The Title is a Quantum Leap reference
“Um, you’re sure this’ll work?” asked Cody, as he stared into the swirling vortex of energy in front of him. Around him was what might have passed for a mad scientist’s lab, in a very low budget b-movie. Of course, despite the rather crude looking devices and basement setting, he had to admit, he portal before him was proof that sometimes, crazy cheap worked.
“By work, do you mean send you to another world, or send you to the world you very specifically want to go?” asked the older man beside him, who was messing with the projector making the portal. Said projector looked like something used for slideshows, and in all honestly probably had been until the older man had tweaked the inside of it,
“A little from column A, a lot from column B,” said the younger man, looking over at his senior. The two were about ten years apart in age, with the thirty year old being the one who developed the portal projector, while Cody had volunteered to test it.
“Well then, I will say, for the record, that I am confident that this will work for the first part. The second depends on how right I am about how time works,” said the older man as he tweaked on last piece on the projector, causing the thing to suddenly spark, and making the man whip his hand away, shaking it, and then sucking on a burned pinkie finger as he faced Cody.
“Time has three parts you said, right?” asked Cody, still staring at the portal.
“Indeed, Mr. Williams. An old theory states that like space has height, width, and depth, time would have three dimensions to it as well, Tec, Tau, and Teh. The first is the axis of choices, branching at major decision points in the past,” explained the older man.
“Like if I turned right or left at an intersection when I’m lost?” asked Cody.
“Hmm, probably not you, all things considered. The choice must have more...important than that. Say what if Franz Ferdinand's driver had taken a different route,” countered the scientist, only to get a blank look from his young friend.
“History is lost on the youth. Moving on, Tau is more of what would happen if you alter physical laws. For instance, what if gravity was a repulsive force, rather than attractive or the like. But, Teh, Teh is the axis of time I’m most interested in. The World as Myth, axis, as I call it. If I’m right, the legends and stories we tell have some truth along that axis, either because we told the story, or because our minds saw into those worlds along it for a brief instance. If I’m right, I should be able to send you to this Horsetown place,” said the man.
“Ponyville,” corrected Cody, and the older man just scoffed.
“Whatever it’s called. Regardless, if I’m right, then your desire to go there should alter the nature of the vortex energy, sending you there,” said the scientist as he walked over to the portal and put a few instruments by it.
“And then you can bring me back, right?” asked Cody.
“I believe so,” said the man, looking far less confident than he sounded, and he didn’t sound confident at all.
“You got the camera back, didn’t you?” Cody said, pointing to the device, on which he’d seen things that were impossible in the world he lived in, mostly because they’d been Transformers(™), real living alien robots fighting each other.
“I got a camera back, yes. It’s possible this isn’t the one I sent through. Mind, the fact that it was retrieved gives you a good chance of returning to at least a world like our own, and if not, don’t you want to be in that world of horse-pony things? You said you dreamt of it for a long time when I met you, and now I’m offering you that chance,” said the old man.
“I just, it’s a big leap, you know?” said Cody, looking deep into the swirl of energy.
“A Quantum Leap, one might say,” opinionated the old man, then laughing at the joke, which the younger man apparently didn’t get as he stared at him.
“Bah, you kids and your lack of respect for old television. Anyhow, I can’t maintain this portal for long, so you really do have two options before you. Give up on the chance of a lifetime and return to your boring life. Or gamble a little on an impossible dream made real only because you met an eccentric old man at a con because he mistook MLP for MPL(Mason Portal Labs),” offered the old man, and Cody looked from him, back to the portal, and then back to him.
“You’ll try your hardest to get me back, right?” asked Cody.
“Oh, most definitely. If this works, you’ll be a hero, like Armstrong or Gagarin. If It doesn’t, I’ll probably have to flee the country one step ahead of a manhunt,” said the man, smiling either at a joke he’d just told, or at the mental image. Either way, Cody looked back towards the portal, and then, with a cry, ran straight for it, screaming as he leapt forward, diving into the vortex, and vanishing with a flash of light.
