I opened the door to experiment room one, and out walked Twilight Sparkle. But "walked" wasn't the right word. She stumbled, and she stumbled very oddly.
Initially she just stood there, staring at me. Her mane was a little mussed up and parted oddly, and she wobbled a little. Then she seemed to strain her muscles against the empty air. It looked a bit like she was walking through a blob of clear gelatin.
That's when the stumbling began, but maybe that wasn't the right word for it either. She lifted and set down her legs in a strange manner. It wasn't until much later that I realized where I'd seen that motion before: it was almost like she was walking backwards, except that she was moving forwards.
I would have reached out a hoof to help her, but I was stunned. My brain had already put two and two together and I didn't want to admit it. I could accept the fact that she'd been right about my experiment allowing for time travel of the first form, but I couldn't believe that she'd gone and done something incredibly dangerous right after reassuring me that she wouldn't.
After a few seconds of awkward straining, her body lurched forward and she landed on the floor in front of the door. All of a sudden, I could hear her breathing—deep and labored.
I reached down to offer her a hoof up. Once she stood up, she grinned at me, and I promptly slapped her across the muzzle with an open hoof. It wasn't hard enough to cut or break anything, but it definitely packed enough of a wallop to sting. I had never been able to hide my emotions well, and at that moment I was positively shaking with anger.
Twilight looked hurt: first physically, then emotionally. "W-why...?" she gasped.
"How DARE you!" I whisper-shouted. "Here you are warning me to be careful and you decide to do an experiment in the antimatter chamber with yourself?! You could have been killed! Or maybe even killed me in the process! We have no idea how this thing works, Twilight!" I made a mental note of the fact that it is difficult to speak clearly with a deep scowl yanking at the corners of your mouth.
Twilight winced and began to cry. "I, I know," she said, "but hear me out: if it hadn't worked, then you would have come to tell me..."
"I don't care about the logic! I don't even know what to think right now," I growled. "Even if you knew it would work, you didn't stop to consider what this would do to me."
"But... I thought you would be happy!" said Twilight, grimacing. "I'm so sorry, I—I just..." she said, wiping her eyes. Her hoof was moving erratically, like she had a hard time controlling it. She must have been really upset, I thought. I started to feel a little guilty myself, so I actively worked to suppress my rage.
I sighed and held my hoof over my face. "Look, Twi. I know the siren call of science as well as you do. But you just can't do shit like this without consulting me first. Think a little bit next time, okay?" I asked, then reached out to place a hoof gently on her shoulder. "How would you have reacted if I'd tried to use the experiment room right after what happened with my hoof?"
Twilight nodded, sniffling. "I know, I know. You're right, and I'm sorry," she repeated, then her eyes widened. "Oh no. We have to get out of here right now. I can't believe I have to walk out of here looking like this in front of the guards. Not that I don't deserve it, but I don't want them thinking you did something to upset me..."
"What are you talking about? I have to go talk to the other Twilight in... horse apples! I forgot to hit the stopwatch. About three minutes," I said.
"No! You can't talk to her," said Twilight Sparkle, grabbing me by my shoulders.
I narrowed my gaze. "You told me I was supposed to go talk to you after five minutes, no matter what."
Twilight nodded. "That's the whole point. If you had gone to talk to me, I would have known the experiment didn't work. Then I wouldn't have entered the room in the first place. That was my failsafe."
I was starting to get the idea. "I think I follow. But then, you wouldn't have really known it was a failure, would you? This could have been a useless test. You were allowing whether or not you entered the room to become another ontological para—" I said, then stopped short when I realized the implications. "Wait a second. You're going to come upstairs in three minutes and enter the room, aren't you?"
Twilight shook her head. "I didn't want to chance something weird happening by entering the room with the door open for the entire duration of the experiment, even though that might actually work. So I stayed downstairs for ninety minutes and read a book. But four and a half minutes after I went downstairs, I turned off the sound bubble so that I'd be able to hear you."
I shut the door to the antimatter chamber, realizing the necessity to complete the time loop. "Okay. That gives us a little over a minute..." I glanced at Twilight, and she really did look terrible. In addition to puffy eyes, she teetered back and forth as though she were about to fall over.
"We have to leave right now," she said, with a sigh. "It's okay. I'll just hold my hoof over my eyes as we exit, but—"
"Did you go to the bathroom? We could hide in there and put up another sound bubble," I offered.
