“B...B...B...F...F—”
“Lyra! It’s so good to see you again! Hey, you have your notebook with you! Are you writing songs again? That’s really really neat! I guess you want me to get your usual for you then?”
Lyra peeked over the edge of her notebook to see Pinkie Pie inches away from her face. Stifling the urge to fall back in surprise, she laughed as the notebook floated down to the table in her magical aura. “Good morning to you too, Pinkie. Actually, I'm just writing down some music pieces right now. It helps me finish up a tune if I have something to look at. And yes, I would love one, if that's alright with you.”
Pinkie giggled. “One chocolate-strawberry milkshake twist coming up! And why wouldn't it be alright with me? I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t!”
Lyra gave a slight eye roll. "Your logic threatens to slay me where I stand."
"You're sitting, you silly filly!”
“Pinkie.”
“Yes, Lyra?”
“Don't forget my milkshake.”
“Oh yeah! Right away!” Pinkie Pie bounced behind the counter and started haphazardly tossing ingredients into a blender on the counter as Lyra went back to plucking the strings on her instrument.
“Pinkie Pie, you are so random...”
The unicorn heaved out a contented sigh as she leaned further back into the comfortable booth seat. She had just gotten back the day before from a concert in Trottingham, and she was brimming with ideas she had picked up from other musicians while she was there. Since she had spent most the past week in a mad rush, Lyra had decided to take today just to relax at Sugarcube Corner and hammer out some melodies. Even if the mere presence of Pinkie Pie was detrimental to any attempt to concentrate, the promise of sugary goodness was too tempting to resist.
“Here's your shake, Lyra! The Chocolate-Strawberry Twist for the best musician in Ponyville!”
“Why, thank you, Pinkie.” Lyra passed her a couple bits and enveloped the drink in a magical aura, lifting it from Pinkie's tray and letting her magic carry it towards the table. As the shake floated towards her, she stopped and listened to the gentle hum of the aura surrounding it. “I wonder...”
She propped herself up on the bench, the milkshake momentarily forgotten, and formed a tiny sphere of green magic above the table. Lyra listened to the hum of the orb and gradually expanded its size until it was pitched to her liking. She poured a little more energy into it until the tone was clearly audible to everyone in the room.
Satisfied with the note, Lyra silenced the sphere and conjured up another ball of magic, tuning it to a different note. She repeated the exercise several times until she had about a dozen floating balls, each gently emitting a different tone.
“Cool...”
Lyra gave the center orb a gentle pulse of magic, making it ring like a xylophone struck with a rubber mallet. She started piecing together a small tune, gradually increasing the speed of the music until it morphed into a happy little melody.
“Wow, Lyra, where did you learn to do that? That's really neat!”
The orbs vanished as Lyra's concentration broke, magical energy dissipating in all directions.
Pinkie bounced away from the table and held her hooves over her mouth. “Oops, I'm sorry!”
“Ah, it's okay, Pinkie. It wasn't that good anyway.”
“Are you kidding? Do that again! It's really cool!”
Lyra smiled. “Okay, Pinkie...”
The unicorn closed her eyes and concentrated. A green orb slowly coalesced over the little booth and started to emit a crystalline middle C. Soon, a whole fleet of little green orbs of various sizes floated over the table. Lyra inhaled deeply, then began to make them chime in rapid succession.
A short time later, finished with her performance, Lyra opened her eyes. Pinkie had sat down during the show, jaw hanging slack.
“Pinkie? Are you okay?”
“Okay? That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard or seen!”
“Thanks, Pinks. I wish I could actually do something with it besides music, but it's still nice to listen to.”
“You can say that again!” Pinkie proceeded to seemingly pull a party watch from thin air, briefly glancing at it before stashing it again. “Oh horseapples! I'm late! I have to go, so I'll talk to you later, Lyra!”
Lyra furrowed her brow in confusion. "What could you possibly be late for? You're already at work."
