//------------------------------//
// Chapter 34: Panic in the Woods 
// Story: Quantum Leap Forward 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

It had taken wandering around all morning, and part of the afternoon, but their searching had not gone unrewarded. "Ah think this is it."

Cheese looked up at the wall of stone in front of them. "I thought you said you fell off. How did we end up at the bottom?"

She shrugged. "We must have just come a different way than when ah did last time. This has to be it."

"You said we weren't lost," Cheese said accusingly. 

"We're where we're supposed ta be, that's not lost," she snapped back, then lowered her ears as she saw Cheese cringe. Cheese didn't deserve her snapping at him. "Sorry, ah'm just wantin' to get this all over. Ya don't know what it's been like."

Cheese blinked. "Um, what has it been like?"

She looked down. She didn't really want to talk about it, because it was like a long scary nightmare. She thought about talking about it a few times over the last few months with her ma and pa, in those short times she was herself, but it seemed they wouldn't believe her. They'd believe her now, thanks to all the stuff Cheerilee had done. She was sorry she couldn't have waited to talk to them now, but they wouldn't have headed straight out here to fix the problem, and things couldn't wait any more. Worse, they would have tried to stop her, and she couldn't let them do that. Only Cheese would agree to come, and he was doing a lot coming out here with her. She owed him a lot for doing that. If he wanted her to talk about it then she could give him that much, even if it was uncomfortable to talk about.

"Ah see everythin' they do, but ah can't do anythin' to stop any of it," she began, then licked her lips. "When they're thinking somethin' or rememberin' somethin' ah can kinda hear or see that too. It's hard to explain. It's like ah'm thinkin' or rememberin', but not really. It's kinda like a picture show, or readin' a book. There's sounds and pictures, but there ain't no sounds and pictures."

"I kind of understand, I think," Cheese said slowly. "What kinds of things do they think about?"

She shook her head. "They all think about different stuff. Some'a them barely think at all it seemed like, some thought about lots of things. Sombra wanted to find out information about how he got beaten. Ah, don't know why he thought tryin' to take over town hall would do that, he didn't really seem to think about that for me to know. Dazzling sure talked about sex to everycreature, and she thought about it when she was talkin', but she didn't think about it that much when she was alone or when not tryin' to say somethin'. Ah, think that was her own way of just dealin' with what was happenin', because she was scared, and didn't know what to do. Most of them were like that, just scared."

Cheese tilted his head slightly. "Did you like any of them?"

She nodded back. "A few of 'em. Ah liked Cheerilee and Twilight Comet, they were tryin' to help me. Most of 'em didn't really do that, just worried about themselves. Ah felt sorry for Amber Sap, she was supposed ta be gettin' married, and ended up in me the night before her weddin'. Ah can't be mad at her for cryin' about that. Ah hated Sombra and Grunt. Grunt kept tryin' to dig a tunnel, and couldn't figure out why it didn't work right, but kept on tryin' anyway. He made ma hooves hurt so much, stupid dog. Most the rest they were just kinda there, and got me in trouble all the time."

"What about the one that kept trying to run off to Canterlot?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh brother! Tax Code couldn't figure out he wasn't in his own time, and kept tryin' to get to Canterlot to do some speech to the princess. Didn't even care he was in ma body compared to that speech. The whole time he was either thinkin' about how to get there, or runnin' his long borin' speech over in ma head. Ah now know more about import and export taxes on plums than ah ever wanted to know. Ah didn't even know what import and export taxes were before. Ah kinda wished he could'a made it, just to have Princess Twilight ask why a filly was tryin' to talk about plum taxes with her."

Cheese looked confused. "Why are there taxes on plums? What are taxes anyway?"

That made her shiver at the memory of tax figures that she would never completely forget. "Ya really don't want to know about all that, believe me." Her ears perked as she finished responding, something wasn't right.

"What about-" Cheese began, but she quickly put her hoof over his mouth to shush him. She strained her ears. The forest had gone quiet, too quiet. She didn't spend months with Twilight Comet without figuring out that was a bad thing. There was a predator about somewhere close, something big enough to spook everything in the area. 

Cheese tried to mumble through her hoof, but she shook her head and raised her other forehoof up to her own mouth to tell him he needed to be quiet. She kept straining to hear anything moving through the woods; trying to determine what direction the danger was coming from. They couldn't stay right here, but they couldn't go running off if they didn't know what direction was the safe direction to run. She sat tensely, her ears almost hurting from how much she was focused on listening to the menacing quiet. 

