Sunset was going over her notes one last time when she heard a knock at her door.
"Coming!" She closed her notebook and walked over to the foyer, opening the door to see Twilight standing there with a smile, her bag clutched in one hand.
"Good morning, Sunset," Twilight said cheerfully.
"Morning, Twilight," Sunset replied. "Just gimme a sec to grab my notes before we get started."
Sunset went to grab her things with a lightness in her step that she hadn't felt in a long time. After the success of yesterday's dinner, she had actually found herself looking forward to seeing her new old friend again. It was so nice being able to talk to her as a friend, and Sunset had found herself smiling all through last night as she tried to recall and put to paper everything she knew about disrupting spellcasting without the use of magic.
"Alright, let's go." Together, they headed towards the elevator, Sunset chatting amicably along the way. "So I spent the night trying to remember everything I learned about nonmagical magic suppression, which, turns out, wasn't much – I didn't pay as much attention to those books as I should've. Never thought I'd need to manipulate magic with having magic of my own."
"Well, then it'll be a learning experience for both of us," Twilight replied. "So, what do you remember?"
"Well, the earth pony and pegasus techniques for stopping spellcasting mostly seem to involve making some kind of pressure wave to resonate with the unicorn's horn. It lines up with the fact that hitting the horn can affect spellcasting. I think it's basically just causing destructive interference with the magic, but constructive versus destructive interference is just about phase."
"Hmm, so all we need to do is build a sonar system set to the right frequency to produce a measurable magical response?"
"That's right."
"I do have some research on sound waves generated by spells," Twilight said as the elevator slid down to the basement. "That should make for a good starting place to determine the resonance frequencies we need."
The two of them entered the lab while going over preliminary technical details. Once there, Twilight set up in her usual spot next to the spectroscope, pulling out her laptop and notebook.
It was hard to believe that they'd only started working together a week ago; Twilight looked so natural sitting in Sunset's lab, as if she'd always belonged there.
For a moment, Sunset allowed herself to imagine a future where Twilight continued to work in her lab after all this was over. Every day could be like the past week: the two of them putting their minds together to unravel the secrets of the universe, sharing ideas and exchanging notes. And every night…
Well, it wasn't really a secret how Twilight felt about her. She was a pretty open book, and it was kinda hard to forget what'd happened on the ride to Camp Everfree. Sunset couldn't say she didn't find Twilight attractive too, both physically and otherwise, and it would definitely be nice to share more than a lab with her.
Of course, there was still the whole differing ideologies problem that was keeping them apart, but the more Sunset spent time with Twilight, the more she was sure it wasn't actually as big of a deal than she'd thought at first. After all, Twilight seemed to be fine working with magic now, and as much as what she had done in Camp Everfree had hurt, it had also shown her that Twilight was beginning to accept that magic might not be all bad.
Maybe one day, they could have harmony between them, and then, who knew what the future might hold?
But that was something to think about later. Sunset had secured a promise from Twilight last night to keep in touch, and for now, that would be enough. Besides, they still had to find the journal first and stop whomever was behind the theft before they accidentally tore a hole in the fabric of reality, or else it might all become moot in the near future anyways.
"So, where do you want to start?" Sunset asked as Twilight continued to set up.
"I think we should go over our notes and focus on unifying the physics side of things with the magic side. Then we can figure out what kind of setup we need to extract the key parameters to feed into a larger-scale system."
"Sounds like a plan. I should probably go first then, since I have the notes on magical theory." Twilight nodded and Sunset began her explanation, outlining the theory behind spell disruption. Twilight chimed in with the occasional question or observation, and afterwards went over her own notes on sonic emissions with Sunset. By the time they decided to break for lunch, they had a few general ideas about how to test the way sound affected magic.
As the day wore on and morning turned to afternoon, Sunset decided that she definitely wasn't going to let Twilight go back to Hayvard. Friendship – and maybe more – aside, they worked way too well together to let this opportunity go to waste. Twilight was worth an entire department, and Sunset was willing to give her one to get her to work at Equinox.