"I didn't earn the title of 'Ponyville's Premier Party Pony’ without lots of planning and hard work. I have some serious prepping to do!"
Lyra gave a resigned shrug. "Fair enough. I'll see you later, then."
"Later, Heartie!"
Lyra waved at Pinkie as she bounced out the door to whatever she was going to do. “Finally, I get to enjoy this thing,” she said as she picked up her milkshake to take a deep pull from the straw. “Ahh, that's the stuff—ack! Cold! Brain freeze! Brain freeze!”
She shook her head to clear it, then picked up her lyre and sat there for a moment, trying to resume her practice.
“Stupid brain freeze,” she mumbled. “It never fails. I get inspiration, then something stupid happens to chase it away.”
Lyra slipped the instrument and her notebook in her saddlebags. “I guess I'm going to have to take this shake to go.”
Lyra left the shop and briefly wondered what she should do for the rest of the day. She didn't have any recitals for the day; Bon-Bon was away in Baltimare for some candy convention, and she didn't have any plans in particular. Well, she could always try and learn some new magic. All she needed to do was figure out what she wanted to learn, and the library was sure to have whatever she needed. Twilight had already forgiven her for the wing spell incident and six weeks should have been more than enough time to let things cool down before going back.
Twilight trotted madly through the library, books whirling about her as she pulled them from shelves and examined them briefly before she sent them shooting back, narrowly missing other books as they made their way across the room.
“Spike, why in Equestria did you put all those books away? You knew I was using them to design a new spell!”
“I'm sorry, Twilight. You told me to clean the library yesterday, so I thought you wanted them to be put back. You could have told me to leave them out for you, you know.”
“I thought I did tell you not to bother my research material. Now I have to find them all again! Do you at least remember where you put my notes?”
“Relax, I put them on your writing stand. Right, Owlowiscious?”
“Who,” the tawny owl replied from his perch on the upstairs landing.
“Not who, what. The writing stand. Remember?”
“Who.”
"You. Do you remember me putting the notes on the writing stand?"
"Who."
"Nevermind. I'm just going to assume you're saying yes.” Spike pointedly turned from the owl back to Twilight. “Anyway, Twi, it's all there, and you can always find the books again.”
“Ugh, fine.” Twilight started pulling books off the shelves left and right. “Okay, let's see... Arcane Energy, Summoning and Banishing: A Tale of Inverse Spells, How to Make Magical Waypoints, Interwoven Spells Do's and Don'ts, Theories on Magical Resonance—”
Lyra approached the library with a touch of caution. The unicorn remembered a couple times where she had walked into the library only to find that it was not being used in a manner deemed appropriate for its title. Twilight Sparkle's most recent experimental excursion was a trip into some of the more dangerous aspects of alchemy and had left Lyra permanently wary of Twilight's admittedly unorthodox use of the library.
After confirming that there were no ethereal lights or other abnormalities flickering in the windows of the library, Lyra deemed it safe to enter. If she had known that Twilight was at that very moment grabbing books from the shelves in a desperate attempt to resume studying, Lyra would have been much less likely to be hit in the face with a book the size of her entire head.
Thunk! "Ow!" The collision was more than strong enough to force Lyra to lose her grip on her prized milkshake, letting the delicious drink of the gods become lost to the cruel grip of gravity.
Twilight dropped the books she was levitating with her magic and rushed over to Lyra, who was nursing a growing knot on her head. “I'm so sorry, Lyra! Are you okay?”
“I'll live,” Lyra groaned as she staggered to her hooves and shook her head clear for the second time in several minutes. She glanced mournfully at the spilled remainder of her milkshake. “Do you have any napkins? I kind of need to take care of my shake before it makes its way to your rug.”
Twilight ushered Lyra over to the nearest bench. “Nonsense! It's my fault you dropped it, so I'll take care of it.” She waved her horn towards the spill, neatly levitating the cup and mess to the nearest trash can before turning back to Lyra. “So, what can I do for you?”
