Quantum Vault

by WishyWish

5.8 - Common Pinkie Sense

July 19, 2015

Cave – Foothills due east of Ponyville

Sunday

More than any impulse he could remember feeling since this whole time and space business began, Hal wanted to leave.

He wanted to get out of the holo-imaging chamber that projected his image into Quantum’s relative position in spacetime, toss the control device into a corner, and beg Tissy to give him Brutus back so he could curl up in a crumbling corner of the C.A.S. science wing and try to feel better.

But he wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t do that. He had failed as an adviser to his dear friend, and thus remaining with her to the bitter end was not only his penance, but the very least he could do.

“What…day is it?’ Quantum croaked.

“Sunday.” Hal replied dryly, standing at the entrance to the unassuming little cave Tissy had found for them at the last minute, to make good their escape from Ponyville. He was thankful that the topographical maps of the area she had most likely called up hadn’t changed much in twenty-four years. The cave wasn’t much more than a scrap dug out of the base of the foothills – easily missed.

Four days ago, the troupe had launched their master plan, and they had succeeded in evacuating a book from the lair of a mad alicorn who thought of every single tome as her own child. Three days ago, they had engineered their cunning escape from Ponyville and managed to befuddle no less than three princesses as to their whereabouts, until said royalty gave up and went home.

Since then, they had done nothing but rot.

Hal tapped his device a few times and glanced at the readouts merely out of habit. Not long ago he had been refreshing the data like a madhorse, desperate for some update from Tissy. But now he knew there would be none. Neither she nor Princess Twilight had any idea how to translate the ancient tongue the yellow book was written in, and though they were both still diligently working at it, Hal’s hopes were about as docked as the tail of a prizefighter. And just as bruised.

Spike, carrying a small bucket of water from a spring below, walked right through the holographic pegasus and into the cave. “Hey…” he said softly, trying to keep his chin up as he took a ladle to the water. “I got you guys something to drink.”

Hal turned around…and instantly regretted it. Tissy had been right about the accelerated progress of the disease. Derpy, bless her, was still smiling as she sipped from the offered ladle – but she no longer had any legs. Her shoulders and hips simply bled into Quantum’s; the equally swirling coat colors there suggested that either of them could use the same four limbs freely now. Derpy’s belly and Quantum’s back were now a single, mottled mass that rose and fell with their mutual breathing and pulsed with their shared heartbeats. Hal didn’t need to consult with Tissy to understand enough of their internal organs had fused that they were now totally dependent upon one another. Still, so long as they were not completely joined, they were less a paint-splattered single pony and more an amorphous, oversized mass of fleshy fuzz. Mercifully, Derpy could still lift her chin off of Quantum’s head when she bent to drink the water.

Spike lowered the ladle to Quantum’s lips, but the minty mare refused to drink. She didn’t even bat an eyelid. Spike poked her lips with the ladle anyway.

“Doc, I know you’re not asleep. You need to drink something.”

“Give it to her,” Quantum scoffed without opening her eyes. “I’ll get it either way.”

Spike frowned and looked at Derpy, who mimicked his expression and lifted a shared hoof to stroke Quantum’s cheek. “C’mon Doc. We’re not dying, you know?”

“…we might as well be,” Quantum muttered and then clenched her teeth, whimpering against a wave of pain as another bit of her sinews warped and mutated into something new. Derpy chose to pant her way through the pain instead, but even her eyes were shut tightly for as long as it lasted.

Hal answered a question that wasn’t asked, “Tissy says…a couple hours at most. But by then you two won’t know what’s happening anymore, and if it’s any consolation, you won’t care.” Considering the harshness of his words, he backpeddled, “…I-I’m sorry…”

Quantum waved the apology off with one of her shared forelegs just as Derpy was trying to reach for an itch. The clumsy miscommunication of nerves caused the leg to bat Quantum’s glasses off her muzzle. To Spike, a random pair of eyeglasses had suddenly just…appeared, lying in the dirt. He approached them, curiously, and picked them up to inspect the reddish-brown frames.

