Calling it a lab would have been a vast oversimplification of what lay in front of you. In the wake of Anon’s disappearance, and in the weeks since, Twilight had commanded no less than a hundred of the world’s best minds. To make room for research they had completely reconstructed three floors underground Canterlot Castle, leaving them in a wide open layout that you watched over every chance you could get. There were teams prodding at every possible avenue to reunite you with your beloved, ten different projects splayed out across the enormous space, each one a chance for you to see Anon again. Each one a thread of hope, a bright mark against a backdrop of emptiness.

But you weren’t here to watch over them as you so often did. Today Twilight mentioned she had some especially promising research to show you. The words were… well, barely words when she told you all about it. But you heard the undertone. She thought this one would work. She was confident. You could understand why Atlas fell for her, with this level of passion and drive… watching her was bewitching. Seeing how she effortlessly interacted with everypony there, easily jumping into conversations that you couldn’t even begin to understand. She was doing all this for you and for Anon without even the first thought of herself. She, the princesses, everyone… They all gave everything, all for you. If you hadn’t believed in love before now, well, this was incontrovertible proof.

So you found yourself, staring at an enormous arcane machine, whirring magical machinery flanking either side of two huge gilded crescents positioned to form a kind of imaginary oval. Lights flashed, gears turned, ponies rushed about tweaking this dial or nudging that lever as you looked from the almost absurd machination towards the pony who brought you to it. Twilight was similarly transfixed, an almost lusting salivation in her eyes as she looked at the product of what had to have been a dozen sleepless nights.

“This is it, Metamora. This is going to work, I can feel it,” she grinned. You wanted to believe her. You really did.

“How can you be so sure?” you asked, trying to maintain a cautious optimism.

“I can’t. But this is the closest we’ve got. The theory is all there this time. This isn’t just some strange Zebrican chanting or some crackpot postulation by some old stallion that’s convinced the one strange thing he’s been studying his entire life is finally relevant.”

“But it’s just theoretical still, right? What if it doesn’t work?” you ask, wanting to temper your expectations, and to a degree hers.

“Then we keep on trying until we figure it out. Even if we don’t get it this time, we’re bound to learn something from this. We’re going to find him, Em. We have to.”

You bristled at the nickname again. She never could bring herself to stop saying that when she was excited. It hurt, but then it didn’t.

She realized her mistake, looking briefly down at the ground.

“I’m sorry, Metamora… I know you don’t like it when I call you that… It’s just…”

“It’s happy,” you offer, “A beautiful nickname from a beautiful time. I can hardly fault you for using it when you’re so excited.”

“Still… I…”

“Relax, Twilight. He’d want that nickname to live on. And… it does kind of make me happy. I just need to embrace that.”

“Thank you,” she replied, throwing a hoof over you and pulling you close, “I’m so glad you’d share something so precious to you.”

“You know me,” you joked, “Queen of sharing…”

Your half-hearted joke was just enough to reset the mood, putting a smile on everypony’s face.

“Alright then… It’s science time,” Twilight beamed, “How much do you know about pseudometric causality?”

“How much should I know about… uh…”

“Pseudometric causality? I’d doubt much since it’s a relatively new discovery. In fact we really just came up with it here in the last few weeks.”

“So what you’re looking for me to say is” you deadpan, “something like ‘Nothing, Twilight. Please do tell me all about it in great detail’, right?”

“Oh I’m so glad you asked!” she smiled, taking your statement exactly where she wanted, “So it’s fairly simple once you get a bit of context out of the way. Nothing you wouldn’t learn after several years studying advanced magical theory.”

“Twilight, I-”

“Right. The basic part is to understand the magic that brought Anon here. We’ve been studying everything we could about that, drawing heavily from what he said to us and from some insights Luna had about his world. We think that magic is a special type called acausal magic. What that means is that the existence of that magic, is predicated on its later necessity. In this case it would appear that Anon was brought here specifically to sacrifice himself to save you, independent of anything that happened before.”

You tried to parse that. The magic that brought him here knew you’d need saving before you did?

“Moving on from that we were able to reason a few things out. The first was that this magic had to create some kind of signature when it collapsed in on itself. This signature should lead us both to where it originated and where it finally ceased.”

“So you found this signature?”

“Well we haven’t. But we figured out the last piece of that puzzle earlier today. And that last piece is you,” she explained, “We realized that we needed to target our search on some magic that he had created, but we knew that he didn’t create any magic, he just used it. But then we remembered he did create something like magic.”

“Love…” you paused, “You need my love.”

“Yes!” Twilight exclaimed, happy to see you following along, “But I’m afraid it’s a bit more than that. We need a specific piece of your love. Princess Luna and Chrysalis- Q-Queen Chrysalis both referred to it as a ‘seed’ of love.”

“You need that?” you asked, concerned about the concept of giving up the last piece of him that you had.

“I’m afraid we do. And if we don’t find Anon… we may never be able to replace it.”

