Twilight missed her old laboratory. The basement of the Golden Oaks library hadn't been a state of the art lab, by any means, but it had been her lab. She was familiar with it. Twilight could still recall the tick tock of the aged clock hanging from the wall in that basement. When she'd first set up shop there, she had immediately become frustrated with the incessant noise, and had resolved to have the clock removed as swiftly as possible. Of course, other things had come up and the clock's removal was constantly postponed for one reason or another. Eventually, though she still affected a plan of eventually getting rid of the thing, Twilight had grown comfortably accustomed to the constant tick tock.
Her new laboratory in her new castle had a silent clock; it was too quiet for her liking. Twilight resolved to have a ticking clock brought in as soon as possible.
Twilight sighed, breaking the oppressive silence of the large room. It was also bigger than her old lab, but she certainly wouldn't complain about that. The new laboratory was still underground, like the old one, but had almost twice as much floorspace to work with. Though of course, almost all of the available floorspace was hidden beneath machines, instruments, and lab tables.
With all of that room and equipment, Twilight was essentially free to experiment as much as she wanted with whatever she wanted. She had been taking advantage of it lately, but not with anything too ground-breaking. All of that was about to change, though, for Twilight had come up with a project that could very well change Equestria forever.
"Spike, did you bring the apples?" Twilight paused in affixing a pair of large black goggles over her eyes to glance aside at her draconic assistant.
"Yeah, I got a whole basket of 'em, just like you asked." Spike, standing nearby, hefted a basket of ripe red apples in his arms for emphasis. "Still not sure exactly why you needed these though..." he muttered.
Twilight cast a sidelong look his way. "Did I not explain what we're doing today?"
"Not at all," Spike deadpanned. "You leapt out of bed shouting something about 'solving Equestria' and then disappeared downstairs. Frankly, you're lucky I was able to make out 'one bushel of apples' from all the incoherent rambling you were doing."
Twilight grimaced and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Ah... I suppose I was less awake than I remember. Heh, sorry about that."
Spike shrugged. "Whatever. So... what are we doing?"
Twilight instantly brightened, and she turned to fully face Spike with an excited grin. "Teleportation!"
"..." Spike stared expectantly. When nothing else seemed forthcoming, he sighed and scratched his head with one claw. "Okay, I don't get it. You teleport all the time. What's so special about that?"
"That's just it, Spike," Twilight pointed out with a raised hoof, "I teleport all the time. Haven't you ever noticed that nopony else does?"
Spike blinked. "Hey yeah, now that you mention it, I don't think I've seen any other unicorns use that spell. Why is that?"
"The answer is simple enough, and is also the problem I aim to solve." Twilight nodded proudly. "Put bluntly, it simply takes too much magical power. There are very few unicorns in the world that can output the kind of magic required for the spell, and those that are powerful enough might not even know the spell, since it is actually extremely rare."
"Rare?" Spike asked.
"Yes." Twilight nodded absently. "It's curious, actually. You won't find teleportation in any major textbook or grimoire. I was fortunate enough to have access to the Royal Canterlot Library, and even then I only ever stumbled across one ancient tome that contained the spell."
Twilight tapped her chin and hummed in thought for a moment, but quickly shook her head and refocused. "But that's neither here nor there. The real problem is power consumption, as I already mentioned. I've always sort of taken for granted that I was even able to cast the spell, but now that I have access to such state-of-the-art magical science equipment, not to mention an increase in my own magical power, I should be able to do even more than that."
Her eyes gleamed as her grin grew wider still. "I should, in theory, be able to disassemble it!"
Twilight grinned at Spike. Spike stared back evenly. The room was utterly silent, and suddenly Spike missed the old clock as much as Twilight did. Finally, when the silence was just stretching into awkward territory, Spike set down the basket of apples and turned back to Twilight with his arms crossed.
"Cool."
Twilight blinked. "Cool?"
"Yeah, cool."
"Cool!?"
"Yeah, c—"
"Spike, this is so much more than just cool! This is world-changing!" Twilight was leaning forward so much that her horn was nearly brushing against Spike's spines.
"Okay, firstly," Spike used one finger to gently push Twilight away from him, "you change the world, like, once a week, so forgive me for not being too excited about that." He crossed his arms once more and offered a shrug. "And secondly, I still don't understand why teleportation is such a big deal, whether you disseminate it or not."
"Disassemble, Spike, but you make a fair point."
Spike blinked. "I do?"
"Yes, I did forget to explain why this is important!"
"Oh..."
