One of [the dark priests] tapped the floor with the back of his staff. All four of them disappeared, along with a bowl-shaped section of the floor they had been standing on.
"Darn it! Where did they go?" Ami wondered.
"Darn it! Where did they go?" Ami wondered.
Teleportation is usually flashy, with bright lights and vacuum booms, but, sometimes, it's silent and invisible, only noticeable if the teleported object appears or disappears suddenly.
It's rare in visual media, as the audience wouldn't know that anything happened beyond something disappearing, without other clues, and when written out, the teleportation is usually described as disappearing, with the implication that it was instantaneous.
It's the kind of power that gives a massive edge in combat and theft, sneaking into enemies' blindspots, or avoiding them altogether. The Opposite Trope to Flashy Teleportation, for when teleportation is noticeable, even if you're not looking directly at it.
Offscreen Teleportation is a Sub-Trope, in that what happens looks like this trope, but otherwise is not explained In-Universe as a teleportation power.
Can be used to perform Stealth Hi/Bye where the character suddenly appears or disappears to start or end a conversation, respectively.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Castle Town Dandelion: When Shuu uses his Royalty Superpower of teleportation, he, and the people/objects he touches, just disappear and re-appear.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: DIO's power of stopping time in the OVA adaptation is at one point portrayed in this manner from Jotaro's perspective, to terrifying effect. Because he is not shown moving about within frozen time, DIO instead appears to teleport from place to place, silently vanishing into thin air without any flashy effects.
- Naruto: The Fourth Hokage/Minato's Flying Thunder God Technique is sometimes portrayed like this, especially in the manga, where Minato disappears from one panel only to show up in another one in a completely different position with little visual indication that it happened, in contrast to the usual Ninja Logs or Flash Steps that are easier to observe.
Fan Works
- Child of the Storm:
- Loki is capable of it, which is one of the things that makes him so dangerous as a spy and assassin.
- This is one of Doctor Strange's favourite tricks - which he usually uses to appear right behind someone's left ear.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: In "Backfire - Part 2"
: When Crowned Death's priests teleport themselves, they just disappear from their origin point:
four ornately-robed figures appeared amidst them, battle staves of Calarine meeting at a point above their heads. The sizzling, violet dome surrounding the attackers shoved aside the quicker-reacting reaperbots.As her magical counter-attack crept over the dark priests' shield in blinding arcs, one of them tapped the floor with the back of his staff. All four of them disappeared, along with a bowl-shaped section of the floor they had been standing on."Darn it! Where did they go?" Ami wondered. This kind of hit-and-run tactics wasn't something the automatons could deal with. - Escape from the Moon: As of chapter 19.5 of the sequel The Mare From the Moon, Pharynx has apparently learned how to do this, as he teleports back to the hive for a quick word with Thorax, and then back to the Crystal Empire afterward. Thorax makes a note to learn it himself.
- Little Hands, Big Attitude: Shadow attempts to use his ability to teleport in order to avoid being found by the GUN agents, but after a while he accidentally triggers an avalanche.
- The Meaning of One: The only noticeable effect of Harry and Ginny teleporting is a slight disturbance of the air. Even they don't feel anything; one moment, they're in the old location, the next moment, the new.
Films — Animation
- Rock and Rule: Mok's teleportation can be selectively toggled between this and Flashy. His first appearance has him appear in a dazzling lights and cracking electrics show, but later, while Mok is pitching his charms to Angel in his private garden, he can teleport silently as well. The first instance was done just to showboat.
Films — Live Action
- The oldest Sherlock Holmes film, made in 1900 and called Sherlock Holmes Baffled, one minute long and originally made for the mutoscope, features a teleporting thief who simply disappears and reappears. It's notable for being an early use of teleportation special effects.
Literature
- The Elenium: The Tamuli: Physical Goddess Aphrael typically appears without warning using this, but after people complain, the next time is very flashy, manifesting with a celestial fanfare and shower of divine light.
