“Have you heard about the interference with television broadcasts,” began Agent Fowler conversationally.

“It’s been in the news,” replied Steve noncommittally.

But why look for us, specifically? Meg thought. Twilight’s assurances that human technology couldn’t possibly detect magic, much less zero in on the source, were starting to sound hollow.

“This block of apartments appears to be at the geometric center of the interference,” she said, waving her arm at the offending building, as if she was quoting something from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! “We’re interviewing all residents. Have you seen anything out of the ordinary in the last few weeks?”

“You mean like a high power antenna?” he asked.

This was a dangerous game. Lying to an FBI agent was a federal crime in and of itself. But telling the whole truth, even if they could, would only get them arrested for contempt.

“If only it was that simple,” she wearily replied. She slid past them and began climbing the stairs. “Special Agent Holmes, the lead investigator, will meet us at your apartment.”

They followed the agent up the stairs. The bacon cheeseburgers would have to wait.

“Why the Geiger counter?” Meg asked. Not that she had ever seen one before, much less used one, but the occasional clicks seemed like ordinary background radiation to her.

“The power output of the transmitter is at least a megawatt, and slowly but surely rising. We’ve checked the power grid. It’s not coming from PG&E.”

Steve climbed a few more steps. “So… what? You think it’s nuclear powered or something?”

Agent Fowler stopped at the stop of the stairs and turned around. She silently stared at Steve for a few seconds before answering. “Quite honestly, we don’t know what to think.”

She began walking past the apartments. A half dozen doors down, a man in a suit and tie, with slightly graying hair, was waiting. Meg recognized him as the man she had seen leaving the van. They continued in silence until they reached him.

Steve spoke first. “Special Agent Holmes, I presume?”

The agent pulled out and displayed his badge. “You may call me Scott,” he said, after which he returned his badge to a pocket.

As if we’d know if they’re real or fake, Meg idly thought. After all, she had never seen one in person before, or even knew what it was supposed to look like.

“May we talk inside?”

Steve hesitated. This Holmes would make an excellent poker player; it was difficult to get a read on his intentions.

“You’re a physicist, correct?”

Carefully, Steve said, “Yes.”

“Then I think you will find this intriguing.” After a brief pause, seeing no movement, the agent continued. “Unless you are in possession of a device acquired from extraterrestrials, I can assure you and your wife that you are not persons of interest.”

Couldn’t he have at least smiled after saying that? It wasn’t clear if he was deadpanning a joke or being completely serious. Not that it really mattered. If they wanted in, they would get in, one way or the other.

Coming to the same conclusion, Steve took out his keys and unlocked the door. He put the keys away and put his hand on the doorknob, but did not turn it. “You’re sure you’re not Agents Mulder and Scully?”

“The X-Files was just a TV show; this is reality,” Holmes said with a straight face. Fowler, at least, was trying to suppress a smile.

“I guess it is…” Steve opened the door and everyone followed him in.

“She’s a good customer of mine, but I can’t say I know her,” Rarity said, waving a hoof about.

“I know her birthday is in one hundred and twenty seven days!” Pinkie Pie giddily declared.

Twilight scanned the circle of thrones, but nopony else had anything to add, until her eyes landed on Applejack.

“Honestly, Twi, you ought to know her best, considerin’ she’s from Canterlot just like you.”

Rainbow Dash retorted, “It’s not like everypony in Canterlot knows everypony else there!”

Twilight’s gaze fell on the pegasus. “I probably do know her best,” she admitted, sighing, “but that isn’t saying much.” She went on to explain. “During my years as Celestia’s student, I would occasionally attend performances of the arts put on in her honor. Sometime, I was allowed to be present, afterwards, when she granted the performers an audience. That’s how I met Lyra.”

Dash stared off into the distance. “Heh… who’d have thought she had a bit of Daring Do in her.”

“Attendin’ classes and actually diggin’ for stuff are two different things,” Applejack pointed out.

“Indeed,” Rarity agreed. “I can’t imagine such a cultured mare willingly getting herself so filthy.”

This was getting pointless. They weren’t going to solve the mystery of what Lyra might or might not have discovered by talking amongst themselves. I’m going to have to talk to her. How was she going to raise the subject without sounding crazy? But for now, there were more important matters at hoof—like saving Equestria. Nonetheless, it did help crystalize what was really bothering her. “It’s just a bit unnerving that the humans might know something so… significant… about us that we’re clueless about.”

The room fell silent.