“Excellent, now to check my datapoints!” said the man as he took down a few instruments, and then wincing as the portal device sparked again, before sputtering out with a whine.
“Hmm, I will have to work on that. Oh well, he’ll be fine until I can repair it,” he told himself, before taking all the devices back upstairs to begin extracting the data on them.
OoOoO
Cody groaned, wondering just how bad a decision it was he’d made. His body felt like...well, it felt like he’d just been torn apart, put back together, then smashed with a hammer and have it happen all over again. Picking himself up off the ground, the young man looked around, trying to determine just where he was, and more importantly, if he was in the world he wanted to be. Sadly, his immediate surroundings made it impossible to tell, as he could find only loose dirt, and some weird looking trees that might be from Equestria, though they looked a bit flat from his point of view.
“Hmm, got to find some place high up where I can see over all this,” he told himself, trying to find somewhere that fit the bill. Luckily, one of the weird looking trees nearby seemed just a bit taller than the rest, and offered him the leg up he needed. Rushing towards it, Cody pushed against the thing, feeling if it was strong enough to support his weight. Finding it was, the human began his climb, shimmying up the thing, and then finally getting a good view of his location, one that caused his breath to catch in his throat.
Somewhere, in the distance, he could see Sweet Apple Acres, the barn, the house, and even a few of the trees. He recognized it instantly, and remembered them rebuilding the barn that one episode. It looked newer than the rest, even from this distance. Mind, that distance was the reason his breath caught, as he seemed to be a hundred miles from the farm, even though he could clearly see it, while around him, apple trees towered into the heavens, like they would catch Celestia’s sun in their branches with how high they were.
Cody wanted to scream. Here he was, in Equestria, the land of friendship, magic, and friendship that was magic, and he was stuck at the size of...some kind of small mouse he figured. He was definitely bigger than a bug. Trying to wrap his head around it, he wished for just one moment that the farm animals around him would shut up and give him a second to think. That was when he heard a voice that made his head turn sharply around, to view a giant of epic proportions that blocked out the sky.
“Eeyup,” he said, his voice oddly not echoy or deep or anything that one would expect of a giant of his size. Instead it sounded like the normal bass of Big Mac’s signature word. He stood there, looking around, his eyes scanning the orchard, causing Cody to just sit there and stare. He was so enraptured by the sight of the stallion, that when he began to grow closer, Cody barely reacted, not calling out or anything, just watching as those hooves tore their way through the loose grass.
He did react when Big Mac’s head came down. It wasn’t because the horse had seen him either, as his eyes were closed at that moment. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was wide open, huge teeth glinting in the noonday sun, looking wickedly sharp despite their flat nature. The tongue pulled back within the mouth, creating a bowl like depression as the lips came down almost to the ground, the heat of his breath blowing over Cody, who just now realized he should be shouting as Big Mac’s teeth came together beneath him, biting the grass he had been in off their roots, and taking them in as a snack.
The tiny human fell with a splat onto the giant stallion’s tongue, a pool of saliva cushioning his fall against the soft member. Of course, the gravity of the situation made itself known a few seconds later, as Big Mac raised his head, and caused Cody to go tumbling towards the rear of his mouth, his throat opening up like some big black hole. Screaming to himself, as his breath hadn’t quite caught up with him, Cody almost slid straight into that deep abyss, only just leaping off the back of the tongue and wrapping his hands around the uvula that hung over it, holding himself desperately above the chasm.
Either Big Mac didn’t notice, or he was so small that the stallion didn’t have to care, as he hung there, staring forward towards the jaws of the great behemoth, which slowly opened, flooding the formally darkened cavern of flesh with light which reflected off every surface, giving him a good view of everything, before he went blind as the lips sealed shut again, and he could hear the sound of the grass being ground between those huge boulders that Macintosh called teeth, only to have more light come in again as the lips parted once more.
