“Doctor Freepony, you may proceed,” Doctor Emerald Brown said into the large microphone in the Clockmaker’s Guild Spectrometer Observation Room. “Please, use the utmost caution.”

The pony in the odd suit below them didn’t respond verbally, but he did push the cart toward the Arcane Spectrometer.

“What’s wrong, Doc?” Sunset asked. “You almost sound nervous.”

“Nervous?” Brown laughed. “Why in Equestria would I be nervous?”

“Well,” Sunset nodded at the massive mechanism beyond the window. “I would be nervous doing anything with that.”

Twilight could barely keep her eyes from the marvel of arcanotech engineering. She’d read all about it. Ponies had been raving about the device in every science journal for the last six months! You couldn’t not know about something as monumental as the first-ever Arcane Spectrometer.

Just seeing the machine gave Twilight goosebumps all over. Brilliant lines of arcing magical energy ran along the sides of the vast room, occasionally grounding themselves on the gleaming assembly of mechanized focusing devices that spun in a vast whirlwind of instruments. The Spectrometer had so many different components it made Twilight’s head spin. All of them rotated around a shielded tower of the brightest metal Twilight had ever seen. It was as if the molten sun had been poured down the central shaft of the Spectrometer, just for her—er, them.

So much magical science and scientific magic had gone into this device. She had sobbed her eyes out when she couldn’t attend the groundbreaking ceremony. She’d required four cupcakes and two new dissertations on the iconography of the deerkin to get her through that horrible day.

But now, Princess Twilight Sparkle was here. For one of the most glorious events in scientific history!

Scientific plebeians might remember this as the day as when a young stallion pushed a cart into a slot at the bottom of a magical microscope. Those who knew the truth, well, they would understand.

“It’s so beautiful,” Twilight whined. She couldn’t stop herself from pawing at the glass a little. She wanted to go in there and hug the gorgeous hunk of metal and magic.

One of the assistants—a Doctor Fly or something—broke Twilight’s worship. “We have a minor power drain from Converter Twenty-Two. I’ve dispatched maintenance.”

“Great Plot!” Brown cried. “Now? Why did it have to be now? Quick! What’s the power drain? I need precise data! Come on! Let’s have it!”

“0.00121 percent,” Doctor Fly reported. Oddly enough, he sounded amused by Brown’s agitation. Twilight didn’t appreciate that in the slightest.

“Seriously?” Sunset asked. “They’re panicking about that?”

Twilight shot her a glare.

“What?” Sunset lifted her hooves and rolled her eyes. “Sorry!”

“Can you correct for it, Doctor Brown?” Twilight’s voice barely carried over the beautiful cacophony of monitors. “Do you need me to go inside and adjust something? I’d be more than happy to!”

Brown shook his head and his frizzy white mane flew about him. “No, no! Adding another pony to the chamber at this juncture would complicate matters geometrically! A minor adjustment to Converter Thirty-Two—it produces an average of twenty-four extra thalms of magical energy compared to the average excess of twenty-one thalms of other units—should do the trick!”

An amber unicorn with glasses standing beside Twilight sighed and walked away, muttering something about unforeseen consequences.

Brown turned a dial. It clicked twice.

“Power draw steady,” Fly announced. “Confirmed stable at one hundred and five percent. Ready to retract particle beam shielding.”

“Doctor Freepony,” Brown called over the speakers. “Prepare for shielding retraction!”

The stallion waved absently. Twilight frowned. It should be her down there in that orange and black suit! But, of course, they didn’t have one fitted for alicorns. Because life hated her. It was the only reasonable explanation, no matter how many times Sunset said differently.

Then, she realized life was a wonderful and fantastic thing filled with amazing sights you couldn’t witness in any other state of being—presumably. Because that’s when Brown retracted the center shield. The accelerators shifted into position and the three cylinders of glowing crystal began to spin above the wonderfully articulated robotic arms—the first ever created by ponykind!

Well, the first used outside the claw machines of pizza parlors.

