Quantum Vault

by WishyWish

Prologue 2 - Thicker Than Water

October 22, 2039

Canterlot

Saturday

For the next week, Twilight returned to cell #8472 every morning. She spent most of the time having pleasant conversations with the walls, but on one particular morning, Quantum Trots did something unexpected. She raised her head and spoke.

“Princess Twilight…” she wheezed, her vocal cords dry from disuse.

“Yes?” Twilight answered hopefully. “Are you okay? Are you thirsty?”

“…you’re still coming here.”

Twilight smiled again, as brightly and warmly as the rising sun. “I’m not going to give up on you, Cutie. You’ll understand one day.” She continued before Quantum could reply, “I don’t care what you say – what happened wasn’t your fault. Your true friends…they know that.”

Quantum turned around. The bluish-purple hue her eyerims had taken on made it obvious she’d been crying. “There’s something I want.”

Twilight brightened a bit, hopeful. “Yes? If it’s something I can give.”

Quantum’s expression remained as if hewn from stone. “If I asked for my tools, would you give them to me?”

Twilight said nothing.

“If I asked for my workshop, would you give that to me?”

Still no reply.

“If I asked to complete the last project I was working on, would you let me do that?”

“…”

Quantum sighed helplessly. “I want to see my mother. Can I at least have that much?”

Twilight hesitated; searching for the right thing to say. “That…might not be the best thing for you, Cutie. I mean, your mother, she…well, that is…she…” The princess trailed off when she noticed a single tear tracing its way down the young mare’s cheek.

“Princess Twilight,” Quantum managed through a shaky voice, “…please? Nothing bad will happen, I promise. I can’t use any magic, and you can have guards there, right? Besides, you’re a lot more powerful than I am. If something did happen there’s no way I could do anything you don’t want me to do.”

Twilight’s expression soured. “Cutie, I didn’t want you to do the things you’ve already done. You still did them.”

Quantum bowed low head and prostrated herself, touching her horn to the ground. “Only because I had my machines. Magic has never been my thing. Your Highness, please…I miss my mother. You have my word I won’t try to escape.”

A breeze wafted in from the single high window. Twilight sighed.

“I want to believe that Cutie, but where your mother is concerned, I’m not sure I can.”

Quantum nearly gave her composure over to sobbing but her former mentor caught her in a web of sweet words before she could fall.

“But I understand what it must be like for mother and daughter. I’ll take you to her. One visit, okay?”

Quantum nodded with all the vigor of a three month old foal.

An hour later, the appointed time came. Quantum Trots found herself wandering down a corridor so dark, her appointed guards had to be unicorns just so they could light the path well enough to prevent tripping. Torches sat on sconces in the walls, but they did little to beat back the encroaching blackness. The maximum security ward seemed otherworldly – a great, black gaping maw in the belly of Equestria that nopony wanted to talk or think about. The cells she was escorted past were solid doors with only small barred portals in them, set higher than she could peer into even when craning her neck. Most of them were apparently empty, but every now and then a shiver ran down her back as she caught the sound of psychotic mumbling or a withered cry.

Prison contained criminals. This place contained evil.

Twilight was already standing outside a single door at the end of the hall. When the guards came to a halt, nopony paid any attention to the meek, worried glances from the scrawny prison-mare who was trying to look in every direction at once.

“Ten minutes,” Twilight ordered the guards with a commanding air Quantum wasn’t used to hearing. “They can be alone, but a guard is to be posted outside the door at all times.”

“Yes, princess!” The guards replied, saluting in unison with their words. Twilight turned to Quantum, her expression softening.

“Cutie, remember what I taught you about the magic of friendship, okay?” When Twilight noticed her charge shivering fearfully, she patted her on the flank. “It’s okay. I’ll come with you.”

Quantum brightened at this, emboldened enough to stride into the chamber when the heavy portal was opened.