Twilight brightened up once more, and she began pacing as she explained in a rapid tone. "You see, if I can disassemble the spell into its component magical parts, I can replicate those parts in gem-matrices and enchantments. Essentially, I'll be able to 'bottle' the teleportation spell in an amulet, or wand, or any sort of magically conductive object. This would let less magical unicorns activate the spell for a fraction of the original energy requirement, and recharge it a little bit at a time whenever they need to."
She paused in her pacing and pushed her goggles up to her forehead. "But you're right; my own personal teleportation was convenient, but it's not a huge deal for everypony else to live without it. The real beauty of this project is scalability. Once I create the spell matrix and enchant an item to cast a simple teleportation spell, creating a bigger one will be a breeze! Why, we could scale up to teleport rooms full of ponies, or entire buildings. Trains would become obsolete as ponies would be able to instantly warp from one city to another. Just hop on the Twilight Sparkle brand TelePad and away you go. One blink, and there you are at your destination."
Spike opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally, he managed to utter, "Twilight Sparkle brand TelePad?"
Twilight blushed. "Okay, the name is a work in progress..."
"Well, you've sold me on the idea at least." Spike nodded.
Twilight reached out and rubbed his spines with a forehoof. "Always glad to have your support, my number one assistant."
She giggled as she turned and headed for one of the various machines filling the room. To a laypony, all of the devices and contraptions seemed similar enough that most couldn't tell them apart. Twilight, of course, knew each one like the back of her hoof, and this one in particular was among her favourites. While on the surface, it looked much the same as any of the other large stainless steel boxes covered in lights and switches, the Magic Auto-Analyzer was absolutely vital to her experiment, and—
No, wait, she was turning on the Full Spectrum Aura Detector. The Auto-Analyzer was two machines over. Fortunately for her dignity, it seemed Spike hadn't noticed.
"Hey, Twilight, I thought you needed the beep-whoosh machine first," Spike pointed out ever so helpfully.
Twilight whirled around with a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of her neck. "Yes, yes, I know we need the Ana— wait, beep-whoosh?"
Spike nodded. "Yeah, y'know, the beep-whoosh machine." He pointed at the Magic Auto-Analyzer as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
"It's not a beep-whoosh machine!" Twilight exclaimed. "It's a very complex piece of magical analysis equipment, and it should be treated —and referred to— with respect!"
Spike shrugged. "It also goes beep-whoosh when you use it."
Twilight stared, gaping, for several moments, before finally letting out a defeated sigh. "Yeah, it does..." she muttered as she finally turned and walked to the correct machine.
As he watched Twilight set up the first of many devices needed for the day's work, Spike idly scratched the side of his neck and asked, "So how come nopony else has ever fiddled with teleportation magic?"
Twilight flipped several switches in order, and responded without pausing in the startup sequence, "Well, you'd actually be surprised how much magic gets lost or forgotten over the ages. As powerful and knowledgeable as they were, ancient unicorn scholars had awful documentation on their work. There's a good chance teleportation was a lost art before I stumbled upon it in the Royal Library."
"Is that why you're so crazy about taking notes?"
"I am not crazy about taking notes!" Twilight finally turned the last dial, and nodded in satisfaction as the machine whirred to life. "Spike, take a note that we successfully activated the Magic Auto-Analyzer."
Spike rolled his eyes, but picked up a quill and paper and did as he was asked without complaint.
The next few minutes were spent activating several more machines around the room, and setting up the materials. Twilight laid out several different magic-conducting materials, including a few gemstones, on a lab table in the center of the room. She also included a few basic spell matrix templates, for reference, and the bushel of apples for testing. Spike brought out a fire extinguisher, just in case.
For starters, Twilight simply placed an apple on a small metal platform attached to one of the machines, and teleported the apple across the room with a quick flash of magic. The machine instantly made a beep-whoosh sound and began printing a long and detailed graph. Twilight grinned. It was going to be a good day.
About an hour later, and many more apples teleported across many different machines, the experiment was going swimmingly. The room smelled of ozone, and a static tingle in the air caused some of Twilight's mane to stick out erratically.
"Spike, I think we're ready for me to begin my own analysis of the gathered data," Twilight announced, pushing her goggles up to her forehead.
"Finally!" Spike threw his arms in the air. At a swift glare from Twilight, he smiled sheepishly and kicked one foot against the floor. "Uh, I mean, that sounds awesome, Twilight! I can't wait to get started!"
Twilight sighed. "You can take a break, Spike. Your note-taking has been invaluable, but I can handle this next part on my own."
"Are you sure you don't need my help?" Spike very much hoped she didn't.
Twilight couldn't help her affectionate smile when he offered anyway. "Positive."
"Alright!" Spike tossed all the notes he'd taken onto a lab table and quickly scurried out of the room and up the stairs.