“Huh? Where did these come from?”

“They’re hers,” Derpy took over the use of the foreleg to point at the unicorn beneath her. Spike raised a brow and gave the partially-gray pegasus a condescending look.

“Doc…doesn’t wear glasses, Derpy. And I dunno if the heat or the sick is getting to you, but he’s not a she.”

“Aww,” Derpy grinned and pointed at Doctor Hooves again, “I don’t mean him. I mean her. She wears glasses.”

“Cutie…” Hal cautioned, “…remember you can’t take those with you if they leave your body…”

“D-doesn’t…make any difference…” Quantum crowed, drawing everypony’s attention. “…I can’t s-see anyway…”

Hal knelt down and ran his device over Quantum’s head like a scanner, Derpy casually watching him. “You can’t see at all? Like blindness?”

Quantum offered a strained shake of her head. “...spots and stuff. Doesn’t matter cause we’re gonna die…”

There was nothing useful for any of them to say in response. Hal thought about it, and eventually waved his foreleg to get Derpy’s attention back.

“GLASS-ES—” he formed the words with exaggerated movements of his mouth and pretended to take the glasses from Spike. “Can – you – put – them – here – please?” He then gestured as if to slip the glasses into Quantum’s secure, interphased leg pouch. Derpy looked confused for a moment, then let out a sharp ‘ohhhh!’ noise and turned to Spike.

“Hey, lemme have those.”

Spike shrugged and handed the glasses over. “Uh, sure. Why?”

“Gonna put them away.”

Spike watched Derpy take the glasses in her teeth and lower them to her mutually-owned foreleg until they simply…vanished.

“I think she gets to keep them if they go in there,” Derpy said matter-of-factly, as if that were a clear explanation for what had just happened. Spike just stood there looking befuddled.

As Hal watched the little dragon ask Derpy about magic tricks, it occurred to him that there was only one reason he would bother to ensure Quantum never lost the only pair of glasses he could give her.

Because he hadn’t given up.

“Cutie,” Hal leaned in close, “Hey, Cutie. What did Spike bring with him again?”

Quantum did not respond. Wracked with pain, weight, and exhaustion, she only panted, blowing some lose dirt from the cave floor around with her snout.

“Spike,” Derpy conveyed Hal’s question in Quantum’s place, “What’d you bring with you?”

“Huh? O-oh—“ Spike walked back over to his satchel and began rummaging through it, tossing stuff into the dirt without a care. “Uhh, a couple beakers, this thing that looks like a slide rule, the book we can’t read…oh and this other book here—“ He examined the title and scrunched his nose. “Fundamental…yook-lid-ee-an Geometry?” He shrugged and tossed the book over his shoulder – it landed spine down, open to a random page. “I guess we can use that if we run out of sticks and it gets cold one night.”

Hal was thankful for the inexplicable mental connection between the two mares. Now he could at least communicate. All he needed was a plan. And those were in painfully short order.

A sudden rustling of tall, wild summer grasses outside brought everypony but the dazed Quantum to life. Spike grabbed his hoofball mitt. Despite shivering a little, he stood defiantly in front of his last remaining friends.

“Wh-whatever you are—“ he challenged, “I-I don’t care how many ponies it took to make you, but you’re not coming in here!”

Something was stalking under the grass like a cat. The moment a face popped up, Spike hurled his mitt at it. The thick glove bapped Shypie right between the eyes, eliciting a silly, tongue-lolling squeal from the inexhaustibly giddy pony.

“Oh, hey Shypie,” Spike greeted the diseased mare as casually as he did during Quantum’s failed attempt to snare her. “You don’t even care that I just hit you in the face with a hoofball mitt, do you.”

“Shypie!” Shypie declared, bouncing into the cave on perpetually rubber hooves. The painted mare wasted little time – soon she was hopping in circles around the two mares who were soon-to-be her new friend, making spitting noises and giggling. Derpy returned every gesture, giggling back despite the pain coursing through her body.

