Quantum Leap Forward

by Halira

Chapter 23: Existential Crisis

Ma Apple certainly could run when she had a mind too. Her endurance was almost that of an earth pony. It was likely just adrenalin helping it happen, but Cheerilee wondered if part of it was twenty years of working on a farm.

It took them a short time to reach the farm. The unicorn mare didn't stop to talk when Applejack greeted her outside, and continued straight on into the house. Only when they were inside did Ma finally take Cheerilee off her back, and marched up the stairs with the determination of a mother ready to do whatever it took to protect her foal. Cheerilee scurried along behind the older mare, staying right on her tail.

When they reached Candy's room Ma gave the muffin drawing on the closet door a glare that would have sent a dragon running. She lit her horn, and Cheerilee thought the mare was going to rip the drawing down. Instead, Ma sighed and walked over to the desk, grabbing the drawing of Sombra up in her magic, and then sitting down to read Twilight Comet's note.

"You said this is the personality you had when you had amnesia?" Ma asked, as she seemed to re-read the note over again.

"From what I can tell," Cheerilee replied, still sitting next to the older mare's haunches.

Ma read through it again. "I remember when we found you wanderin' the streets when you first said you had amnesia. You were dirty, and had some scrapes on you, but claimed you didn't know how you got that way. I guess you took off into the forest again, as yourself. What's it goin' to take to keep you out of there? What did you hope to accomplish goin' back in there?"

"I'm not Candy, so I don't know," Cheerilee grumbled. "If I had to take a guess, she was looking for something. Maybe she gave up looking after Twilight Comet failed to find anything."

Ma let off a small growl. "On a nightly basis! There are timberwolves and worse in those woods, and you went out there-- at night-- over and over again for months. I knew you were sneakin' out, but I never knew where. You could have been killed! Your grandparents died out in those woods, and they were grown ponies that could better fend for themselves. You can't even blame it on the personality, because you were sneakin' off before this one started, according to what this note says."

"Well, you don't need to worry about that with me," Cheerilee shot back. "If Candy and Twilight Comet couldn't find anything, then I'm not going to go looking as well. I wouldn't even know what I'm looking for. The only thing that I could possibly think that might be out there is that scarf Candy lost. She might have thought it would mend her bond with Applejack if she found it."

Ma blinked, as the anger went out of her, and put a hoof on Cheerilee's back. "Your aunt cares more about you than she does that scarf. That scarf did mean a lot to her, but it would hurt her far more to lose you than losin' that bit of cloth. She was just as scared for you as me and your pa when you ran away."

Cheerilee pulled back. "I know that, but it doesn't mean Candy knows that. It might not even be the scarf. I don't have any more idea what Candy thinks than you do."

"Somethin' wrong Ma?" Applejack called out, as she pushed open the bedroom door. "You came runnin' in like you were runnin' for your life from a buffalo stampede."

Ma started crying again. "Candy surged at school today, she upset a lot of creatures on the school board. Applejack, they might kick her out of school, or take her away to a mental hospital."

Applejack eyes widened in shock and her ears snapped back. "What?! They can't be doin' that over a surge. A lot of unicorn foals surge when they get scared, even some grown ones."

"It was the last straw after everythin' else," Ma said mournfully, still wiping her eyes. "Missing school, stealing those potion ingredients and makin' a mess with them, all the stuff she's done when she's been her other personalities." The mare snorted and sucked up some snot running from her nose. "They're goin' to say she needs to be institutionalized, I know it. It isn't just her bein' kicked out of school. They're goin' to take my baby filly away from me and put her in some horrible mental hospital."

Applejack stood up straight. "Now hold a-darn tootin' second there. We ain't about to let that happen." The earth pony pointed at the note still floating in front of Ma. "What's that? Is that what they told ya?"

Ma looked at the note as if she had forgotten it. "No, this is-" She floated it over and placed it on the farm pony's outstretched leg. "Just read it for yourself. Candy wrote that when she said she had amnesia."

