As I stood in the abandoned quarry, I took in my surroundings. There was a small lake in the bottom, which took up about a quarter of the quarry floor. The entire thing was littered with boulders, chunks of rock that had either fallen after it was abandoned, or had been dug out, only to be left behind as whatever project that required the stone was either cancelled or met their quota.

"Okay... lets try this again. A boulder is a lot bigger, heavier, and stronger than a book. I'm going to lift the boulder." I reached out with the tendril of magic, just as the book instructed, just as I practiced. Just tag the item with your magic, so you can effect it at range. As soon as it contacted the rock, it shuddered a little.

"Right, now up." A sharp pulse of red surrounded a rock about twice my size as it was tossed 30 feet in the air before coming crashing down and breaking in two.

"I need to think of this from a different angle. I want the boulder to move. What is motion? Kinetic energy. No, wait. All energy is kinetic energy, it's how it's applied that changes what happens. Motion is energy applied in one direction. Rotation is energy applied in a circle. Heat and fire are energy applied with no direction. Electricity is the motion of free electrons. The reason the boulder flew up so high is because it had no indication of how high it should go. Wait... If I want to pick something up, I use my hand. I may be using magic to do something I physically can't, but why should it be any different? I want to pick up a boulder. I'll just use my hand, with magic..."

Spotting another large rock, I focused my will again, but instead of reaching out with a single tendril of aura, I split it in three, like a claw, gripped it from all sides, then slowly... slowly... lifted it. It didn't explode, or get crushed, or tossed into the horizon. It floated there in my magical grasp, held by three prongs of dark red for a 'hand' with the arm stretching all the way back to me.

I held forth my claws, and made the movements of the magic hand match. The I was thinking it might be similar to playing one of those claw machine games to try and pick something up, except you have multiple tries and no time limit. I sucked at those abysmally, but at the very least this was possible, as compared to what I had been trying before.

Using my wings as another set of legs to stay standing, I lifted both arms into the air, with a magic aura arm to match each of them. I grasped a boulder in each hand, and smashed them together. I was rewarded with a shower of splintering rocks. So, this was something I could do, although if I tried it on anything smaller or lighter I'd have a great deal more trouble. Besides this, there was one other thing I wanted to try.

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I want to hit something, I recoil my arm, and thrust it forward. When it comes in contact with something, half the force is exerted on the object I strike, with the other half of the strain being put on my arm as the object resists being hit. This is why when you punch a wall, the wall doesn't topple over, you break your hand. Magic doesn't obey the laws of physics... or... it finds a way around them. If I use magic to apply unidirectional force, instead of the counter force affecting my arm from hitting it, my magic takes the counter force."

I walked up to another, particularly large rock. I remember one time, thinking the royal guard training regime was impossible, because if anyone could succeed at it they'd be able to kick boulders over mountains. How silly of me, the amount of force that someone who completed that training could output would be nowhere near the raw power I put into that rock. This entire time, I'd been having difficulty controlling my magic, trying to make it not send things into orbit or obliterate them. The fact that I was now trying to do what I'd been previously avoiding dawned on me as somewhat ironic as I gently pressed my claws against a two-thousand pound boulder and made dear old Tom the newest member of Team Rocket. I really hope nobody gets hit by that, but at the very least I had the sense to aim it towards the ocean.

"Welp! There ya go! I finally fixed all the problems on this damn ship. The rivets have been welded properly, the balloon has reinforced seams, and the engine ain't a hunk of junk anymore."

"Mr. Fixit, I knew I could count on you to fix the Hindentanic. After it's horrific debut, I hope it's reputation isn't damaged too badly, otherwise I'll never recoup the extravagant cost that went into building this thing."

"Hey... do you hear a whistling sound?"

*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS BOOOOM*

A giant boulder fell out of the sky, landing directly on top of the ship and punching straight through the top of the balloon, and right out the bottom of the hull, snapping the keel in half and ripping the ship in two. Poor Mr.Fixit looked at the ship he'd spent the past two years repairing, then at his client.

"Here's your pay Mr.Fixit." The client passed him the agreed upon sum, followed by the ownership papers of the downed vessel. "I bucking quit."

The repair pony looked at his new property and sighed.

"Welp, back to work."

Author's Notes:

Now, before you all panic, yes, I know this one was a bit of a shorty, but I really wanted to get the technical shit out of the way so we can get back to the meat of the story.

But yeah, Griffin can use his magic to grab things, and he can use it to hit things.
I suppose his strategy for fighting Celestia could be considered
'Repetitive high yield unidirectional force application'
In other words. Hit her. A lot. Really hard. However, what will be interesting to see is how the physical aspect of their fight plays a role as well as their magical prowess.