Quantum Vault

by WishyWish

7.7 - Let's Do it Again

May 23, 2030

Stability

Friday

Quantum buried her muzzle in the down of Hal’s wing, and didn’t look up until all the maddening sounds abruptly ceased. When she did, before her lay what resembled a simple bathroom, darkened under the hours of night. Confused, she glanced out the window to find Luna’s grace bathing a neighborhood full of manicured lawns and perfect white picket fences.

“Hal? Where--”

“My bathroom,” Hal replied curtly, gazing around in wonder in his own right. “Well, the upstairs bathroom at my parents’ place, anyway.”

Quantum looked around and found that Hal was right - the room was much as she remembered it during the week she spent in Hal’s body. “Okay, so we know where we are. How about when?”

“You you recognize it?”

“Yeah,” Quantum replied. I was just here, remember?”

“Then we probably aren’t too far removed from the time you were here before,” Hal concluded. He glanced at the vanity mirror, lit by the glow of the moon only, and stared. “Cutie. Look.”

Quantum stared at her own reflection. For the first time in what felt like months, her own rumpled mane, weary muzzle, and blue flame cutie mark looked back at her.

“Sweet Celestia I need a brushing...”

Hal pointed again. “Look what else.”

Quantum inspected, and noticed that even though Hal was standing right next to her, he made no reflection. She reached out and touched his chest.

Her hoof pushed easily through his body. She sighed.

“...not again...”

Hal retrieved his device and began creating familiar booping noises with it. He paused when he noticed a minty ear partially phased through his shoulder. Glancing at the mirror, he saw Quantum - alone, with her head tilted at an angle as though she were resting it on nothing. Her ears were folded down and she looked withdrawn.

“H-hey,” Hal offered, “...hooves in the game, remember? Let’s get through this so you’ll move on safely, huh?”

Quantum smiled lazily, moving her cheek as if it were rubbing against him. “It sounds like we’re both in this together for real, now. Let’s get it done so we both move on safely.”

Hal matched his companion’s grin and went back to bopping buttons. He made a face. “This is...strange. Everything’s working, but I don’t have any connectivity with the Accelerator room. I can’t talk to Tissy at all.” He walked away, examining an empty wall as if it held some special of interest. “And I can’t find the chamber door.”

Quantum blinked. “Wait, you’re stuck in the imaging chamber?”

Hal was phasing his hoof partway through the wall, feeling for something in his own reality. “Seems that way. It’s as if there were nothing at all outside.”

Quantum squinted as the wheels turned in her brain. A bulb of thought flickered to life. “Do you think we’re being tested?”

“Maybe,” Hal replied. “But I was able to pull up the date, at least. Hear that?”

Quantum strained her ears. A muffled voice from across the hall was singing softly-

“Steppin’ out, with my baby...can’t go wrong cause blah blah blah...smooth sailin’ cause I’m blah blah something...with my top hat, and my white tie, and my tails...”

“That’s me!” Quantum barely kept her surprise below a whisper. “I was singing that...”

“...when you were getting ready to go to the dance,” Hal finished the thought. “As me.”

Quantum tried in vain to put two and two together. “But...why?”

“Dunno,” Hal observed. “But if I had to guess? I’d say we’re being given another chance to put things right.”

“Just relax and enjoy the show tonight,” Quantum heard her own voice say through the wall. “I’ll be out of here in a couple of hours and who knows? Maybe we’ll be talking about this back home tomorrow.”

“Fat chance, Me,” Quantum smiled ruefully. “What now? Am I supposed to stop myself from taking you to the dance so you can’t take Twitter to the dance?”

Hal rolled his eyes and decided not to try to parse the logic too hard in his brain. “I don’t have any better ideas. We know that if we do nothing, this night is going to turn out the same way it did before.” He shivered, “I get the impression our colorless friend in the great white beyond won’t like that very much, or else why drop us here to begin with.”

“N-never mind that now,” Hal’s counterpart said from the next room. “Look at the time. Just one more little hop and we’re golden this time around.”

“More than you could possibly imagine, Me,” Hal grinned and cast a glance in Quantum’s direction sufficient to deepen the shade of her cheeks.

Quantum sought to maintain the subject. “Do you remember exactly what you were originally doing tonight? Why you didn’t go to the dance?”

Hal slumped, turning back into the small room. “I told you, I got cold hooves. So I made an excuse.”

“To Twit?”