The room wasn’t lit – only the torches from outside and Twilight’s horn provided a glow, which was just about enough to see by. There were no windows, and the room was even more dilapidated than Quantum’s own cell. There was a hole in the ground that presumably had the same use as the one they gave her, but no other furnishings other than a pile of empty burlap sacks in a corner. Atop these lay a middle-aged cyan blue mare. Flat on her back, she held her legs up in the air in the posture of a dead roach, and mumbled incoherently at the ceiling.

“Trixie,” Twilight announced, “Please get up. You have a visitor.”

The blue mare didn’t move. Babbling at the ceiling, she moved her legs as if she were trying to gallop upside-down. Quantum looked on the emaciated, ragged form of Trixie Lulamoon with a shock so piercing that she instantly understood why her faux-mentor had been reluctant to honor a request to see her. Her fire gone, Trixie’s eyes were faded to a pale purple fog. Her mane was matted with sweat, and her gauntness only served to augment the age lines under her eyes. Atop her head was the same rubber, sorcerous sheath that prevented Quantum from using her own inherent magic.

Quantum's anger flared. She was by her mother’s side in an instant.

“What is this!?” She demanded. “I know this is maximum security, but how could you not feed her!?”

Twilight sighed apologetically. “They do. She won’t eat.”

“She’s dirty!”

Twilight pointed at the sweet smelling bucket with a sponge in it that was waiting nearby. “There’s a drain in the floor. She never touches it. She never gets up from that spot, either.”

Quantum shot to her knees, gathered her delirious mother up and cradled her while fixing Twilight with a condemning stare. “What about her health!? She could be dying!”

Twilight accepted the rude look with a humility too well-developed for one of royal status. “She’s fine. Physically, anyway. The doctor just saw her yesterday. They…” she paused, deciding whether or not to go on and finally choosing to do so, “…they force nutrients into her, but Cutie…living isn’t just about eating and being clean. You have to want to live. Your mother…well…”

But Quantum wasn’t listening anymore. Huddled over Trixie’s limp form, she was making cooing noises and brushing silvery hair out of the elder unicorn’s face with the backs of her hooves. Twilight’s resolve cracked at the sight. She turned away, trotting out of the room while convincing herself that there were matters she needed to attend to.

“Mom…” Quantum cooed, “…mom? Can you hear me? Are you ok?” She gently rocked her mother, until Trixie’s eyes slowly began to come into focus.

“Mmmmnn…?” The older mare mumbled, “…who?”

Quantum offered the most reassuring smile she could manage. “It’s me, mom. Your daughter.”

Trixie waved a hoof in the air weakly, “Don’t be silly…the Great and Powerful Trixie has no offspring….now begone before I turn you into a purple parasprite or something.”

Quantum smiled uncertainly. The joke was nostalgic, but the disowning claim wasn’t. “Oh mom, come on...it’s me. Cutie, remember?” She gently laid Trixie back down and sat up beside her. “Mom, I’m worried about you. Why aren’t you eating?”

Trixie’s eyes rolled about the room randomly. Her jerky movements gave no indication as to whether she recognized her surroundings or her company. “Eating?” She suddenly clopped her hooves together, “Snips! Snails! Bring me the finest from Sweet Apple Acres and don’t spare the whip!”

Quantum raised an eyebrow. “Who? Mom, it’s just me here. Don’t you remember? Everything that happened?”

Trixie’s expression slackened, and her limbs sprawled to the pile of burlap beneath her. She remained like that for some time, tittering on in words her daughter couldn’t understand, until she finally started making sense again. Her eyes rolled over to Quantum.

“…my Cutie…?”

Quantum felt her cheeks draw back in a nigh-explosive smile. She pounced on top of her mother, wrapping her forelegs around her and lifting her light, bony frame up. “Yes mommy, it’s your Cutie! Aren’t you glad to see me? I missed you so much!”

Trixie focused her bleary eyes on her daughter, and finally sat up under her own power. She reached out and caressed the minty mare’s cheek. Quantum nearly melted under the simple touch. “Little markless Cutie, have you been crying? Tell mommy what’s the matter, hm? We’ll get it set right.”

Quantum grinned broadly at the very old nickname, her mind ripe with nostalgia for her foalhood. Encouraged, she went on. “I’m ok mom…but how are you? Are you sick? Hurt?”