“You know, I think it’s her defense mechanism. Derpy’s I mean.” Hal spoke his observations aloud, just trying to keep to Quantum conscious. “Hard to give into pain when you’re smiling. It’s a powerful thing, when you think about it.”

“Thesquareofthehypotenuseofarighttriangleisequaltothesumofthesquaresoftheothertwosides!” Shypie barked.

Everypony and dragon alike gaped at Shypie, who was standing over the discarded, open book of Euclidean geometry.

“Did she just…” Hal could barely find his voice. “…was that the Pythagorean Theorem?”

“Shypie!” Shypie grinned. “Heebieee~~” She began to hop away. Hal leapt in front of her, waving for her to stop, but of course the very solid pony simply jumped right through him. Frustrated he turned to Derpy.

“Get – her – to – do – that – again!” He mouthed.

Derpy turned to Spike. “Hey. Get her to do that again.”

“Why?”

Derpy shrugged. “I dunno. Doc’s imaginary friend wants her to.”

“…riiiight,” Spike took a step back, sighed, and went to retrieve the book. If it made his poor friends happy, why not? He waved the book such that Shypie could see it. “Heeeeere FlutterPinkie! Nice book here for ya! Lots of fiber!”

Shypie took to panting again, and before Spike could plan his next move, the mare had him pinned to the cave floor and was bathing his face in her tongue.

“Pfft! H-hey stop!” Spike complained, “That tickles! And it’s weird!” Shypie was staring at the book, rattling off passages from it without missing a single face lick—

“Giventwopointsthereisastrightlinethatjoinsthem!”

“Astraightlinesegmentcanbeprolongedindefinitely!”

“Allrightanglesareequal! All right! Heebieee~~”

Hal was casually standing over the pinned dragon, observing Shypie’s expression as she read. “She has…no idea what she’s saying. I don’t even think she realizes she’s even ‘reading’. It’s a…programmed response.” Hal whipped out his device. “Tissy, help me out here…how is that possible?” The device beeped back at him, and he made a face. “Come on, that’s ridiculous. You can’t believe that would really work.” The device beeped again, insistently now. “Fine, fine, I’ll try it.”

Hal turned to get Derpy’s attention just as his ears caught the sound of Quantum stirring. He was by her side in a flash.

“Cutie, tell Spike to give Shypie the book.”

“Mwah…?” Quantum blobbered; pale as cauliflower. “What book? What’s going on?”

“Just do it!”

“Spiiiiike—” Quantum whined, “Give’r the book…”

Spike was just sitting up and recovering from being soaked by pony tongue. “Huh? I just did that!”

Derpy elaborated, “She means the other book. Her imaginary friend wants you to.”

“Of all the--!” Spike’s indignity flared, “Look, I’m all for being nice to you guys because you’re sick, but I just got trampled and turned into an ice cream cone, so unless there’s a really good reason for—”

“Spike!” Quantum shut her eyes tightly and cried out with annoyance, desperate to keep her cognizance cresting the wave of pain. “Just give her the book!!”

“Alright already, yeesh…” Spike went to his bag, pulled out the enigmatic yellow book, and tossed it nonchalantly at Shypie’s hooves. It too fell open. Shypie stared at it for a moment.

“Atreatiseonthelogicalpreparationofnaturalremediesforuncommonlyencounteredphenomenaofamaliciousnature.” Shypie grinned and nuzzled into Spike’s petting claw when he praised and scratched her behind the ear.

Quantum’s eyes popped open in response to the fires of hope being stoked inside her again; pulsing the adrenaline she needed just for consciousness through her veins. She and Hal stared at one another with even more disbelief than they had when Derpy had begun talking to the hologram.

“What’s is with this weird reality?” Quantum managed.

“Who cares!?” Hal let out a cheerful whoop. “This could be the answer we were looking for!”

Quantum forced her elation down and took the role of Devil’s Advocate. It was something she and Hal had gotten used to doing for one another in freshman year, when they’d first started building a rapport as lab partners. They’d both since found it to be a critically useful method to keep them from jumping to the first excited conclusion they came to and blowing up the lab.