Cody watched in fascination and horror as this process was played out before him, his body dripping with saliva and soon covered with small mushy bits of plant matter that squirted into the back of Big Mac’s mouth as he messily chewed the whole load into a wad that his tongue began to ball up. Worse, he was obviously walking somewhere, as the whole affair seemed to be rocking from side to side, making it hard to keep his grip, and forcing Cody to keep grabbing tighter to the bit of flesh to keep from plummeting down with the bits of chewed grass.
Finally, after several minutes, Big Mac mercifully stopped moving, both walking and chewing. Cody, quick to take advantage of this, swung himself forward, letting go of the uvula just as he got enough momentum to swing onto the broad, flat tongue of the stallion. Falling on his face, and right into a chewed pile of grass, Cody spit out as much as he could, and tried to stand, only to find the tongue provided next to no traction at all, his feet slipping, and splattering himself with more saliva and grass when he fell.
Then light came into the dim maw, momentarily blinding the tiny man, who had to squint to see anything at all, as the bright rays reflected off the saliva, lighting up the entire cavern of flesh. Before he could see again, he heard something that made his blood run cold. Water, a lot of water, rushing in a tidal wave towards him. When his vision cleared, he could see it, the huge ocean of water that had been in a cup, which was now spilling into Big Mac’s mouth, washing everything in it towards the black hole at the rear.
Cody was no exception to this, the liquid coming around him and raising him a little off the soft flesh of the tongue. Desperately, the tiny human flailed his arms, trying to swim against the current, or maybe grab something that could halt his path, but the lumps of grass came apart in his hand, and the tongue proved just as tractionless as it had before. Finally he dropped off the back of the tongue, the throat opening up around him and holding him inside it, pressing in from every angle as it folded together to seal him and the water and grass within.
~GULP~
The sound echoed all around him, felt more than heard through the water in which he was suspended. Everything moved all at once, the walls pulling away below, while above they squeezed tightly together, the muscles of the throat rippling like water as the load was passed down. Cody could only burble out a response, lost as a few bubbles as he was dragged below, squeezed tightly at the spot where the neck met the body, and then deafened by the thudding of Mac’s huge heart somewhere nearby.
At last, the load of water came to its destination, and in a waterfall, the stuff poured from the roof of the stomach, spilling in every direction, and allowing Cody to breath. He didn’t, of course, he screamed instead, as he and the grass dropped into the belly of the beast, his body bouncing against the soft flesh of the stomach. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt in the fall, in fact, he seemed to be cushioned by the stomach floor, almost like a big bed. Unluckily, he was bounced right into a bubbling pool of stomach juices, splashing beneath the surface with a resignation of what was to happen.
The stomach was still after he entered, everything was quiet, save a bubbling gurgle that seemed to come from everywhere, all counterpointed with a thumping of a huge heart, and the bellows of Big Mac’s lungs dragging in air, and then pushing it out again like a hurricane blast of winds. Finally though, another sound came over the area, one of Cody as he breathed the liquid, breathing in a deep gulp of the stomach’s air, and then flopping onto the side of the pool with all the grace of a beached whale.
Gasping for breath, the human dragged himself out of the pool, trying to wring his clothing dry as he did so, and looking himself over. Surprisingly, nothing was melting his skin, which didn’t even feel the least like it was on fire or like he was being digested. Instead it felt slimy, yet clean, and he pulled himself to his feet, only to get knocked back onto his butt as the chamber shook again, somewhere outside, Big Mac was moving around, probably bucking trees from the way everything moved.
Cody spent the next few hours crying out, pounding on the walls, and even trying to climb the things to escape the fleshy sac, only to always plummet back to the bottom. It got worse during dinner, hayburgers if the bun pieces were any indications, as the bits of food rained down and he had to not only dodge them, but then had to keep his head above the digestive juices which broke them down, then drained, leaving him inside the slimy stomach, waiting for rescue that seemed unlikely to come.