Trixie’s hearth-warmed smile evaporated into a pouty frown. She stroked her daughter’s mane tenderly. “Oh no, mommy’s just fine, but…you see, mommy is missing something. Something very important. I know you never really understood magic all that well, poor dear, but can you help me find it?”

Quantum glanced around the empty room, confirming that it was, indeed, empty. She shrugged. “Sure mom, anything. What is it?”

Trixie got up and clopped about the room, smiling up at the ceiling. She paused before the bucket and took a deep whiff of it. “Aren’t the flowers on this trail just charming? And the sky is so blue!” She perked up, “Ah, of course! It must be in the cart! Won’t you be a dear and run and get it for me?”

Quantum blinked. Her smile faded. “Mom…” she began softly, standing up as well, “mom, there’s no cart. You took it out of the yard and tore it apart to patch the leaks in our roof back in Baltimare twelve years ago, remember?”

Trixie stared off into space, but quickly recovered herself. “Oh yes, of course! A simple bit of soothsaying for the Great and Powerful Trixie!” Shaking her head did nothing to fluff out her matted mane, but she proudly arched her neck anyway. “Isn’t mommy just fantastically skilled?”

“O-of course, mom…” Quantum edged slowly towards her mother, as if she were walking on a pane of glass. “So…what did you lose?”

Trixie’s neck snapped around. For an instant, Quantum found herself looking into a baleful anger emitting from her mother’s eyes. Before she could react to it, the motherly softness returned. “My amulet, of course.”

“Your…?”

“My amulet,” Trixie repeated, drawing a shape in the air with her hooves. “It’s about this big, cute little thing…been in the family for generations. It’s mine, you know.”

Quantum shook her head, trying to form a mental image from the vague description. When something did occur to her, she spoke. “You mean that…that thing you were wearing when you came to Canterlot three weeks ago?”

“Yes!” Trixie responded eagerly. “My amulet! So you have seen it, dear?” She held out her hoof and smiled coyly, “Ohh, I know what this is – my little markless Cutie is playing keep away!”

“Mom, I’m twenty-five years—”

“Oh you’re just so clever, aren’t you?” Trixie waggled the hoof expectantly, giggling, “Fun’s fun my darling child, but mommy needs her amulet back now, ok? Just give it here and go wash your hooves up for dinner! I’m making barley stew tonight, your favorite!”

Quantum sat on her hind legs and made a show of holding up her hooves. “I don’t have any amulet, mom.” Dismayed, she went back down on all fours and cast her mother a longing glance. “Mom, don’t you remember what happened? What you did?”

Trixie folded her forelegs smartly and grinned a sheepish grin. “Silly filly, of course I do. I got my revenge on the whole world.”

“What…?” The minty mare felt a shiver at the sudden bizarre statement, and took a step away from her mother. “Revenge?”

“Of course dear!” Trixie continued as if she were talking about obtaining turnips for a special stew. “What’s wrong with that? I made everypony pay for twenty-six years of torture! The Great and Powerful Trixie commands nothing less from her subjects!”

Quantum found herself counting in her head, trying to make sense of her mother’s words. “Twenty-six…torture? Mom, you…you leveled half the city. You hurt ponies. You did things the mother I know would never do. I get that you were upset about something, but what in Equestria could cause somepony as loving and nurturing as you to—”

“That pony isn’t real,” Trixie cut in, her eyes narrowing. With a sultry canter, she moved over to her daughter. Never taking her eyes away from the minty mare, Trixie came up beside her and cupped her chin, turning her head until they were eye-to-eye. “The Great and Powerful Trixie,” she whispered, “only loves her little Cutie. Everypony else can go to Hell. Where they all belong.”

Quantum sputtered, too shocked to move away. “Mom…? What…what are you saying…?”

Trixie drew her lips up close to her daughter’s ear. “Poor little markless Cutie. You were always such an absent-minded professor. Why do you think we lived out of a cart the first six years of your life? Why did we end up staying in that dirty, disgusting, slummy hole on that horrid side street for more than twice as long afterwards? All mommy wanted at first was to show up that rotten little egotist, Twilight Sparkle. But mommy’s best friend – mommy’s amulet had a different idea. A better idea. But then those awful nags took him away from me.”