The farm pony gripped the note in her fetlock and started reading. Her eyebrows rose and she let off a small gasp. "How could she know about- Are ya sure Candy wrote this? Somepony didn't give this to her, did they?"

Ma shook her head. "I'm pretty sure she wrote it herself. How could she know about what?"

"S.M.I.L.E," Applejack said as she gave Cheerilee an appraising look, while setting down the paper. "Starlight, Fluttershy, Rainbow, and I ran into some of them fellers who were causin' trouble a few years ago. Bon Bon came to us, helped us identify them, and helped us put a stop to what they was doin'. She made us promise not to talk about S.M.I.L.E as a condition of her help, and we never did. Candy shouldn't know S.M.I.L.E ever existed. There just ain't no way she could know."

"There's no way Candy could know," Cheerilee yelled out, and then pointed a hoof up at the picture of the sneaky unicorn. "But Twilight Comet could know. We aren't figments, or workings of a foal's imagination. We are who we say we are, and I'm Cheerilee!"

Applejack looked down at the note again, and her ears sagged. "Perhaps, maybe ya are." The answer took Cheerilee so off guard she just sat and gaped. She'd honestly expected Applejack to just deny it was possible again.

Ma gasped. "Applejack? Are you seriously sayin' you think that she is really-"

"I'm sayin' there's more goin' on than I understand, and I'm willin' to admit that is somethin' that might be true," Applejack cut in. Well, not full belief like Cheerilee had hoped, but better than she could have hoped till now; and here she thought that note would be damning for her.

Applejack looked down at the note again. "We need to talk to Starlight. Maybe have her get in touch with Celestia. Starlight knows how to contact her."

Ma stood up. "We were going to head over to the School of Friendship to do just that. You should come with us."

Applejack reached up under her hat and pulled out some sort of talisman on a chain. "I can do one better. This here doohickey Rainbow got me last year, after I hurt myself out in the orchard and y'all didn't find me till late in the day. I just give it a tap, and it signals Starlight and Rainbow that I need'em right away. It's supposed to be in case somethin' like that happens again, but it'll make Starlight teleport over here faster than a two-tailed fox caught in a chicken coop before breakfast." Cheerilee and Ma both raised eyebrows at the unusual countryism, as if both of them were unsure what to make of that one.

The farm pony gave the talisman a tap in its center, and it began to glow. Nothing seemed to happen, and after a minute of waiting Applejack started to frown at it. "I guess it doesn't wor-"

There was a flash of light, and Starlight Glimmer appeared in the room looking flustered. "Sorry! It took me a minute to remember what that signal was linked to. I've got a bunch of these signaling devices out there, a few of them are really not that important and I really should just deactivate them-- like the one for my laundry, but I couldn't remember right away which one this one was. What's wrong? How can I help?"

Applejack blinked and pushed the paper across the floor to the head mare of the School of Friendship. "Um, maybe ya should start by reading this. Candy supposedly wrote it a month or two ago."

Starlight frowned and floated the note up in front of her face to begin reading. The further down in the note she got the more confused her face got. "Wait, how did she find out about-"

"That's what I was askin'," Applejack interrupted. "It don't make a lick of sense, unless there's more to these personalities than just personalities."

"I've been saying that I'm really Cheerilee from the start, but none of you will listen," Cheerilee said loudly.

Starlight looked at Cheerilee with both eyebrows raised. She then looked back at the note and frowned again. "Give me a minute." The unicorn flashed her horn and a quill and piece of parchment appeared floating in front of her. She quickly wrote out a message, then looked at the note and cast another spell which made it duplicate itself. She put the duplicated note and the message she just wrote together, and then cast yet another spell that made them vanish in a green fire.

"I just sent that to Celestia," Starlight explained to everypony looking at her. "She'll either send me a reply back, or show up herself in just a moment. She can verify whether there is any truth to Candy's note."

A crash could be heard in a nearby room. Applejack turned in confusion towards it. "That sounded like it came from my room." As she finished speaking Rainbow came barreling through the bedroom door, looking frantic.

