Plans change." Maud turned back to them. "We need to send the rock to a different place."
"Besides, just, you know, away?"
"Yes." Maud nodded and resumed her trek, the pod not fighting her departure. "We will rescue two worlds today."
Pinkie squealed with joy mid-hop. "Woo! Double world saving duty! WE can do it!"
Spike hurried to catch up with Maud. "So... short version?"
"They are not from here, the pods. When it gets too warm they fall apart." She glanced over her shoulder. "The thread is what's left. They are dying. We will return them home."
"Huh, woah." He rubbed behind his head as he followed along. "Where is home?"
"Out there." Maud waved a hoof vaguely. "They didn't mean to come here, but they did." She looked over her other shoulder, switching which way she was turning. "It does not understand us."
"But... you understand it?" ventured Spike.
"Not exactly." Maud pointed up. "Place the first there."
"First wh--" A barrel of explosives was pushed against his front by a smiling Pinkie. "Oh..." He lifted on flapping wings, raising with some effort to the spot Maud had pointed at. "Here?"
"Left."
"Here?"
"Right."
"Here?!" He frowned, looking tired.
"Perfect." She turned away as Spike lowered to the ground. "We have to adjust the other ones we placed."
"Seriously, you had, some... strange rock conversation, right?" Spike jogged along to keep up.
"You could say that." She pointed as they arrived at the second explosive, already set up. "I can adjust this one." She walked up to it and began rolling it to the right slowly.
"Maud, I respect you, as a mare, and a Roctor, but please break it down for me." Spike threw his hands wide. "My friend and sister's really hurt, and I just want to know we're doing the right thing."
Maud nudged the barrel into place before turning to Spike. "They can think. They could have attacked me, but they did not. I will send them home, where they can't hurt us, where our world can't hurt them." She walked past him. "One more."
"Well, uh... I guess, technically, so long as they aren't raining down on us, we got the job done." He admitted with an uncertain tone. "Wait, ew, we're being showered by their literal broken bodies? That's really gross... And not good for either of us."
"No," agreed Maud with no emotion in her voice, as was the norm for her. "The last one needs to move up." She pointed to where a barrel was wedged in the wall. "Twilight placed that one. Move it."
"Which way?" Spike flapped up to it and took hold. Soon he was moving it around under Maud's slow but steady advice, eventually finding a pocket for it to be in that satisfied for her. "Finally," he got out as he landed, huffing for breath. "Are we done?"
"No." Maud walked to a wall and struck it three times with an increasing pause between each strike, the rock crumbling and the thump echoing outwards.
Pinkie looked around in a slow circle. "Are we waiting for something? Is it a surprise!" The wall next to her exploded and she screamed, hopping away from it. "Surprise!"
Maud nodded to the rocky orb that broke free. Approaching, she spoke calmly. "You need to get away and bring every other one away with you." She set a hoof on the rock's surface, the two quietly in contact. Tendrils emerged, wafting just over her form, capable of annihilating her with a casual brush.
It slid away, burrowing off into the rock. Other little trembles told Maud all she needed to know. "They are out of range." She turned to the other two. "We need to do the same, and set it off."
They hurried to the main room, where Luna was presiding over Twilight's still form. She looked up as they came in. "Is all well?"
"I could ask the same." Spike waved at Twilight. "She alright?"
"As well as she can be." Luna inclined her head. "We will want to get her to a proper physician as soon as possible. And you?"
Spike set a hand on Twilight's chest, letting out his own breath when he felt she was still moving faintly, still breathing. "We have to set off the bombs and get out of here."
"Correct." Maud pointed to the balloon. "Is it ready?"
"As ready as ever it will be." Her horn began to glow, gently lifting Twilight and righting the basket of their chariot. "It appears I will be pulling double duty, with our other magic user disabled. I must get us all far enough away." She began to climb into the basket, Twilight floating after her. "We will have exactly one chance.
"That is the running motif of this entire thing," wryly noted Spike as he climbed in. "You get us up and away, I fill the balloon as quickly as possible. Then we sail home, right?"
"Carrying this much... there is a chance we will not arrive far enough away," warned Luna. "We will be in the center of the swarm, the cloud, and it will be very dangerous."
"If it is still cold, they will not be thread," noted Maud as she took her spot in the center of the basket, resting a hoof on the resting Twilight. "But crashing into one could be just as bad."
"I can imagine that," agreed Pinkie, sitting beside her sister. "Alright, we're all ready! Let's do this!"
"Pinkie."
Pinkie's ear pricked at Luna's call. "Yep?"
"In these... dark times, I turn to you." She only then actually turned to Pinkie. "Is there some manner of outlandish trick you can accomplish that would see us to safety?"
Pinkie considered that, tapping a hoof on her chin. "Well, not like I wasn't thinking about it, but running through space isn't a trick I got down," she said in a tone that implied she was working on it. "Maud and I will be cheering for you, but this really isn't an earth pony thing. I'll fly the balloon once it's ready go! I have practice at that."
"We will make do with what we have." Luna took a slow deep breath. "Maud, begin."