“Well, I actually came over to ask if you have any books on teleporting I can check out. I've seen you do it before and it looks like a pretty useful spell to have on hoof.” She noticed Twilight give a slight wince. “Is something wrong?”
Twilight paused before answering. “Nothing is really wrong. It's just that teleportation is kind of a dangerous spell to be using. If you mess up in the middle of casting, it can end rather, well...”
“Messy?”
“Exactly. Also, it's quite complicated and we both know how well you do with advanced magic.”
Lyra blushed a little. “Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to broaden my horizons and I think magic is a good way to go about it.”
“I understand completely. However, I would recommend that you try something a little less dangerous before doing teleporting—wait, I have an idea!” Twilight called out to Spike, “Do you know where that summoning book is that I use for practice?”
“Hang on Twi, just give me a second.” The purple dragon slid a ladder into place along a far wall, climbing halfway up and pulling out an enormous book before staggering back down the ladder and dropping it on the table with a resounding thud.
Twilight couldn't help but chuckle as Lyra blanched at the sheer size of the massive tome placed before her. “It’s not that bad, Lyra. A lot of those pages are filled with pictures.”
With some straining, Lyra managed to turn the book around and read the cover. “The Science of Magic, Volume II: Movement Spells?”
“Chapters seven through ten are summoning, banishing and teleportation. I would recommend learning them in that order. You can get practice by doing similar types of magic before taking on teleporting. You might not even be able to summon from very far at first, but just keep at it until you can summon and banish flawlessly before moving on. Trust me, it helps a lot when you actually attempt teleportation.”
“Nice! Thanks so much, Twilight!”
“You're very welcome, Lyra.”
“I just want to ask one more thing. Could you—”
“No, I can't let you practice here. I'm still picking staples out of my tail from the wing spell you botched.”
“Okay, okay. I'll just find somewhere else to practice then.”
Twilight let another chuckle slip. “I will tell you that you do want someone to spot for you when you practice teleporting, preferably a unicorn. Also, take lots of breaks while practicing summoning. It's a draining spell to attempt more than a couple times in a row.”
Lyra thanked Twilight again as she hefted the weighty book and wedged it into her saddlebags. With a passing wave of her hoof, she slipped out the door, humming a melody as she went.
Spike turned to Twilight. “Well, that was rude of you. Why didn't you let Lyra practice here? Your special talent is magic, after all. You could have taught her how to do it properly.”
Twilight lifted the notes off her writing table. “I'm already busy, Spike, and besides, don't you remember what happened the last time I let her practice magic in here?”
“Uhh, no?”
“How could you not remember the angry stapler?”
“Oh yeah, that. Yeah, that was pretty hilarious.”
“Hilarious? More like horrifying!”
“You really need to relax, Twilight. Celestia said it was all okay. In fact, she said it made for the most entertaining council meeting she went to in the last two hundred years.”
“Ugh, never mind! Just help me find the rest of my books.”
“Fine, fine.” Spike jogged into another room, propping his ladder against a bookcase to retrieve one of the books he had put away earlier that morning. “So what kind of spell are you working on, anyway?”
Twilight flipped several of the books lying around to pages with bookmarks sticking out as she spoke. “I was trying to complete a combination summon-banish spell.”
Spike paused. “Doesn't that kind of, you know, miss the point of both spells? Why would you want to bring something to you just to send it away again?”
“I want to magically link together a storage unit with a receiving unit to allow for carrying a theoretically infinite number of objects around using a limited amount of storage space, calling forth the requested item using the receptacle and sending it back to the repository when no longer needed.”
Spike tilted his head. Twilight let out an exasperated sigh.
“I want to make a toolbox that can carry everything.”
“Oh, well why didn't you just say so?”
Twilight levitated a bookend into Spike's claws. “Here. I need you to take this outside again, please."
“Why?”
“I want to see if the spell is working right yet.”
“Oh, alright.”
“And please take it a little further away this time. Just outside the front door isn't good enough.”