“But she clearly has no idea what she’s even saying,” Quantum observed. “How do we know she’s actually reading the words in that book? I seriously doubt Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie ever came in contact with the civilization that wrote it. And even then—” She waved her foreleg at the panting puppymare, “She could just be remembering something from an old song or whatever.”

“Thisstepbystepguidewillenlightenthereaderastothesimplestandmosteffectivetechniquesforcombatinganumberoflesserknownbiologicalagents,” Shypie babbled, as though she were simply saying hello.

“Would you rather waste away until you go crazy with pain and turn into…into…” Hal faltered, “Derpy help me out here…”

“Doctor Hooves!” Derpy cried out gleefully. When Spike gave her a questioning look, she held out two shared hooves and touched them together. “Doctor Hooves and Derpy Hooves. Put em together and you get Doctor Hooves! Like Heartbond!”

Spike stuck out his tongue. “That’s no good. How about like…Docterpy or something? It kinda sounds like octopus, and there’s two of you, so two ponies have eight legs…but..” Spike seemed to be genuinely lost in thought over this, “…but you won’t have eight legs when it’s over, so maybe Derptor or something…that kinda sounds like an action figure I used to have though…”

“Derptor!” Shypie repeated, bouncing in circles. “Docterpy! Raaarrrrr!!”

“But Shypie has foalbrain!” Quantum growled at Hal, “Even if she can read at all, the idea that she can read that is just impossible!”

The infectious smile going around the room faded on Hal’s lips. His companion had a point. He took out his device and began booping out a message to Tissy. The reply took a full minute, but has his eyes scanned the screen, he came down with a case of the quivering giggles again.

“Pinkie sense.” He stated simply.

“What?”

“Pinkie sense!” Hal repeated. “Tissy says that Princess Twilight says that she’s studied the Elemental Keeper of Laughter, Pinkie Pie, in depth for decades. No matter how she’s ever tried to quantify or explain it, Pinkie apparently just has some unfathomable ability to…make things work. The princess calls it ‘Pinkie Sense’.” Hal read on, “…apparently Pinkie can predict the future with jerking sensations all over her body, fly using only her tail, and has on multiple occasions explained details about situations or thoughts and feelings of other ponies she couldn’t possibly have knowledge of!” He bapped the device with the back of his hoof, “That’s got to be what this is!”

Quantum looked exasperated, “That came directly from our Princess Twilight?”

“Straight from the pony’s mouth!” Hal beamed. He knelt beside Quantum as the latter shuddered with another spasm of pain. “Cutie…let’s try.”

Shypie had her face in the book again. She was ‘reading’ so quickly that she was nearly impossible to understand. Quantum gritted her teeth against the pain and tried in vain to push herself up. This time when Derpy helped out with her wings, Quantum felt an odd sensation. The wings were hers, too…spurs that felt as though they were jutting out from her shoulders. Common to a pegasus, but wholly unnatural for a scrawny young unicorn.

“We can do this,” Hal encouraged, “If we do it together. Spike can get the ingredients. Tissy can translate any strange terms we come across. Derpy can hold you up.”

Quantum felt her stomach rolling around inside her like a rubber ball. “H…hold me up for what…?”

Hal pointed at Shypie. “Somepony has to make what she’s reading understandable.” He held up his device, smiling ahead of the despair that was still licking at his fetlocks. “You didn’t think you were getting out of this, did you?” He asked playfully.

Through the night, they worked. Holographic pegasus, baby dragon, and four diseased mares alike burned every ember of the dragon camp fire that warmed them as they went about the excruciatingly slow and methodical task. Nearly spent of energy and held aloft by Derpy, Quantum pointed with the tip of her hoof to each word in the book, covering the rest of the page just to ensure Shypie only read one at a time. Spike went out with a torch into the countryside to fetch ingredients or mix things in the beakers with a stick, while at the same time assisting the others in the trial of keeping Shypie from sinking into boredom and hopping away. Hal kept an open line to the future and functioned as a living medical and biological encyclopedia, clarifying higher terms and concepts of chemistry that the two temporal engineers in the room were somewhat less adept with.