“Then,” you declared, letting a golden light flow from your horn, “We better find him.”

Twilight looked at you with wide eyes, staring on at the energy that built in front of you. She directed the rest of the ponies nearby to action, watching as they all snapped to task, performing various functions in and around the space you occupied.

“Can you place that…” Twilight hesitated, “Your love… Can you put it in between the stands there?”

You complied, feeling the final wisps of that energy evacuate themselves from you. It wasn’t quite apparent what you had lost without that magic. You don’t think that affected your ability to make love anymore. Maybe it was just a vestigial part of you that you didn’t need anymore. Maybe you wouldn’t find out how important it was until it was too late.

“Alright. Do we have everything we need to commence the experiment?” Twilight asked, drawing everyone’s attention as each station waited to report, “Power controls?”

“Check. Systems nominal with primary and reserve capacitors at full charge.”

“Ranging?”

“Fixed and relative positioning calibrated per spec. Ready.”

“Telemetry?”

“Effector banks A through J are primed. Ready for visual on your go ahead.”

“And finally, Detection?”

“Confirming successful harmonization with sample. Signature analysis on standby and origin traceback is good to go.”

“Then let’s start the countdown,” Twilight declared, turning to whisper something to you, “I’ve always wanted to lead a fancy sciencey countdown.”

You almost had to laugh. She was so excited. Surely this would work.

“And we’re T minus Ten.”

“Throttling up to power distribution step alpha.”

“Nine”

“Activating signature capture… Now.”

“Eight”

“Telemetry is active. Inputs are live.”

“Seven”

“Signature capture complete. Commencing detection.”

“Six”

“Switching to distribution plan beta”

“Five”

“Signature acquired. Spooling to traceback.”

“Four”

“Ranging is receiving data from traceback. Adjusting for noise on theta channel.”

“Three”

“Traceback in sequence. Confirming elevated noise on theta channel.”

“Two”

“Telemetry outputs coming online now.”

“One”

“All systems are go.”

“Go.”

You watched as the sphere of your love seemed to pull and morph, being bound in place by the two crescent-shaped stands on either side. It stretched out to cover the entire area between the two, drawing into a tight, well-defined oval of pure white. Then you watched as it started to change color, starting to display something as if it were some kind of screen.

“Detection has a firm lock on the signature. Telemetry should have latest on motion path.”

“Telemetry confirms live data on motion path. Visual is live.”

You watched the image that was being displayed, the view seeming to show you tearing through the very fabric of the universe. It kept going for several minutes, the speed and intensity of it almost making you nauseous. Then after several minutes you watched it coalesce into something more concrete. You were looking into a room, not too different from what you’d expect to see here, just with everything being a bit taller. It took a moment for everything to come into focus but you could make out two creatures like Anon, one on a dark colored couch, the other sitting nearby in an armchair. The view was distant, grainy, and at an odd angle so you couldn’t make out what you were actually seeing, but you could tell that you were seeing humans. You had found, if nothing else, Anon’s world. But had you found him?

“Audio! Do we have audio?” Twilight barked, sending the ponies running telemetry scrambling at her insistence. You heard a sound start to come out of the screen, first a vague hum, then a more clear sound like running water, then voices.

Then his voice.

“…she is. Long story short, we fell in love. Which is particularly important to the story because, remember that whole siphoning emotions thing? Turns out Changelings aren’t supposed to be able to fall in love. She was… something else. I mean cute, funny, only ever cracked jokes at the worst times, you know… everything you could want in a woman. I still don’t know why she ever fell for me, but over the course of our time there, in between fucking literally every available moment, evidently she did.”

You had to look away, but even that couldn’t stop the tears. That was him. That was definitely him. But how couldn’t he see why you’d fallen for him… Did you never tell him? You had to have told him. Either way you’d have to tell him once you got him back.

“Come on Twilight. Let’s get him back,” you ordered, standing in front of the screen ready to jump through as if it would teleport you to where he was.

“Whoa, hold on…” Twilight cautioned, “That’s not… This was just to find him, Metamora. Now that we know where he is we can form a plan, get a team together. We’ll get him back.”

“We don’t need a team! Fuck making a plan. We’re so fucking close Twilight. Can’t we just…”

“There’s no way we can just go grab him right now. He’s…” she paused, “Ranging, distance!”

“Just over two hundred quintillion light-years.”

“The magic we’d need to bridge a portal that far… I can make it happen, but I need time. I promise, Em. We’ll get him back.”

“How long, Twilight? How long do we have to wait?”

“If I can get all of the resources that I need together… probably a week?” she said, a bit of uncertainty in her voice.

“Then let’s go get some resources. Just tell me what you need.”

“The princesses, Queen Chrysalis, you…”

“I’ll make it happen,” you declared.

You had found him. But now you had to get him back.

You had to get him back.

Author's Note

“Yeah, ~~Mr. White~~ Twilight! You really do have a plan! Yeah, science!”