Twilight took a deep breath. “I guess that leads to the next topic on the agenda: Meg and Steve.”

Meg and Steve sat down on the sofa, while Agent Fowler sat in the reclining chair. Agent Holmes took the Geiger counter from her and walked around, slowly sweeping the probe across various surfaces. If not for the rare click, it would be easy to think it was turned off.

The agent stopped his sweeps and turned to face Steve. “You’re a physicist; what do you make of that?”

Steve had watched the demonstration with increasing consternation. “If… I didn’t know better… I’d say… I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Then I’ll say it for you: here, at the geometric center of the broadcast interference, there appears to be unusually little background radiation.”

“That’s… physically impossible. Radioactive decay cannot be suppressed. It’s absurd to think that all radioactive isotopes have been removed from the area—our own bodies even.”

“That is what I’ve been told,” he agreed, holding up the detector’s probe to his chest, “and yet here it is. We’ve tried several devices, thinking we had a bad one, but they all behave the same way. What little it’s detecting now appears to be mostly cosmic gamma radiation.”

“Which do you think is more likely,” Agent Fowler asked, “suppression or removal?”

Steve struggled to form words. The question was absurd, like asking whether it was more likely the Sun went around the Earth, or that the Earth was flat. But as absurd as it might have been, it was possible to put it to a test. “I can think of an experiment that will answer that question.”

“I’m listening,” Holmes said.

“Uh, yes… you need to get a radioactive sample and bring it here. Doesn’t have to be very active, just something that will really set off a Geiger counter at close range—a beta emitter would be perfect. Whether it actually does will answer your question.”

Agent Holmes chewed it over for a moment, his face giving no clues as to what he thought of that proposal. “I think that can be arranged,” he finally said. “I’ll let you know when we’ll be back. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.”

He made his way to the front door, his associate following close behind. Steve followed them both, and happily closed the door after the agents had departed.

He then went back to the living room and wearily sat down next to Meg, leaning his head back. “Great,” he exhaled. “Now we’re stuck with some FBI agents. Just what we need.” He could only image what would happen if Twilight showed up while they were here. They needed a way of communicating with ponies back in Equestria. Something could be set up with the tablet they’d be giving Twilight.

“This has to be a side-effect of magic,” Meg said.

He turned to look at her. “Obviously,” he droned. “But how?” He resumed looking at the ceiling. “Does this mean there’s no radioactivity in Equestria?” As he closed his eyes and rubbed them, he said, “I really need to find out how Twilight’s magic probe works. I’m starting to think it has a lot in common with a Geiger counter.”

Meg looked at him with concern. “Should you have suggested that experiment? What if it leads them to the doll?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her once more. “They’re not idiots. They’d have come up with it on their own, if they hadn’t already. We can’t afford to give the impression of non-cooperation.” He leaned his head back again. “Anyway, a Geiger counter is nowhere near precise enough to zero in on that doll, and even if was… how could a stupid doll be emitting a megawatt of power?” He rubbed his forehead. “Far more than a megawatt. That megawatt is only what was turned into detectable electromagnetic radiation.”

Enough to power Twilight’s teleportation. He had no idea how much power that actually took, but he did know very few unicorns were powerful enough to do it.

“Meg minded her manners well enough, from what Ah could see. A little too curious, perhaps, but who wouldn’t be in her hooves.”

Twilight’s gaze shifted from Applejack to Rainbow Dash, the pony who had expressed the strongest objections to bringing them across.

The pegasus grinned uncomfortably, aware of the attention suddenly focused on her. “Well… she had a hard time doing even simple stuff with her hooves.”

“I’m certain she will get better with practice,” Rarity asserted.

“Is she happy being a pegasus?” Pinkie asked.

“What the hay does that have to do with anything?” Dash replied.

Pinkie mercilessly glared at her. “Is she happy being a pegasus?”

All eyes turned to Rainbow Dash once more. She swiveled her head from one side to the other, meeting each pair in turn, finally locking in on Pinkie’s. “Yeah, I’d say she was.”

“That’s the impression Ah got,” added Applejack, nervously adjusting her Stetson.

Twilight rather agreed with Dash. Nopony would be forcing Meg to return if it made her unhappy. But it was pointless to argue such things with Pinkie Pie.

Having already recounted her day with Steve, she felt it was time to end their discussion. “Since there do not appear to be any objections, for the time being they are welcome in Equestria.”