- The Wheel of Time: Thinking Up Portals usually doesn't give any warning at the destination point, which makes Portal Cuts a real hazard, so channelers work out a way to Invoke Flashy Teleportation, and transmit a flash of light and a warning chime before the gateway opens.
- Enchanted Forest Chronicles: As a rule, the more powerful the mage, the stealthier their teleportation.
Cimorene shivered. It took a very powerful wizard indeed to vanish so quietly. No smoke, no whirling dust, just poof and he was gone.
- Apparation in Harry Potter is usually accompanied by a loud pop of displaced air. It's a testament to the skill of wizards like Dumbledore to arrive silently, seeming as if they simply slipped in when one wasn't looking.
- Pale: Avery is gifted a black rope from her mentor, Miss, that when wrapped around her wrist allows her to vanish and reappear anywhere nearby that no one is looking, effectively enforcing Offscreen Teleportation despite being in a written work.
Live-Action TV
- Mostly played straight with Tyrone in Cloak & Dagger. His teleportation is silent and has no visual effect when he disappears, though his reappearance comes with black smoke. He's pretty effective at stealth.
- Invoked in one sketch on No Soap, Radio, where a man enters a steam room and inexplicably ends up in the middle of the Baltic Sea with a British police officer.
- In Once Upon a Time, Rumpelstiltskin teleports without any effects, he just disappears and reappears, unlike Regina who has a Disney-esque plume of smoke. Peter Pan does the same thing.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition: The stealthiest of all teleportation spells is certainly translocation trick (from Magic of Faerun and Spell Compendium). Not only does the caster and target switch locations, they also exchange appearances through an illusion; thus there is no visual clues at all that the translocation happened.
Video Games
- The Dishonored series: The "Blink" mixes this and Flashy Teleportation, as it for silent short-range teleportation whose only visual effects are a brief particle effect accompanying the user's disappearance, but not reappearance.
- Divinity: Original Sin II:
- Unlike most of the game's teleportation spells, which range from flashy to outright harmful, the "Cloak and Dagger" Scoundrel skill teleports without disrupting sneak mode or invisibility.
- The teleportation pyramids are inventory items that are activated to teleport without any sensory effect whatsoever and without breaking stealth or invisibility. However, they can only teleport to another pyramid.
- Overwatch: Sombra's teleporter, which is Flashy Teleportation normally, but all effects are removed when it's used with her Invisibility effect, making that case, this trope.
- Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: When Toya uses his Shadow Step skill, he instantly and quietly teleports to where he left his katashiro.
Websites
- SCP Foundation: Multiple, all just plain "disappearance" before reappearing elsewhere:
- SCP-429 ("Clockwork Teleporter"). When someone wears SCP-429 they can visualize a location and be instantly teleported there, without any warning, as the effect is just described as "disappearing":
If the subject visualises a location and follows their instinctual understanding to adjust the controls, the wearer will disappear from their current location and simultaneously appear at the visualised location.
- SCP-462 ("The Getaway Car"). When someone sits in the driver's seat of SCP-462 and turns the key, they will disappear and turn up near their intended destination a variable amount of time later, without any other teleportation effects:
If a human sits in the driver's seat and turns the key as if to start the vehicle, they will instantaneously disappear. Around 42% of SCP-462's drivers have been known to suddenly reappear without the vehicle at a distant location after a random period of time, ranging from 43 seconds to 7 months, near the spot that they have confirmed as being their chosen destination.
- SCP-429 ("Clockwork Teleporter")
Western Animation
- Bravestarr: Teleportation is one of the myriad of powers that Eldritch Abomination Stampede granted to his second in command, Tex Hex. In keeping with the ghostly theme of Tex Hex, the power takes the form of Tex Hex either fading away or simply disappearing. Admittedly it'd be stealthier if he wasn't a Large Ham who insists on laughing maniacally or throwing out taunts and vows of revenge when he did so.
