Quantum Starlight

by Rambling Writer

8 - Falling Into Place

Train to Ponyville, October 9
10:13 PM — 2 hours after the Fracture in Time

Starlight knew for a fact that her past self was on the other side of the train, less than fifty feet away from her current self. And yet, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to just… walk up and talk to her.

Maybe it’d all make sense once her other self had gone through the time machine and she didn’t have to worry about screwing up the timeline. Paradoxes looked strange and menacing all of a sudden, and now that she had a real, tangible, potentially harmful effect on herself that could be pointed at to indicate her meddling with time, rather than simply saving Equestria, she felt like she was walking on eggshells. All the confidence she’d once had was gone.

She couldn’t tell what the Doctor was thinking. He was pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath, but it seemed to be science type stuff, like he was just voicing his thoughts. Whatever he was thinking, he was deep in it and barely paid any attention to anything else going on around.

“…but where would we get chronons?” muttered the Doctor. “We don’t have anything to harvest them with. Not yet, anyway.” He spoke up absent-mindedly. “Maybe you could get those.”

Starlight twitched in surprise. “What?”

“Oh, just looking down avenues,” said the Doctor, waving a hoof. “But a lot of them need chronons, and at the moment, you’re our best chance for getting them.”

Any other moment, and Starlight would’ve asked, “How?” But she wasn’t in the mood. “‘Kay,” she said and went back to staring out the window.

The Doctor sighed. “Listen, Starlight,” he said, taking a seat next to her, “this is but a minor setback. We’re still alive. We’re still safe. We’ve only exhausted a single possible solution, and it was a rather specific one at that. And, technically, we haven’t even wasted any time yet, since we haven’t caught up to the-” He made air quotes with his hooves. “-‘present’. So let’s just keep on moving, shall we?”

Which was easy for him to say. Starlight had been so sure that this would work, and now… But he had a point. All they had to do was pick up Sunburst and they could get back to figuring out something else. There was still a lot of ground to cover. “Sure.” Still, with Serene blitzing around like she’d been, it was a bit tricky to say how hard that’d actually be.

Speaking of which… “And, uh, Doc?” she asked. “Sorry to change the subject so quickly, but you saw Serene doing that… that thing that wasn’t teleporting but kind of was, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you think she’s doing that? She got dosed with chronons, too, but she’s just an earth pony.”

“Well, based on what she said, it sounded like she’d had her powers longer than you, so…” The Doctor shrugged. “My guess? She’s got more experience, so she knows how to vary the rate at which she moves through time. If she speeds up her chronon consumption, time slows down relative to her and she speeds up relative to us. Cue the appearance of so-called super speed, bordering on teleportation.” He grinned. “Spectacular, isn’t it? How changing a single variable in the equations of the universe can have such shocking consequences.”

Starlight grunted and turned to the window again.

“Well, I think it’s spectacular,” the Doctor huffed.

---

Everfree Forest, October 9
11:19 PM — 3 hours after the Fracture in Time

Once the two of them got back to Ponyville, they skulked about until their original selves had left for the Everfree. The Doctor promptly went to his lab, apologized again for being unable to help, and started studying.

Starlight followed the group into the forest, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Nopony looked back — of course they wouldn’t, they hadn’t the first time — so it must’ve worked. Seeing herself, Sunburst, and the Doctor go through the motions she’d already seen was trippy; there was a knowledge between knowing everything she was currently seeing had already happened before and actually witnessing something happen again. She began mouthing everypony’s words to herself. Word for word, she got it right. Surreal.

Sunburst and the Doctor left. Starlight knew what was coming next: the brief time-loopy thing. She stared off to one side, got a headache, and her future self appeared from thin air as time skipped back. She looked at her future self, then looked at her past self going through the actions that would lead to her meeting her past self. Her present self’s future past self? Sweet Celestia, she’d barely thought about it for two seconds and she was already confused.

“This,” she muttered, “is too weird.”

“Tell me about it,” her future self responded.

She skulked quietly behind the group as they went to the time machine corridor, keeping her horn as dim as possible. Serene was nowhere to be seen. A thought crept into the pit of her stomach; was Serene letting her get here unopposed to find Sunburst? She might not’ve known how Starlight and the Doctor came back and lied about it to get Starlight to go to protect Sunburst so she could follow. But that seemed a bit much for Serene to come up right on the spot upon seeing Starlight in the past. Maybe not. Maybe she did know they’d come to the past here. But how?

Well, one way or another, Starlight had to try to get Sunburst out. As she heard herself saying her last goodbyes to Sunburst, she fell into a particularly shadowy corner out of sight of the time machine room and waited.

“Tell me all about it if I’m not me!” called Sunburst. He took a few steps down the hall, then, out of sight of the time machine room, stopped and turned back, biting his lip. His legs twitched. He sighed and turned around again, heading for the room the Doctor had mentioned.

Starlight broke from her hiding place, pinned Sunburst against the wall, and threw a hoof over his mouth. Right as he started struggling, Starlight put a hoof to her own mouth in a shhh gesture. “Quiet,” she whispered.