The next day, Twilight spent the afternoon analyzing the latest anomaly measurements she had received from Cadance. Unfortunately, she still lacked the means to send them via Spike, necessitating the use of the postal service. Twilight was becoming accustomed to Derpy’s regular visits as she made the special deliveries.

For better or for worse, the numbers matched what she was seeing on the other side with the doll: a slow but steady worsening. At least it was progressing as anticipated. She still had time. Unfortunately, she needed it. As productive as her visit to the Canterlot Archives was, she still had trouble coming up with a spell that would solve the problem. She was still missing something.

It was time to visit the other realm, both to take another set of measurements and to receive the tablet she was promised. She was looking forward to learning some simple programming so that she could save a lot of time doing calculations—some of which, no doubt, will be spent watching the near one hundred episodes that exist of that cartoon. I’ll just need to be organized.

Twilight flared her wings and lifted herself to the upper level. It was starting to become second nature; Rainbow Dash would be proud of her. She flew over to her bedroom and landed in front of a chest of drawers, on top of which rested Discord’s pill dispenser.

Temporarily overriding the magical lock she had placed upon it, she turned the knob, causing a single plaid pill to fall out. The contents of the jar shifted in response, yet it remained as full as the day she got it. Apparently, it will never run out. Discord could be so… unpredictably accommodative.

Twilight swallowed the unpleasantly plaid-tasting pill, crossing over. She found Meg deep in thought, working on something on her computer. As much as she hated to break her concentration, she really needed to make her presence known. “Ahem.”

Meg didn’t look away from the screen. “Hi, Twilight. We need to talk.”

This… did not sound good. “About what?”

Meg swiveled in her chair to face her, her hands clasped in her lap. “Our government has become aware something weird is going on here.”

That… cannot be good, not good at all. “May I ask how?” It shouldn’t have been possible, unless the humans violated their Pinkie Promise, but she wasn’t going to jump to conclusions.

“Well,” she started with an exhale, “we happen to be at the geometric center of the emissions that are interfering with broadcasts. That was their first tipoff.”

Twilight suppressed the urge to face-hoof. How could I be so stupid.

“Then, they noticed the sheer power output of the emissions. That kind of power consumption is difficult to hide, but they couldn’t track it down—and they tried. That forced them to consider crazy ideas, like someone running a small nuclear reactor or something.”

“Nuclear what now?”

Meg waived off the query. “The point is, human technology can detect the presence of magic. Agents of our government are trying to make sense of it. They will be coming here to study it.”

Twilight blinked, several times. This is bad, very very bad. “How can your technology detect magic?” Moving the doll would be futile, if humans can follow the magic.

“Steve wants to talk to you about that. He thinks the device you use to measure the magical field has a lot in common with a device we have that measures radioactive decay.”

Twilight silently mouthed the words, “radioactive decay.”

“The spontaneous decay of certain element isotopes, often into other elements.”

She collapsed onto her haunches, her gaze drifting to the floor. That did sound similar. But even in her own realm, those substances are not completely stable. They’re extremely rare. Here, in this realm, without magic to create them, never mind keep them remotely stable… No! Enough with the assumptions. Somehow, they did exist here.

Twilight looked up again at Meg. “Do you know when they’ll be here?” she asked, weakly.

“Not really, no,” Meg admitted. “I doubt we’ll get much advance notice, if any.”

“I wouldn’t want to be here when they are.” Maybe meeting with representatives of this realm was inevitable, but she dearly wanted to delay it until after that hole has been taken care of. For now, they would only get in the way.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, no,” Meg said, stating the obvious. She turned around to retrieve the tablet and handed it to the alicorn, who accepted it with her magic. “I’ve setup a means of communicating, so we can warn you if it’s not safe to come over.”

I mustn’t underestimate their technology.

Meg gave her a tutorial on how to use the communications app. It was text based, but that meant a record of all messages sent and received was available, including the time it was sent. She also set up a password for her, so that the tablet couldn’t be used by anypony else. She then showed her the calculator app. It’s programmability was quite primitive compared to what she read in that book, but it was also far easier to understand.

Finally, Meg showed her how to play episodes of the cartoon. The entire first season was present; there wasn’t room for more than one season at a time, unfortunately. Still, it would take around ten hours to watch them all.

After being shown how to charge the device, Twilight returned home. She wasn’t in the mood to wait for Steve to come home and talk to him. Meg assured her it was okay.

Not being much in the mood to do anything else more productive, Twilight decided to start watching the cartoon. She selected the first episode, Friendship is Magic, part one, and magically tapped the “play” icon. At least the name of the episode was reassuring.