Lyra slumped down on the bench outside her house. She couldn't believe that throughout the entire town, no one she knew was free to spot her while practicing spellcasting. “Well, Twilight didn't say I had to have someone nearby. She just recommended it.” She heaved the book out onto the bench.
“Finally, I get to try some more wicked spellcasting!” She flipped to the table of contents.
“Chapter seven.... Here! 'Summoning, Banishing and Teleporting: a Brief Introduction, page 577.’”
The pages whizzed over to the proper spot and she began reading. “The first pioneer in the field of teleportation was, oddly enough, an earth pony by the name of Leyline Tracer. With the aid of a unicorn friend for testing his work, he published over thirty spells in varying fields of magic...” Lyra yawned. “Boring! Onwards to chapter eight!”
“Come on, just a couple more strands, and—” Twilight poured more energy into the bubble of magic surrounding the bookend. The sphere abruptly flashed brightly, then dissipated in a puff of smoke, leaving the bookend more singed than ever. “Argh! Why can't I send it back? I can get the summon and the banishment to work separately, so what gives?”
She turned to the sheaf of notepaper, pulling pages seemingly at random before focusing on one particular page. “Okay, here we go. 'If multiple spells are being used to accomplish a single purpose, there is usually an overall indirect “binding” spell to keep them working in conjunction. Seeking spell could work, but it must be linked indirectly to the summoning part of the spell, or else it will stop as soon as the summon is complete.' Ah, I had a direct binding. This shouldn't be a problem, I'll just need to fix it so it's two joined spells instead of a single multi-faceted one. Now, where is the paper with the spell written on it?”
Twilight shuffled through her notes several times before turning to her assistant. “Spike, I'm missing a couple pages. Did you pick up all of them?”
“If I saw it, I got it. Maybe you left them in one of your books?”
“It's possible. I'll just check off my references real quick to make sure all of them are here.” Twilight scanned through a list of books, checking each one as she confirmed its location. “Hmm...”
“What is it, Twilight?”
“I guess I loaned out one of the books I was using to none other than Ms. Heartstrings. Knowing my luck, I probably left the spell sheet in that one.”
“Are you going to go over and get it?”
“I'll wait a bit so she will get the opportunity to practice first. I don't want to interrupt her while she's in the middle of anything.”
“You still don't trust her, do you?”
“Not really.”
Lyra flopped down in exhaustion, staring at the stone a couple hundred hooves away from where she lay. The stupid thing wouldn't come to her, and she was fed up with it.
Frustrated, she procured a musical orb and poured her magic into it, letting it drain away her anger at the rock. As the ball of magic hummed away, an idea started itching at the back of her mind. She was good at music, so why couldn't she apply what she knew to other branches of magic?
Lyra started the spell again and focused her thoughts on the bands of energy. After a few seconds of study, she shook her head and let the spell dissipate. The harmonics of the spell were all wrong. She couldn't use this one. Lyra flipped through the summoning chapter, briefly skimming each variation of summoning and mentally discarding every one.
Just as she was about to give up, Lyra found a sheet of paper near the end of the chapter and skimmed over it, widening her eyes with delight as she read every word.
“Interesting. I've never heard of a spell that summons and banishes at the same time! It sounds kind of pointless, really, but I can just as easily break them apart to do just one spell at a time. The harmonics even work perfectly with this one!” She turned back towards the rock and cast the aforementioned spell at it. Within seconds, the rock was sitting at Lyra's hooves, perfectly sound.
“Booyah! Who's the mare? I'm the mare! You just got summoned, rock! Now, prepare to be banished!”
Twilight decided she had waited long enough. Hopefully, Lyra would be ready to let her see if she had left her spell sheet in the book by now. “Spike, I'm heading out to Lyra's place. I'll be back soon.”
Spike peeked around the kitchen door, wearing a cleaning apron completely covered in dust and soot. “How soon will you be back?”