A brilliant beam of golden fire ripped down the central conduit. The massive array teased, coaxed and focused the energy through the thaumaturgic stabilization beam transistors into the analysis bay.

A tear fell from Twilight’s left cheek as she witnessed what might be the most heart-meltingly stunning sight she’d ever seen.

“All stations, sound off!” Brown called.

Various personnel around the observation room sounded off as they prepared to activate the Spectrometer.

The moment was sacred, perfect, wonderfu—

“You okay there, Twi?”

Twilight should have smacked Sunset for wrecking the moment. She didn’t though, showing remarkable restraint on her part.

“Can you believe we actually get to see this?” Twilight whispered. “The first analysis of a new type of narrativium!”

She had to wipe away another tear.

Sunset snorted softly beside her. “You’re lucky you’re cute when you're totally geeking out.”

“I’m not cute when I’m geeking out!” Twilight snapped.

“You totally are.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am—” Twilight took a deep breath. Only a few feet separated the sample from the bay. “You’re trying to sway me. I told you! I’m considering your proposition! You will have your answer at midnight and not a microsecond sooner!”

“That’s another thing,” Sunset said. “Why are you so exact about that?”

“Shush!” Twilight snapped. She dropped her voice to a hiss. “I will decide if I am willing to transition our relationship to the requested state later!”

“Twi, I asked you out on a date,” Sunset said. Twilight knew she was rolling her eyes again, but Sunset did that a great deal. “I’ve been back in Equestria for six months. In your house. We’re best friends. You don’t need to get all super-scientific about it.”

“Right now, I do!”

And then… like placing the final rune in a tenth-level fractal-aligned fourth-dimensional arcane circle, Doctor Freepony slid the narrativium sample into the Arcane Spectrometer.

Twilight didn’t dare look away. She stood there and basked in the glory, listening to the brilliant minds around her as they unleashed ponykind’s most powerful testing apparatus to expand their knowledge of the foundations of creation.

“Power to stage one emitters in three… two… one…”

The spinning crystal cylinders ignited with brilliant orange light.

“I’m seeing predictable phase arrays.”

Energy looped in beautiful patterns around the chamber.

“Stage two emitters activating… now.”

Golden magic fire lashed between the spinning crystals, the multitude of mechanical components and the shining analysis bay.

“It’s so beautiful…” Twilight moaned.

“Uh… it’s probably not a problem… probably… but I’m showing a small discrepancy in… well, no, it’s well within acceptable bounds again. Sustaining sequence.”

The golden fire grew brighter.

“Don’t worry, Doctor Freepony, just another few…”

A brilliant flash of pink dazzled Twilight. When she blinked away the afterimages, the golden light now burned pink. Alarms started screaming.

“Wha-what's he doing in there?”

Freepony seemed to be trying to pull the cart free from the bay.

“We’ve got… oh Harmony… shut it down!”

Bizarre patterns appeared on the walls of the chamber, all in shades of pink. It took a moment for Twilight to process what she saw. The patterns…

No… that’s impossible!

“Shutting down. Attempting shut down. It's not… it's-it's not… it's not shutting down… it's not…”

Twilight couldn’t see Freepony anymore. Arcs of pink ripped into the walls. Lightning tore across the cracking glass of the observation room.

“Twilight, maybe we should—” Sunset began.

“Freepony! Get away from the beams!”

A surge of blinding light finally forced Twilight to look away. The control room was utter chaos. Ponies shouted and screamed. Monitors erupted in showers of pink sparks. Strange music played out of the speakers.

In the middle of it all, Doctor Brown stood transfixed, gaping at the pink chamber containing Doctor Freepony, the narrativium sample and the Arcane Spectrometer.

His eyes went wide. “EVERYPONY! GET DOWN!”

Sunset threw Twilight to the ground as a bolt of pink magic ripped through the observation room glass. Shards the size of Twilight’s hoof were sent flying. A thousand screams filled the air.

The lights went out.

“Twi? You okay?”

Twilight blinked but saw only murky shadows. “Huh?”