One of her ears twitched, as she heard a twig break somewhere to their far left. She had a direction to run now. She stared Cheese in the eyes and whispered to him. "Ah'm going to teleport us as far as ah can off to our right. As soon as ah finish doin' it we need'ta keep runnin' that way. Try to run quiet-like, if ya can, but don't stop runnin' till ah say so, got it?"

Her friend's eyes went wide as the fact they were in danger sank in. He gave a silent nod, and she quickly switched from blocking his speech to gripping him. There was a brief flash, and then they were a short distance away. They immediately got on their hooves and started running. 

There was no helping the noise they were making, it was impossible not to rustle the branches and bushes as they ran. They did keep their mouths shut, and didn't yell. They didn't even cry out as branches struck them in the face as they ran through. All their attempts at silence were for nothing, because she could hear it moving behind them now, rapidly advancing; it was howling, it was a timberwolf. 

Cheese was starting to get out in front of her, and she was starting to run out of breath. There was no way she could keep up running like this for much longer, and the timberwolf was gaining ground on them anyway. Cheese didn't seem to be slowing down, and she briefly envied his ability to not run out of breath. Right now she needed to think, even though it was hard. Whenever Twilight Comet was out in the woods he always kept thinking, even when there was something dangerous nearby. If he could do it while in her head then she could do it too.

To her surprise, the first thought that came into her head was she promised she would keep Cheese safe, and she was in danger of breaking that promise. Apples did not break promises. The fact she was in danger of breaking a promise seemed almost as bad as the fact she was in mortal danger. Cheese needed to be protected, so she could keep her promise. Twilight Comet would have done whatever was necessary to protect her friend. Cheerilee would have done the same. Even Platinum Gilt would have, even if there would have been grumbling about 'dirt ponies', the unicorn warrior wouldn't let Cheese get hurt. She needed to be brave, like the ponies that had been in her.

"Cheese!" She called out. "Keep running, even if ah stop! Ah'm goin' to fight the timberwolf. Ah can do it, but ya need to keep runnin' away. Get back home safe." She wasn't entirely sure she could fight the timberwolf. She'd learned a lot of things over the last year, but had been overconfident before. What she was sure of was she could get the timberwolf focused on her and ignoring Cheese. She just had to get it mad at her, and then chasing her. She'd gotten away once, she could do it again… She hoped so, anyway.

She came to a skidding halt, and was relieved to see Cheese doing what he had been told. She wasn't sure if that was because he had listened or because he wasn't paying attention to anything but running, even her stopping. She then turned around, shoring up what bravery she could to face the timberwolf.

The sound came closer and closer, and as the timberwolf came bursting out of the bushes she let loose a full jet of fire from her horn straight into the timberwolf's face. This brought the timberwolf to a screeching halt, and it rapidly rubbed its face in the dirt to extinguish the flames. It only took a moment, and then it lifted it's green glowing gaze to her, looking murderous. 

She didn't wait for it to strike again, and sent another bout of flame towards it. This one didn't connect, and the timberwolf jumped to the side and made a move to try to pounce at her. She immediately sent out another flame jet at it, and the timberwolf dodged again. It didn't try to immediately pounce on her this time. Now it started to prowl back and forth in front of her, eyes fixed on her with pure hate. 

"Go away, get!" She shouted at the monster, still holding magic at the ready to unleash more flames. "Ya don't like fire. Ah don't know if ya are the same timberwolf from before, but ah'm way better at burnin' than ah was last time. Ah'll burn ya up! Ah mean it!"

The fire spell was one of the few things she'd learned from Sombra. He'd been considering using the spell to set Ponyville ablaze-- out of spite, but figured out that he wasn't strong enough to do it on the scale he wanted while in her body. However, she'd seen him thinking about how to do it. It had occurred to her right away how useful that kind of spell would have been when she had been chased by a timberwolf before. Using what she learned from him she'd learned how to improve her meager little magic blast and heat spells to a blast of straight flame. The timberwolf wasn't going to just shrug off her blast this time. This time she wasn't helpless. Her confidence was rising, since she had the timberwolf at bay, but she wasn't going to get too confident. What she needed to do was get it to just decide she was too much trouble, and it would just leave. She also needed it to give up before her magic reserves ran out. There was no way she could outrun it. 

The timberwolf took a step towards her and she blasted at it again, making it retreat back. It immediately went back to pacing back and forth, never taking its eyes off her. It was a battle to see which gave out first, its courage at having flames shot at it, or her ability to keep shooting them. She hoped it wasn't smart enough to figure that it could just wait for her to tire out.





Scootaloo may have been level-headed, and the continuation of a long line of brave adventurers, but Cheerilee and the ponies in the search party had come from a long line of ponies that understood one reaction to danger-- run.