Hal looked mortified, “What? Of course not! I never said anything to her one way or another. I made an excuse...to myself. I got dressed, caught my hoof in the door jamb on the way out of my room, fell and hit my head, and then I sorta...” He grinned sheepishly, “...told myself I was hurt more than I really was, and spent the night reading science magazines. I found some article about...I don’t even remember what it was, but my brain was more about science than dancing after that.”

“Wait,” Quantum paused. “You hit your head?”

Hal shrugged. “Yeah? Come to think of it I don’t really remember how I got between the doorway and my bed. Maybe I hit it harder than I thought, but it wasn’t enough to count me out for the entire evening. It was a long time ago and that’s just a detail. What difference does it make?”

Quantum’s grin expanded until Hal felt worried. “Is your sister home?”

“The dance wasn’t open to seniors,” Hal explained, “She was out on her own date. Why?”

“She played filly hoofball, right?”

“...sure,” Hal looked perplexed, “Who cares about that though? We’re going to run out of time if we don’t come up with a plan. I don’t really like the idea of just confronting ourselves and explaining the situation. We don’t remember that happening the last time we did this, so it’s possible we might screw up the timeline even more by doing that--”

Quantum wasn’t listening. She slipped out of the bathroom and crept down the hall. When Hal heard her rummaging around in the next room, he phased his face through the wall and found his companion rummaging around through his big sister’s sports equipment.

“Cutie what are you doing?” Hal hissed. “Somebody’s gonna hear you! We’re not supposed to be here, remember?”

Quantum’s rump bounced, her tail wagging as she ignored the admonishment and continued after her quarry. “Are you sure your hoof got stuck in a door jamb?”

“I don’t remember, Cutie!” Hal finally shouted. “It doesn’t make any difference! Work with me here! We’ve got to find a way to stop him...you...me...whatever from going to that dance tonight, and if we so much as let ourselves leave the house, we’ll already be altering the original timeline!”

Quantum stood up. No longer afraid to show off her unicorn nature, she grinned another broad, mischevious grin and levitated an object next to her head.

“That’s my sister’s hoofball bat,” Hal observed.

“Nope!” Quantum cackled. “This is our ticket to preserving the timeline!”

Hal phased the rest of the way into the room, gaping like a vegetable. “...you’re not seriously planning to just hit yourself over the head with a hoofball bat, are you?”

“You saiiiiid,” Quantum sang, “you don’t remember how you hit your head, or how you went from the doorway to the bed.”

“Cutie this is coltcrap craz--”

“I’ll never see it coming!” Quantum insisted, “And we don’t have time to argue. You said it yourself. If we don’t do this right now, we’re taking a huge risk with the timeline!”

Hal floated on his wings, looking droll. “Don’t forget that we’ve both done this before. Do you remember getting hit in the face with a bat the last time you walked through my bedroom door?”

“No...” Quantum admitted. “But I don’t think that matters.”

Hal snorted, “This I’ve gotta hear.”

But Quantum didn’t take up the challenge. Standing in the darkened bedroom with a bat in her magic, she batted her eyelids and let out a small huff. “...I didn’t forget you when the timeline was altered the first time, Hal. Even though Tissy did. I think that has something to do with the white pony and his...influence. I’m really sorry about this, but I think you’re in his ballpark too now. At the very least, I don’t think he’s going to let either of us forget what’s happened up until now. A-and...” She swallowed, “...some of it I really don’t want to forget.”

Hal fell silent. At length, shuffling sounds began to emit from his bedroom across the hall. He whipped out his device and started tapping at it like mad.

“What are you doing?” Quantum inquired.

“You can’t hit me - I mean the other me, with a baseball bat. It’ll just go right through him. I doubt I can do anything to him either since I’m not in the same physical chamber he is, but I can reconfigure this device to emit a disruption pulse. It should cut out his holomatrix and shut him down for a minute or two.”

“Can’t he compensate for that?”

“Of course he can. I’m brilliant, remember?” Hal grinned, “But only if he sees it coming.”

“So we have like one minute to make this work, basically.”

“More like fifteen seconds.”

Quantum smiled and hefted the bat. “Blitzkrieg?”

“Blitzkrieg,” Hal replied. “Don’t hit yourself too hard. I’d miss you.”

They heard the creak of the door across the hall slowly being opened.

“...GO!”

Comments

[kilo]

Blitzkrieg*

[RTStephens]

So what you're saying is...

~Let's do the time warp again!~

[WishyWish]

7462286

What, did I spell it wrong?

Oops!

There ya go, fixed

[WishyWish]

7463164

Preeeetty much, yes!

Now - I GO!

[Everglue Horace]

Reminded me of this ...

and this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp08dUhqt5U