"Okay, so it looks like these frequencies resonate best with magic in general," Twilight said, pointing at the expression she had just derived on the whiteboard. "It shouldn't be too difficult to compute them numerically and sweep the spectrums."
Sunset stared at the derivation, quickly going over Twilight's work in her head. "Looks fine. Should I get the samples?"
"Sure. It shouldn't take long to code up. Do you have a good set of speakers we could use?"
"I've got a set somewhere around here. Let me check." Sunset went over to one of the many boxes of electrical equipment in the lab. If she recalled correctly, she had a set of speakers stored there from her last sonic experiments. "Yup, here it is."
Half an hour later, and they had the experiment set up, with Twilight's laptop connected to the speaker on one side and a complex metal-and-crystal lattice on the other that glowed with the same blue light as the luminescent growth sitting in its center.
Sunset suppressed a flash of irritation at being forced to use a magic-infused sample instead of the cloverbloom itself. What's done was done, and their friendship would only thrive if they could forgive one another. Besides, Twilight would come around in time.
"I can't believe it still works," the woman in question commented as she gazed transfixed at the construct the sample sat in. "Fifteen years of wear-and-tear and it still functions as well as the day we made it."
"Well, I did fix it up a bit once in a while," Sunset replied as she finished checking the calibration on the device to make sure none of the stored magic would leak accidentally, "but we built this thing out of stainless steel and quartz. It's basically never gonna corrode or wear or anything like that. The closest it's ever been to breaking was the first time we used it." She smirked at Twilight, who glared back at her.
"Hey, that wasn't my fault!" she grumbled while continuing to type on her laptop. "Someone forgot to tell me that the magical adhesive needed time to cement the bonds."
"I didn't think you were going to blast it with a million Thaums of magic five minutes after we finished sealing the last joint," Sunset said with a small smile as she continued to tweak the magic flow to close potential gaps. Even this sample was putting off more raw magic than she'd worked with in years, and standing next to it was… invigorating.
"Well, on the bright side, it saved us from having to stress-test it later. Which worked out because Rarity would've had a fit if we'd shown up even later to the dress fitting."
"If I'm remembering right, she was still pretty angry. I'm not completely sure that our prom dresses weren't revenge for showing up half-an-hour late." Sunset stepped away regretfully from the lattice. "Also, I made some final adjustments on this thing. The magic should be completely contained but still exposed to external factors."
"Great. I'm almost done on my end too. Just need to verify that everything is connected properly. Also, our prom dresses weren't that bad."
"You had a literal star chart stitched into your dress," Sunset replied flatly. "There is no universe where that's fashionable." She had still looked cute in that dress, though.
"I liked it," Twilight said with a pout, "and I thought the volcano theme looked good on you."
"Of all the images that a dress could evoke, a mountain isn't exactly the most flattering one, even if it is erupting in fire and molten rock."
"I suppose. To be honest, I wasn't paying much attention to the dresses, on account of being busy with the whole shapeshifting thing and trying to verify everyone's identities."
"Oh right, that was during prom. I remember you dragging me around and asking me to read everyone." Sunset shook her head. "Shapeshifter at the prom. Like our lives hadn't been enough of a teenage superhero show already."
As soon as she finished speaking, a loud screech ripped through the room and into Sunset's eardrums. Flinching, Sunset pressed her hands against her ears on instinct. "What the hell was that?" she shouted as the sound abruptly cut off, though her ears continued to sting for a few more seconds.
"Sorry!" Twilight said, frantically typing away. "Fed the wrong inputs into the script. Ok, this should do it."
Sunset heard a low humming sound in the background, somewhat reminiscent of the thrum of magic being cast. She turned to look at the magic stored in the containment lattice and saw no change in it.
"It doesn't look like it's working," Sunset called out to Twilight.
"Hmm, let me try sweeping the frequencies." The humming started growing more high-pitched before abruptly dropping down to a low rumble.
"Still nothing," Sunset said. "Maybe it's an amplitude problem?"
