Cracks in Reality - Book One

As Twilight walked to the study Princess Celestia used for their personal lessons, her stomach was full of butterflies, and no matter how many times she wiped her hands on her skirt, the damp sweaty feeling on her palms would not go away. Her nervousness was the result of the most recent letter she had received from Princess Celestia requesting that she report to their private study at her earliest convenience for some kind of special lesson in magic. The nature of the lesson hadn’t been divulged in the letter, and this worried Twilight.

How was she supposed to prepare for the lesson if she didn’t know what she was going to be studying? Her lesson could be any number of subjects ranging from pony anatomy, to Starswirl the Bearded’s “In-depth Guide to the Effects of Mana on the Outside World”. As a result, Twilight had decided to bring with her over a dozen books, each one on a different subject of magic. She was levitating the large pile of books in her magical grasp and her backpack was full of all the spare parchment, quills, and notes she thought would come in handy during her lesson with the princess.

Twilight’s nervousness increased as the door to the private study came into view. While she loved learning new things, she couldn’t bear the thought of failing at whatever lesson the princess would give her. If she failed, she might fall out of the princess’s good graces, and likely be sent back to magic kindergarten where she would have to go through all her previous lessons again.

Twilight hadn’t even realized she had stopped walking until one of the four guards assigned to escort her around the castle grounds cleared his throat and with an embarrassed smile she hastened her pace to get to her lesson on time.

Ever since the day of her entrance exam where she had lost control of her magic while trying to hatch Spike, Celestia had assigned at least four guards of the Royal Regent to constantly watch over her in case she ever lost control of her magic again.

Should such an event ever occur again, each of the guards had an inhibitor ring in their possession which they would place on her horn, disabling her magic. Twilight was both fascinated, and wary of the objects, wary because whenever she was in a situation where the guards couldn’t be near her, such as when she was having a bath, she had to wear one of the inhibitor rings to prevent anymore magical flameouts. She hated the feeling of being isolated from her magic, the very thing that was her own special talent, but she also knew she couldn’t risk hurting somepony should she ever experience another flameout.

She had once asked Princess Celestia for one of the rings so she could study it for herself. But the princess had politely refused her request, as she couldn’t risk anypony ever finding a way to counteract the powers of an inhibitor ring.

Twilight was brought out of her thoughts as one of the guards knocked on the door to Celestia’s personal study. The doors were opened by her mentor’s golden magical aura revealing the princess sitting behind a desk ladened with scrolls, books, and other manuscripts pertaining to Twilight’s magical education.

Celestia greeted Twilight with a warm smile, which did wonders to chase away most of the butterflies flittering around in the young unicorn’s stomach. Twilight returned the smile and walked inside, closing the door behind her. For the most part, the study was just like any other in the castle. But unlike the others, this one had been specifically made for those rare young unicorns whose magic could be extremely unpredictable and powerful if left unchecked. It contained but a single desk for one student, and in case she went through another flameout, all the walls, ceilings and windows were marked with an intricate design of flowing runes and sigils, each and every one of them designed to force her magic back under her control .

“Princess Celestia, I’ve finished all the reading assignments you gave me for the next two months,” Twilight said as she levitated several large books—each one easily over several hundred pages long—on the princess’s desk and gave her a wide smile. “I even took some notes on the most prominent subject, and have a few ideas for corrections where the writer made several assertions that are severely outdated.” Twilight giggled as she levitated a massive stack of papers from the pile of parchment and held them out to her mentor who took them with a look of mild surprise.

Twilight’s pages of notes were large enough to be an entire book of their own, and a swell of pride for her young student filled the princess’s chest as her expectations of the young mare’s potential were once again completely shattered beyond belief. “I see you’ve put a lot of work into your assignments, Twilight. Tell me, did you use the week off I gave you to do all this?”

“Yes,” Twilight stated proudly.

Celestia glanced back in scepticism at the massive pile of notes Twilight had written. “And did you spend any time at all with your fellow students like I asked you to?”

