Quantum Leap: Xenophilia

by Sparky Brony

Chapter 6. Meeting More

“Sam, time to wake up.” Comes a voice, Sam vaguely recognizes it. He snuggles into the warmth, they were out until pretty late the previous night. The cart tracks had merged onto a road, and best guess had taken them to this small town on the other side of Canterlot from Ponyville.

“Sam!” Comes the voice again, exhaustion threatens to pull him back into the welcoming oblivion of sleep.

“Lero!” Comes a small voice with a lot of volume, “What are you doing with my sister?”

That gets Sam’s full attention, he cringes as he opens his eyes. The warmth he’s been snuggling into, happens to be an orange flank. He shifts his head away from the blonde tail and gets an eyeful of the cutie mark, three red apples. At his knees, he feels something shift, and he lifts his head off the pillow to see a head matching the flank in front of him pop up, big green eyes compliment the orange fur, along with three white patches that look like freckles on each side of the face. She looks at him, one furry eyebrow slowly rising as she looks at him, and he can feel the flank start to tense.

“Oh…boy.” He murmurs.

Applejack chuckles, “Ah must’v been more tired than I thought Mr. Handy.” She looks over Sam’s shoulder, “Apple Bloom, what have I told ya ‘bout burstin in on the aydults.”

Sam jerks and looks behind him. A soft yellow pony is standing there, with a red mane and an impossible pink bow tied on the back of her mane, she looks at Applejack, “Ya sure there, sis?” She squints at Sam, making his insides wiggle a little. He has no doubt this pint sized pony can make his life miserable.

Applejack chuckles, “Ahm sure, sis. Now go wake Pinkie and Rarity up, k?”

She turns and scampers from the room. And after a few moments, Applejack clears her throat.

Sam jumps, and scoots out of the bed, “Ah…Sorry.” He says, scrubbing his hand through his hair.

She levers herself out of the bed, and hops to the floor, “Now, I reckon there’s a reason you aren’t sleeping with yer herd mates? I took my time walking in last night, and in the dark, I guess ya was Pinkie Pie, and just thought ah was snuggling up with her.”

Sam stumbles a bit, the physical intimacy of these ponies was more than he had ever been used to. At first, Rainbow Dash and Lyra had snuggled in with him in the bed. But after a while, he felt so uncomfortable with them, knowing that he wasn’t their Lero, he woke Rainbow up enough to say he’d sleep in one of the other rooms they had gotten. She had agreed, probably because he isn’t their Lero. But of course, he isn’t going to say all of that to a pony that’s not a member of their herd. So, he ends up fluttering his hands around.

“Oh, Lero, I had wondered where you went off to last night.” Comes another voice, Sam suppresses a groan and looks back at the mint green unicorn, Lyra comes up and hugs him tightly, “I know what happened last night,” She whispers into his ear, “Thank you for being so nice, Sam.”

She gets back on all fours and hugs Applejack, “Thank you for coming so quickly. We need to find Twilight, and we are starting early this morning. Seeya downstairs.”

Applejack smiles and follows the unicorn out the door. Sam is momentarily alone, except for Al, who is standing there, his face showing he’s trying not to laugh.

“Oh, go ahead, laugh it up.” Sam growls, to which Admiral Calavicci folds in laughter.

After a moment, he stands up, though waves of mirth still are passing through, he finally gets control of his voice, “When I came in this morning, I saw you sleeping with her, your arms around her…”

Sam rolls his eyes and walks a bit towards the door, “I know, Al. I know.”

“Did you know you were very nearly in the perfect position to…”

Sam cuts him off, “I’m quite aware of where my face was, Al. Did you find anything?”

Al looks at his comlink, “Ziggy is getting closer to compiling all the information that Discord tossed in her systems. She said I’ll be the first to know when she’s done.”

Sam sighs, getting that information may be key, but they won’t know until Ziggy is done, and trying to rush her would be a mistake. His swiss cheese memories don’t affect that bit of knowledge, Sam opens the door once again, “Come on, I guess we had better meet the rest of the ponies that Princess Celestia said could help with this search.”

A quick walk down the hall and down a wide flight of stairs has Sam in a large common room. Breakfast smells are wafting from the kitchen at the end of the room, and several ponies are sitting and eating.