"I'll try increasing the power," Twilight replied. "You may want to cover your ears."
Sunset plugged her fingers into her ears just as she was blasted by a wave of sound. Glancing at the lattice, she saw that waves of light were now pulsing out from the joints where steel met crystal.
"Okay, now it's working!" She shouted, her head feeling like it was about to explode from the sound. "Can you turn it off, please?" A blessed silence filled the room as Twilight shut down the system.
"Well, that's one theory confirmed," Twilight said, rubbing her own temples, "but there's no way we can use these frequencies and amplitudes for the scanner, not without breaking every noise ordinance the city has. We'll have to use frequencies outside the human auditory range. Infrasonic, of course, since ultrasonic reflects too much."
"Sounds good," Sunset replied, "just let me grab some earmuffs first so we don't go deaf if we hit the audible range again."
"Ok, sweeping the frequencies closest to point-oh-one Hertz," Twilight announced from where she was sitting beside Sunset a few minutes later. "Let's try forty decibels to start."
Once again, Sunset saw the glow of the lattice become brighter, making it a little uncomfortable to stare at the center of the device. She couldn't see any other effects, though.
"Going up to fifty decibels," Twilight said. This time, Sunset could see faint pulses of light at the joints of the structure, like someone had attached a few flickering lightbulbs to a network of fluorescent tubes.
"Sixty." The pulsing lights grew brighter, as did the overall structure. Sunset found herself having to block out the incandescent center with her arm.
"Sixty-five." Sunset had completely turned away from the containment lattice now, and even then she found the walls around her glowing with enough reflected light to make her want to close her eyes.
"Alright, I think that's enough." The light faded, and Sunset turned to see the lattice looking completely mundane once again.
"Well, that looks like a good frequency," Sunset said, "should we try the other ones?"
"We should," Twilight replied, "just in case another frequency ends up being more effective. Let's try point-oh-oh-seven Hertz."
The next hour-and-a-half passed by uneventfully outside of a few minor cases of ocular overload. Sunset found the process of staring at the lightshow in front of her while taking notes incredibly relaxing, and sitting next to Twilight the whole time made the experience even better. She hadn't noticed before, but Twilight still smelled faintly of paper and ink, just like she had back when they were students at Canterlot High.
Also, she looked as cute as a button in those earmuffs that perfectly framed her round face. Sunset made a note to get her a pair for Hearth's Warming.
"So it looks like these are the best frequencies," Twilight said, pointing at the fourth dataset they had collected.
"Yup, now it's time for the hard part. You got the waveforms ready?"
"Yes. I'm going to try the echo waveform, since it's the simplest. I'll set the return pulse to five hundred Hertz." A low whine emanated from the lattice.
"Looks like it's working," Sunset said, enjoying the sweet sound of success.
"Oh, good," Twilight replied, "I wasn't quite sure if I had the domain transformations correct. I'll run a few tests with varying frequencies and amplitudes."
"Sounds good." As the lattice started to beep in various tones and volumes like a malfunctioning telephone, Sunset turned to face Twilight. "So, have you thought any more about what you're going to do after all this is done?"
Twilight kept her eyes fixed on the computer screen in front of her. "I'm going to head back to Hayvard, of course. There's a lot of stuff I need to do when I get back. Dinky's almost finished her paper on the new metamaterial we developed with negative refractive indices in the visible spectrum, and I'll need to review it.
"I'll also need to start working on the midterm for the introductory quantum physics course I'm teaching – Dinky's got a handle on the lectures for now, but she's not ready to write an examination paper all by herself. I've also got million grant applications to fill out, as usual."
"I've read some of your lab's papers on metamaterials. Equinox is working on some with abnormal refractive indices too," Sunset said casually, deliberately leaving out the fact that the development had begun with her analysis of illusion spells. "Your student's got some really interesting topologies. By the way, is Dinky doing anything next semester? I think we could learn a lot from each other if we compared notes, and I'd love to pick her brains for our next project."