Twilight looked down guiltily and fidgeted nervously with her hands. “No. I tried to, but I didn’t feel like playing their games. I felt like reading, and completing all the assignments you gave me.” Suddenly a smile lit up Twilight’s face and she looked back up at the princess. “But I did spend some time studying with Moondancer. Together we finished reading the final book in the “Powers of the Alchemist: Facts and Theories” series.”

Celestia blinked several times in surprise. “Twilight, I’m very proud of you for finishing all of these assignments so quickly. But I did expect you to do all of them, including spending time with your fellow students. That’s why you had two months to get these done.”

Twilight bit her bottom lip and gave a hesitant nod of understanding. Celestia smiled warmly at her prized pupil and placed the pile of notes onto her desk for reading later. “So what am I learning today?” Twilight asked, staring with wide, eager eyes at her mentor.

Celestia’s horn glowed as she used her magic to clear the books and parchment from Twilight’s desk, replacing them with a single thick tome.

To anypony else the massive book would have been a complete literacy nightmare filled with complicated words and even more complicated spells. But to Twilight it was a dream come true, she stared at the massive book as though it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and she felt like she couldn’t wait to start reading through it.

“Today you’re going to learn how to control yourself when using large quantities of magic.” Celestia began flipping through the tome rather quickly, and Twilight felt a little put off that she was skipping so many pages and chapters of knowledge. But she remained silent until Celestia reached the correct page. “I’m going to teach you how to access your raw untamed power without losing control like you did while trying to hatch Spike. To do this, I need you to think of the magic contained within you as water in a tank or a well, and you need to think of your horn as the tap that releases this magic. Turn it on too slow and you won’t have enough power to perform your spells, open it too fast and you risk flooding yourself with power.”

“But… you said it was too risky to use that much magic.”

“I did, but I think you’re ready now. You’ve come so far in your training and I believe that you now have enough knowledge to master this.”

Twilight stared in disbelief at the page Celestia had stopped at. “A teleportation spell?” she looked up at her mentor with wide concerned eyes. “I don’t think I’m ready to perform such advanced magic.”

Celestia placed a reassuring hand on Twilight’s shoulder. She smiled and said, “I have complete faith in your magical abilities, Twilight. But I understand that your first time can be intimidating. So today we’re only going to have you trying to teleport from one side of the room to the other, okay?”

Twilight felt her confidence grow at her mentor’s words and she looked again at the spell written on the page in front of her. If Celestia believed in her ability to perform it, then she was going to do her best to make her teacher proud of her. Once Twilight had studied the spell long enough to commit the complicated magical formula to memory, she looked up at Princess Celestia and nodded. “I think I’m ready now.”

Celestia guided the young unicorn to the other side of the room and knelt down beside her. “Just remember Twilight, you don’t have to get the spell right on your first try, okay? You only have to do your best.” Twilight bit her bottom lip nervously and nodded in understanding. After giving her student one more smile of encouragement, Celestia stepped off to the side. Giving her student the room she needed, but staying close by for encouragement.

Twilight closed her eyes in concentration and began dipping into her internal reservoir of power. She could feel the energy crackling and surging within her just waiting to be released. A warm tingling sensation spread throughout her body as she began channeling a small amount of her magic to her horn. Her horn glowed with an aura of violet power and she began twisting, manipulating the magic from it’s natural state of pure energy into the spell she had just read.

Even from her position off to the side, Celestia could feel the raw amount of magic surging within the young unicorn’s body. A nervous shudder ran up Celestia’s spine.

The last time she’d seen a non-alicorn pony with this much magical ability, Equestria had been thrust into an age of darkness the likes of which had almost crippled her kingdom beyond repair.

There was so much magical potential in Twilight that she’d either be the most powerful defender of Equestria in the last thousand and a half years, or the harbinger of Equestria’s next age of darkness. It was this uncertainty of Equestria’s future that drove Celestia to find those few special individuals with great magical potential—like Twilight—and steer them towards the path of light. Celestia also took it upon herself to teach such individuals the importance of love and tolerance.

