Come Dawn or Darkness

The BANG was audible for miles around, the entire town shook as the dust settled around the small crater behind the library.

"Ooooh, COME ON! What did I do wrong THAT time? Everything was set up perfectly!" Twilight paced back and forth before the scorched hole in the ground, a noticeable divot forming in the grass where she was walking. They had been at this for hour now but there no headway had been gained. "We traced it out accurately, right? That should be exactly fifty meters. Spike, are you sure you used they right measurements?"

The little dragon was flat on his back a few feet away, still a little dazed from the latest shockwave. He attempted to rise at the sound of his name, but his head was still spinning when he got back on his feet. "I'm... woah... I'm positive! I measured it out five times before you got out here, there must be something else wrong with it... Are you sure this spell even does what that guy said it would? I mean... Do you really think we should just take his word for it? What if this isn't a teleportation spell at all? What if..." he let out an audible GULP partway through his sentence, "...what if this is some kind of trap? I mean, did you notice that Torrent just happened to have disappeared after he told you what he wanted you to do? He probably doesn't want to get eaten by whatever he's having you summon for him back here!"

"It's not a summoning spell, Spike, you can stop worrying about that. And I'm sure there a perfectly good reason why he had to be somewhere else today." Twilight had grown used to this sort of reaction from her little assistant, he had not been particularly subtle with his distaste for her new teacher or his unconventional methods. After their first encounter, Spike had avoided the newcomer every chance he got, going so far as to make up chores that he had to do in other rooms whenever the outsider entered. Still, the lack of results that her instructor's latest "test" was providing her with made it hard for her to deny that there was not something just a little suspicious about this project.

"Maybe we should just call it a day, Twilight. We've been doing this since noon and I'm pretty sure all of Ponyville is convinced the world is ending thanks to all these little earthquakes we're making." He was not far off on that point, the shockwaves had gotten progressively stronger with each attempt they had made. After the last one, Twilight could have sworn she had heard a few trees falling over in the distance. But this she was not about to stop just because she did not full grasp the premise of the new spell. The last thing she wanted was to show anything that her new mentor might take as weakness, less he decide she was not worth his effort after all.

"No! I'm not giving up on this, I WILL make this work. I just need to approach it from a different angle... Spike, set it up again. I'm going to try standing above it this time, maybe if I can see the entire area we'll be covering I'll be able to focus the spell better." She was not sure that she truly believed that, but it was better than proceeding the exact same way she had during the last three tries. Spike ran to the side of the library and came back a moment later with a potted flower, one of over five dozen that had been created during one of Twilight's first lessons with her new teacher.

Twilight teleported herself up onto the balcony overlooking the empty area behind her home, and waited as Spike placed the pot in the center of a small circle Torrent had drawn in the dirt for them before he left. He put the plant down carefully and then bolted away, as if expecting it explode the moment he let go of it.

Twilight surveyed the site one last time: a small dirt circle with her duplicated plant in the center, a dotted line scratched into the ground, traveling exactly fifty meters to the middle of a second, larger circle that was now completely covered over by rippling scorch marks. The target location had originally been flat ground, but the series of attempts taken prior to this had left it as a sunken crater. All in all, everything seemed to be set up according to plan... But then, it had seemed that way every other time too. Maybe I'm just not concentrating hard enough...

"Ok Spike, take cover! I'm going to try this again!" She had just enough time to see the young dragon dart back inside the library before she focused every last bit of her concentration onto the plant. Energy formed around her horn, purple light crackling to life as she put all of her mental strength into the spell. She tilted her head toward the plant on the ground below, and after a matter of seconds it began to glow with the same violet aura. The pot shook violently for a moment before rising into the air. It hovered there briefly as Twilight chose her target. Her eyes were clenched shut from the effort she was putting into the spell, so she searched the ground below her with her mind. Finally she located the crater and, with one last burst of energy, thrust her head skyward and activated spell.

The plant disappeared instantly in small flash of purple and black light. Twilight opened her eyes, and then immediately shut them again in anticipation for the imminent blast of energy that would accompany the pot's return to existence. Yet after a few moments had passed without any massive blowback striking her she opened her eyes once more and looked down at the scorched ground below. Much to her surprise, the pot was sitting in the center of the crater, perfectly intact and unburnt. Still, as she gazed down at the purple, dirt-filled clay pot she could not help but feel a wave of disappointment wash over her.