Twilight looked up sharply at Sunset, eyes widening. "You've never let anyone into your company with the intent of letting them leave," she said suspiciously.
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Way to make me sound like a supervillain," she muttered. "I just offer my employees very generous compensation packages and the chance to work on developing cutting-edge technologies that will change the world. It's not like I'm holding their families hostage or blackmailing them into working for me. Just because our turnovers are the lowest in the industry doesn't mean I'm some kinda mob boss."
"Fine," Twilight replied, frowning, "but still, Equinox Labs is notorious for being very secretive. No partnerships, no collaborations, and no interns."
Sunset shrugged. "Maybe it's time for a change. It's not like anyone else other than Starlight knows about the magic stuff anyways, so it's not like being more open is gonna be more risky. I think there's a lot of good that we can do if we work with other brilliant minds." Sunset shot a pointed look at Twilight. No point beating around the bush anymore. They both knew what she was after.
Twilight returned Sunset's determined gaze with her own uncertain one. They didn't speak for several seconds, and as the silence stretched between them, Sunset saw a plethora of emotions cross Twilight's face as she considered Sunset's offers, both spoken and otherwise. "I… I'll talk to Dinky," she finally said. "Let her decide."
"That's fine," Sunset said, trying not to smile too widely. "Let her know that it's a standing offer and that she can take her time to check out other options." Of course, she knew what Dinky would pick – no one in their right mind would pass up the chance to work at Equinox Labs.
Twilight knew that too, which meant that she was basically agreeing to let Dinky work there. It was a good first step, and Sunset was optimistic about being able to set up a partnership between her company and Twilight's lab one day, a first step that could one day turn into more.
"Alright, that's the first set of trials done," Twilight said, breaking Sunset out of her reverie. "I'm going to move on to electromagnetic return pulses. I'll start with five hundred and fifty nanometers, which should yield green light."
A few seconds later, Sunset realized something was wrong as soon as the lattice began glowing an angry red color instead of the expected green. "Shut it down," she ordered, "shut it down right now."
"I already did," Twilight replied tersely. "There's nothing coming out of the speaker." The lattice still sustained its rust-colored luminescence.
Sunset stood up and cautiously approached the quartz-steel construct. As she got nearer, she felt a turbulence within the contained magic, one she had sensed many times before. "Looks like we screwed up the waveform. The magic is stuck in a suspended state; it was supposed to be used to cast a spell, but since the spell didn't trigger, it's still in a volatile stasis, looking for a spellform to complete it." Sunset took another step closer, reaching out towards the magic with her arcane senses.
"Be careful!" Twilight called out, her voice shaking a little. "If it's in that kind of state, you could trigger it by accident!"
"Relax, Twilight," Sunset replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, "I saw this stuff happen all the time back at CSGU. Defusing this kind of situation was one of the first things they taught us, since it was gonna happen when you're trying to learn how to cast advanced spells." Sunset reached out to the magic. "All I need to do is establish a connection and gently guide it–"
The moment her hand made contact with the edge of the lattice, Sunset saw the magic leap out to surround her hand, and a moment later her vision was awash with a reddish tint. At the same time, she felt the roiling chaos of the magic trying to invade her mind, crashing against her psyche like a tidal wave.
Gritting her teeth, Sunset focused on the waves of energy invading her brain. She could sense that it wanted to be unleashed, to be freed from its current metaphysical state, and that it would use any conduit to achieve that goal. She reached out with her mind into the swirling maelstrom, subtly diverting its path and lessening the pressure on her soul. With renewed clarity of thought, she channeled the magic into her hands and pointed it outwards, intent on completing the spell and allowing the magic to dissipate.
"Sunset!" Unfortunately, Twilight had chosen that exact moment to call out to her, and Sunset turned instinctively to face her. A beam of pure light shot out of her hand and struck Twilight square in the chest.
Twilight screamed as bright green light engulfed her completely, the intensity nearly blinding Sunset.
A second later, she toppled over, the room plunging into darkness as the light fled her.