Maud draw out a flat slate of plastic with a big red button on it. Her hoof came down on it with a click. The ground beneath them jolted as the bombs began to go off. They were nowhere.
Spike could feel the rock receedeeding away, Luna teleporting away from it, taking the balloon and basket and everyone in the basket along with her. He could feel the tension of her effort, trying to haul everycreature as far away from the great rock hurtling through the sky as she could.
He could distantly feel the cloud, the swarm of great rocks like the one they had just 'spoken'(?) to. It got lighter. They were in real space. Spike exhaled, filling the balloon just as it started to deflate, forcing it full of hot air as Pinkie worked on the engine to get it working as well, adding to the heat. "Woo!" called out Pinkie as she twisted a knob. "We're flying, in space. This is still a great place to fly, lemme tell ya." She ducked and yanked a cord as she fell, wrenching the craft to the side to narrowly miss a huge rock sailing past them.
Muad's eyes followed it as it soared away, swirling in a loose orbit around the rock they had just left, receeding slowly, but that slowness was an illusion, a trick of its size. It was moving at quite the speed. "Good luck," she wished her new rocky friends in a calm tone before looking to Pinkie. "Are we alright?"
"We're OK!" Pinkie saluted, working the controls. "Luna?"
But there was no reply. Spike was gently patting the two downed princesses, one of fatigue, one to injuries. "Let's get back to Equestria," he suggested quietly, doing his best to offer comfort to his friends. "At least... the thread's gone, right?"
Maud inclined her head. "Should be."
It was in companionable quiet that they returned home.
Sun poured through the window, and the occupant of the room gazed out onto the sun-touched fields beyond.
A soft knock drew her attention towards the door. "Spike."
"Twi..." He stepped up and set a bunch of flowers down on the bedside little desk. "How are you feeling?"
"Awful." She smiled a little. "But getting better. They say I'll be back on my hooves in a little while." She was quiet a moment, and Spike didn't break the silence. "We did it."
"We... did." He smiled gently. "Not a single sighting of Thread."
She reached for him with a shaking hoof and he grabbed it, pulling it close, soon they were hugging. Well, it was more like she was ready to fall onto him and he supported her, but the intention was clear to both of them. "I'm so proud of you."
"You were just as amazing," assured Spike. "We all did our part... That was... something. I'm..." He helped her right herself back onto the bed properly. "Just glad it's over, that the thread is gone."
"To think it's a sapient species... I'd love to establish communication with them." She smiled wistfully. "It's not meant to be, for now. Could you imagine that? A crippled unicorn hobbling towards them with a clipboard."
Spike snorted a laugh at the mental image. "That does sound like something you'd do... Maybe when you're feeling better."
"Maybe." She sank back onto the bed and closed her eyes. "For now, a little nap feels like just the right thing. Apologize... to... cel..." She faded off without finishing her request.
Spike tucked her in carefully, then scurried from the room. He was fairly sure Twilight was already forgiven for her time away.
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Here's to a successful mission!
Huh, alien rocks. Is that how it went down in the books?
Wow so all we need to do is wrap it all up. I was getting that the story was ending from all of Maud’s talk in this chapter. It does make us think this could help start up Equestria wanting to explore the final frontier. They now know they are not alone and I bet that the entire planet will grow from this.
10451140
They were alien rocks powered by helium and exotic gasses, but the humans in the original books decided they were horrible aliens and did their best to wipe them out because alien + intelligent = oh no!
Ponies are kinder creatures, thankfully.
At least they didnt have to go quite as far as PERN when dealing with the object, although any intercept with teh giant outer planet, especially with a delta V that large, could just have easily sent the thing outwards on a hyperbolic trajectory? But AIVAS was a militery computer. It wanted the enemy permanently Dead.
Id still go with dragons aint organic as normal carbon works.. except for diamond, graphenes, nanotubes etc?
No return/far future reunion? Aww.
10451199
Weren't the thread organisms potentially an engineered weapon made by another alien race that was hostile to humanity? Or is that just a fever dream of mine?
10451624
I didn't find that in my research, citation?
10451674
I think it was an in-story WAG by some of the settlers when they first encountered Thread, but it's been so long I don't remember with any certainty.
So Maud pulled a Spock and mind-melded with the Horta...err, Thread?
It all seems rather anti-climatic. All the buildup and chapters and destruction and death and challenges and things suddenly flip in just a few short paragraphs with no mention of the consequences or mourning or rebuilding or lessons learned? Not of Ember or the Kirin or Klugetown or everycreature coming together or anything?
Needs an epilogue, I think.
10452000
The kirin already had an epilogue, forming a new town with the ponies. The dragons gained some respect for their defensive role (and cash!). The griffons learned nothing. There actually wasn't much of a lesson for most of the world TO learn. I'd love to hear what lessons you think should be gotten.
10452166
You could do a brief snippet where Ember is shown as her new role as Lord while paying tribute to her father, or of the new pony/kirin village, or the paying homage to the pony village that was wiped out with memorial (maybe with dragons helping to haul stone for the new buildings). What happened to Klugetown? Mud Briar welcoming home his beau. That sorta thing.