• Published 28th Nov 2019
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Quantum Leap Forward - Halira



Cheerilee wakes up twenty years in the future, in the body of Big Mac's daughter. Now she must find out how to get back to her proper time and body.

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Chapter 26: More Tests

After Marble left they gathered up Big Mac, Bright Pear, Caramel, and Applejack from the orchards. Starlight had recommended bringing the entire family in for this round of testing, to see if any of the others had been exposed to any either of the rogue resonances. Strawberry was unable to get away from weather patrol duties for the day, but everypony else was going to be accounted for. Rainbow Dash had already been planning on being at the school today, since she was starting her training regimen with Scootaloo, and Applebloom worked there.

When they got close to the school grounds, they came upon a small crowd. Applejack looked upwards and smirked. "The peacock."

In the air, above the crowd, an air obstacle course had been set up. Rainbow Dash came zooming in like a streak of light, and passed through a series of hoops, before colliding with a large cloud and demolishing it. The colorful pegasus flew downwards, and then seemed to strut in the air.

A loud screeching whistle blew, making Cheerilee, Rainbow Dash, and every other creature wince. "Rainbow Dash! You clipped the side of three of those hoops!" A loud voice rang out on what sounded like a blowhorn.

Rainbow looked down with an indignant look at the pony that shouted at her. "Are you sure you aren't seeing things?"

"Are you questioning your trainer? How many wing-ups do you want to end up doing?" The voice rang back at her.

The peacock pegasus immediately started to look worried. "No, Coach Scootaloo, ma'am! If you said I clipped them, then I must have clipped them. Although, I couldn't have clipped them that hard." Rainbow gave a sheepish grin.

"Yeah, you didn't clip them that hard," the voice answered back, calmer, and at reduced volume. "But it's something that needs to be fixed before we work on your speed, for your own safety. If you're going at your former top speeds, or even close to them, you can't afford to be clipping anything. Anyway, you're dismissed for today, we'll pick up again at the end of the week, and work some more on your agility then."

The crowd dispersed rapidly now that there was no more aerial performance by a famed Wonderbolt to see. Rainbow flew down to the rest of the family with a grin. "Scoots must have been taking it easy on me today. Her students have told me that she's nice and friendly teaching in a classroom, but when she's in coach mode she could fill in for any drill sergeant."

Applejack gave her a dubious look. "She seemed pretty loud to me."

Rainbow waved a wing dismissively. "You've never seen me drill the newbies, or what Spitfire used to put me through. Believe me, Scoots was being gentle."

"Well, she's a teacher, not a drill sergeant," Cheerilee interjected. "Her students might be exaggerating how hard she is since they've never had to deal with an actual drill sergeant yelling at them. As a teacher she can be tough and stern, but she still is dealing with fillies and colts, albeit older ones, and needs to be more concerned with their feelings. If that is what you are looking for in a trainer then she might not give it. It isn't how I would have taught her to teach."

"She's right," Applejack said in a concerned tone. "And while I ain't rightly thrilled with the idea of a pony gettin' rude with ya, I don't think it's a good idea if she gets too gentle with you, tryin' to protect your feelins', if it means the difference between ya bein' at your best or gettin' yourself hurt."

"A teacher can be gentle and effective," Cheerilee grumbled, then looked at Rainbow. "But different ponies need different types of instruction, and I get the impression you need someone who will push you as hard as they can and give no concern for your ego-- otherwise that ego of yours will get in the way and you won't listen to their concerns. I'm sure Scootaloo is a great teacher and coach, but typical teaching methods might not be what you need, and that might make her a less than ideal fit. Maybe one of the retired Wonderbolts could assist her? Maybe Spitfire?"

Rainbow gave an uncomfortable look back at the school, and sighed. "Fine, I'll see if there's an ex-Wonderbolt who's willing to assist Scootaloo in training me, but I don't think Scootaloo needs any help. I have nothing but faith in her."

"Just makin' sure you can do your best, Rainbow," Applejack said as she walked over and gave her marefriend a public nuzzle.

They hurried on into the school, where they were greeted by Silverstream again. "Hello!" The hippogriff said with a happy wave. "Luster, Sweetie, Applebloom, Flurry Heart, and Starlight are already up in the lab, waiting for you. You can head right up!"

Ma paused and gave a confused frown. "Why is Flurry Heart up there?"