Twilight shook her head. "For ninety minutes? I'm already three hours ahead of you, Moonie. I've been sitting in the experiment room all by myself for another ninety minutes—same ninety, different direction—because I didn't remember to bring the book with me into the chamber. Now I'm exhausted, I'm feeling nauseous, and I'm having trouble telling direction... I don't think I can handle staying in this chilly building for another hour and a half. I need you to lead me outside. Please," she begged me. "There's not much time. I didn't heard the door slam while I was downstairs, so we must have exited sooner."
I frowned. "Dammit, Twilight," I said, then carefully led her by the hoof to the entrance. I steadied her gait with my magic, and we were outside within a minute.
As planned, Twilight held her hoof over her eyes when we exited. With her head bowed and her legs shaky, it was very obvious she wasn't feeling well.
"Princess, are you alright?" asked one of the guards. I walked Twilight to some grass beside the building and helped her lie down.
"She'll be fine," I said. "The princess had something that didn't agree with her stomach, and she needs to rest."
The guards didn't seem placated by that, so Twilight said, "Moondancer is correct. I'll be okay, I just need some rest." She kept her head turned away from the guards as she lay down on the ground. It was warm out, fortunately. I was still very angry with her, but I felt bad for her too, so I lay down beside her and held her gently.
In truth, I was lying more "on her" than "next to her". I was glad she seemed partly okay, but I was still filled with worry. What if the trip through time had scrambled her brains? What if this illness were more than just motion sickness?
I cuddled up closer with my foolhardy friend, no longer caring that we were being watched by a couple of stallions. It just didn't matter anymore. Twilight was what mattered, and I wanted her to feel better. I tucked my muzzle up against her chin, and I could hear her heartbeat through her carotid. I wasn't sure why, but holding her felt amazing inside. I could feel a strange warmth filling my core and kissing my pelt, and it wasn't just the sun and her body heat. Maybe this was what true friendship does to you, I wondered. I hoped so, if only because that might mean that Twilight really was my friend. For some reason I'd never fully accepted that idea, and I suspected it was because she was so much more important than I. Why would she spend time with me, of all ponies, I wondered? It was a simple equation that didn't add up.
"I won't ever do this again," she murmured, and I felt the tension ease in her spine.
"Good," I said, and I gave her barrel a little squeeze.
We stayed like that for a few minutes, until one of the guards cleared his throat. Twice. Three times...
"What is it?" I said, lifting my head, and then I saw it too. "Um, Twilight?"
"Hmm?" she said, a silly smile on her face.
"Your butt is flashing."
"Huh?" she said, then craned her neck backwards. "Oh, nuts. The Map is calling me."
"I'm going to guess this is one of those things that can't wait," I said.
Twilight stood up uneasily, then shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I'm afraid so. I think I can manage, but I could use a lift. Guard, could you get a taxi for me?" One of the guards immediately took off.
"This is that Cutie Map artifact you were telling me about, isn't it?" I asked.
"Yes. It means somewhere in Equestria, somepony needs my help with a friendship problem. Probably one or more of my friends need to come, too. I'll know when I get to the throne room," she said. "Once I visit the Map, my cutie mark will stop flashing. It flashes again briefly when the problem is solved, but the problem could be anywhere in Equestria, so this might take a few days."
"Weird. Well, you should let me come with you," I said. "You still seem uneasy." I wanted to add 'your mane looks off' but I figured she'd fix it herself when she could finally balance on four legs.
Twilight shook her head. "I'd love to have you come with, but the Map is highly particular about who should go on a mission. If you were supposed to come, your mark would be glowing too."
I sighed. "How can I possibly counter that kind of logic?" I complained.
She smiled wanly. "Well... When the Map doesn't invite somepony, it usually means that if that pony were to come along, she'd accidentally solve the problem in a way that wouldn't fix the underlying issue," Twilight explained. "I know it sounds stupid, but it holds up historically."
"Right, extension of the Tree of Harmony and all that. Could I at least come with you to the castle?" I asked.
"I'm tempted to say yes, but I don't want to take you away from our work here. Er, I mean your work," Twilight said, correcting herself.
"You were right the first time. It's our work," I said with a genuine smile. "And yeah, I need to do some research as soon as possible to figure out why you're dizzy. That shouldn't happen. Also, you still smell a little like ozone? Which is weird."
Twilight nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that. Maybe it's in my pelt or something. Look, I'll be back as soon as I can. If you need to contact me, you can send a royal scroll my way. Although I probably won't receive it if you wait too long, since Spike doesn't usually come on our trips and he's still rigged as my personal receiver."
The taxi arrived, and I helped Twilight into the carriage.
"Wait!" I said, quickly grabbing the door of the cart so the driver wouldn't take off yet. "What am I supposed to do when you come out of the building?"
