//------------------------------// // 7.1 - Twinklehooves // Story: Quantum Vault // by WishyWish //------------------------------// May 15, 2030 Stability Wednesday Quantum felt sure that this time, she could hold in the nausea of spacetime teleportation. She might have even succeeded, had it not been for the heavy object that slammed into her muzzle the moment she reappeared. Disoriented by shifting lights and colors that her senses hadn’t yet caught up with, she lost her balance, toppled onto her back, and proceeded to lose the acidic contents of her empty stomach all over herself, just as hard ground came up to roughly meet her spine. She sputtered, trying not to choke on her own bile and pawed helplessly at her muzzle, wondering if the pain was sufficient to constitute a complete crushing of her septum. “Aw, what?” A voice called out, “Gross!” “Dude!” Another voice cried, “Twinklehooves barfed!” “Sick!” Shouted a third. Still overwhelmed by pain and sensory deprivation, Quantum could only roll on her side and whimper under the chorus of mocking laughter that seemed to assail her from all sides. A shrill whistle pierced the air, followed immediately by a husky, masculine voice. “Alright, break it up! What happened here?” “Twinklehooves barfed,” Yet another voice replied. Quantum felt as though she had just galloped straight into a tree at full speed, and she couldn’t be sure the whistling noise hadn’t been her own ears ringing. She cracked her eyelids and tried to bring the world into focus. Her vision was almost entirely blocked by a spherical object…a ball? Before she could examine it, a magical glow enveloped the object and hauled it out of her line of sight. The gruff voice spoke again. “What did I say about aiming for the face!? This is dodgeball, not a damn video game or whatever you colts are into these days! Who did this?” There was silence. Quantum heard the object, which she now assumed to be a ball, bounce away. “Fine. Then you’re all sitting out the rest of class. Game’s over. Somepony gimmie a hoof over here.” There was a collective groan from the rest of the voices, all of which sounded to be in various stages of late pubescence. Quantum sought for purchase on the smooth floor as girthy forelegs locked under her shoulders hauled her roughly up. She came muzzle to muzzle with a grizzly, peach colored unicorn stallion with a backwards baseball cap on who smelled like cheap deodorant. The unicorn lit his horn, and Quantum felt her eyelids being raised and lowered one by one as the stallion peered at her. “You still with me?” Quantum nodded dully. “Right in the kisser,” The stallion observed. “Let’s get you to the nurse’s office.” Quantum felt her upper body being returned to the ground, but she nearly swooned the moment she was back under her own weight. A lighter grasp caught her before the unicorn could – legs pulling her in another direction until she was leaning against something just as warm, but softer than the musculature of the gruff stallion. “I’ll take him,” A voice accompanied by the honeysuckle blast of juvenile perfume offered. The stallion raised an eyebrow and glanced at a watch strapped around his foreleg. “Eh, class isn’t over for another twenty minutes…” he reasoned, “…and I ain’t got any backup today…” his attention was back on Quantum. “Alright. I’ll let your coach know where you’re going. Thanks.” Quantum was obliged to move her legs lest she find herself flat on the floor again. Soon she was walking on three of them, the fourth wrapped around the withers of her benefactor. She squinted, trying to bring reality into focus. The large room she was in had a domed ceiling, with sunlight pouring through skylights. There were basketball nets, marked hardwood floors, and folding bleachers lining the walls. The gaggle of colts in white jerseys with red trim were smirking at her; making rude comments just barely loud enough to be heard about being led away by a filly. Some were downright scowling at her, as though it were entirely Quantum’s own fault that she had ended their merriment by hitting a ball too hard with her face. The strengthening honeysuckle fragrance mingled with the scent of fresh vomit in her nostrils. The minty mare glanced to her side and got a good look at the pony who had offered to help her off the court. She was a filly, and not much more than a teenager. Tall and willowy, Quantum was surprised to find this pony could support her so effortlessly - until she noticed the wiry ripples of an elegant, deceptive musculature under the filly’s feminine-cut jersey and her soft, coral pink coat. Her straight, golden harvest mane was tied back in a tight, utilitarian tail by a lavender scrunchie that only the young could get away with wearing in public. Noticing the look, the filly smiled as she pulled Quantum out into the hallway. “So, are you really hurt?” She grinned conspiratorially, “Or were you just trying to get out of Mister Bankshot’s class for the day? I’ll tell you one thing – with teachers around like him, I’m glad I wasn’t born a colt!” Quantum tried to follow the laughter as best she could when the filly leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He was in the guard, you know. Like a grunt sergeant or whatever they are. All full of duty and sacrifice and stuff. Everypony says he totally thinks this place is a bootcamp.” Quantum squinted under the blinding fluorescent lighting from above. “…electric lights…” she muttered. For electric lighting to be in such widespread use as to be in a public school setting (which by now she reasoned this was), it had to mean she couldn’t be any further than a decade or two in the past. Unless she was in the future. “What?” The filly looked up, squinted as well, and then stuck out her tongue playfully. “Oh ha ha. Making me stare up at the lights like that! You don’t give up, do you? Even after a ball in the face!” More sights and sounds came into focus. Quantum became aware that her jersey had a cut to it that matched those the colts were wearing. Her breath smelled horrible, and she instinctively turned away to spare herself the embarrassment. When had she eaten last? Was there even anything in her stomach to come up? Hesitant to use her magic until she knew whether or not she even was a unicorn, she shut her eyes tightly and tried to will the pain in her muzzle to go away, rather than stop to rub it with a hoof. “Uh, thanks…” she managed, trying to keep from saying or doing anything that might undermine the personality of…whomever she was. “…for the helping hoof.” Her methodical mind cried for answers, but she knew she had to play the game. The coral-pink filly scrunched her muzzle with annoyance. “Well it’s not like any of your classmates were gonna volunteer. Jerks.” She blew a wayward strand of spun gold out of her face, “Fillies are evil. But so are colts. The only difference is that you guys beat each other up and ask questions later. We just hate you forever until we forget why we hated you in the first place.