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// Chapter 32: New Crisis 
// Story: Quantum Leap Forward 
// by Halira 
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Desperate times called for desperate measures. She'd get yelled at, grounded, maybe worse, but she wasn't going to let that mean old mare win. If she didn't have Cheerilee to defend her anymore, then she'd have to take action herself. This needed to end anyway. She didn't want another creature taking over her body. Some of them were nice and tried to help, and some of them weren't nice at all, but they were all invaders. If Starlight Glimmer understood what it was like to be stuck watching while another creature controlled her body she wouldn't be delaying getting that stuff. 

"Are you sure this is a good idea? I think we're going to get in trouble," Cheese whined.

She stopped him where he was, and pulled him back behind a corner with her magic. She watched as Silver Spoon passed by with a saddlebag literally bulging with toys. Why was she carrying so many toys? It didn't really matter, as long as their teacher didn't see them. She kept Cheese's mouth covered until she was sure the teacher was clearly out of sight. 

"We have to catch one of those grain sprite thingies," she explained again. "If we catch one, and get a sample of poison joke, then they can fix me, and everythin' will be better."

"But how are we going to do that?" Cheese asked, voice ticking up into feminine levels. 

She started moving towards the Everfree again, all but dragging Cheese in her magic. "That's what the bread is for. It'll go in'ta the bread, and y'all will be able to see it smilin' at ya. Poison joke takes a while ta take full effect, ah read about it. So we can get some, and get back with it before we get affected by it. Aunt Applebloom likely has some student that knows how to whip up a cure lickity split."

Cheese was still unconvinced. "Can't we just get a grown-up to do this?"

"A grown-up will say they have'ta wait," she growled. "Ah heard them all, talkin' about how they gotta wait on Aunt Applebloom to get better. Ah don't have that kinda time. Spoiled Rich is gonna try to kick me out of school tomorrow, and ah need to prove ah'm all fixed before that."

The other foal still resisted. "But there are timberwolves in there."

She stopped and turned to him. "Ah only ran into timberwolves one time ah was in there, and ah got away just fine. Ah know way more magic than ah did back when that happened. Ah'll protect ya." She softened her expression, and laid a hoof on her friend's shoulder. "Please, Cheese, ah need ya for this. Ah have no way of knowing if ah've actually caught a grain sprite or if ah'm just'a seein' thin's again unless ya see it too." She winced at her own dialogue. It never bothered her back before this all started, she hadn't even noticed her accent, but after having all those fancy ponies in her head she was starting to feel embarrassed about it. Maybe she could learn how to talk more fancy, like them-- at least when this was over. 

Cheese resisted for a moment more. "Alright, but just because you're my friend. You know, Strawberry is gonna be really really mad when she finds you after what you did."

She snorted, and flicked her tail. "She'll be fine. Ah had to make sure she couldn't chase after us in the air. We can get away from ponies on the ground, but we can't get away if she catches us from the air."

"They'll get Rainbow Dash."

She quickened her pace. "Then we better hurry to get into the woods before they get her."

They made it past one more building before almost colliding right into Miss Pumpkin Cake. They skidded to a halt right before her, and she stared at them in confusion. "Cheese? Didn't your mom leave you at Sweet Apple Acres for the day?" The mare gave Candy a suspicious squint of her eyes. "What are you two up to? Where is Ma Apple or Strawberry Surprise?"

She had to think fast. "Ah don't know." She pointed a hoof at the clear area behind the mare. "But here comes a bunch of the graduatin' students' parents, and they look mad!"

Pumpkin immediately turned to face the non-existent mob that she no doubt imagined wanted her head over graduation cakes. Candy didn't hesitate with her small window of distraction. She grabbed Cheese in her hooves and powered up her horn. There was a small flash, and they were behind the next building. 

"You can telep-" Cheese started to shout, before she stuffed her hoof in his mouth. 

She peaked around the corner, and spotted Miss Pumpkin Cake. The grown-up looked very confused, as she kept turning around in place to try to spot them, and was calling out their names. This lasted a few seconds before the baker seemed to decide she needed to get help, and ran off towards the farm.

With the immediate problem gone, she released her friend. "Yes, ah can teleport now. Not very far, this is about as far as ah can do it. Ah wasn't even sure ah could get both of us with it."

"That's so cool!" Cheese squealed, but his ears dropped. "But Auntie Pumpkin is going to tell them where we're going."

"That just means we need to run faster. Hurry up!"





Her head was throbbing when she finally started to wake back up. She tried opening her eyes, but immediately shut them again because the light stabbed at them painfully. 

"Flurry! What will it take to make you stop and think for once before you do things?" She heard Starlight yelling. The volume hurt her ears.

"I admit, I didn't think it would knock her out like that-"

"Tell me something that isn't obvious!" Starlight fumed. 

"But… in my defense. That extra resonance reintigrated into her right away, and isn't doing anything weird anymore."