Sunburst stopped struggling, blinked, and nodded. Starlight released him and whispered, “It…” She swallowed. “It didn’t work.”

“Oh,” murmured Sunburst. “Sorry.”

“And Serene’s the one who broke the time machine.”

Sunburst’s jaw dropped. “Serene? But- but she’s the one who- How, where’d she go? How’d she get back here? H-” Before Starlight could say that he was behaving the way she had at Streamhaven University when he told her to stop talk, he cut himself off. “Later. So wh-”

“And…” Starlight looked down the hall, away from the time machine. Empty. She pulled Sunburst down it. “And I think she’s going to try and kill us.”

“…Uh.” As he got his hooves under himself, Sunburst blinked once. Twice. “If, if you say so,” he said. It was a “you know this better than me, I have to trust you” statement that didn’t want any more clarification at the moment, not a skeptical “uh-huh, sure” one.

“She’s here right now,” Starlight continued, “so there’s probably Monarch soldi-”

“What? Serene’s working with Monarch?!”

“Um, yeah. Forgot to mention that.”

Sunburst bit his lip and pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Hoo boy. This, this is bad.”

“So we need to move,” said Starlight, “before she finishes talking with me-”

Sunburst opened his mouth.

“Timey-wimey stuff. She was here before I left,” said Starlight.

Sunburst closed his mouth.

“-and she starts looking for you,” finished Starlight. “I don’t know what’s going on with her, but it c-”

Sunburst suddenly planted his hoof in Starlight’s mouth and tilted an ear down the hall. Starlight turned her own ears and strained. Nothing.

After a moment, Sunburst released Starlight and backed away, rubbing the back of his neck. “S-sorry,” he muttered, flicking his tail, “I, I just, I thought I heard something.”

“That’s alright,” said Starlight. “We’re all on edge.”

They crept blindly down the hall, their footsteps muffled by a spell of Starlight’s. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do anything about the dark without giving away their position, so they had to rely on their (rather poor) night vision. Several times, Starlight bumped her hoof on a protruding something and had to bite back a scream to keep her spell going. Hearing their enemies wasn’t much of an option; the building, amateurishly built as it was, creaked and groaned almost constantly, obscuring the sounds made by anypony else.

Starlight wasn’t sure where they were going; the only exit she knew of was in the other direction. But that was where Serene and Monarch would most likely come in, and the Doctor would build in other exits, right? Hopefully. Or they might be going straight into a dead end. Yay.

It came slowly out of the gloom at the end of the hall: a door haphazardly marked “Exit”. Yessss. Starlight tapped Sunburst on the shoulder and pointed. He nodded and whispered, “Should we, should we check outside first?”

“Good idea. I’ll do that.” Starlight cautiously jiggled the knob. Locked, but it unlocked from the inside. Another spell kept the hinges from squeaking as she pushed it open a few inches. Once she had a large enough gap, Starlight poked her head out the door and scanned the Everfree as best she could. It was dark, but from what little she could see, there weren’t any soldiers out there. She cocked an ear. No sounds except those of the forest. “Okay,” she said, “I think we’re g-”

Sunburst suddenly screamed in pain. Starlight whirled around. Sunburst was leaning against the wall, breathing through clenched teeth. He was holding one of his rear legs off the ground; it had an arrow sticking out of it. At the other end of the hallway, almost out of sight in the darkness, a Monarch soldier was recocking his crossbow harness.

Starlight was halfway down the hall before she knew it. He was not going to get away with that. The soldier turned his crossbow on her, but in the space of a few seconds, she’d frozen him in time to keep him from yelling out, body-slammed him into the wall hard enough to dent his helmet, and encased him in a crystal prison. For the next few minutes, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

She was at Sunburst’s side in an instant. “How bad is it?” she asked. She alternated between looking at the bolt (and cringing) and looking around to be sure no other soldiers were sneaking up on them.

“It’s- it’s pretty bad,” Sunburst said through gritted teeth. “But- but m-maybe I can…” He delicately set his hoof on the ground, put a little bit of weight on it, and collapsed with a muffled scream. “No,” he hissed. “Can’t really walk, not like, not like this. Maybe I, I sh-”

“I’ll carry you,” Starlight blurted. “I can do it. I’ll get you back to Ponyville, and… and…” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure what they’d do then. It wasn’t like Serene would give up looking for them just because she couldn’t find them here, and Ponyville was the next logical place to look. It was still better than the middle of the Everfree.

Sunburst frowned up at her. “I’ll slow you down,” he said slowly.

“I don’t care! I’m not leaving you alone out here!”

“Fine. But don’t, don’t do anything stupid for me, okay?”

“No promises.” Starlight picked Sunburst up in her magic and set off into the Everfree.

She ran into problems almost immediately. Ponies were floppy and irregularly shaped, and Sunburst was no different. Starlight had to be extra careful to keep him from banging into trees, branches, bushes, and every single little bit of undergrowth out there. He did his best to help, pulling his legs up and moving his head aside, but he could only do so much. Even as they avoided injuring Sunburst more, they still made enough noise for Starlight to wince. She would’ve silenced them, but she couldn’t run a silencing spell and hold up somepony as bulky as Sunburst at the same time.