Trixie emitted a razor-edged giggle and continued. “But twenty-six years later…twenty-six years of depression, despondence, desperation, and humiliation later, my amulet found me. He belongs to me. I bought him fair and square, and he found his way back to me. He and I both knew by then that Twilight Sparkle wasn’t enough. They all wronged me this time, and they all needed to know who they were dealing with. He helped me remind them.”

Quantum felt as though her hooves were nailed to the dank floor. The warmth behind her mother’s once nurturing touch felt far away; tempered by an iciness that never existed before. “That thing you were wearing was glowing….mom, this isn’t like you. That thing must have done something to you.”

“The Alicorn Amulet is mine to command, not the other way around!” Trixie snapped. Just as quickly as the impulse arose, it vanished again, and Trixie slipped back into a syrupy sweet demeanor. “My dear Cutie, I realize you don’t fully understand. It’s a lot to take in for a cute little filly, and…well..” she looked almost apologetic, “…I never wanted you to be involved. But it’s too late for that now.” Playfully she nuzzled her daughter’s cheek, “So you’ll help mommy, won’t you?”

Quantum swallowed. “Help mommy do what?”

“Get my amulet back, of course.”

Quantum’s blood ran cold. “I…I can’t do that.”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed. Her smile curled. “Oh? And why not, dear?” Practically slithering around her offspring, Trixie cooed and curled, lowering her scared, lonely daughter down onto the burlap sacks. Quantum’s head in her lap, Trixie stroked her mane and gazed up at the nonexistent stars. “Remember how we used to look up at them together from the cart, dear? How I taught you their names, and how we shared all our hopes and dreams together?”

Quantum sighed deeply, her thoughts colored in sepia. For a moment, despite all that had happened, she drifted back to simpler times, reveling in the caress of the one pony that had always been there for her, in good times and in bad. “Yeah…I miss it sometimes…”

“Oh, me too dear. All the time.” Trixie cooed. “Tell me what you remember.”

Long over their ten-minute limit, Quantum went on, her voice laden with a thick nostalgia that softened the hearts of even the guards. She regaled her giggling mother with stories of two ponies versus the world, and hard times the younger of them never realized were hard, thanks to the elder. When she was finished, she lay still, thinking she too could almost see the starry sky beyond the grimy ceiling of the maximum security cell.

“You see?” Trixie chuckled, “It’s always been you and mommy hasn’t it? Even now.”

Quantum’s smile faded. Reality came back.

“You’re such a darling child,” Trixie warbled, nuzzling her daughter cozily. “When mommy came to you for help, you helped her. Helped her make the bad ponies pay. Mommy was so good to you, you can’t ever say no to mommy, can you?”

Quantum squirmed uncomfortably. She thought about what she’d done at her mother’s behest, while feeling the soothing warmth of the elder unicorn’s familiar body heat pooled all around her. Her voice became small.

“…no mommy.”

“That’s a dear. Mommy wants you to help her get her amulet back. You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”

“I…I can’t, mommy.”

There was a pause before Trixie spoke again.

“…why? Don’t you love mommy anymore?”

At that, Quantum bolted upright and fixed her mother with a mortified stare. “It’s not that mom! Of course I love you! I can’t get your amulet back because it’s gone, remember? The Elements of Harmony destroyed it. The explosion leveled seven city blocks. Ponies got hurt. Your amulet hurt them.” She sputtered, “Why do you even want such an awful thing that hurts ponies like that!?”

Abruptly, Trixie Lulamoon became somepony else. Somepony that her daughter, who thought she knew her better than anyone, had never seen before. Somepony who had been hiding under the surface, seething and waiting for decades to come crawling out. Her empty eyes filled up with the fire of life that her daughter was used to seeing, but they kept boiling until they were nearly the color of blood. Her brow hardened and she leapt to her hooves with a feral growl.