For a moment Twilight froze in thought, and then she laughed. "I already did! Just don't go into the lab for the next eighty minutes," she said. "Think it over, you'll get it."
I waved as the taxi took off toward the train station. Then I felt a hoof on my shoulder.
"Forgive my forwardness, Ms. Moondancer. But you do know the Princess really likes you, yes?" one of the guards whispered in my ear.
I blushed and turned my head. "Yeah, maybe she does. I guess we're pretty good friends," I concluded.
"Of course," said the guard, with a mischievous-looking grin.
The other guard chuckled. I didn't get it.
I spent the next few hours doing research at Twilight's place before I was interrupted by a knock on the door.
I answered the door, and to my surprise, I saw Princess Luna looming over me. She's scarcely half as tall as her sister, but she still stands nearly as many hooves high as a Clyde. I stood aside so she could enter.
"Greetings, Moondancer. I was hoping to find you here," said Princess Luna. Her magical mantle rippled through her mane and tail, glowing like a night full of twinkling stars and nebulae. It was hard for me not to stand transfixed by its beauty.
"Yeah, sorry Twilight is out at the mo—wait, did you say you were hoping to find me?" I asked.
Luna smiled and chuckled. I was a little surprised by her pleasant demeanor. Twilight had told me once she was 'hard to get to know', but right from the start she struck me as personable. Maybe with a strange, stilted way of speaking, but what can you expect from somepony who missed the past ten centuries?
"Indeed," said Luna. "As a point of introduction, I find 'Moondancer' to be a most endearing name," she said, with a smirk.
"Thanks," I said, blushing. I'm not sure why I was blushing, though. It was obviously a joke at my expense.
"As it were, that brings me to the intentions of my visit. I would like to meet the mysterious foalhood friend of Twilight Sparkle," said Luna.
I rolled my eyes. "Ah, I see. You want me to dish some dirt on her."
"Hmm? I fear that I do not ken the expression, but I want nothing foul from you, Moondancer," said Luna. She looked a little hurt, and I felt guilty even though it clearly wasn't my fault. "I desire to meet you. My sister tells me you are engaged in research with Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight has also bragged about your prowess as a scientist."
"She... she has?" I said, legitimately shocked. Was Luna exaggerating, or did Twilight actually speak well of me to other princesses? I wasn't certain which possibility frightened me more. "Well, I'm flattered. Yeah, we both like science a lot. I guess that's why we're working together."
"And you are friends, as well," added Luna, with a nod.
"Oh, yes. I'm kind of new to the 'friendship' thing, I must admit. Even though Twilight and I knew each other when we were young, we weren't very good friends to one another," I admitted. "We had so much in common, too. I wish we'd spent more time together back then, but I guess we're making up for lost time now."
"That is most wonderful to hear," said Princess Luna, with a bright smile. She walked over by the couch and sat on the floor. I took this as a cue to sit on the couch so we could talk eye to eye, so I did.
"I don't really have much else to offer," I said. "I'm working on a project right now, but I don't feel comfortable revealing details unless Twilight were here to agree to them. She recently joined my research team. Er, I guess two ponies counts as a team?"
"I would be very interested in learning more, at another time," said Luna. "I have been reviewing your recent publications."
"Oh, really?" I said, unable to hide the surprise from my voice. "Quantum mechanics wasn't well-understood back when, um, you were around." Saying that felt incredibly awkward.
"Indeed! It is a most fascinating subject, and I have found myself searching and re-searching through texts for truth. I am as intrigued by the concepts as I am vexed that they yet elude my ability to make sense of them," said Luna.
I chuckled. "That's normal," I said. "Quantum physics isn't something that makes sense in the same way that other sciences do. Feincolt understood it conceptually better than anypony, and even he said, 'it's safe to say nopony understands quantum physics', or something like that."
"So how, then, did he manage to grasp its truths?" asked Luna.
I grinned. "There's a secret, actually! It's a hard one to learn, but it's simple: don't try to explain quantum phenomena with classical analogies. They won't work."
"Ah. Like the odd fact how you cannot measure a particle's velocity and position at the same time?"
"Actually, that's one of the false analogies. It isn't about measuring; and it's momentum, not velocity. The fact is, particles don't possess both a position and a momentum at the same time," I explained. "It's not that we can't measure them, it's that those two values genuinely do not exist together! I could go into more detail, but it would take time to—"
Just then, Twilight Sparkle threw open the door. She was holding the stopwatch from the lab, and she had her saddlebags on.
"Moonie! I need you. Oh, um, hi Princess Luna. This is kind of an emergency at the moment," said Twilight Sparkle. I blushed at being called 'Moonie' in front of another princess. Nice work Twilight, you goofy egghead, I thought.
