Mad Science: An Ending


                                            >Somehow, it felt like it had been a very, very long time since you were in the basement of Twilight Sparkle's library, which, in a way, you suppose it had been.

                                            >10 years had passed since you had last been here, 10 years since you left for Equestria's capital, expecting to be gone… only a week?

                                            >A month?

                                            >Not too long, for sure.

                                            >You would return, your research on making your way back to your own universe would resume, and everything would go as planned.

                                            >But of course, as you learned on that fateful day a lifetime ago, nothing goes as planned.


                                            >What exactly had happened, when was the divergence point?

                                            >Thinking back, you suppose it began after Twilight reconciled with her friend Moondancer, now your closest colleague, after a series of coincidences at a book and coffee shop.

                                            >You smiled - it was a fond memory, and suddenly recalling it like this made you very happy.


                                            >Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, you had thought friendship was useless, Twilight was a tool to achieve your ends, her friends were annoyances to be avoided.

                                            >You cloaked yourself in cynicism and misanthropy.

                                            >But, somehow, that violet unicorn had pierced through your cold, hard armor, and all you could think was how glad you were that she had done that.

                                            >For now, for the first time in your life, you had friends, true friends.

                                            >And you suppose that was why your project - discovering a Theory of Everything, Including Magic - had slowly but surely faded into the distant background of your mind.


                                            >You walked over to what was once your desk (and suppose still was, considering how covered with dust it was).

                                            >Left there, among other detritus, was an apparatus of test tube clamps and magnets and wire, a tiny electric motor, powered by a magical battery.

                                            >It was one of your first explorations of the wonders of this world's magic.

                                            >Of course, when you hooked the wires up again, the battery had run dry.


                                            >What happened next after that fateful day?

                                            >After some convincing, Moondancer agreed to work with you and Twilight.

                                            >But creating the apparatus she had designed to create a purely magical field, absent the other four fundamental forces, would require a sophisticated lab space, with far more resources than Twilight's tree.

                                            >Fortunately, you were connected with royalty, and so securing an appointment at the Royal College of Canterlot was not difficult.

                                            >But even though you were a full professor of natural philosophy with the backing of the Princesses Solar and Lunar, there was now the politics of the university to navigate.

                                            >At first reluctantly, you began to teach, which of course took time away from your research.

                                            >You gathered doctoral students to support you, but they were utter novices in quantum theory in a world that barely knew Maxwell's equations.

                                            >Building up a corps of students educated in a century of physics took time.

                                            >Developing your laboratory took time.

                                            >There were setbacks, failures, frustrations, bureaucracy.

                                            >Grants to be written, appeals to be made, papers to be published.


                                            >You found an apartment near the university to live, paid by your own salary.

                                            >With Twilight's encouragement, you let Rarity provide her interior designing skills, making sure it was extra chic and modern.

                                            >Twilight visited every weekend, when you finally had time for your other studies in friendship, though of course you realized that "studies in friendship" equally meant that she just wanted to spend time with you.

                                            >Moondancer also stopped by frequently, both to discuss your collective work and also just to enjoy a game of chess, a cup of tea, or just quietly reading in your study.

                                            >Twilight's other friends appeared intermittently, mostly with her, sometimes on their own when they were in town.

                                            >And then there were errands to run, the laundry to be done, the dishes to be washed, the pieces of life that are uninteresting and repetitive, but so incredibly necessary.


                                            >The experiments began with some promise, after all the engineering had been ironed out, but after the first few tests, a never-ending list of problems began to appear.

                                            >Voltages were too low, focussing magnets and lenses were not calibrated properly, masses of various targets were too high or too low.

                                            >You did not have the conveniences of advanced human society.

                                            >For one, you had to create, from scratch, the techniques and machinery for cooling helium to liquid, which of course produced a few groundbreaking papers authored by your students.

                                            >You of course could have just used Moondancer's design, but reaching the energies to probe the strong and weak nuclear forces required a much more sophisticated machine.

                                            >You almost chuckled thinking about how you thought it would all be so easy, that your titanic intellect would take you all the way to the finish line in no time at all….


                                            >Twilight descends the stairs. "Everything alright?" she asks. "You look pensive."

                                            "Yes, that is exactly how I feel. It has been a long time," you say, setting the motor you were fiddling with down. "I was not here very long, but an important part of my life happened here."

                                            >Twilight sighs. "To an extent I don't even want to talk about it. The person you were back then… it makes me sad to think about, but I'm so proud of how much you've grown."

                                            "Thank you," you say with a nod. "I can never express my deep gratitude for everything you've done, everything you taught me."

                                            >"Just the fact that you're still here is enough for me," Twilight says.

                                            >"When you first got here, all you cared about was getting back to your world. Do you still care about that even?"

                                            "To a certain degree."

                                            >"But do you even think you can anymore?"

                                            >You sigh and say something you rarely say:

                                            "I don't know."

                                            "But, at the same time… if I could, would I leave now? I have a life here. I have… friends here. If I create the technology to leave that all behind, why would I choose that path?"

                                            >"Are you saying you don't even want to anymore?" Twilight asks.

                                            >You shake your head.

                                            "I don't think I do."

                                            >"But you're always talking about how much progress you've made! Every week it seems like you've jumped science forward another 100 years -"

                                            "You'll forgive me one last lie, won't you, Twilight?"

                                            >"What?"

                                            "Perhaps it's not a lie, per se, but it's deception. In truth, I don't think I can ever complete the theory. Every time we run the experiments, it just pushes the threshold farther away. It's like the secret is running away from us, faster and faster. I'll rewrite the equations, fix things here and there, and then we start over again. Ad infinitum."

                                            >Twilight picks up your old journal with her magic and flips through it.

                                            >There's plenty of physics and math in your untidy scrawl, plus some plain English and symbolic logic from when your mind deviated to the questions she posed to you about friendship.

                                            >After a while, there are just blank pages.

                                            >She hands the journal to you.

                                            >"I had a thought, and hopefully I'm wrong about it," Twilight says.

                                            "What is it?"

                                            >"That, maybe, in changing your thoughts on friendship, I somehow blocked you from returning home."

                                            "Don't say such things. That's illogical."

                                            >"Magic isn't necessarily logical. And friendship is -"

                                            "Please don't finish that sentence."

                                            >Twilight smiles. "Is being here bringing out a bit of the old you? Deceptive, sociopathic Anonymous, the great genius who needs no one."

                                            >You sigh.

                                            "Perhaps that is who I was. I regret being that person. If only I could have known what I was missing."

                                            >You kneel down and wrap your arms around Twilight's neck.

                                            "Thank you again. For everything."

                                            >She leans into your shoulder.

                                            >"And thank you, Anonymous, also for everything."

                                            >"C'mon. Pinkie did want to throw you a party to celebrate your tenth anniversary of arriving in Equestria. You promised…."

                                            "That I did," you say. "That I did."

                                            >You take one last look around the basement.

                                            >In the corner, your hazard suit sits in a heap, almost the same as you arrived in it, black with the red stripe down the middle.

                                            >You adjust your red tie, check the cuffs of your black suit for any dust, then climb back up the stairs with Twilight.

                                            >You take one look back from the landing, and then close the door.