"You okay, AJ? What's wrong? I got that signal, and flew here as fast as I could. I just took a minute to set up a sub for me. Are you okay?"

Applejack blushed. "Oops, forgot that signaled both of y'all. Didn't mean to give ya a scare. I'm fine, don't ya fret. I was just tryin' to get Starlight's attention quickly about this here note Candy wrote. It was pretty urgent. I didn't mean to interrupt you at work."

Rainbow let out a long breath of relief. "No problem. I'm just glad you're not hurt. Getting me away from training the newbies might be fine too. I've wanted some extra help so I can focus on my own training, and I'd been talking to Vapor Trail today about her coming out of retirement to help with training the recruits, now that her foals are getting a little older and she has time. I've got her drilling them right now, and I guess this can count as part of her interview to come back."

Another blinding flash of light happened, bright enough that it made Cheerilee jump back. When her vision cleared she saw an alicorn that was unmistakably Celestia standing in the middle of the room. There were some changes from when she'd last seen the princess. The first thing that stood out was Celestia's mane had lost its multicolor hue, and now was a light pink, it was also cut very short. Gone were the princess's old regalia, replaced instead with saddlebags and light plate armor. Twilight Comet's note said Celestia was a roaming adventurer now, and Celestia looked less like a princess and more like a warrior ready to do battle.

"I got your message…" Celestia said boldly, then coughed into a wing. "Which I guess you already know since I just arrived. The answer is yes, Twilight Comet served faithfully as the director of S.M.I.L.E for nearly twenty years. He regretfully passed away at a ripe old age shortly before Twilight-- Twilight Sparkle-- was born. The agency, and his position within it, were never public knowledge. I don't think there could be more than a half-a-dozen ponies still living who would be aware of him ever running S.M.I.L.E. For all I can confirm, the only ponies that may still remember that are myself and Twilight Velvet--who was a backroom agent for a short while, before leaving to raise a family."

The bedroom door opened again, and Luna walked in, giving Celestia a disgusted look. The former princess of the night was as tall as her sister now, but her coloration more resembled that of when she first returned from being Nightmare Moon. She wore absolutely nothing, other than a braided mane. "Sister, have you ever considered using the front door at a house, instead of just teleporting straight in and giving every creature a fright?"

Celestia gave her sister an offended look. "I don't always teleport straight in."

Luna snorted. "Yes, sometimes I'm able to get you to show a little more control. Really sister, you're going to give a creature a heart attack at some point."

Starlight stepped between the two sisters. "It's fine. No harm done. So did this Twilight Comet ever mention to you anything about this incident?"

Celestia turned back to Starlight and shook her head. "No, it's been many years, but I think I could remember if he had ever told me he spent time trapped in the future in the body of a filly. I always kept careful track of any time travel incidents. The note does sound like him though, and I'm pretty sure that is his hornwriting, although my memory may be foggy on that detail."

"That just makes this all more confusin'," Applejack lamented. "Because he seemed pretty darn intent on tellin' ya about it this here note."

"If I may, I have a possible scenario where this would make sense," Luna said, as she walked further into the room. All eyes turned to her. "I am not the magic expert that Twilight is, nor even Starlight Glimmer for that matter, but I have picked up on some concepts over the years of dealing with the things that frighten ponies. Are any of you familiar with what a ghost is?"

"Um, the spirit of some dead creature that wanders around and haunts places?" Rainbow replied as she scrunched up her muzzle. "But the actual Cheerilee is alive, so Candy can't be haunted."

Luna shook her head. "No, that isn't exactly true. It is more a memory that has been imprinted on a place, but it isn't truly the creature that imprinted it. This note mentions that Twilight Comet and Candy Apple both took a fall in the same place. Are there similar circumstances with Cheerilee and Candy Apple?"

"Yes!" Ma spoke up, lifting her ears high. "They both had a potion experiment gone wrong in the very same room."