By dawn they were thoroughly exhausted…but they were staring at a small beaker of dreamsicle-orange and yellow liquid that swirled and flowed constantly, sparkling like glittery paint…even as it sat perfectly still near the memory of the dead campfire. The beaker next to it had only traces of the same fluid.

Quantum sat propped up against a wall. In her lap, cradled beneath forelegs that were her own again, were Spike and Derpy; both fast asleep and lightly snoring. She was studying them…stroking their heads, wondering how her mother felt back in the early days on the magic cart, where it was just the two of them. Mare and filly. Mother and daughter. Watching the stars.

“Bit for your thoughts?” Hal stifled the words through a yawn as he stretched in the morning sunlight.

“It was so…easy,” Quantum mused, not looking up. Her nerves were still worn from the constant assault of pain, but she was her own pony again. She looked up at Hal. “I don’t mean the work. But the formula, it was all just…local fauna mixed in the right portions. When you get right down to it anyway.”

Hal smiled. “Sometimes the simplest answer is the best.”

Quantum didn’t share the expression. “We were saved by ‘Pinkie sense’. What was I even sent here for?”

Hal had a cup of tea from the future hooked around his hoof, and he made no bones about draining it despite his company. “You really need to ask that? They couldn’t have done it without you.”

“It was a lot of dumb luck…” Quantum huffed. She looked down, only to find Hal’s other hoof in her chest.

“Stop selling yourself short. They had the courage, but you rallied them. You gave them hope. And because of you, Tissy says—” Hal drew back and fumbled to retrieve his device, “Forty-seven point three percent chance that Equestria will survive.”

Quantum looked up again. “Forty seven? That’s all?”

Hal nodded his head at Shypie, who was sleeping soundly as well. “Jumps another fifty points when you dump the antidote on her. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie can take it from there.”

“And everything will go back to the way it was?”

Hal slipped his device back in the pocket protector of his tweed turtleneck, that today resembled Quantum’s mane colors. “I don’t need Tissy for that and neither do you. Of course not. A lot of damage has been done here. Lots of ponies have probably been hurt…or worse. But as a culture, Cutie…this Equestria will survive. They’ll rebuild, and now our reality is safe from the effects of what could have been. And it’s thanks to you. Pat yourself on the back because I can’t do it for you.”

Quantum lounged for a time, just letting her passengers sleep on her. “Like an itch you know you can scratch,” she muttered, patting both their heads and not minding their weight. “These two…they’re something special. I never knew Spike at this age, and Derpy? I’d like to meet her someday...”

Hal knew Quantum meant to add ‘if I ever got home’ without having to hear it. “Tissy says she’s still alive and well in our timeline. I can get you some other data if you want.”

Quantum waved a hoof and smiled. “Nah. This world still needs our help. It isn’t right to keep it waiting.” With a certain gentleness, the minty mare sat each head down on a soft patch of dirt and left them to dream. “I’m gonna miss them.”

Hal only grunted in agreement. Floating unnecessarily out of Quantum’s way, he paused to regard her. Her softness. Her expression. So different from moment to moment. He wondered if she really had it in her to destroy the lives of so many innocents back home. Was it because she was too rough? Or because she was too soft?

How much of this vault had been for the ponies here...and how much of it had been for Quantum?

The minty mare, a stallion again this time around, ignored the good doctor’s lack of a horn and levitated the still-full beaker by the corpse of the fire. She trotted over to Shypie, thinking aloud as she went. “I was so busy trying to save this place that I forgot to really understand who I’m supposed to be right now. I hope that doesn’t count against me,” She chuckled.

Just as she was about to tip the beaker over and splatter Shypie with the antidote, two blue-green eyes snapped open and stared up at her. Quantum knelt, brushing her hoof over the wild poofiness of Shypie’s mane.