"We have yet to determine if that's a good or bad thing!" Starlight growled. "We needed to give this more study, so we would know what would happen before it happened, or if we should even have done that. We still need to figure out if that did something negative to Cheerilee, and we need to figure out if that did anything bad to Candy. For all we know you just blew up important information on how to deal with Candy's problem."

Candy's problem, that stirred her memories. Her memories were a confused mess that gave two entirely different and conflicting scenarios about how she had ended up asleep. How long had she been out? Which set of memories was real? It felt so confusing. 

"This is why you aren't currently fit for rule. You just rush into action. The Crystal Empire could endure an arrogant ruler, but it can't deal with one who doesn't bother to think about what she's about to do, especially with the level of power you have at your command. You'd make a great warrior, sent out to fight a monster, but a horrible monarch. I'm ashamed to admit that a small part of me hopes something goes wrong because of this, just so you can see that you need to stop and think!"

"Um, Headmare Starlight? I think she is waking up."

"Yes, and can you two keep it down? My head is killing me," she managed to say aloud, although it took some effort. 

"Flurry, go find Ocellus, and tell her we need some willow bark," Starlight instructed in a calmer voice. 

"Willow bark?" 

"Yes, it helps with headaches. Just do what you are told, please. We'll continue this discussion later, and I am going to be contacting your aunt and your mother."

"There's no need to-"

"I need to contact Twilight anyway," Starlight responded with a sigh. "This thing may be way too complex for me to figure out, even with Luster and Sweetie Belle aiding me. I thought we could deal with it on our own, but if there's quantumly entangled resonances that's getting really complex, and we need her help. I hate to pull her away from her duties, for what is a local small scale problem, but there's no helping it."

"Okay," Flurry said sullenly. "I still think I fixed it."

"Just go get the bark, Flurry," Starlight commanded. 

There was a popping noise, that might have indicated Flurry Heart had teleported out of the room. Cheerilee very carefully opened her eyes again. Things were fuzzy, but she could stand the light now. "What happened?"

A shape, that might have been Starlight, came into her vision. "Flurry recklessly cut the bridge between your echo resonance and the one that Candy has. Dinky has already left to go check on the filly to make sure she is okay. I'm very sorry about that, there isn't much I can do to stop Flurry Heart from doing something once she gets it in her head to do it. You passed out immediately when the bridge was broken. Other than a headache, how are you feeling?"

"I think I was here, but I also remember being in Candy's room. I was planning out how to argue her case…" Her eyes opened wider. "Why do I have two sets of memories about the last two days?"

"Interesting," Starlight hummed. "I have a theory on that. It's just a theory, so don't take it as an absolute fact yet. You can't alter the future by going back to the past-- it creates a diverging timeline-- but what happens when time catches up to you so it is no longer the past?"

"I don't understand," she said in a low moan. Her head was still pounding, and thinking was hard. "Can you just explain it to me so I don't have to think? My head hurts."

"Everycreature else that Candy has had in her head lived entirely in the past. They never caught up to the point in time when the memory was made. A creature can't remember the future, memory doesn't work that way. You're different, you have passed the point where the memory was made, the first creature that was in Candy's head to do so. You can remember because it is the past."

"So you can confirm now that I really was in her head and she isn't crazy," she breathed out in relief. Her head still swam with the two sets of memories from the last few days, but it was starting to become clearer. Surprisingly, things from twenty years ago seemed much more vivid in her memory than they had been, as if they were much more recent. "I had been getting weird feelings since around the same time this had started with Candy. Is that tied to her as well? Am I all better now? I saw smiling faces on Dinky's earrings today too. Am I going to keep seeing them?"

"I don't know, but I don't think you'll see Candy's hallucinations," Starlight said slowly. "As the time got closer that may have had some impact, or perhaps all the creatures that Candy was going to have in her head were already somehow predetermined-- though I don't know how that could be. I still need to study this whole phenomenon more-- which may be much harder after what Flurry did. I don't think you'll see the faces anymore. That was coming through your link to Candy, but that link has been severed now. As for the rest, we'll have to monitor it."

"Well, I can stand in her defense at the school board meeting tomorrow," she replied, and tried to stand up, only to fall back down. "Ow."

Starlight came up closer, and checked to see if she was alright. "I think we should be getting you to a hospital instead. Flurry did a number on you."

She shook her head. "No, I misjudged how long my legs are. I'm still kind of accustomed to Candy's body. I'll get better, I just need to get my head adjusted to it."

The unicorn cocked her head. "Are the memories from being in Candy that fresh? I'd have thought they might be faded since you were claiming being from twenty years ago."

"The stuff from being in Candy is fresh," Cheerilee confirmed. "And all my memories from the last few days from Vanhoover and coming down to Ponyville are just as fresh. It's kind of confusing to tell the truth. Like my head is trying to line them up in order and can't figure out where to put them."