“Don’t you talk about my amulet that way, young lady!” Trixie roared. “He was a better child to me than you ever were! If any ponies were harmed, it’s your fault! Everything is your fault! If it hadn’t been for you, The Great and Powerful Trixie would have had her cake and eaten it too years ago, and none of this would have been necessary! You stupid little filly – how can anypony be so daft as to just smile and nod every day of their life, and not understand the pain of their loved ones, nor even try!? I made you, mare; you owe me for every sickly sweet day of your life, and every moment you got to spend following your idiot science dream! The Great and Powerful Trixie’s daughter should be great and powerful too, but you? You’re a pathetic excuse for a magician, and all you have to show for yourself is geekdom and stupid machines!”

Quantum gaped, whimpering like a foal. “M-mommy…?”

“Don’t ‘mommy’ me!” Trixie went on, her eyes wet; venom and scorching lava spewing from her in torrents. “I was poised for true greatness this time! True power! But you screwed it all up, and now my amulet – my friend is gone! I worked for you – slaved to put food in your face, a blanket over you, and a school for you to go to! And you stole my dream! You want to know who your father was? How in Equestria should I know!? He was probably one of the dozens of stallions who gave me enough money to stay alive before you came along! And in Baltimare, did you really think there were that many odd jobs just waiting around to be taken? They took everything from me, even my purity! And it’s all because of you!”

Quantum Trots, who had dropped the surname ‘Lulamoon’ when she entered school simply because it was too long to write in the application blank, could no longer see for the tears. “M-mommy…” she sputtered, “please…I’m sorry…I love you…don’t be like this…I really didn’t know…”

Rage burrowing up from every pore, Trixie leapt towards her child – only to be pulled down by a guard. The burly stallion was considerably taller and stronger looking than his captive, but adrenaline can be a powerful tool. It took both guards to finally pin the boiling mad blue mare to the ground.

The cell door hung open. Quantum didn’t hesitate.

Alarms and cries of escape rang in her ears, but she didn’t care. Belonging in prison didn’t matter anymore. Belonging anywhere didn’t matter anymore. Her own mother – her only family, had ripped her still beating heart from her chest and gnawed it ruthlessly to tattered shreds. Galloping full tilt, she whisked past the unprepared guard station and bowled over a warden on her way to the streets above.

Afternoon settled grimly over the city of Canterlot. The palace still stood as a bastion of hope, but much of the remaining residential quarters of the city had been blasted to rubble. Work ponies glutted the streets, some hovering on floating platforms borne from new technology that had only just begun to see widespread use. The populace, to their credit, were going about its business as best they could manage. Quantum only had a moment to look upon a small family wearing black, huddled before a photo and a ruined home, before somepony noticed her and cried out.

Bellowing cruel litanies, the crowd was nipping at her heels in an instant. Pushing her legs further than they were ever meant to go, she tore down the street and ducked into familiar alleys that once held campus housing – zigging, zagging, and praying that the next turn wouldn’t take her straight into the mob. When the shouting fell far enough behind, she turned sharply and dove past a set of dangling double doors that led to the science wing of the Canterlot Academy of Sciences.

Her hooves echoing past the empty lecture halls of the condemned complex, she came to an abrupt halt when she passed a room she knew so well, stopping there was practically automatic. A thought struck her, and she peered hesitantly within.

The laboratory didn’t look much different, but only because it was always a mess to begin with. Cabling, tools, and electronics mingled freely with crumbled debris from the walls and ceiling. A desk that had succumbed to the machinations of a statue from the art studio on the second floor lay in ruins, with notepads and books scattered all about. Quantum stood in the doorway. Moreso than the dorm, or even Baltimare…this place had been her home. She’d spent the majority of her waking hours for the past four years here, ignoring dorm parties, social gatherings, and anything else she wasn’t absolutely obliged to attend. Fitting, she thought, that she should find herself back again.