“This will make you all better,” She cooed, showing the beaker to the obfuscated mare.

Shypie seemed…different. Without a smile, she recoiled and sat up, her eyes shining with more green than Quantum was used to seeing. She was flexing her shoulder blades; trying to flap wings that weren’t there.

Quantum thought she understood. “It won’t hurt you,” She began again, “It will make you well again.”

The voice that emitted from Shypie was softer. More melodious – so much so that each reluctant word felt like a song unto itself as it hung in Quantum’s ears. “Not sick.”

Quantum looked confused. “Huh? Yes you are. You used to be two ponies, remember? Don’t you want to be yourself again?”

Shypie pointed at herself. “Shypie.”

“…Fluttershy,” Quantum prodded Shypie’s chest with a hoof gently. “Pinkie Pie. That’s who you are. If you drink this—”

“Shypie—“ Shypie cut her off, “…die.”

Quantum looked up at Hal, her ears drooping. “…what do I do now?”

Hal couldn’t meet the eyes of either mare. “I dunno. We never really considered that the disease was…making new ponies. I wonder if there are others who feel this way about what they’ve become, too.”

Quantum looked back at the worried Shypie, who no longer had a bounce in her hooves. “…is this even really a disease? Who are we to tell Shypie she can’t be Shypie anymore? Is this...right?” She swallowed

Quantum felt a tugging on the beaker. Looking up, she found Shypie’s hoof on it, a determined look in the conjoined mare’s eyes. “Make ponies better.”

Quantum nodded, not interrupting.

“Shypie…can’t make ponies better.”

Quantum shook her head.

“Fluttershy can. Pinkie Pie can.” Shypie stared at the beaker. “Nopony is laughing. Nopony is feeding the chickens.”

It was the highest level of reasoning either of the spacetime-displaced ponies had ever heard from Shypie.

“You don’t have to—”

In a flourish, Shypie ripped the beaker from Quantum’s magical aura and doused herself with it.

Blue-white flames from infinity consumed Quantum’s vision before she could even look for the white pony. She uttered a single, unheard word-

“…bye.”

Comments

[RTStephens]

Aw, that was so cute.

Those ponies in white sure are putting Quantum through the ringer. Perhaps she deserves it, perhaps not. It will be interesting to see just what this whole ordeal will do to change her.

Heh, leave it to abstract reasoning to cure complicated plagues. Though that makes me wonder what happened to Zecora in this jump. Seems like this problem would have been straight up her alley. Of course, that means Quantum wouldn't have been there, so that must mean something happened to Zecora that forced Quantum's involvement.

Now to speculate what Quantum will run into next. My brain is filled with STUFF and I love it!

[Everglue Horace]

While it is true you don't need understanding to __use__ what you learn effectively, understanding includes the benefit of making it easier to reformulate or improvise when mimicry fails miserably under less than ideal conditions. Also, I feel it's a crying shame that some really bad teachers adhere to the philosophy that 'it's better to let the student learn for themselves' when ultimately everyone learns for themselves regardless of their level of ignorance... I'd rather they present all of the information than hand you 3/5 so you'll only understand 1/4 of it unless you have a gift or talent for it. Not that this is necessarily related to language studies, after all many people can read another language and make all the appropriate sounds or mimic what they hear.

Even if she couldn't apply the information I'm curious as to how Shypie was able to translate polyglot into pwn, which I'm going to argue is the ancient and present language of my little pony lands (Equestria not withstanding). I'm assuming it's either an ancient Pegasus tongue or earth pony language, if it isn't lyrical in origin since ponies got'ta sing... also, good job setting up a red herring. I also have to question why they would read the introduction BEFORE the table of contents or Index. It's a wonder they didn't open the book somewhere in the middle and read something cryptic like "rockmuffinsaregoodponyfusionsarebadifyoudon'tfindacurewithintwelvehoursyouaregoingtodieorhaveatuvixdilemaonyourhooves"

or even better... "ifyouarereadingthismessagethankyouforsavingmylifecutiei'vebeenenjoyingthelastthirtyyearsofmylifelivinginapasttimeparadiseanditisthankstoyourinterventionthatiwasabletoendthisworldandbringabouttheparadiseyouseetodayYesitisthankstoyouibaddudeyourgreatandpowerfulancestorwasabletoteamupwithchrysalisdiscordandsombratooverthrowtheenforsersofunfairpopycock-"anyway you get the idea.