A grunt of exertion returned Celestia’s attention back to her student still struggling with the teleportation spell. “You’re doing very well so far, my faithful student,” Celestia said with approval. “Just ease up on the amount of magic you’re using.”

Twilight gave a silent nod of understanding and tried to ease up on the flow of magic coming from her horn. However instead of her horn’s aura of magic diminishing, it remained consistent, and, to her horror, began growing even brighter. Twilight tried her best not to panic as she failed to reign in her magic, taking a deep breath to calm herself.

Twilight tried desperately to stop the flow of magic running through her body, her mind's eye did exactly what Celestia had said, she saw her magic as being a well of water, and her horn the tap. She focused, trying to force the tap shut, trying to close off the flood of water coming from the well; but rather than ceasing it, or at least slowing it down, the pressure was too great, the tap gave way and the flow of power turned into a massive flooding river. The runes carved all along the walls of the room began glowing with golden light, and Twilight felt their imbedded spells starting to act, constricting upon her and trying to force her magic back into her control.

The runes were now glowing at their brightest as their powers fought to contain Twilight’s magic, but a bolt of her magical energy hit one of them causing it to split in half and breaking the flow of magic to the rest of the runes, making them fade out of existence. Now completely free of any restraining influence, Twilight’s magic surged to new heights of unchecked power..

Random powerful bolts of magical energy began shooting from the aura of magic that was now surrounding Twilight’s entire body. Celestia barely managed to form a defensive shield around herself before one of them flew towards her. The princess screamed as the raw amount of power contained within the bolt of energy shattered the shield like it was nothing more than a sheet of glass and sent her flying across the room.

Celestia hit the stone wall behind her with enough force to leave a spiderweb of cracks across its surface. Her whole body felt completely numb from the magical missile. Celestia groaned weakly and rolled over just in time to see the four royal guards run into the study, each one with an inhibitor ring in their grasp. They began converging on Twilight, only to be thrown back by a pulse of the unicorn’s out-of-control magic. Celestia cursed internally at the numbness leaving her unable to do anything but watch the spectacle. She tried her hardest, but the paralysis was too strong for her magic too easily shake off.

It was at that moment that Celestia realized: this magical flameout was much more serious and advanced than the first one that Twilight had suffered not so long ago. The unicorn’s magic was far more powerful than she had ever thought, and worse, it was defending itself from anything it perceived as a threat to its user.

“I can’t control it!!” Twilight screamed in pure fear. “Please, princess! help me!!”

Celestia gritted her teeth and began channelling her own magic to fight off the paralysing sensations in her body, the numbness began slowly receding, leaving a tingling feeling of pins and needles throughout her body. The violet aura of magic surrounding Twilight’s body began glowing even brighter, leaving the young unicorn screaming in pure agony..

“Hold on Twilight, I’m coming!” Celestia yelled. She pulled an inhibitor ring from her pocket, and began slowly crawling towards her student. A shockwave of energy burst from the aura surrounding Twilight’s body and caused a massive crevice-like dimensional rift to split the entire room in half. Twilight screamed in terror as the edges of the crevice gave way and she began falling into the dark crevice below her. At the last second Twilight managed to fling herself to the other side of the crevice and hold out her hand to Princess Celestia, her only salvation. “Please save me!” Twilight begged.

The princess, desperate to save her endangered student, tried crawling faster and was inches away from grabbing her hand when an earsplitting scream of fury came from the depths of the hole and a large clawed hand wrapped around Twilight’s small body. Despite Twilight’s eyes glowing with raw magical energy Celestia saw them widen with real terror as the clawed hand pulled her down into the dark depths it had called home.

As soon as Twilight was gone, the rift sealed itself closed, leaving the floor in its previous condition of perfect smoothness, and the only evidence of Twilight losing control of her magic were the holes in the wall and the royal guards lying on the floor, either dead or unconscious, Celestia couldn’t tell.