Sunset rushed over to Twilight, who was curled in on herself on the floor, her breathing rapid and shallow. "Calm down, Twilight," Sunset said, keeping her own voice as steady as she could, "take a deep breath. Everything's okay."
"Get away from me!" Twilight shouted, pushing Sunset's outstretched hand away. "What the hell did you do to me?" The panic and anger in Twilight's voice cut deep into Sunset's heart as the terrified scientist hugged herself even tighter.
"Nothing!" Sunset replied, her words rushing out in an effort to placate Twilight. "It was just a light spell! The echoing pulse was supposed to be a burst of green light, so that's what I made the magic manifest as. It's completely harmless."
Slowly, Twilight's breathing returned to normal, and the angry light in her eye dimmed, though she still eyed Sunset warily. "I– I see," she said, a slight tremor in her voice. "That makes sense. The waveform must have initiated the spell but not completed it, resulting in the buildup of magic. Are you sure that spell didn't do anything to me?"
"It's just light," Sunset assured her. "Nothing else." She reached out a hand to Twilight again to help her stand up, but Twilight pushed herself backwards until she thumped against the wall of the lab.
"I can get up by myself," Twilight replied tersely.
Sunset kept her distance as Twilight pushed herself to her feet. "I'm sorry I scared you, but it wasn't going to hurt you no matter what. Even if I didn't try to dissipate it, all it would've done is make a bright light before disappearing. Magic isn't some volatile chemical that randomly explodes if you touch it wrong."
"I know that, intellectually," Twilight replied as she stood up, her eyes still turned away from Sunset. "It's just that the situation reminded me of that night fifteen years ago. You have to admit it was a pretty similar setup."
Sunset winced. "Yeah, I can see how that might trigger some bad memories. I don't suppose it would help if I said I was sorry again?"
Twilight shook her head. "We already decided on a clean slate. I'm trying to move on from what you did to me, but that doesn't mean I forgot how much it sucked." She put an obviously false smile on her face. "Let's just keep going. We should try and figure out what went wrong with that experiment."
"Sure," Sunset smiled back with equal falsehood. "Let's go over the code again and make sure it's implementing the equations correctly."
The rest of the afternoon passed by without incident, but the mood in the lab was very different from the cautious hope that had pervaded the morning. The magical mishap had been a blunt reminder of that despite having decided to start over, they still shared a past filled with pain and betrayal, and despite the excuses that Sunset had made, a lot of it was her fault.
The bug in the code was quickly identified and resolved, and by the end of the day they'd managed to get the magic to echo back a pulse in multiple frequencies. Throughout the day, Sunset noticed that Twilight never once touched the containment lattice, leaving Sunset to make adjustments to it. She also gave the device a wide berth whenever she had to walk past it.
"Well, I think we've reached a good stopping point," Twilight said as they finished sweeping the last of the frequencies. "It's getting late and I have a committee meeting in an hour. We have a functioning framework for controlling the echoing spell, and I can't really help much with the spell design. You can figure it out without me, right? After all, it's not like you wanted me for my magical abilities." Twilight's attempts at dry humor were somewhat ruined by the awkwardness in her tone.
"Yeah, I can deal with this myself," Sunset said in the same painfully polite tone they'd been using all afternoon. By this point, she was starting to hate the sound of her own voice. "Go do your committee stuff – wouldn't want you getting into trouble for missing a meeting, right?"
"Right. I'll see you tomorrow at the same time, then?"
"Yup. Oh, Pinkie's party is tomorrow evening, so we'll have to finish up early. You want to head out together from here?"
"Okay," Twilight packed the last of her things before Sunset walked her out of the lab in silence. Sunset dropped her off on the first floor with a quick and formal goodbye before taking the elevator up to her room and heading for her office.
After taking a moment to gaze wistfully at a framed picture on her desk of her, Twilight, and the rest of their friends at Camp Everfree, she called up Starlight Glimmer on her computer. Whatever personal issues she might be going through, she still had a company to run, even if she was on extended leave.