"Well your certainly making some progress, I see." The voice surprised Twilight enough to make her jump and shriek slightly. She had been completely alone on the balcony just a moment before, and she was sure she would have heard the door had it opened behind her. None the less, there he stood, surveying the situation from beneath his ornately trimmed hood.

"Sir Torrent! When did you get back? I, uh, I didn't hear you come through the door." She was sincerely hoping he wouldn't bring attention to the obvious problem with her spell. Unfortunately, that was apparently too much to hope for.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Twilight, but... shouldn't there be a flower in that pot?" He looked down at her questioningly, though he likely already knew full-well what had happened. The clay was entirely unharmed, still in just as perfect condition as it had been when it was placed inside the dirt circle. There was soil in it still; she was almost positive that it was just as full as it had been before she cast her spell. Yet the large orange flower that had been growing up from the center of the pot was no where to be seen.

"I really thought I had it that time too... I guess I just wasn't concentrating on the spell hard enough." She suddenly felt ashamed of herself for pride that had initially flowed through her when the spell had not created another explosion. For a split second she had really believed she had mastered it, but what good was a teleportation spell if the things that were sent through didn't always come out whole on the other side. "I'll get it this time around. Let me just go set up another flower pot."

"That won't be necessary, my dear. I think you've got the general idea of this spell fairly well in hand.... well in hoof? Forgive me, I'm still trying to get used to that. What I mean is, you have done all you can with this technique for today, any further effort put into it is only going to succeed in exhausting you." He put his gloved hand on her shoulder, peering down at her from the shadows of his cloak's green and black hood. "You are a supremely talented student, Twilight, far more diligent than any I have had the pleasure of training before. But you are far too hard on yourself."

The wanderer took a few steps forward, put his arms on the balcony's railing, and rested his weight upon them as he gazed out over the clearing behind the library. "That spell is an incredibly advanced form of teleportation, I certainly did not expect you to master it in just one day. Still, that you were able to send that pot through and recover again it at all is impressive; so the fact that it is still perfectly intact and not infused with any bizarre otherworldly substance is nothing short of astounding. Transferring a living thing through the use of the void, however, is something that only years of practice can teach you to do accurately though. As such, I felt plant would be the most expendable living organism to let you practice on."

Twilight walked over to the railing as well, looking up at the strange creature she was taking her lessons from. "If you knew I was just going to fail so many times why did you bother assigning me this spell at all? I'm already pretty good at teleportation, it barely takes any effort for me to do it anymore. But this form is exhausting and, if what you just said is true, dangerous! Why would I possibly want to use it over my normal spells." The question had been weighing on her heavily since earlier that day, when he had avoided answering it before he left. As far as she could see, the only real difference between this spell and her own teleportation magic was this so-called Abyssal version had the potential to cause massive shockwaves if one wasn't careful about how they used it.

"Your own spells are far too weak... Sorry, that came out wrong, I don't mean YOUR spells, specifically. It's this world in general; your people's research into the arcane has only delved so far at this point. It could be generations before your greatest wizards' spells reach the same stage of power that the world I studied in was at. Right now, what you call a teleportation spell is the same thing that my old masters would have referred to, quite pompously, as a 'movement-over-distance trick.' They would then have cast this spell which you were just practicing, and use it to send you halfway across the planet and then use it once more an hour later to pull you back to civilization, after you had had time to think about your ineptitude... It was not a particularly welcoming learning atmosphere, but it did get results.

"That is what this spell does that your magic cannot. There is no limitation on its range, nor any extra effort needed to send something farther than that fifty meters you were practicing with. The exhaustion you felt from that is the exact same amount you would feel if you were to teleport an object to an to a whole different planet, or even an entirely different plane of existence. Yes, it's more dangerous, but the potential uses for it are nearly limitless. Now then, what do you say we get this mess cleaned up." He indicated the large crater, burned grass, and chunks of broken pottery and soil that were spread across the yard below them. "Somehow I doubt this is the sort of sight you want to greet your friends with when they arrive. Now let me see... Where did your little assistant get to?"

They would spend the next few hours leveling the ground back out, clearing shards of clay from the grass, and attempting to bring the scorched plant-life back to its original state. Twilight had wanted everything to be perfect when her friends arrived for the beginning of the festival that night.