Special Agent Holmes put the small, metal box onto the coffee table as the Colemans watched, standing well back. He wouldn’t say what the radioactive substance was, but as beta radiation was nothing more than energetic electrons, a simple metal box was all the shielding required—if any shielding at all was required in their home.

They were about to find out.

Why does this have to feel so much like a cheesy sci-fi movie? Steve wondered.

Homes unlatched the lid. Putting on thick gloves, he stood back and opened the lid. Even a few feet of air blocks beta radiation, so this wasn’t particularly dangerous. Fowler, also wearing thick gloves and standing back, held the probe of the Geiger counter a foot over the box.

If there was any difference, it was too small to be obvious. “It should be clicking like crazy,” Fowler reported, not really accepting the evidence of her ears.

She slowly lowered the probe. When it approached the top of the box, it finally started to noticeably click faster—but still substantially below normal background levels. She inserted the probe into the box, presumably all but touching the substance, and was rewarded with the highest reading so far, yet still so low it was safe enough to hold in one’s bare hand.

Holmes closed the lid and latched it.

There was no denying it. Magic suppressed radioactive decay; it messed with the weak nuclear force somehow. Now, Steve predicted, comes the pontification on all the possibilities, for good and evil.

He was not disappointed.

“If we could harness this somehow… dealing with nuclear waste and accidents would be so much easier,” Fowler said.

“Or be used by terrorists to shut down a nuclear power plant,” Holmes countered.

“Or prevent an atomic bomb from detonating.”

“Including ours.”

It was growing tiresome fast. “Or win someone a Nobel Prize,” Steve threw in, drawing their attention. “I assume you’ll be spending a lot of time here?” he asked with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

“First, we need to determine how this effect correlates with distance. It might be possible to make do with a nearby, currently vacant apartment,” Fowler offered.

“If not, we could assist you in moving elsewhere,” Holmes added. “It may be wise to evacuate the area anyway.”

Steve exchanged a look with his wife. Yeah, that would work real well. In the best case scenario, they’ll have new, inconvenient neighbors, and in the worst case… what happens when the “effect” follows them to their new home?

“I can’t say we’ve noticed any ill effects,” Meg said. “I guess that’s surprising, if there’s a megawatt transmitter here,” she added, uncertainly. They knew that’s not how it worked, but did they know that?

“You needn’t worry about that,” Fowler assured them. “This may be the center, but the transmission doesn’t actually originate from here. It seems to come from a spherical shell; it even extends underground, hard as it is to believe. So that megawatt is spread out over a hundred square miles.”

“But you think it’s connected to this ‘effect?’” Steve flatly asked.

Holmes made his way to the front door. “It would be a huge coincidence if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you agree?”

Twilight checked the tablet again. She knew that was silly; a sound hadn’t played announcing the arrival of a new message. The most recent message remained the same: FBI present.

She resumed impatiently walking in circles. How long were they going to be there? What if they took the doll?

The tablet chimed. Twilight rushed over and read the message: all clear. She lost no time in putting on her saddlebags and swallowing a plaid pill.

Meg and Steve were both there, waiting for her. She quickly glanced up at the bookshelf, relieved to see the doll was still there, next to the Derpy doll. Her attention returned to the humans.

Steve provided the executive summary. “The magical field definitely suppresses radioactive decay. They may spend time here researching it, possibly move into a nearby apartment, or even evacuate the entire area. They think the chances are it’s connected to the broadcast interference.”

It was another clock ticking away, perhaps the fastest ticking one of all.

Twilight took off her saddlebags and got comfortable. She levitated out a sheet of paper and sent it over to Meg. “Here are the equations for simulating the magical field in the form you requested.”

Meg plucked it out of the air and studied it for a moment. “Okay,” she said as she got busy on the computer.

Performing a simulation of a physical system requires breaking it up into a large number of tiny pieces. The state of each piece, at a moment of time, depends on the state of that piece, and its neighboring pieces, at the previous moment of time. The smaller the pieces and intervals of time, the more accurate the simulation.

Twilight had reworked the equations she was familiar with into the form needed to express those dependencies. Describing a physical system in this fashion was alien to her; without the technology of computers, there was no point to it.

As Meg busily typed away, those hands of hers rapidly and accurately hitting the keys, Twilight retrieved her magic probe from her saddlebags, and the Pinkie Pie doll from the bookshelf, and did her measurements. That clock was still ticking away as well.