Her horn started aching from the strain. It wasn’t that bad, but she’d rather it didn’t, not in the dark like this. Starlight lightly set Sunburst on the ground and let him lean against her. “I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Just taking a break. What about you?”

Sunburst moved his leg slightly and winced. “Well,” he muttered, “it’s, it isn’t any, any worse.”

“That’s something.” Starlight found herself wishing that time would stutter again. She could get Sunburst out without any risk of getting caught, and… But, no, time kept moving. Shame.

“You, you won’t be long, will you?” asked Sunburst. “It’s just, we’re kinda-”

“No.” Starlight took a deep breath in, let a deep breath out. “Let’s g-”

“Don’t move.”

Starlight yelped and threw up a shield. She looked wildly around her, but couldn’t see anything in the dark. Sunburst had gone stiff, his hurt leg held off the ground, and was holding his breath. “Who’s there?” Starlight asked.

Several Monarch soldiers took a few steps forward out of the dark, night-vision goggles perched on their foreheads. Their crossbows were pointed at the pair, and the unicorns’ horns were glowing, but none of them attacked. Starlight looked around. More soldiers, all with night-vision goggles. They were surrounded.

Sunburst gulped. “Well, um, okay,” he whispered.

Starlight swallowed. She couldn’t freeze all of them at once, and she wasn’t sure she could freeze any of them while still keeping the focus to maintain the shield. And in the chaotic environment of the forest, teleporting was right out unless they wanted to end up in a tree. She wasn’t even sure she could teleport two ponies at once.

As if they knew what she was thinking, one of the soldiers spoke up. “Don’t try anything,” she said flatly. And that was it.

That didn’t stop Starlight from thinking, though. She had ideas. Plenty of them. Loads of them. But they all required to her shift her attention from the shield, which would drop it, which would alert the soldiers, which… She didn’t want to think about that. Every time she came up with a plan, it got shot down by her simple inability to keep the shield up for long enough. Dangit dangit dangit.

And then Serene strode out between two soldiers. She was still grinning that detached, insufferably smug grin. “Yo,” she said. “This is the you that failed, and not the you that’s going to fail, right?”

It took Starlight a moment to parse the sentence. “Yeah,” she said.

“Heh. Told you,” said Serene. Her grin dropped and her voice grew a bit more serious. “Look. Starry. Sunny. This really isn’t what it looks like.”

Sunburst spoke up. “Looks pretty clear to-” His leg twitched and he gasped. “-to me.”

“Context is everything,” Serene said, waving a hoof dismissively. “I wanted you…” She cast her gaze around the clearing. “How did I want them, fillies and gentlecolts?”

“Alive, ma’am!” chorused the soldiers.

Starlight and Sunburst exchanged glances. Serene wasn’t just a part of Monarch, but she was leading a squad of soldiers? What had happened to her?

“My ponies were never aiming to kill, you two,” Serene said, “but a bolt aimed for the leg doesn’t look much different from a bolt aimed for the heart. So, really sorry about that.” (Starlight rolled her eyes.) “But I need your help.”

“Help?” Starlight asked. Serene seemed honest, but she still didn’t let her shield down. “What do you need our help for?”

“Loooong story,” said Serene. She chuckled. “Can’t do it here. We’ll need to talk elsewhere. Which means you need to come with us. Which means this-” She stepped forward and lightly rapped Starlight’s shield. “-needs to come down. Promise, cross my heart, that you won’t be hurt if you come quietly.” She drew an X across her chest.

Okay. That was… something, but those crossbows weren’t slackening and those unicorns weren’t dimming their horns. Serene still seemed honest, but she had one heck of an upper hoof. Starlight couldn’t see any way out that didn’t put herself and Sunburst in serious risk. She glanced at Sunburst. “What do you think?” she whispered.

Sunburst grunted. “Can’t get any, get any worse, can it?” he mumbled. He cracked a grin, then winced as his leg twitched again. “I, I mean, it’s, it’s only a matter of time before your shield falls and they-” He blinked and started talking quickly. “It’s, I mean, a long matter, don’t, don’t get me wrong, but, ah, that’ll just, um, drag things out before we’re going, going with them anyway.”

Which, unfortunately, was what Starlight herself had been thinking. It took only a few more moments for her to make her decision. She dropped her shield and swallowed. Hopefully, they’d want to talk right now instead of blasting her immediately. Ha ha, yeah, right. “Um, hey,” she said. “Do you think we can-”

The knockout bolt hit her right in the face.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

(Incoming stupid idea)

[Dialga]: Ok, this has gotten waaay out of control. I need to fix this tear, and you're all making it worse. Sorry not sorry.

*Obliterates everyone with Roar of Time*

[Twilight Connor]

7689621 Nah, Nah. Dialga, this is just to far.

[tsaukpaetra]

Need to start thinking ahead...