[WishyWish]

7259951

Spike tossed both books randomly at Shypie. They both opened to a random page and she just happened to start reading them from there. The choice of what phrases she read was basically to keep what she was doing easy to understand for the sake of the narrative

I can say I don't really have much information on ancient pony societies laid out at this point, save for what Quantum experienced in chapter 2.1. Bear in mind though, that the ponies in this story also refer to 'Tartarus' as 'Hell'. i'm making an effort to keep canon information as true to the canon as I can, but I don't know all of the fandom stuff out there, and there sure is a lot of it. So, whether or not any fandom-derived facts are reflected in this story is subject to conjecture. (Although in all honesty, the reason behind using 'Hell' in this story is that it just sounds better from a literary standpoint. 'Oh Tartarus!' and 'Go to Tartarus!' just don't have the same punch to them.)

Never underestimate the power of Pinkie Sense! Quantum felt as though she hadn't really done anything - if Pinkie could just somehow do the impossible (as she often does in the show) and just read the book, what good was her presence? It begs the question - how much of each Vault is for the vault, and how much of it is for Quantum, and how she can grow as a pony while she's there.

[WishyWish]

7257505

....one can only imagine who or what Zecora became in this reality. I shudder

Though, yes, if Zecora had been there things might have been too easy for our intrepid heroes, assuming even she could translate the ancient knowledge. Just as Gandalf could have teleported Frodo directly to Mt. Doom and thus circumvented the entire book, I admit there are times I will simply leave out the obvious answer for the sake of narrative.

If our pattern says anything so far, the next arc might be a quickie. But I do have plans for at least the next two! Thanks for sticking with it!

[DerpTape]

I knew I had a reason to be afraid of ShyPie, she attacks you in the feels!

[ferret]

You might want to remove the parts assuming that the horrible pain drives them cuckoo. We readers are completely, perfectly fine with assuming that stirring their brains together like cookie dough drives them cuckoo. That would avoid you having to add some sort of random agony at the end, despite the merging process being totally painless up until that point. It'd make little sense anyway, as it's pretty common knowledge that the brain itself cannot sense pain.

...why can't Quantum see? That seemed a bit out of place.

So cool how she started feeling Derpy's wings. If only normal Vaults were like that! Then she wouldn't have had to disappoint Cozy Hearth, ha!

[Phazon]

All things considered, this time vault wrapped up pretty nicely. The impression I got about the disease was that the insanity was brought on more by the excruciating pain of fusing than the two ponies' minds clashing with each other, or at least a 50/50 split. So even if the cure was distributed to every pony in Equestria, there was a chance that their individual minds would've still been broken by that pain.

In essence, that's the difference between saving every surviving pony in Equestria and only being able to save two: Derpy and the Doc. And that puts her that much closer to paying off her debt to the ponies in white (as in rebuilding a life for every one she and Trixie destroyed), although that opens up another can of worms. I'm still not sure what happens when the ponies in white are completely done with Quantum. The way I understand it, either she gets to live again or they just allow her to rest in peace. And if it's the latter, and curing the fusion disease brings her this much closer to paying the debt, then that gives Hal, Tissy, and Twilight that much less time to save her.

[WishyWish]

9464401
Glad you're enjoying it enough to think that far into it

It's actually been awhile for me on this story, and I have to recall some of where it was ultimately intended to go. Were I not constantly distracted with other projects I'd get back to it, but that's why it's in 'hiatus' rather than 'cancelled'. Just not ready to give up on it. It'll get there.