Salty tears still stinging her eyes, she walked into the room with a commanding gait. This was her abode, and it was the last place she could claim any semblance of control in her life. She passed by a heavy lever embedded in the floor, kicking it without pause. At once, a tall, cold device resembling a stand-up shower with innumerable circuit boards and cables attached to it began to glow with an artificial blue light. The dead quiet of the room was replaced by a gentle, soothing hum.

Caring for the pony who most cared for you in life, no matter who they were or what they did…maybe Princess Twilight Sparkle meant something different, but that was how Quantum Trots interpreted the ‘Magic of Friendship’. Quantum helped her mother destroy most of Canterlot, and despite how horrible it made her feel inside, she knew she’d do it again if her flesh and blood begged for her help. That couldn’t be allowed to happen.

Quantum stared at the device. With all the equipment attached to it, the amalgamated, steel-grey tube took up most of the room. It was her life’s work. Brushing off the dusty nameplate, she read the word she had engraved there. Accelerator.

In crude magic marker, that word was crossed out, and overtop of it was scribbled ‘Quantum Vault’.

“Tissy…” Quantum smiled. “I never wanted to call it that. But you and Hal insisted. Where are you right now, I wonder?” Thoughtfully, Quantum trotted over to the desk and sifted under it, coming up with a framed photograph in her teeth. She sat it down on the floor and eyed it. Three ponies were in the picture. One was Quantum, her cheeks inlaid with a grin so broad she wondered if it was real. The other was a deep wine-colored mare with a foofy, powdery blue mane, and the third was a burnt-orange Pegasus stallion with a turtleneck, a pocket protector, and a ‘cool guy’ grin.

“Dorks,” Quantum said affectionately to the photo. “I don’t know where you both are, but I know where you should be. You should be in that mob. It’s the right place to be.” Her eyes rolled back to the device, “But I bet you’re not. So all I have to do know is save everypony the trouble of dealing with me.”

Four years ago when she first began her studies at the Canterlot Academy of Sciences, Quantum Trots was told a story by none other than the Princess of Friendship, whom she found herself in the illustrious presence of for the first time. It was a story about a magic mirror that led to another reality, where ponies walked, talked, and lived their lives a different way. It wasn’t so much the place that Quantum found fascinating, as it was the idea that it was possible to reach other realities at all. At the time, she had been full of the zeal of a student without a problem to work on. Being neither royal nor important she gave up hope of ever actually seeing the fabled mirror early on, but that didn’t matter. The seed was already planted in her mind. Four years later, the ‘Quantum Vault Accelerator’ was nearing its first test run. That was just before Quantum’s world went straight to Hell.

Quantum ran her hoof along the metal skin of the purring giant before her, musing aloud. “The rules at C.A.S. say you have to work towards the betterment of ponykind. Being able to share our experiences with other worlds must have been the right idea, or they never would have funded this project,” Quantum said to the machine. “And you would never have been born.”

As if in response, a shrill chime rang out from a control panel on the device. Quantum approached the Accelerator and touched it almost lovingly, shutting the sound down. “Shhh….” She cooed, “I know. And I’m sorry. If you see the princess again, or…or anypony…can you tell them that for me?”

A sheet of blue-white fire rose from the pit of the metallic beast, waiting patiently. With a grunt, Quantum Trots Lulamoon, her glasses blurry from tears and her worn out soul slung over her shoulder, launched herself directly into it.

The empty room hummed peacefully.

Comments

[Frission]

*keeps reading*

[Xaxu-Slyph]

Just something I noticed is that Trixie says Hell(same goes for later chapters), but the canon of the show is that they have Tartarus(Basically the same thing in Greek (?) Mythology). Examples of this are the Three_Headed_Dog (Cerberus), and Lord Tirek was imprisoned there, and I believe they mention it by name in those instances.(I wonder of that mean that the Elysian Fields are Canon?) Keep up the story! Jojo here is rooting for ya!

[Veo Skride]

Off to a good start. I am already hooked.

[DerpTape]

Ooh, Quantum broke her promise! At least it wasn't a Pinkie Promise, but where was Princess Twilight durring the Ruckus? Couldn't she have just TK grabbed Trixie and Quantum? I guess I will have to keep reading to find out.