Silverstream shrugged. "No idea, but she's up there, and hasn't blown any creatures up that I'm aware of, which is a good thing. It's been a pretty quiet morning."

They all shared an apprehensive look. Cheerilee didn't really know Flurry Heart, considering the alicorn was so young she had a vocabulary of less than five words in her own time, but the first impression made her wary of having the young princess anywhere near her. There wasn't much they could do but find out why the terror from the north was being included. Maybe they needed to do something that needed a lot of magical power; Flurry Heart had that in spades.

They wandered up the stairs, and to the appropriate lab. When they went in they saw the alicorn sitting with a deep frown on her face and the device for checking resonances hooked up to her.

"Stop frowning, it isn't that bad," Sweetie Belle scolded as she made some sort of adjustment to the device.

"I look ridiculous," Flurry said with a pout, and put a hoof up to the helmet on her head. Sweetie Belle lit her horn and used her magic to pop Flurry's hoof. The alicorn withdrew the hoof and gave the white unicorn a sullen glare.

Luster was engrossed in observing the resonances that appeared in the crystal. Applebloom was asleep in a corner, and somepony had draped a blanket over her. Starlight was observing some smaller crystals sitting on a table, but turned to them as they finished walking through the door.

"Hello!" Starlight greeted. "I've got a small piece of good news. One of Candy's rogue resonances we have been able to match to one Applebloom shares as well. Sweetie Belle and I don't seem to have it, so that further confirms that it is likely something from the Everfree, even if we haven't identified what it is yet." She frowned. "Unfortunately none of us seem to have a match for the other resonance so far. We're almost done checking Flurry over, and then we can start checking the rest of you."

"We actually are done with her," Luster said as she looked up from the crystal briefly. "Flurry Heart has as many unusual resonances as you, Headmare, but no matches for what we're looking for. I'd love to further study both of you at some point, these resonances are fascinating." The pink unicorn immediately went back to observing Flurry's resonances.

Flurry's glare deepened as she shared at Luster. "I've had this thing on my head for twenty minutes. How long have you known I didn't have what you were looking for?"

"Maybe about ten minutes, we had to wait for the Apples to arrive, so I figured there was no harm in leaving it on," Luster replied without looking up.

Flurry pulled the helmet off quickly and tossed it down on the floor. "Can I turn her into a tree rat?!" She then winced as Sweetie Belle popped her in the nose with her magic. The alicorn wrinkled up her nose then let off a loud sneeze.

Luster looked up with a confused expression. "What's a tree rat?"

"She means a squirrel," Sweetie answered with a giggle. "Her royal pamperedness here wasn't-"

"Please don't tell this story!" Flurry said in horror, then got popped on the nose again by Sweetie's magic, which caused a small sneezing fit.

"As I was saying," Sweetie continued. "Flurry Heart wasn't very familiar with squirrels when she first came to this school a few years ago. She went out by a tree with a lunch that included a fair amount of nuts, and several squirrels came down from the tree begging for food. This brave and all-powerful alicorn went into a panic, and started blindly blasting magic all over the place and screaming in terror, convinced that she was being attacked by rats. If it weren't for the damage she did it would have been funny."

Rainbow snort-laughed. "I thought it was funny."

Flurry tossed her mane back, and put her nose high into the air. "If I'm no longer needed. I'll be going now." Before anypony could answer, the alicorn teleported out of the room.

Luster flicked an ear. "Okay… " She turned to the Apples. "Let's start testing you one by one, starting with Ma Apple. We're trying to see if any of you share either or both these odd resonances. Since we haven't as of yet identified them, that will help us narrow down what they are."

Testing went on for some time. Sweetie Belle did something with her magic to help get readings for the majority of the family, since only Ma had a horn to hold magic in. When they finally finished with everypony there were two more duplicated resonances added to the table for Starlight to observe, these two coming from Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

"So, one of the resonances nopony here but Candy has ever been exposed to, that's a problem," Starlight announced. "On the bright side, that same resonance that Applebloom and Candy share is found in Applejack and Rainbow. That's really going to help us narrow down what it is."

Sweetie Belle walked over to Applebloom and gave her a light shake with her hoof. "Sorry to wake you, Applebloom, but we finished the testing. We're going to need your opinion on some things."

Applebloom lifted her head up and stretched, looking around with bleary eyes. "Just give me a moment."