"And while we don't have her other personalities present to give testimony, I would wager that the same may have been true of them as well," Luna continued. "What I think you are dealing with is a temporal impression, a highly evolved set of memories, a perfect record of a creature to the point the impression was made, and Candy Apple has somehow had the misfortune of taking these impressions into herself. A perfect copy of the mind and memories of who left the impression, but still only a copy, not the genuine article. Twilight Comet never was in Candy, but a perfect copy of all that Twilight Comet was up to the point of that impression did experience it."

Applejack rubbed her chin. "I guess that makes sense."

"Except it is wrong!" Cheerilee yelled out. All eyes turned to her. "I get so tired of ponies talking about me as if I'm not standing right here. What you said sounds convincing, but it doesn't work! It doesn't explain why it keeps happening to Candy and not others. It doesn't explain the fact that it seems like Candy is reaching out to ponies and creatures to help her, like Big Mac suggested. The impression thing can't possibly work with every one of these ponies, as I doubt Sombra and Candy ever were in the exact same place, or that half zebra shaman. It also doesn't explain the muffins!"

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Muffins?"

"Candy sees faces on muffins; they scare her," Ma explained. "None of the other personalities have seen them, until this one."

Luna blinked. "I can't claim to know what to make of that, nor can I claim that what I suggested is any more than a suggestion of what may be going on. The situation just lines up well with my understanding of ghosts. I can say that Sombra did indeed visit Ponyville a few months before Twilight's coronation. If there was a half-zebra that is fully a possibility as well, as this particular area was once zebra lands long ago. The one known as Zecora actually traveled here to research why the zebra abandoned the area, and stayed in Ponyville much longer than she had intended because of the friendships she made here-- not to mention her taking time to pass on to Applebloom about the ways of potions, alchemy, and the natural lore of the Everfree."

"Did she ever figure out why they left?" Starlight asked, then ducked her head in embarrassment. "Sorry, that's off topic. I didn't actually know why she was here and then left, so I got curious. Not to mention if it is some dangerous thing it is always nice to know about it in case it comes back."

Luna shook her head. "As far as I know she did not find that answer, only that it was a very sudden and abrupt leaving. Perhaps it was because of the encroachment of the three main pony tribes, as they moved south from our ancestral homelands in the north. Though a half-zebra might indicate that theory is wrong, and relations between zebra and ponies were much better than the tribes had with each other. The spread of the Everfree is another possibility. This happened when Equestria was in its infancy. My sister and I were under Starswirl's care, focused on our education, when the zebra abandoned the area just south of the Everfree, and we had only a few passing personal contacts with the zebra back then."

"You have to understand that ponies were not often concerned with the affairs of non-ponies back then. We rarely had zebra introduced to us, despite them historically having a presence in this area as recently as then, and perhaps further back in time covering most of what is now southern Equestria," Celestia added in. "It was still even a challenge to get ponies of different tribes to see themselves as a collective group. Hearthswarming got them working together for the common good, but even in this age you can still find that lingering tribalism in many areas. Intermarriage between tribes has gotten increasingly more common, but your elder generation could tell you that was a taboo they worked hard against their own elders to overcome, and you take for granted how easy it is for such relationships to exist now."

"I'm guessing it was pony encroachment then," Starlight said. "Though I'm still not dismissing the Everfree. We all know how much trouble those woods are. The Everfree is almost like a monster unto itself. Sorry to get things off-topic."

Cheerilee had been increasingly feeling a growing existential crisis while they had spent time discussing zebras and old Equestrian history. Could she really just be a record of her own memories, and when her time passed in Candy she would cease to exist, beyond whatever impression she left behind in Candy's mind? "I-Is there any other explanation that works out where I am really Cheerilee, and I go back to my own time when this is done?" She asked in a quivering voice, unsure who she really was anymore.

"Alternative histories," Starlight answered quickly, gaining everypony's attention. "You can't actually change your current timeline by changing the past; you instead create a divergent timeline. If all these personalities really are who they say they are, when they return to their own time they can create their own divergent timeline where they impact the future, but wouldn't have impacted this timeline. That's actually a little grim."

"Why?" Rainbow asked.