"Good evening, Sunset," her President said as the image of her sitting in her own office appeared on screen. "How are you doing?"
"Okay," Sunset replied. "We're developing an active scanning method that might help us track down the magic used for the theft. Hopefully, we'll have something working by tomorrow."
"That's great!" Starlight said, smiling widely. "We're all looking forward to having you back. It's just not the same without you."
"That's good to hear," Sunset said with her own smile. "By the way, I've invited someone to join us on the metamaterials team. I think she'll be a valuable addition with a lot of unique insights."
"Oh?" Starlight's head tilted slightly in confusion. "I didn't realize you were recruiting. Who's the new hire?"
"Dinky Doo, one of Twilight's students. I extended an offer for her to join us in the spring for a semester."
"We've never hired an intern before." Starlight's tone instantly chilled.
"That doesn't mean we can't start," Sunset countered, "and I think Miss Doo is the perfect candidate for our first intern. Her work has already started revolutionizing the field, and I'm sure that there's a lot we could do with her working for us."
"And the fact that she's a student of Professor Sparkle has nothing to do with this?" Starlight shot Sunset a pointed look as she spoke.
"Well, her lab's one of the only ones that could train someone in the field, so I can't say she had nothing to do with it," Sunset said flippantly.
Starlight was not amused. "You know what I mean. Is this one of her conditions for working with you? Let her student work at Equinox so she can keep an eye on us or she won't help you track the journal?"
"No, it was my idea," Sunset replied. "I'm the one who asked Dinky to join."
Starlight sighed. "I was afraid of that. After all these years, you still can't let go of the past."
This time, it was Sunset's turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"
"Twilight Sparkle." Starlight said the name with a disgusted grunt. "You've always let her control your life, even though she broke off all contact with you fifteen years ago. Every major decision you've made in over a decade has been influenced by her."
"It's complicated," Sunset protested weakly.
Starlight scoffed. "It doesn't seem that complicated to me. It was her fault that you ended up sharing that cell with me in Crystal City. She ruined your life, took away your home, and drove you to the brink of despair. And the moment you found out that someone had stolen that journal, you were ready to welcome her back with open arms and let her set up shop right in the middle of your secret lab. You even let her steal away your chance at studying magic. What happened to the woman who was ready to take on the whole world for the greater good?"
"That's enough, Starlight," Sunset said firmly. "There's a lot of context that you aren't aware of. I said a lot of crap about Twilight because I was angry, and I didn't give you the whole picture. Twilight's got good reason to hate me, and I can't blame her for that."
Sunset bowed her head, shame welling up inside her heart. "I never told you this, but I hurt her bad. Twice. I broke her trust and then nearly killed her, all because of magic. Twilight has every right to be scared of magic, as misguided as we might think she is. She's a good person, and I can't stand by and let you verbally attack her."
Starlight was silent for a moment, staring intensely at Sunset. Finally, she spoke, a resigned tone in her voice. "Fine, I'll let HR know to expect someone next spring. But Sunset?" The founder of Equinox labs looked up at the determined gaze of her President. "I don't care about Twilight Sparkle. You're my friend, and I want you to be happy. If I think she isn't good for you, I won't hold my tongue." She tempered her next words with a smile. "After all, you didn't hire me to agree with you all the time."
"Thanks, Starlight," Sunset replied, her heart filled with warmth. "You're a good friend, and better than I deserve."
"Says the woman who saved me from throwing my life away. But enough sappy friendship talk – we have a company to run, and I need to know what you want to do regarding the licensing of the Evershine fabric for uses outside the fashion industry."
"We don't have an exclusivity contract with Fancy Pants, so there's no issue with licensing it to other companies. The terms we set with Fancy Pants seem fair enough, and makes for a good baseline for our negotiations. As for which companies to target…" Putting aside thoughts relationships and past betrayals from her mind, Sunset focused her attention on running Equinox. Whatever problems she might be dealing with, there were a lot of people depending on her, and she couldn't let them down.