Panic ensued when Flurry Heart was turned to stone, and there was nothing the near-flightless pegasus could do to bring it to a halt. Being turned to stone had proven in the past few decades to be something relatively easy to reverse (with the right experts available), but the threat of it still triggered the same time honored response of running for their lives. Cheerilee and the others just took off running, all in different directions, while Scootaloo tried in vain to restore order. In no time at all their party was scattered from one another in the woods.

Cheerilee ran for some time before she finally got ahold of herself, and reasoned that she had made a huge mistake in running away from where Scootaloo was. Having not paid attention to where she had been running, she now had no idea what direction the tree house or Ponyville was in. That left her as lost in the woods as the foals were; possibly more so, if Candy had any idea where she was going. Having Flurry Heart turned to stone had been bad enough, but now she lacked even the safety of numbers.

"Scootaloo! Petunia! Coral! Anypony! Is anycreature able to hear me?" She yelled out. She listened carefully, but only heard the sounds of birds chirping and small animals moving about in the foliage. 

She looked around her. It all looked the same as everything else in the forest. She could have been here before, or be somewhere entirely new. Nothing stood out as particularly familiar or unfamiliar to her. The old remains of the irrigation ditches were still visible, so she assumed she was still in the same region of the Everfree she had been in before. She bit her lip, looking around frantically, but was at a complete loss at what clues might tell her where to go.

The irrigation ditches were what she finally decided to follow. They may be long dry, but were meant to transport water, and therefore had to lead to some water source somewhere. There were streams that flowed out of the Everfree into Ponyville, if she could make her way to one of those she could follow it to safety. It might help her find the foals too. They had to be dealing with the same problem of everything looking the same, and something like a stream or river would be something they might try following in order to keep direction. 

After following the channels for several minutes she came to an abrupt halt when they ended at a cliff face. She looked upwards and wondered if the rain water used to drain over the cliff down to these ditches, or if she had just gone the complete opposite direction from where the inevitable water source was. Considering how sheer the cliff face was it seemed the second option was the more likely. Her time going in this direction was not a total waste. She vaguely remembered there being similar cliffs where the tree house was, and this cliff might well be part of those cliffs, just further away. If she followed along this that might very well lead her to the tree house, where all the rest of her party had to be trying to make their way. Better yet, this spot had a little more clearing from the tree canopy above,  and now that she could get a clear view of the sun she could judge her direction better. If she was judging where she roughly was correctly, then she just needed to follow the cliff going to her right to make her way back to the tree house. She smiled to herself. She wasn't completely out of her element in the great outdoors.

She started making her way along her chosen path, but after a few moments turned her head around. There was something making noise behind her. Her first fear was that some other monster of the Everfree was coming towards her, but as she watched something small and yellow was making its way rapidly towards her.

"Cheese?!" She called out, realizing who it was.

The small androgynous colt came to a skidding halt just a ponylength or two from her, digging a small furrow in the earth as he did so. He hadn't even been paying attention to what was in front of him, and had taken no notice of her until she called out. He stared at her with wide eyes. "Principal Cheerilee?!"

She hurried over to him and grabbed him into a hug. "I'm so glad you're safe! But where's Candy?"

The colt broke free of her grip and pointed back the way he came. "She's back that way. There was a timberwolf, and she told me to run while she fought it!"

"She what?!" She screamed in horror. There was no telling what knowledge Candy retained from her previous occupants, but there was no way a filly could fight a timberwolf on her own, even with their knowledge. "How far back is she? How long have you been running?"

Cheese's eyes glistened with tears. "I'm not sure."

What was she going to do? She couldn't fight a timberwolf either, but she couldn't do nothing. By the time she found somepony who could fight off a timberwolf it might be too late for Candy. And what was she supposed to do about Cheese if she ran to go to Candy's aid? She couldn't bring him running back towards danger. Telling him to continue along the cliff wasn't a good idea either, as she had no idea if there were further obstacles along that path yet. A decision needed to be made, and quickly.

She touched a hoof to the colt's shoulder and spoke urgently to him. "I need you to stay right here. I'll be back for you, with Candy." She hoped, anyway. "If you hear anypony calling out names, you yell back. If you can hear them then they'll be able hear you. You're going to be alright, and Candy is going to be alright. I'm going to go get her right now. Just sit tight."

"Okay, Principal Cheerilee," the colt whimpered.

She gave him a sympathetic look. "Just Cheerilee is fine. You and I are friends. Thank you for believing me while I was in Candy."

The colt's eyes widened as he registered what she just said. She had no time for further explanations though. She took off as fast as she could towards where Candy was supposed to be. She had no idea how she was going to help her, but if that filly was still alive she'd do whatever it took to make sure she stayed that way.