She lifted a chair and positioned it so she would have a view of the monitor, without being too much of a distraction. It took a surprising amount of effort to create software. As much as she’d wish it could be finished tonight, it wasn’t likely to be completed until sometime next week. It didn’t help that Meg could only work on it at night during the week.

She already had her first simulation planned: a sonic rainboom. Providing the initial state was proving to be a challenge in and of itself. It wasn’t as if the initial state of all those millions of pieces could be specified individually, one by one.

For the next hour, she unobtrusively observed, trying to understand the process. Assembling pieces together, the layers of abstraction, she once more considered how there was some resemblance to spell creation. It’s unfortunate she’s not a unicorn.

“It’ll take a few hours to download the second season,” Meg said, plugging the tablet into the computer and starting the transfer. “It should be done by the time we get back.”

“It’s been surprisingly nostalgic,” Twilight said. “I mean, it’s only been a few years, but it seems like I’ve already forgotten some of it.”

Meg put her saddlebags around her neck and put her phone inside it. “It’s only to be expected. You’ve been a very busy mare since moving to Ponyville.”

“You’re telling me,” she chuckled, but then got serious. “Nonetheless, the deviations, when they occurred, were irritating. Most of them seemed so arbitrary, so minor, so pointless.”

“Perhaps it’s a clue to how it’s happening? I dunno. I’m ready to go.”

“Okay.”

Twilight grabbed Meg with her magic and invoked the return spell. They found themselves in a field, not far from a cottage that had a thatched roof that was still very much green and alive.

I’m back! It was a shame Steve was too busy with work to come along, but he insisted she go anyway. She could only be there a few hours anyway. She was babysitting Susie that Saturday afternoon.

Meg looked down and saw hooves. Above her left hoof was the phone holder Rarity had made for her. She raised her wings, retrieved her phone—noticing her cutie mark was back—and pushed it onto the holder, locking it in place. She checked to see if she still had a signal, and she did.

“I was afraid that whatever Steve did would be undone when I left the magical field back home,” she explained to Twilight, who had been patiently waiting.

“It probably was,” she said, thoughtfully, “but it got redone when you re-entered the magical field. Magic tends to have a memory effect.”

Meg started flapping and began hovering. I’m a creature of the air again, she thought, a big smile plastered on her face. It was like she hadn’t spent the last week as a human, just as she’d hope.

“You are happy being a pegasus, aren’t you?”

Her eyes looked at nothing for a few seconds. “Yeah, I am… in moderation anyway,” she concluded.

Twilight joined her in the air. “This way,” she said as she flew off to the cottage. “Hopefully, your love of flying is infectious,” she half-muttered.

They arrived at the front door and set down. Twilight knocked on the door. “Fluttershy! It’s Twilight!”

Timid clopping sounds gradually approached the door. It hesitantly opened, revealing a butter yellow pegasus with a pink mane. “Hi…” she began, until she noticed the orchid pegasus off to the side. “Meg?” she finished, trying to duck behind her mane.

“Hi, Fluttershy,” Meg tried to say as casually as possible.

“Don’t you remember?” Twilight asked.

Her ears flattened back. “I’m sorry. I remembered, but, I didn’t expect it to be this early.”

“That’s okay,” she assured her. “Can you keep her company for a few hours?”

“Oh, sure, I can do that,” she said unconvincingly.

“Then I’ll be on my way.” Not giving Fluttershy a chance to object, Twilight took wing and flew away, rapidly.

Meg wondered if she was being used. Well, it was for a worthy cause. At least she trusts me enough to leave me alone with her.

Fluttershy’s eyes nervously shifted, her lips pulling back into an awkward grin. The silence grew.

Fluttershy was living up to her reputation. What to do about it? It wasn’t as if she had a baby dragon for her to gush over. She didn’t have any pet at all to talk about. I guess I don’t have many alternatives. Hopefully, he doesn’t live up to his reputation.

Meg tentatively approached the door, stopping when Fluttershy threatened to pull back. She can’t possibly be happy being like this. Not that she had a solution. Sure, there were drugs to treat social anxiety, but who knows what effect they would have on a pony?

There was only one card for her to play, so she played it. “Could you introduce me to Angel?” He’s just a rabbit. Surely the cartoon greatly exaggerated his intelligence—and malevolence.

Fluttershy immediately brightened up. “Yes, of course, I know you’ll like him! He really is friendly when you get to know him.” She turned around and began searching for the rabbit. “Angel bunny! Where are you! There’s somepony who wants to meet you!”

