Jennie produced a strange device from her bags that she was given by her coltfriend and set it down in the middle of a small field just outside Canterlot, near the forest. She was told it was a recall beacon, but something about it was off in a way. Jennie had seen recall beacons in use before. Normally, a unicorn would produce a specific sort of magic field attuned to another unicorn that could be used to easily teleport from wherever to near the field’s location. It was a very interesting trick to Vic’s mind, and after learning how to teleport from a very good teacher, he had improved on the recall beacon spell and managed to enchant a gemstone to serve as one without requiring a second unicorn to maintain the field.
He later found out that cubic zirconium didn’t cut it on the targeting department and spent half the day walking back home, swearing to Celestia that he’d never skimp on gemstones again. Hilarity rightfully ensued when his grandmother heard the story. On the other hoof, royalties were nice, as long as Vic’s patent held up.
“What’s so special about this beacon, hon?” Jennie asked as she anchored the beacon to the ground. “It looks more… complicated than usual.”
“Well, dear, that’s because this beacon should allow me to snap back across time. Assuming I did the math right.”
“Ah yeah, space and time being the same thing and all that?” Jennie guessed. Vic smiled and nodded.
While Star Swirl’s original spell was pretty straightforward and user-friendly, assuming the user was powerful enough to cast it in the first place, Vic’s version was much more complicated. It came with the relaxed limitations, he argued – the further away from your current location you wanted to go, be it in time or space, the more difficult the math became. Originally, the spell took care of such matters, which was part of why it required a powerful caster. Vic, though no slouch himself, was decidedly not that powerful. But he was certainly good with numbers, and had plenty paper and ink to waste on it.
And if this worked out, he’d have plenty of time to waste as well.
Vic double-checked the numbers, especially the plusses and minuses, those tricky little bastards, and activated the recall beacon.
“So am I right to assume this extra bit on the side is to account for the time?” Jennie remarked as she looked at an odd, triangular formation that was indeed on the side of the beacon.
“You are way too sharp, dear”, Vic joked.
“Right. Where ya goin’? Or is that ‘when’?”
“If I did my math right, accounted for planetary movement and frames of reference and all that jazz, I should appear ten minutes in the past, on the other side of the forest”, Vic replied, pointing a hoof at the far side of the forest, away from Canterlot. “If I were to appear at the other end, we would risk meeting each other on the way here!”
“What do you suppose would happen if we did?”
“I am not certain, but also, I am in no hurry to find out. Unlike other things. Now… watches, please.”
Jennie produced two watches from her bag, one white, the other black. Both were set to eight past three in the evening, one running just half a second behind the other. Vic took the black one and stuffed it in his jacket, then took one last look at the recall beacon.
“Good. The timer has been running along smoothly. Well dear, wish me luck! If all goes well, I should appear where slash when planned, then try to activate the recall, which should at that moment from my frame of reference not be activated yet.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” Jennie asked with a careful frown.
“Then I will have irrevocably lost slightly less than an hour of my life and walk back here with my head held low. But at least the actual travel would work!”
Suddenly, he held Jennie in a tight hug.
“I would just need to catch up on lost time when we get back home”, Vic whispered in Jennie’s ear.
“Vicky, no! Science now, sociobiology later.”
Vic shrugged and stood next to the beacon. “On three?”
Jennie nodded in confirmation and held up her watch. When the second hand reached the top, she started counting.
At one, Vic flared up his horn and ran through the mental motions he had memorized to prepare the spell.
At two, the glow increased in power, causing purple light to play across the faces of both ponies. Variables were substituted where needed and a typical whine sounded, slowly building in pitch and volume.
At three, there was a deep popping noise and Vic was hidden in a white flash for what seemed like several seconds. At first it looked like nothing had happened, but after blinking away the colorful spots in her vision, Jennie noticed something was different about the unicorn standing before her.
Not only had Vic changed position, standing a little closer to the beacon, but he had removed his jacket and had it draped over his withers, and his glasses were perched on his horn. Vic grinned and removed the black watch from his jacket pocket, then held it next to Jennie’s white watch.
The black watch was off by thirty-six seconds exactly. That was just enough time for Vic to come up with the idea of taking off his jacket, do so, and trigger the recall.
“I guess it worked”, Vic stated matter-of-factly as he put his jacket back on and quickly ran a phantom comb through his mane. “Shall we celebrate our success now, or try a larger distance first?”
This was, of course, a very stupid question to ask a Pie, and Vic was quick to realize this mistake. The two ponies just smiled at each other, had a quick celebratory nuzzle, and started packing.
“Do you think I could come with some time?” Jennie asked.
“I really do not see why not, dear. I have, after all, taken you along in a space-only teleportation”, Vic answered. “How much more difficult than this could it really be? More importantly, where shall we go to celebrate?”
From atop one of the towers of Canterlot Castle, a certain very light pink deity gazed in the general direction of the forest.
Queen Celestia frowned at the implications of what she had seen.