“Come on, Twi, I need you on your hooves!” It was Sunset’s voice. She sounded a long way off.

“W-What happened?” Twilight groaned. “I heard… screaming. Fire… magic fire!”

Twilight shot bolt upright, missing Sunset by less than an inch.

Emergency lights—red, because all emergency lights were required by international law to be red, though the jury was still out on if they needed to strobe—lit most of the devastated control room.

Twilight didn’t really want to look around. She didn’t want to see the bodies. With magical backlash of thirty-six Converters, it was a miracle Sunset and Twilight had survived. They would be lucky if anypony else in the room hadn’t been charred to ash.

But, she was a princess. She knew, one day, she’d have to deal with this sort of thing. Wars. Plagues. Famines. Failed science experiments.

She forced herself to look around.

Not a single pony had a mussed mane, save for Doctor Brown, whose mane had already been very mussy.

“Everypony… survived?” Twilight blurted out.

“Yeah,” Sunset said, rubbing soot off her face. “No injuries. Save for Doctor Fly, but Doctor Park already used a healing potion on him. She refuses to leave his side.”

“What… what about Freepony?” Twilight pushed herself to her hooves.

“Waltzed in about a minute ago. Doc Brown told him to go topside to get help and he ran off.”

“He’s alive?!” Twilight stared at Sunset in astonishment. “He should have been vaporized—or sucked into some bizarre dimension with shackled cyclopes or something!”

“He seemed fine.” Sunset shrugged.

“Well….” Twilight rubbed her eyes. “Thank Celestia.”

“Don’t thank her just yet.” Sunset pointed through the shattered glass at the Arcane Spectrometer… and the gaping rip in reality.

Now, Twilight had seen plenty of portals, tears, rips and holes in the space-time continuum. After all, that’s what happened when you were a princess who liked to push the boundaries of magical science: you occasionally broke through. Then the boundaries got annoyed and tried to pull your entire plane of existence into an abyss of fire and darkness, complete with wailing souls

Contrary to popular belief, the horrifying eldritch tentacles only got involved when there was a fast-food restaurant nearby.

But in all her years, she’d never seen one spew out little hearts. Not even when Pinkie had decided to try out matchmaking and that had been a bad day.

A small heart-shaped portal appeared less than a foot away from her. Before she could react, something flew out to land neatly in Twilight’s hooves.

She looked at it. She looked at Sunset. She looked at Brown. She looked at it again. Then Sunset. Then it one more time.

“…a box of chocolates?” Twilight asked as she peeked in the bright pink heart-shaped box. Inside, there was a little piece of paper that read ‘no coconut’ with a little heart drawn next to it.

“Great Plot!” Brown cried. “Not chocolates! Anything but that! Celestia above… forgive us…”

“I’m missing something,” Sunset said.

“If I had to guess?” Twilight said as she lowered the box to the ground. “I think we’re in trouble.

Then she jumped as extremely dramatic thunder crashed behind her.

“The Spectrometer is still engaged!” Brown said, flailing wildly toward the beam of pink magic ripping a heart-shaped hole in reality. “I can’t disengage it from here! Even as we speak, we’re getting reports of more probability disturbances throughout the Guild. We’re going to—”

They turned to the now-familiar sound of a rift opening. A few seconds later, a navy unicorn with a two-toned blue and white mane plopped onto the ground with a yelp.

“Oh, come on!” Minuette cried. “I was just walking up to her front door!”

“Minuette?” Brown looked shocked. “You’re supposed to be sick!”

“Oh, hey Doc…” Minuette got to her hooves and blushed. “It was less sick and more… a personal matter?”

Another rift opened. Twilight yanked Minuette away just in time to spare her from Moondancer dropping on her head.

“Ow!” Moondancer groaned, rubbing her flank. “What in Equestria… Twilight? Minuette? What’s going on here? Where am I?”

For some reason, Minuette blushed even harder. Then a bouquet of roses appeared out of nowhere and landed in her hooves. She squealed and flung it away like it was a poisonous snake.