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Neither way is really any good, is it.” The statement wasn’t posed as a question, so Quantum just nodded along as the filly tugged her down a different hallway and continued. “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” The filly shrugged her shoulders in resignation, “I get the whole ‘physical education’ thing. They want to make sure we’re making healthy life choices. Exercise for the brain and the body. And that’s fine, but for some of us...like you and me-” She was grinning again, “We already know all that, and we already do stuff about it. Making you play dodgeball and hoofball and all that with those punks that are just seeing it as a way to hurt somepony and get away with it just isn’t even fair.” “We, uh, ah—” Quantum faltered, “We do?” “Of course we do!” The filly declared. “And they totally know it, too! A little culture, that’s what they need. Why I bet if you—” The movement of both the filly’s legs and her lips was abruptly halted by the presence of the looming door labeled ‘infirmary’, which broke up the endless line of lockers like mange on a dog’s back. “Oh. Here we are.” She said nonchalantly. Pushing the door open, she brought Quantum into the type of room that the minty mare was expecting to see. A small, cluttered space, filled with elementary electronics and diagnostic gear consistent with a high school nurse’s office was bathed in the light of the afternoon by a spray of windows in need of cleaning on the outside. Quantum noticed several bulging filing cabinets and a desk stacked with enough papers to ensure she was indeed in the past – far enough back that the practice of physical record keeping was apparently still in wide use. Two diagnostic beds separated by curtains were built into one wall like an afterthought, while a single, hard examination table waited in the center of the room to send a chill though whatever unsuspecting pony was ordered to brave it. There was a rolling stool as well – upon it sat a wrinkled, overweight, mauve earth mare in a white coat, with spectacles and the headgear of a nurse. The mare didn’t even bother to greet them before gesturing to the examination table. The filly leading Quantum, who was like a golden dandelion in a sea of crabgrass now, led her right to the table and answered the unasked question on Quantum’s behalf. “He took a ball to the muzzle in gym class.” The nurse sized up her two visitors with an uncomfortable gaze, then nodded, apparently satisfied that their garb matched their story. The moment Quantum’s rump came in contact with the chilly aluminum of the examination table, the nurse grabbed her under the chin and forced her to stare straight ahead. Quantum could see nothing but the mare’s sagging cheeks until the nurse backed up a bit, held one hoof up and moved it around, obliging Quantum to follow along with her eyes. Side to side, up and down…until the repetitiveness became maddening. “Who rules Equestria?” The nurse fired off. Quantum blinked, thrown off by the strange question. She glanced at the unknown filly and received a look that suggested the answer was obvious, so she replied – “Princess Celestia?” The nurse stopped the infuriating movements of her hoof. “How many hooves am I holding up?” “One,” Quantum replied smartly, getting the idea now. Foolishly easy questions designed to see if she was disoriented or was suffering from any head trauma. “Name?” The nurse squawked. Quantum froze. “Name?” Came the question again, with far less patience this time. “I uh…your name?” Quantum stalled. The nurse frowned. “Your name. Now, please.” Quantum felt as though a boiling pot of tea had been poured all over her stomach. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two other ponies in the room. Her brain was on alert now, but all her higher reasoning was useless without anything to go on. All she knew so far was her host’s gender. She didn’t even know tribe he belonged to yet. The nurse sat back, folding her forelegs, her brow creasing like wadded up tissue paper. “You’re not leaving this room until you tell me your name, how old you are, and what grade you’re in, Mister. And if I find out I sent you to the hospital just so you could blow off gym class—” But Quantum wasn’t listening anymore. Just beyond the gruff practitioner’s meaty shoulder was a small vanity mirror stuck to a bulletin board. She had to squint, but Quantum could just about make out her features. She was clearly a colt, with a burnt-orange coat, a soot-black mane, wings folded at her sides, and… “…Hal…?” “Name!!” The nurse thundered. Quantum blurted out the thought that was roaring through her mind like a train to the Crystal Empire. “H-Halifax….Calavanner.” The nurse stood by expectantly. Quantum absorbed today’s date from a wall calendar and did the math quickly in her head. “…sixteen. Sophomore.” The nurse finally nodded. “I don’t have time for horseplay other than what you’re supposed to be going in class, Mister Calavanner. You’re fine. You just got a bump on the nose. Here-” The nurse hoofed over a slip of paper. Quantum, feeling as disoriented as when she had first arrived, almost took it with her magic. Instead, she pathetically gripped it in her teeth. “Pass for the rest of the day,” The nurse explained. “Go straight home and rest. Be back here on time in the morning. If you’re still feeling strange by dinner time, tell your parents to take you to the doctor.” Quantum found herself back in the hallway again, staring dumbly at the row of lockers on the opposite wall without realizing how she got there. A coral pink hoof waved lazily in front of her face. “Hey, Hal. You in there?” Quantum blinked three times, shook her head, and turned her hollow gaze to the filly without a name. Concern flooded the filly’s luscious amber eyes. “You look really out of it. Maybe you better do what she says and go home. I, uh…” the filly glanced expectantly at a clock on the wall, “I’d walk you home, but we’ve got a quiz in biology today and I really can’t skip it. Think you can handle yourself?” Quantum nodded dully. “Okay, well,” The filly turned hesitantly and began slowly trotting away. “I-if you need anything…you know?” With that, Quantum was alone in the corridor. She approached a locker and stared at her hazy reflection in the polished metal. She touched her cheek. Aside from the lack of frosted blonde tips in his mane, there was no mistaking it. Hal was staring back at her.