“Not too long. I'll just teleport there and—” Twilight facehooved. “No, I can't do that. Basic rule of magic; don't cross teleport paths. I guess I'm walking there. I'll be back in an hour. Don't get into any trouble, okay?”
“Okay, okay, I won't.” Spike watched Twilight leave, then ran up to the window to confirm she was on her way.
“She's finally gone. Time for some quality napping!”
Lyra was amazed at how easy it was to send the rock—and other rocks much larger—miles away with her banishing spell, just to bring it right back with a summon. She felt a slight increase on the drain of the spell as the distance or weight increased, but it was barely noticeable.
“Okay, I really want to test my limits now. What can I try to summon that won't be as easy to bring?” Lyra started as she remembered a snippet from one of her old animal books.
“Wait a second. I have an idea!”
Lyra cantered into her house and pulled a tattered book off a bookshelf in her room, quickly returning outdoors to search for the page she remembered.
“Let's see... Index, M, magical resilience, there!” She flipped the pages to the target and began reading an entry.
“'Humans. Classification: Mythological. Last supposed sighting: 343 After Luna's Banishment, Everfree Forest. These creatures are exceedingly rare, to the point that some scholars believe that they never truly existed. Stories of them usually center around their chaotic nature and magical resilience. Some myths even told of humans that could actively cancel out spells levied against them.'
"Well, this seems like a reasonable target for testing the strength of this spell. Even if I don't bring it, I can see how far the range of this spell extends. The only problem I can think of is summoning this thing and it escaping before I banish it, if I even manage to bring it here.”
Lyra studied the spell’s entry again. “I guess I can use it as a whole spell, like it was originally meant. Of course, I'll have to tweak it a little so I can still use musical principles to strengthen it.”
She looked over the entry picture so she would know what she was summoning, decided how she was going to alter the spell for her needs, and started the spell. The familiar bubble of light grew in front of her to a size much larger than she had anticipated.
The seeking part of the spell stretched out beyond the borders of Equestria, then beyond her comprehension. Lyra's head started to ache as the spell reached out further. The pain slowly grew until, in a flash, it became totally unbearable. She cried out as the spell locked in on something and started pulling it into the bubble.
Twilight saw the flash of light emanate from near Lyra's house as she neared the street where she lived. “Oh, no...” She started into a canter which quickly segued into a full gallop as the light grew brighter. “Lyra!”
She bolted around the corner of Lyra's house and found her working magic on a familiar magical enclosure.
“Lyra, what are you doing?! That spell isn't finished yet! Can you hear me? Lyra!”
The flare died down just enough for Twilight to see a silhouette that was in the center of the bubble, a bipedal creature that was taller than they were. A mournful wail pierced the afternoon air as the shadow collapsed on the floor of the bubble. The barrier flickered as the shriek began. Twilight felt a wave of... something... pass through her body, rolling across the lawn, sending lights inside houses blinking on and off down the street.
Lyra was almost blinded by the light streaming from the bubble, but she could clearly see the anguish of the creature inside it.
What have I done?
“No! I've come this far and I'm going to finish it!”
She poured her magical power into the framework of the spell, trying to complete it and finish the banishment. Lyra squeezed her eyes shut, but the light still filtered through, turning her world a bright red.
Twilight shouted out, “Lyra, don't try to banish whatever it is! It won't work! The spell won't complete! You are going to get hurt!”
She saw the shell grow brighter and backed away as far as she could before throwing herself on the ground and pulling up a hastily-made shield, trying to protect her eyes and body. The world faded out in a white-hot roar.
Discord sat in his stone imprisonment, feeling that same cursed itch he had the last time he was set in stone. Not only did it start itching just five minutes after being encased, it was in the exact same place as last time.
If only I could scratch it. If only I hadn't let that magic imprison me. I probably won't even get the chance to—
A wave of energy rolled over his body. Strange, he hadn't felt something like that in millennia.
The last time I felt chaos like that...
He shook off the thought as he realized something had changed. There was a crack in his prison.