Finally it stopped. Everything became quiet, and it all rolled to one side. Above, he could hear the breathing becoming shallower and less powerful, before finally a snoring sound echoed everywhere around him. Cody, listening to the dull, peaceful thuds of the heart overhead, began to lay back himself, wondering just what the heck he would do trapped here inside this big stallion’s belly. drifting off into slumber, he shut his eyes, and then opened them almost immediately, but not onto the view of Big Mac’s belly, but onto a view of Sweet Apple Acres.
“Let’s get workin ya’ll! We have until sunup to harvest these apples for Luna!” shouted a voice Cody recognized instantly as Big Mac’s. Turning, he found the stallion himself with a bull horn behind him, while in front was the Apple family. Immediate family anyway, with Applebloom looking not like her child self, but like a full grown Applejack with Applebloom’s colors, while beside her stood an AJ that looked about twice her normal size, with powerful legs, and beside her was Granny Smith as she might have looked a hundred years ago, with that glimmer of youth in her eyes.
In front of them was Big Mac, his body the same shape as always, powerful as a stallion could be. He only had one addition to his form, and it began to glow with an emerald green light like his eyes, his horn focusing a few spells to gather apples up. Looking over at them, Cody at first wondered if he should try and help, only to realize what was going on quickly, as his brain reminded him what world he was in. He was in a dream, and standing at about the height one would expect of a human compared to a pony, one that was most certainly not bit sized.
“Hey! Hey Big Mac!” shouted Cody as he ran up to the farmhouse, causing the stallion to drop his load, and stare at the kid coming up on him.
“Oh? You another one of those humans that have been appearing lately?” asked the stallion as he pushed a bushel of apples aside, standing up so that his head was about chin level with Cody as he came up, breathing heavily from his run.
“There are other humans?” asked Cody, curious if the professor back home had been sending others like himself through.
“Eeyup, a few of ‘em pop up every couple of days. Twilight says it’s got to do with some portal or the like on their side acting up cause they drained the magic from it,” he informed Cody, who looked at him, and then shook his head. That sounded like the plot of the next movie, but he hadn’t seen that one yet, so he wasn’t sure.
“Um, no, I came here through a portal, sure, but it was made by some guy I met. He had all these technical terms and stuff. Axises of time, interdimensional boundaries, and something about cheese that I didn’t understand. Still, he get me here, and I wanted to be here, so I guess it worked out,” Cody told him, and Big Mac nodded.
“Ah, so you’re in the dream world then?” he asked, waving a hoof and somehow conjuring a chair for Cody to sit in, as he stood there in front of the young man.
“Well, no, not really, I’m in there in the real world,” said Cody, pointing, and Big Mac turned his head behind him, to spot the barn.
“Oh? You’re in our barn?” he asked, and Cody laughed to himself, and held his hands against his face. For some reason he felt his cheeks blush like he was embarrassed or something.
“No, not in there. In there,” he said, this time making sure he pointed with both fingers so Big Mac’s eyes followed both lines, until they converged on his torso, and he looked down, pushing a hoof into it, and then letting out a rather loud belch, one that woke both of the two up, along with half the Apple Family. The next day, Twilight would cast a spell that teleported Cody out of the stallion’s belly, and grew him to normal size, a size that would let him integrate into Pony Society along with a few other humans, finding fun and adventure beyond compare.
About five universes over, another man entered another world, and soon took not only the power of a Five-Dimensional Imp, but also a few other things he wanted, and declared himself the most powerful being in the whole of creation. An alliance of a leader of robots in the form of a truck, a nearly immortal master of time with a british accent, a powerful samurai with a magic sword that destroys evil, and a drunk bard with a magic song or two that summoned things would defeat this tyrant, whom Cody tended to curse on his bad days for never coming to get him.