Twilight shook her head with a chuckle. Spike made for a wonderful assistant, and an even better friend, but he was still a kid at heart. It was easy to forget that with how much he took care of Twilight on a regular basis.
Refocusing on her work, Twilight lit her horn and swiftly laid out all the useful information she'd gathered in the form of countless print-outs and data sheets. She had to pull three tables together just to accommodate it all, but in the end she was able to quickly reference any data she might need to understand the spell at a fundamental level. Once she could identify each component spell on its own, she would be able to create matrices for them, and eventually set them up to work in unison to cast the larger, more complex teleportation spell.
Her excitement to spend the next few hours poring over paperwork was palpable. Twilight was an odd mare.
The first bit was spent simply dividing the spell into its apparent parts based on energy consumption and focus, without really knowing what those parts did. Much to Twilight's surprise, the spell seemed to be composed of very few pieces. Unless she was missing something, there were only four sub-spells forming the teleportation spell itself.
Such a development was unexpected, to say the least. Twilight had fully expected dozens of interwoven pieces, if only to explain the massive power requirement for the spell. Even something as simple as a moustache-creation spell had a dozen components, and the wing spell she'd cast on Rarity had hundreds. Though, admittedly, a good number of those components were simply several layers of redundant safety measures.
Twilight blinked.
"No, no, that would be absurd..." she muttered under her breath.
Surely, if the teleportation spell was created with no safety measures in place, she would have noticed. Still, it couldn't hurt to check. Twilight quickly analyzed the areas of the spell that she'd designated as the four components. The first, second, and fourth consumed the majority of the power. In fact, the third sub-spell seemed almost simple by comparison. She didn't look too closely for now, though, instead simply examining them for any sort of recognizable features that would identify some sort of safety mechanism.
As much as she hadn't wanted it to be true, Twilight couldn't say she was terribly surprised by what she found. To be more precise, what she didn't find. It was precisely as she'd suspected. None of the four components even slightly resembled safety measures.
Twilight sat down and leaned back, exhaling a long breath. She had to have been incredibly lucky, especially with the energy levels at play. There were a lot of ways spellcasting could go wrong, and going without proper safety precautions was just asking for trouble.
It was odd, though. Twilight had cast unsafe spells before, when she was still learning, and she had never been perfect at it. At the very least, she'd come out with a headache or a slight nosebleed each time, though never anything really bad. Yet, somehow, she had apparently been casting a massively powerful spell for years, completely lacking in any sort of safety, and come out completely unscathed. It just didn't make logical sense, yet there it was.
Twilight decided that further analysis was the only course of action.
So she dove back into the data. First things first, she had to go more detailed for each individual part of the spell. The first portion consumed the most energy, and was the most complex. With a bit of work, Twilight was able to isolate it and examine it. From what she could tell, it was an analysis spell. What's more, it was the single most comprehensive analysis spell she'd ever seen.
Twilight's mouth fell further and further open as she continued her examination of the spell pattern. It was almost unbelievable in its power and elegance. She couldn't say for certain yet, but Twilight was reasonably sure that this analysis spell could retrieve and store information on something down to the very assembly of its molecules. Though, oddly enough, it didn't seem to do anything with the information. It simply copied down the molecular make-up of whatever it was used on, then stored that information for... something that one of the other three components would do.
Strange, but not altogether enlightening. Twilight moved on to the next component.
The next one consumed considerably less energy, but still a lot. At first glance, it seemed almost similar to a come-to-life spell, but with a few notable changes. It didn't function by attaching itself to an object, but rather attached itself to... itself. Or, rather, to the teleportation spell as a whole. It seemed that this component would actually cause the spell to be autonomous, if only for a moment, and complete casting itself without any required input from the caster. It wasn't a completely alien concept, but Twilight had never really seen a use for the idea.
Still strange, and still frustratingly far from completing Twilight's understanding of how the spell functioned. Twilight sighed and rubbed her hooves over her tired eyes, then shuffled her papers around and moved on to the next component.
The next one was—
Twilight blinked. "What?"
She read the print-out again, then a third time just to be sure. Still, her mind was having a hard time accepting the information it was presented with. Twilight could feel a headache coming on as she forced herself to complete what was quickly becoming an absurd yet terrifying analysis.
The next one was a strangely simple destruction spell. Nothing fancy, nothing flashy, just complete matter erasure on an atomic level. It was the sort of thing one learned not to do pretty much back in magic kindergarten. And the importance of not doing it was reinforced for the remainder of one's magical education. Such spells were so dangerous, that even the Royal Guard was prohibited from using them for defense.
There was a good reason such spells were almost universally banned; they didn't simply destroy matter, they erased it. It wasn't disintegration, or combustion, or any spell that a sane unicorn would use to dispose of something. Matter erasure was an order of magnitude more dangerous than either of those.