"Because they were happening at the same time," Starlight concluded, then scratched her chin. "Um, I have no idea how to fix that, they might just end up staying confused about the order. They aren't overlapping in terms of bleeding together, are they? You aren't seeing yourself full grown in the memory you got from Candy, or being in Candy's body in Vanhoover?"

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No, they aren't doing that. I just try to put things in order and it gets all muddled."

Starlight continued her interrogation. "Do you have any memories that don't belong to you? Any from Candy, or some other creature?" 

She shook her head. "Nothing like that." She tried getting up again, and managed to do it this time. ""How long was I out?"

"Three hours."

Her eyes went wide, and she looked around at her surroundings for the first time. She was no longer in the lab at the School of Friendship; she was now what looked like a bedroom in the castle. "Who's room is this?"

"We use the castle for dormitories for visiting families that can't afford to stay in hotels. It's a pretty strict application process, just so everycreature doesn't end up doing it-- I'd run out of room quickly if I let them all do it. I always have some spare bedrooms available because of it," Starlight explained. 

She never knew that. Always nice to learn something new.  "Where's Candy? I heard you talking about how this might affect her. I've met her before all this, but I really haven't gotten to know her after she started having this happening to her. I really want to talk to her about what she experienced when I was in her head, and apologize for my screw-ups."

Starlight gave a deep frown. "Right after I confirmed Flurry hadn't accidently killed you I sent Dinky to go check on her. That was about two hours ago. I don't know what is taking her so long. I'm starting to get worried. I might send Cozy Glow out to check soon if I haven't heard back in the next few minutes."

She gasped "Cozy Glow?! Why would you send her out to Candy? She's a villain!  She was trapped in stone along with the other two for her crimes! Why would you let that filly around Candy?"

The unicorn raised an eyebrow at her. "Cozy Glow isn't a filly, and has been reformed for going on a decade now. Tirek is still in a rehabilitation program, and Queen Chrysalis… well, she's still in stone, but she's due for another rehabilitation attempt in another few months. You should know this, you've talked with Cozy Glow before."

"They tried to take over Equestria less than a year…" she stopped and thought about it; that couldn't be right. She did remember Cozy Glow as a grown mare, but she was a filly when she tried to take over Equestria.

"I think we need to get you some help to get your memories straightened out," Starlight said with a frown. "Do you remember meeting Cozy Glow in the last few years? Do you remember being principal of Ponyville Elementary?"

"I do," she answered. "It's just that the other stuff seems so much more recent."

Starlight continued frowning. "Your memories really are out of order. The you from twenty years and the you from the present aren't cleanly merged. Maybe we should get you a psychologist who can help you get your memories straightened out in order."

"Maybe Stygian can help me," she said quietly. He still felt fresh. It was things in between when her memories from in between the potion accident and when she first had her panic attacks start that felt further back than they should.

The headmare looked baffled. "Stygian? The former Pony of Shadows? Why him?" 

She blushed. "He's my special somepony. We've been seeing each other for months. That part seems like it is in the right place. I was actually thinking about asking him the big question, if he doesn't ask me first."

Starlight still looked bemused. "Stygian, huh? Okay, well, congratulations on that, I guess. He's a nice pony. Not who I would have pictured you with, but now that I think about it, I can see how you two fit together well. He's a bookish, teacher type, not afraid of a little adventure."

"I could gush about him for hours," Cheerilee confessed. "But I really want to find out if Candy is okay."

"She might not be."

They both turned to see Dinky coming into the room, looking out of breath. The current Ponyville Elementary principal took a few deep breaths before continuing. "She must not have been out of it as long as you were, because she started doing things fast. She somehow drenched Strawberry Surprise in peanut butter and feathers, and ran off with Cheese Slice in tow. The Apples took a few minutes to even realize she was gone because they were too caught up trying to help Strawberry Surprise. Pumpkin Cake spotted them, though. They were making their way for the Everfree, and probably are in the woods now."

Oh no! Candy was going to try to catch a grain sprite. That was the only possible explanation. She turned straight to Starlight. "If you're sending a search party in after her, I want to be part of it!"

"I'm not sure if you coming along would be a good-"

She stomped a hoof. "No! I have invested too much of my time into that filly to have her get hurt now! Plus, she has to know me and trust me if she was aware of anything when I was in her body. I might be able to reason with her." Starlight still looked hesitant, and Cheerilee ground her teeth. "I'm going, and you can't stop me."

Starlight relented with a disgruntled nod. "Alright, just don't push yourself too hard, and keep with the group."

With a flash of light, Flurry Heart appeared back in the room. Holding a jar of willow bark in her magic. The alicorn looked around and took in that something was happening. "What I miss?"

"I need you to gather up all the teachers and get them here quick, Luster as well" Starlight instructed. "Candy Apple and Cheese Slice have run off into the Everfree and we need to find her before they get hurt."

The alicorn vanished again, without any further word. Cheerilee hoped it didn't take too long to get a search party together.

"I'm coming Candy. I won't let you get hurt."