The doorway no longer blocked, Meg entered the cottage and closed the door behind her. The interior was pretty much as she expected. Quite a few bird houses, some hanging from the ceiling; no easy way to reach them to change their food or water—unless you’re a pegasus. A large metal bird cage in a corner rested on a six foot stand, with a narrow wooden stairway providing a path to the floor. What’s up with that?

That cage was empty, but at least some of the bird houses were occupied, their residents poking their heads out to examine her. There were holes in the walls, for rodents she guessed, and some were high enough to require stairs of their own. Various small mammals, aquatic birds, and reptiles lounged around on the floor and furniture. Probably not many ponies making social calls. There was even a platypus snoozing in the corner, with a bandaged limb. Those are also in Equestria?

A thumping sound in front of her made her look down. It was Angel, pounding the floor with his hind foot and folding his arms in irritation.

Not promising. “Hi, Angel…” The use of his name by a total stranger did nothing to mollify him. He stopped thumping, which somehow made him look more menacing.

This is absurd. He looked like an ordinary rabbit, no different from rabbits back home. Sure, he was a lot larger—no, she was a lot smaller. So how could he act so intelligent? Magic? And folding his front limbs? Can a rabbit actually do that? He wasn’t doing too badly on facial expressions either. That look of contempt was coming through loud and clear.

“There you are!” Fluttershy came in from the kitchen, saving her from certain… what, exactly, could he do to me? A carrot was lodged in her mane. On sight of it, Angel forgot all about the intruder and hopped eagerly over to his caretaker. “Did you give Meg a warm welcome?” she asked in cooing tones.

Angel nodded enthusiastically.

“Then here’s your reward,” said Fluttershy, as she grabbed the carrot, pulled it out of her mane, and hoofed it over to the rabbit. Angel yanked it out of her grasp and started munching.

Meg rolled her eyes. Is she really this blind? It’s one thing for it to be a running gag in a cartoon, but this was real life. She considered raising the subject, but decided not to; at best, she would get nowhere. It was impossible to believe that the others, especially Rainbow Dash, hadn’t already tried.

Whatever. She came to take pictures, so pictures she shall take. That rabbit almost looked cute munching on the carrot. She hovered, freeing her front limbs, rotated the phone, put it into camera mode, and took a picture.

The fake shutter release sound caught Angel’s attention, but after glaring at her for a second, he returned to his carrot. Meg took that as permission to continue, but she first turned off the sound effect, just to be on the safe side.

Meg spent the next two hours taking pictures and helping Fluttershy with the animals under her care, both inside and outside of her cottage. She even accompanied her a little ways into the Everfree; the timid pegasus needed to checked up on that bear. It was surreal how brave she could be at times, even if she insisted there was no real danger that close to the cottage. They did have to skirt a new patch of poison joke, however, of which Meg dutifully took a picture.

Eventually, the alarm clock went off on her phone; it was time to head on back. She made her goodbyes and departed, pausing long enough to take an aerial photo of the cottage. As she flew back to the castle and Twilight, she thought about how that was time well spent. Fluttershy had even begun to come out of her shell around her. Angel… had become a bit more tolerant of her.

The castle loomed in front of her. The door to the small balcony just above the main entrance was open, so she adjusted her course and headed towards it. Slowing down, she passed through the door and landed in the corridor. From there she walked over to Twilight’s library and residence. Twilight was there reading a book, waiting for her.

A minute later, she was home.

Meg had spent the last hour showing Twilight how to use the magical field simulator she’d been working on, while they both finished off some leftover cheese pizza for lunch. There was much left to be done, but it was working well enough to elicit feedback, which Twilight provided in abundance.

The doorbell rang. Meg walked over to the front door, closing the door to the office behind her. Twilight could continue playing around with the simulator while she kept Susie occupied in the living room.

She looked through the peephole, and seeing her brother and sister-in-law—and not the FBI—she opened the door. A little girl did not run inside. There was no girl at all. “Where’s Susie?”

“We need to talk,” droned her brother, Matt. His wife, Lori, didn’t look too pleased either.

What’s going on? Meg stepped aside and let them in. Without a word, they went straight to the living room and sat on the sofa. Meg nervously followed and sat on the reclining chair.

Matt leaned forward. “Would you care to explain why Susie is absolutely convinced she saw ponies when she was last here, that she actually touched Rainbow Dash?”