Luna stood up and smiled gently down at me, then turned to Twilight. "Pay me no heed, Twilight Sparkle. I shall return when your friend Moondancer is free of obligation, so that I might endeavor to know her better still," said Luna, who then yawned. "It is the middle of my sleep cycle, so I must return to my repose. Carry on with your science!" She speed-trotted out the door and shut it with her magic.
"Wow. Luna was here to see you? It must have been important for her to get up in the middle of the day—" said Twilight, and that's when I noticed something was wrong.
"Wait a minute. Your butt is still flashing?" I asked, scraping the floor with one hoof. "You couldn't possibly have traveled to Ponyville and back in four hours. Shouldn't you be on the train right now?"
Twilight blushed, then shook her head to recover. "There's no time to explain. I'm in great danger."
"Twilight, what is going on?" I demanded, my muzzle all scrunched up. I was peeved, and it was showing. I could tell she was hiding something from me, and I had a good bet on what.
She winced. "I am on the train to Ponyville right now."
"You used the antimatter chamber again?! I can't believe it!" I said, covering my face with a hoof. "Oh Twilight Sparkle, for crying out loud! Didn't we just go over this?"
"I didn't have a choice!" she said, then crouched down in a begging position. "Moondancer, please, you have to help me or I'm going to die," she said.
I walked over and picked her up. "You crazy mare. Of course I'll help you. Just tell me what to do," I said. "You can explain this mess later."
"I'll try to brief you as we walk to the lab," said Twilight, and with that we took off.
I was far more worried than mad. I could sense time travel shenanigans were painting Twilight into a corner, and I had no choice but to play along. My hoof cast gave us an excuse to keep the pace to a trot.
"Here's the short version," said Twilight. "After I arrive in Ponyville, Applejack meets me at the train station and my cutie mark stops flashing when she tells me the two of us are bound for Dodge Junction," she said. "That should happen very soon. Unfortunately, the fact that I don't actually disembark at Ponyville allows me to miss an extremely important detail—you'll figure that out on the way, though. When I arrive at Dodge Junction, I drink a sarsparilla and become violently ill. The doctors were going to hydrate me with an IV that probably would have killed me, but you arrive in time to save me. Without running, by the way, so don't even think about it."
"The doctors there must be idiots," I said. "Or was somepony trying to murder you?"
"Neither," said Twilight. "I don't need to explain, because I'm sure you'll figure things out long before you arrive at Dodge Junction. I'll just focus on the important details so you'll have time to make the train. It leaves very soon: it's roughly five hours behind the previous train, and it also passes through Ponyville. I should probably have grabbed you sooner, but I was famished after my second trip through the chamber so I just ate a big meal. Besides, this is the earliest you'll be able to grab the item I need you to bring with you."
I was insatiably curious, of course. "I'd better figure things out on the way there, or you'll never hear the end of it," I teased her.
"You will, trust me. But some things still have to be secret for now. I've arranged it so we're sharing the burden this time: some things are hidden from you, and others from me," she explained.
"Argh! Twilight, why?" I asked. "Look, I want to help you, and I'll do anything you tell me to if your life is on the line, but if I had some idea why you keep hiding details of these experiments..."
"To avoid breaking symmetry," said Twilight. "After these recent experiments, I no longer believe that antimatter shifting is time travel of the first form. I'm all but certain that symmetry breaking is possible. If we do break symmetry, that could add all kinds of noise into the equation. Unknowns of that magnitude are highly dangerous."
"Antimatter shifting? I approve of the name," I said. Then it finally clicked. "Oh! You're keeping me in the dark so I don't accidentally do something differently from what you experienced," I realized. "That way we don't have to worry about symmetry breaking introducing any unknown quantities into what happened. Thank Celestia, this is finally making sense."
"Right," said Twilight, with a soft smile.
"Actually—after you went back inside, how did you get out of the chamber without having somepony there to open the door for you?"
"I brought a... um, a heavy vibrating tool with me," said Twilight, with a blush. I wasn't sure why she was blushing. "It vibrates enough to shake open the door latch from the inside, as long as the door isn't locked down completely."
"Must be one hay of a vibrating device to overcome the audio dampening effect of the field," I said, then looked up and noticed we'd arrived at the lab. "Instructions," I barked.