“This is getting completely out of hoof!” Brown shouted. “If the distortions are starting to transport ponies from beyond the Guild, I fear the probability matrices now contain the entirety of Canterlot Mountain!”

“Slow down, Doc,” Sunset said. “What’s going on?”

“The rift!” Brown stabbed a hoof toward the Spectrometer Chamber. “Scans show not even a single molecule of narrativium remaining within the chamber! That must mean it created…”

A bolt of pink lighting arced from the rift to a panel right behind Brown. He didn’t seem to notice, despite the deafening thunder.

“…a Narrative Cascade.”

Minuette gasped. So did several nearby scientists. Sunset and Moondancer looked nonplussed.

Twilight shivered. She’d read the theory behind such events. Most of them involved unspeakable horrors.

She’d even experienced one or two. After all, she was friends with Pinkie Pie.

“Doctor Brown,” Twilight said slowly. “What color was the narrativium?”

Brown winced. That alone gave Twilight the answer she feared.

“As pink as a Hearts and Hooves Day Card,” he whispered.

Another bolt of lightning shot through the air, striking exactly where it had a moment ago. Thunder rolled across them again.

“Did someone put a grounding rod there or something?” Sunset asked.

“No,” Twilight slumped to her haunches and rubbed her face. “No, it’s something far worse. This isn’t normal narrativium we’re talking about. The pink variant of the mineral…”

“Okay, somepony better start making sense,” Moondancer said flatly, adjusting her glasses. “Or I’m going to get annoyed.”

“There’s another term for it,” Minuette said. “But we were assured a Love Cascade couldn’t happen!”

Brown opened his mouth to say something, but Sunset cut him off. “Wait, a Love Cascade?”

Behind them, somepony let out a squeak of surprise when an adorable teddy bear landed in their lap.

“Every schoolpony knows narrativium is the most common element in the world,” Twilight explained. “Without it, life couldn’t exist!”

“That’s basic geology.” Sunset rolled her eyes. “Twilight, you’re starting to sound like a bad science fiction novel.”

Twilight gritted her teeth and forced herself to stop a sudden compulsion to launch into exposition. But in the end, Moondancer and Sunset had to know. There was no helping it.

“Standard narrativium governs the laws of probability to allow life to exist—and, most importantly—remain interesting.” Twilight lit her horn and the molecular structure for narrativium appeared. Twilight found some small comfort in the book-shaped molecule. “But, other forms do exist. One of the most dangerous is pink narrativium.”

Another arc of lightning ripped through the observation room, but this time, it grounded itself behind Twilight.

Sunset snickered.

Twilight turned to stare at Brown. “That’s what you were experimenting with, wasn’t it? Not only that, but it was a pure sample!”

Doctor Brown hung his head in shame. He looked ready to cry, but Twilight couldn’t show him sympathy. It was too dangerous. If she wasn’t careful, she could lose herself in the horrors of the narrative.

“And pink narrativium is…?” Moondancer prompted.

Twilight lit her horn again and the structure of the accursed substance appeared.

“A heart? Its molecular structure is in the shape of a heart?!” Moondancer cried as Sunset fell over laughing. “That defies the very foundations of particle physics!”

“This has nothing to do with physics!” Twilight shouted, shoving herself in Moondancer’s face. “This is about… the narrative.”

Moondancer’s eyes went wide with understanding. It was a beautiful sight. Twilight did so love imparting knowledge to others… and Moondancer did have a cru—

Minuette yanked Twilight back by her tail and gave her a stern glare.

Twilight winced and rubbed her head. “Sorry…”

Minuette raised an eyebrow.

“This entire area is going to be overtaken by the Cascade,” Twilight said, not meeting Minuette’s gaze. “We need to evacuate immediately.”

“Okay, stupid question?” Sunset said. “But… why can’t we just, I don’t know, shut it off?”

“We… we can’t,” Brown muttered.

“Yeah, but why?”

Doctor Brown’s ears folded back. “The off button is gone.”

“No!” Minuette squeaked, her hooves flying to her muzzle. “It can’t be that bad!”