Cheerilee had been the last to be tested, and was still hooked up to the device, with Luster frowning at her results in the crystal. "It looks like you picked up another earth pony resonance since you were last here, nothing really special about that, but I think I made an error in reading these two rogue resonances last time, and it might make this more complicated."

Ma rushed over and looked at the Crystal. "What's wrong?!"

Luster gave Ma an annoyed look, and gently picked her up and set her back a few feet. "These two rogue resonances I did determine last time were entangled in Candy's magic, but I failed to notice how entangled they are with one another. I don't think they can be dispelled individually, and the entanglement is strengthening each of them and possibly impacting how they would normally behave on their own."

"So what does that mean for fixing this?" Cheerilee asked worriedly.

Luster frowned at the crystal. "We need to find out what both of them are. We might need a sample of the source magic from each. They're reinforcing one another, and are entangled into Candy's main resonance, and that's going to make it difficult to shut down whatever it is that they're doing."

Applebloom finally picked herself up and waddled over to the table and looked at the smaller crystals. "So what am I givin' an expert opinion on?"

"We need your best guess on something in the Everfree that has strong magic, that you, your sister, and Rainbow Dash have been exposed to at some point, but nopony else in this room should have ever come in contact with," Starlight explained.

The pregnant mare sat down and seemed to think. "And you, Sweetie, and Flurry haven't been exposed either, right?" Applebloom asked. Starlight nodded. Applebloom sighed. "I can guess one somethin' right off the top of ma' head, poison joke. Strong magical plant, native to the Everfree, easy to stumble through without noticin' what ya did. My sister and Rainbow Dash both wandered into it years ago. I got exposed to it as well, back when Zecora was teachin' me about it, and how to treat anypony that went trapesin' through those flowers. As far as I know, none of the rest of y'all have ever touched it. I remember seein' a patch near where we found Candy; had to shoo everycreature away from it."

Applejack let out a long breath. "And I can guess what the joke is this time: 'pretend to be another pony, then be another pony.'"

"Makes sense," Applebloom said with a nod, then gave the resonance crystal a worried look. "I know how to whip up a cure for it, but the stuff's potent enough I'd rather not be touchin' it until after this foal is out of me. There're a couple former students of mine in town that I trust to be able to do it with me directin' them, and maybe one or two students about to graduate."

"Won't do us any good until we figure out what this other resonance happens to be," Luster said. "I'm at a loss at what it might be though. Between all the ponies we've tested you'd think somecreature close to Candy would have a match, especially the aunt that has spent more time in the Everfree than the rest of you combined. Maybe it's time for me to try Celestia and Luna, but even if they have a match there's no telling if they can recall what it was."

"We also need to actually confirm it is poison joke," Applebloom added. "I don't keep any of that in ma' stock. Somecreature would need to go harvest some so you can test its resonance. I ain't sure who I'd trust to be doin' that without me watchin' over them, and I ain't about to go dashin' off into the Everfree when I'm about to pop."

"And what happens if you can't figure out what it is?" Cheerilee asked, dreading the answer.

Luster looked at her. "Then there's no way we can actually cure it. At best we might be able to seal its magic away, but it would be a complicated spell to do that without adversely impacting the host, one that I'd need at least weeks to figure out, and would still eventually fail and need to be reapplied."

"I'll still see about findin' one of ma' students to help brew up an antidote, just to have it rrady" Applebloom said, then wavered on her hooves a little, before steadying herself. "I think I need to go lie down first. I ain't feelin' too good. Water hasn't broke, but I think this youngin' might be comin' out soon."

Starlight lit her horn and her aura enveloped Applebloom. The unicorn let off a gasp as she released her magic. "She's right, it's not going to be long at all before that water breaks. I wouldn't be surprised if it was tonight or early tomorrow, she'll definitely be giving birth to that foal before tomorrow night is done."

The Apples collectively gasped, and Applejack stepped forward. "Well then, findin' somecreature to brew up that potion'll have to wait. We need to get her to the doctor so she'll be ready."

Cheerilee took the helmet off and got out of everypony's way. She had mixed feelings at the moment. It was great that they found part of the answer, but it seemed like there was no way that this could be resolved before the school board meeting. If Applebloom was giving birth tomorrow there wasn't likely going to be anything done while that was going on. She and Candy were running out of time faster and faster, and there didn't seem to be anything that could stop Candy from getting kicked out of school before an answer could be found.

Author's Note:

Shorter chapter, but adding anything else felt like padding.

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