A loud gasp interrupts everything. Sam gapes as a very pink pony with wild hot pink hair and bright blue eyes continues to gasp an impossibly long time.

The pony starts to talk, but it takes a moment for Sam to catch up as she’s speaking about four times faster than anypony else, “Oh My Celestia! Princess Celestia said that things were weird, but you aren’t Lero, and you are a new human, and I love your jacket, it’s shiny, and why are you standing in the middle of the table? Are you a hologram? Can anypony else see you?” She stops as blue magic engulfs her muzzle.

Al looks down, and indeed, he is standing inside a table, looking like his lower half is underneath and his top half is sitting on the table itself. He looks at Sam sheepishly as a white pony with a bright indigo mane speaks, “Oh, dear Celestia Pinkie Pie, I don’t think anypony here has had coffee yet, we aren’t ready for that yet.”

The magic fades and Pinkie Pie bounces from her seat and lands on the table, “So, nopony else can see you! That’s so cool. And what is all of this?” She pogo hops around and then she stops, “Oh, what’s this?” She sticks her head forward, and half of her face disappears.

“Uh, Sam. She’s looking into the waiting room.” Al says softly.

Sam moves forward to grab the pink pony, but she pulls her head out of the nothingness of the door to the waiting room and pogo bounces towards Sam, “So, who are you, who’s your shiny friend, and why doesn’t anypony else know why Lero is stuck in that hidden room over there?”

Rainbow Dash steps forward, “Pinkie Pie. I know who that is. His name is Dr. Sam Beckett.” And over the next half hour, she explains what is going on, including Discord’s interference in what is going on.

Finally Applejack steps forward, “Ah really don know ‘bout all this. Time travelers, and holograms and waiting rooms. But if’n Mr. Handy is stuck back at yer Quantum Leap place. And to get him back we have to find Twilight. Then let’s get going.” The other ponies nod in agreement.

They spend hours searching the town. Rarity has the idea to interview the residents, and she gets busy with that. Sam stays with Rainbow Dash and Lyra as Al uses what information he can to pop from one place to another.

Finally Al stands still, working his comlink, he looks at Sam, “Ziggy is able to search now.” He smiles as he continues working his comlink, “Okay, the odds of her being in this town is very low.” He taps a few times, “Ziggy’s checked out two weeks, now a month. Her body has not shown up. So it’s likely she’s still alive.”

Sam smiles, “Okay, how far ahead can you look?”

He hits the side of his comlink, and reads the display. Then Al visibly pales, “We need to get to a place called Griffinstone.”

Sam can see the next words are hurting Al to say, Al gulps, “Her body is found, in Griffinstone, nearly six months from now.” Tears start to form, “This sparks off a war…and Equestria may win the war, but the casualities.” He shakes his head, “Will be catastrophic, among the element bearers, Rarity and Applejack will not make it. The same for poor Spike.”

Sam looks at Lyra and Rainbow Dash, who have been watching him converse with the air. Rainbow chimes up, “What’s going on, Sam?”

Sam looks at Rainbow Dash, “We need to get to Griffinstone, as soon as we can."

Comments

[Shooting Star1234]

I can not believe my eyes you update the story.

[Sparky Brony]

7309678 The story will be completed.

[TheTownCrier]

x1000

[L0rd0f7hund3r]

Dun dun duhn!

[harts fire]

ok first the chapters are wwwwaaaayyyyy to short. you need to clear the righters block out.
just kidding good work team.
I hade to go back and start with the first chapter.

[Sun Sage]

And this just vindicates my practice of tracking even long silent, unfinished fics. Really great to see an update on what is such a promising start. While I feel like Rainbow is a bit too emotional here... eh, then again, she bawled over Tank hibernating.... okay retracted, heh... Anyway this is a fascinating crossover. Discord should do something about Sam though... seriously the way the show ended was such a downer. Speaking of downers on Earth, I wonder if Lero can set up like a Back to the Future type letter situation: "deliver this to my family after I disappear, so they know I'll be okay."

Looking forward to more to come, thanks for continuing this!

[Sparky Brony]

7345545 Swiss cheeze memories. No guarantee he would remember that event. Though I would likely do something similar.