Starlight shook her head. "One of them was Sombra, right? He had access to all the information about his defeats while he was here, which means…"

"He could make it so he doesn't lose when he went back. Which means he might have won in a timeline because of what he learned here," Applejack concluded in a low voice.

Starlight nodded, looked down, and (surprisingly) started to cry. "It is my greatest shame and sin that I created a host of diverging timelines that were just… just horrible places to be. Time theory predicts an infinite number of diverging timelines, so they aren't any worse than some of the ones that might exist out there, but still… to know that those specific ones are my fault. I cried for a month straight when I learned what I had really done, and had no way of undoing. I actually demanded Twilight throw me in a dungeon for it, but Twilight refused. She said she'd long ago forgiven me, and I was no longer a pony who would do such things, nor could anything be done to rectify it, so punishing me further than having to live with the knowledge of what I had done was completely pointless."

The other ponies gave Starlight expressions ranging from disbelief to extreme sympathy. Under normal circumstances Cheerilee might have been shocked at such a confession, but right now all she could think about was what this all meant for her. Was she a ghost, that would vanish? Was she real, and able to return to her own time? If the second was true then she had just learned that she could help Candy in her own timeline without changing anything here. At least she could help her own version of Candy in that case, but what could she do for this version of Candy? This Candy needed her help now, and was in trouble specifically because of actions that Cheerilee had done, and the filly should not be held responsible for.

"So what do we do to fix all this?" Ma asked in a low voice.

"You first need to determine the cause," Celestia replied.

Cheerilee hardened her resolve once again. She couldn't burden herself with existential questions she couldn't answer. The cause. She needed to find out what had started this to begin with, and find a way to undo it. That was the only way of setting Candy free. That was what she was here to do. Whether she was real or a ghost, she was still Cheerilee, and she would not let the filly suffer. She'd find a way of fixing this. The case could be made to the school board already that Candy was not responsible for her actions, but the case had to be made that these troubles were going to be put to an end. The cause was out there in the Everfree somewhere, she just had to find out what she was looking for.

She looked up at the closet. Without knowing how she knew, she saw what she was looking for. It was insane, but it was grinning down at her. They were the thing that didn't fit, the biggest unexplained phenomena. She didn't know why it was only her out of all those who had taken up residence in Candy that saw them, but she intended to find out how to put an end to them. She felt it in her bones, when they were dealt with, so would be everything else. That's why Candy kept that drawing up there; she wanted a constant reminder about what needed to happen.

She licked her lips. Hopefully this would be the answer, and it wasn't just Candy's madness spreading to her. Perhaps she was already crazy, and that's why her future self had run off.

Comments

[Nota]

Yeeeee. De alguno forma acerte en algo. Jeje.

Mnnn. Candy hizo dibujos de las criaturas que estuvieron en su cuerpo, pero ¿Como sabe su apariencia?
Que ciego de mi no darme cuenta.

Ths.
Esta parte en la cual "aparecian" ponis tras otro. Me recuerda un poco a eso finfics pobres aue encuentro por ahí. Una memoria que me pone de malas... nop. Tu lo has hecho bien, aunque medio instantaneo las apariciones (en doble sentido).

Bue. Cuando pueda regreso a mis comentarios habituales. Este misterio va llegando a la recta final?

[Lemon Lime Light]

The Ghost thing was actually my theory on what was happening! It's like the horror game SOMA, where the main character is actually just a copy of himself turned into an artificial intelligence. He went in for a brain scan, and the second it happens, he wakes up in the future. That's almost exactly what happens to Cheerilee.

Though since it was brought up with this little fanfare, I'm not sure if that's what's going on anymore. The fact that Twilight Comet never mentioned this to Celestia or Luna, and the fact that Cheerilee left at what she would otherwise know as a very important time for her to be there does lend credence to this theory though. I guess we won't know until Cheerilee confront her future self.

[honeyhoneyhoney]

Oooooh. Existential Crisis, Yay!

[Sozmioi]

Okay, freaking finally.