Brown gestured at the main control panel. Twilight had seen it before the experiment, of course. It had been simple enough. One giant green button for ‘On.’ One giant red button for ‘Off.’

The button for ‘Off’ had disappeared entirely, as if it had never existed.

“Oh come on!” Sunset shouted. “This is insane!”

“Where did it go?” Minuette asked. “Did it affect the schematics?”

Brown nodded his head glumly. “I already looked.”

“And?” Moondancer asked.

“Tallest room in the highest tower of Canterlot Castle.”

Nopony in their group said anything. There didn’t seem anything to say to that little proclamation. In fact, only the sound of Doctor Fly and Doctor Park making out in the corner interrupted the silence. That and the soft jazz coming from the massive rift in reality.

“We have to get to that off switch!” Twilight said, stomping her hoof on the ground—and accidentally crushing a beautiful red rose. “It’s our only hope!”

“How do we know it’ll even work?” Moondancer demanded. “Because it sounds like you’re telling me that reality changed when this thing went off!”

“Because…” Twilight gritted her teeth against a sudden wind flowing through her mane. A light overhead flickered on, bathing her in a golden glow. “It wouldn’t be a good narrative if the heroes couldn’t hit the button at the last second.”

Moondancer stared at her. “Seriously?”

“She’s right.” Minuette nodded. “That’s how it works. That’s how it always works.”

“Could we send a message…” Moondancer tried.

“Communications are out,” Brown said. “The rift is disrupting any sending spells. Nothing short of dragonfire would get through.”

Sunset snickered even harder. “Oh Celestia, this is rich.”

“This is no laughing matter!” Twilight snapped.

“Twi, you just had wind rushing through your mane as you were speared from a light from the heavens just so you could make your grand declaration. This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Even Pinkie would have trouble topping this.”

“Pinkie…” Brown scratched his head and turned to Minuette. “Is that…”

“Subject Zero.” Minuette nodded. “Don’t worry. As far as I know, she’s still in Ponyville.”

“Great Plot! I hope that’s far enough. If the Cascade interacts with Subject Zero… there’s no telling what the consequences could be!”

Moondancer lifted a hoof as if she had a question, then she groaned and rolled her eyes. “Nevermind. I don’t even care anymore.”

“Okay,” Twilight said. “We all have to go. Doctor, make sure your ponies are all heading topside…” She glanced at the intertwined forms of Fly and Park. “At least those who can.”

“You know, we might want to take a moment of silence for the fallen,” Sunset deadpanned.

Twilight cocked an eyebrow at her. “Sorry, we can’t do that. It’s hard to have a moment of silence for the fallen when the only sound in the room is said fallen making out.”

“Fine.” Sunset sighed dramatically. “We’ll have the moment after. But you owe me a drink.”

Twilight glared at her. Sunset beamed.

“The evacuation is already underway,” Brown declared. “I’m coming with you.”

“I’m not sure you can keep pace, Doctor...” Twilight began.

“You need my expertise!” Brown shot back. “While Minuette happens to be one of my best researchers—”

“Convenient,” Moondancer muttered.

“—only I have the right security access to everything within the Guild. We must do this together!”

“Very well,” Twilight grunted. “But since I’m the one who’s fought extra-dimensional evil, chaos gods and superpowered baby alicorns… I’m in charge. Got that?”

Brown nodded. “Agreed.”

“Minuette, Moondancer?” Twilight said, turning to her two friends. “The Cascade wouldn’t have brought the two of you if you weren’t needed.”

“Of course, Twilight,” Minuette said with a chipper smile.

“I don’t suppose I have a choice?” A box of chocolates bounced off Moondancer’s head. “I’ll take that as a no. Let’s go.”

Twilight didn’t bother asking Sunset. She already knew the answer.

Sunset winked at her.

Why did you have to ask me out today? Twilight moaned to herself. If I don’t stop this soon, I’ll never be single again! Nopony in Canterlot will!

Special effects provided by Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance in association with the Brown Foundation.