And Twilight had no idea what it was being used for in her teleportation spell.
Desperate for some answer, she quickly examined the final piece of the spell. She could only hope that it would tie everything together in a sensible way. Unfortunately, it did precisely that.
The final portion of the spell was an extremely powerful conjuring spell. It used the information stored by the initial analysis spell, and was controlled by the come-to-life spell, to create an exact replica of the object on which the spell was cast.
This only happened after said object was completely and utterly destroyed and erased from existence.
The table in front of Twilight grew blurry and indistinct. Blackness crept into the edges of her vision, and she felt moments away from throwing up. It all pieced together perfectly. She wished, desperately wished, that it wasn't so clearly laid out, but there was no mistaking it.
The spell didn't teleport anything. It never had. The spell would scan any object, destroy it, and create an exact replica of the original object in a new place, all over a few milliseconds, of course. The new replica would retain all the same memories, since the scan was detailed enough to include everything, right down to brain chemistry. Not that the thought was very comforting.
"I... I've killed myself?" Twilight's voice was so tiny, she wasn't even sure it was hers. Then again, it really wasn't hers, technically. It belonged to a replica, one of hundreds and hundreds of precise, exact replicas of a mare named Twilight Sparkle; a mare that had killed herself shortly after discovering a new spell in an old dusty book she found in the Royal Canterlot Library.
So many times. She'd cast the spell so many times without any care at all. It explained why the lack of safety measures hadn't been a concern, at least. The only pony at risk was the one casting the spell, and, well, that pony would be erased from existence before any safety concerns would arise.
What happened to all the replicas that had been erased over the years? Had she just disproven the existence of a soul, or was there an afterlife somewhere filled with countless Twilight Sparkles? Not to mention her friends. All of them had been 'teleported' at least a couple times. They, like her, were no longer their original selves, but mere perfect replicas. Even Spike...
"Hey, Twilight!" The door to the lab burst open to reveal a grinning dragon half-hidden behind a high-stacked plate. "You've been down here a while, so I brought sandwiches!"
Twilight gasped and quickly wiped her eyes. She faked a quick smile as she turned to face Spike. "Oh, Spike. Thank you."
Spike chuckled. "No, problem. I know how you get sometimes. You'd forget to eat for days if I wasn't around, you know?"
The little giggle that escaped Twilight surprised her with how genuine it was. Spike set the tray of sandwiches down on a table, then turned to Twilight's table full of data and print-outs.
"Jeeze, that's a whole lot of magic... stuff." He scratched his chin idly. "You make any sense of it or what?"
Twilight stared for a few moments, breathing slowly and carefully. Finally, she spoke through a quiet breath, "Nope. I don't think this particular experiment is going anywhere, to be honest."
"Aww, really?" Spike crossed his arms. "You didn't find out anything cool?"
"Nothing you need to worry about."
Spike smirked. "I think Celestia's rubbing off on you. You're getting cryptic."
The both shared a small chuckle, before Spike asked, "So, you're sure that it's a total dead end?"
Twilight shivered, but gave a quick nod.
"Hmm. Oh well." Spike shrugged and turned to the tray of sandwiches.
"Oh well?" Twilight repeated, aghast.
"Yeah, oh well." Spike tossed half a sandwich in his mouth, and went on through a mouthful of crumbs, "I mean, sure, it's too bad that it worked out that way, but you're the best magician around. If you can't do anything about it, then you can't do anything about it. Dwelling on it won't change anything, so I say forget about it and move on, y'know?" He paused to take another bite. "No sense worrying about something you can't change."
Silence fell over the room for a moment as Twilight thought over what Spike had said. Spike, for his part, continued to obliviously munch on a sandwich, humming in satisfaction. It was so easy for Twilight to forget that he was just a kid at heart, especially given how much he took care of her at times.
"Oh, Spike." Twilight giggled and pulled him in close for a tight hug. "I love you, you know that?"
"Oh come on!" Spike wriggled in her grip. "Way to get sappy, Twilight!"
"Hmmmm," Twilight hummed happily.
After a few more moments of futile struggle, Spike finally relented. He twitched, then slowly, awkwardly wrapped his tiny arms as far as they could go around Twilight.
"I... I g-guess I love you too." A beat. "Now will you let me go?"
"No."
"...okay." Spike buried his face in the soft fur of Twilight's chest, but only so that she wouldn't see the dumb smile and warm blush adorning his face.
Twilight lit her horn and aimed a simple disintegration spell at the papers covering the three lab tables, reducing them to a scattering of white powder in the blink of an eye.
She held Spike dearly, feeling the warm scales pressed against her. He was real, she was real, and that was all that mattered.