"Okay, listen carefully. Go inside the lab. I'm currently in experiment room one, going backwards through time again. I need you to open experiment room zero, which will unlock in about... four and a half minutes. The room should contain a paper bag. Remove the bag, then make certain you shut the door to room zero. There should be a half-liter dee-ten-en-ess intravenous bag inside the paper bag. Take out the IV, place the empty paper bag into the bathroom, and close the bathroom doors. Then come out, and we can talk for a moment before you head to the train station," said Twilight. "Did you get all that?"
I paused for a moment. "Yes," I said. "I take it you can't come to Dodge Junction with me, though."
"I need to go get the IV from the hospital and place it in the room when the door finally unlocks again. You'll understand when you examine the IV on your train ride," she said. "Also, I can't see the paper bag, because that could complicate things, which is why I need you to do the retrieval. Anyway, do that, then come out and I'll tell you the rest."
I was eager to help Twilight, but even more eager to find out what else she would tell me. I silently wondered if that made me a bad pony as I unlocked the door and headed into the lab, taking Twilight's stopwatch with me.
I stewed in thought as I waited, but my brain wasn't going anywhere productive. After the stopwatch showed five minutes had passed, I opened experiment room zero. A familiar blast of wind and ozone lauded another visitor from the future. True to Twilight's word, the occupant was one brown paper bag. I pulled it out of the gelatinous-feeling air, moved the ratcheted teeth aside, shut the door, and withdrew the plastic IV bag. There was nothing else in the paper bag. I tossed the bag on the bathroom floor, shut the bathroom door, and exited the lab.
"Everything went as planned, and the doors to room zero and the bathroom are both shut," I announced to Twilight. Her bottom was still flashing and it was hard not to stare directly at it. It was almost mesmerizing, and it wasn't just the flashing, but the shape of it somehow drew my attention, too. I didn't understand, but I forced myself to look up at her face. "Now what?"
"Here's a ticket for Dodge Junction," Twilight said, and hoofed me a ticket with magic. I picked it up with my aura (holding multiple items with delicate care was trivial for a practiced mage like myself).
"And when I get there?"
"Find the clinic. Tell them if they give me any dextrose IV other than this one, it might kill me," she said. "If they don't believe you, hoof them this scroll."
"Oh. Your butt just stopped flashing," I pointed out.
"I must have arrived in Ponyville, then. I wonder how long it's been off for?" she asked.
"Literally just now. I was watching it this whole time," I said.
Twilight blushed so hard the inside of her ears pinked.
I cleared my throat, then nabbed the scroll out of the air as well. For a moment, I landed the ticket in my hoof and looked at it. "Okay. The train leaves in just over thirty minutes, so I'd better trot to make sure I'm not late. Now Twi, can we please agree not to do anything else with the experiment rooms until we regroup? I'm getting a little tired of saving your magic flashing ass," I joked. I winked at her to emphasize that it was a joke, but it felt awkward.
Twilight blushed and smiled. "I promise, Moonie," she said, and she leaned out and kissed me on the cheek.
I felt really, really weird about that. Is that something friends do, I wondered? I couldn't imagine that colts did that sort of thing to each other, but maybe fillies were different. The weirdest thing was how nice it felt. It felt like a reward for helping her, and that didn't make any sense, because I wasn't a colt. We were both fillies. This was an obvious fact.
I smiled like a goof, then trotted off.
"And don't run!" Twilight called out. "When I woke up, AJ told me you didn't have to run to get there in time!"
I ignored her warning and broke into a light canter as soon as I crested the hill. It hurt a little bit, but I wasn't going to leave anything to chance. The cantering was made easier because psychologically I felt a little like I needed to run away from that awkward exchange. I had this bizarre electric feeling all over my flesh, and it just wasn't normal. It felt almost like having a special somepony, I thought, although I didn't really know what that felt like. Twilight was obviously very special, but again, we were both fillies, so it made no sense whatsoever. I tried not to think about it, and my mind had mostly cleared by the time I arrived at the train station.
I'd made it with ten minutes to spare. I got on the outbound to Dodge Junction (via Ponyville), sat down, and lifted my cast onto the train seat—given the circumstances, I doubted anypony would mind. My hoof throbbed painfully, but I didn't regret my decision.
I set the scroll in my lap. It was sealed, but that was kind of the point. I already knew what the contents were, anyway. I gently lifted the IV bag up with one hoof and examined it for the first time. It was 10% dextrose in normal saline, just as Twilight had said. It had all the typical boilerplate warnings, which I carefully read. It was marked Canterlot General, and had a separate copyright notice from the plastics company. Nothing really seemed out of place. But something about the bag struck me as a very odd design choice. Then it hit me like an anvil from the sky.
My short whoop of laughter startled the other passengers. Twilight was right, as usual. This little plastic bag explained everything.