Harry slept calmly, and barely noticed the needle piercing her neck, the tranquilizer took hold instantly, and Silver carefully carried the foal into the infirmary, held her down with the autodoc, and, talking to herself again, she muttered “Now, time to find out exactly what you are…” A magical scanner arm reaching out and scanning the strange scar on the filly’s forehead, right below the horn. Her body was coated in some kind of arcane shield, on her first scans Silver believed it to be a neutralizer field, but, no, spells worked just the same on her as any other filly her age… She also had much faster natural healing, something that only skilled medical unicorns should have, the field was making the scanner’s readings of the scar tissue blurry.
Silver looked at the magical suppressor-ring the autodoc had placed on the filly’s horn, it was standard, you didn’t want a panicking patient destroying the equipment as it worked to save a life… Where the ring touched, the magic field around the foal dissipated, but didn’t go away completely… The rings were adjustable to fit most horn sizes, but not a fully pony’s body… There were rumors of devices during the war that could negate magic on a mass-scale, magic interdictors preventing zebra potions from working, but she didn’t have one on hand, plus, who knows how much magical equipment in the Stable would be damaged from the use of such a device…
Silver, knowing how important this project of hers was, it had been ordered by the Star Paladin, apologized to her poor Autodoc as she ordered the magic suppressor ring removed from the patient’s horn, and she carefully took out a screwdriver pried the ring off of the mechanical arm holding it, and split the ring in half, carefully extracting and placing on a tray the grains of black dust that came out of the simple iron band… It was this dust that was the actual important part of the suppressor, tiny black crystals, mined from some rock farm from before the war, the reason Equestria annexed the Changeling Hives as the Great War broke out, according to what history on the subject remained, Changelings thrones were made from this black rock, and in the hands of ponies they had helped save many lives from Megaspells during the end, but there wasn’t enough of it to save everyone, not even after all the southern hives had been plundered… Ironic, how a rock that absorbed magic had saved pony lives in the end.
Silver mixed the black rocks in with a basic healing potion, she would need to check the waste recycler for the next few days to get the crystals back after this, they were too valuable to go to waste in… Well… Waste…
The potion was injected directly into the foal, and as it did Harry’s magic weakened, the field slowly fading out, but the scar was resisting the crystal’s effects… Worse… Harry’s vital signs were becoming erratic, the magic around the scar was growing stronger as the shield faded… Silver swore as she realized her mistake, she quickly took a scan of the scar, but didn’t wait for the results, she immediately stuck a magically conductive rod into the foal’s side, had she not been so thoroughly anesthetized Harry would have been writhing in pain, at least that meant Silver didn’t have to worry about the pony having a seizure on top of whatever that scar was doing to her.
She connected a wire to the conductive rod, and wired that into a thaumimeter, she didn’t want to overload the poor foal… Oh shit she was bad at this, she should have called for a unicorn, or at least a magical engineer, but there wasn’t time, she set the dial on the thaumimeter, plugged in a magical spark battery, and there was a soft flash of light from the foal as magic energy quickly flowed back into her, overwhelming the small amount of crystal that she had injected and restoring the pony to magical equilibrium… This method of treating magical burnout wasn’t recommended, but in the situation…
Silver breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the field push back against the magic in the foal’s scar, she had barely saved Harry’s life, for the second time that week. Although this time she had also been the one to almost kill the poor pony.
She pulled out a clipboard and began writing, “Subject’s scar tissue imbued with magical properties consistent with necromancy, subject’s arcane field suppressing scar… Further research required.” At that, Silver finally looked at the results of the scan she had taken in the brief moment where Harry’s magical field had failed. “Scar tissue similar in composition to recent magical energy weapon damage, however approximate age is indeterminable, will inquire the subject when conscious. Two magical patterns impressed upon scar, primary pattern consistent with samples recovered from Hoofington and Canterlot, see previous research on ‘Enervation’ and ‘Pink Cloud’ for further details. Second pattern appears to be-” At that Silver paused.
She was familiar enough with the samples recovered from Canterlot and Hoofington to recognize a death spell… Treating some of the Steel Rangers from those contingents who had been exposed had been… Gruesome… But not the other spell pattern impressed upon the scar, it was… A neural network? She vaguely remembered seeing something like this… Memories slowly came together, of finding a strange little trinket in one expedition into the ruins of Las Pegasus, and putting it into the arcane scanner after a late night of boredom with nothing else to do… She set off for her quarters, and returned with a small figure, a ceramic statue of one of the Ministry Mares, just some collector’s trinket, but remarkably resilient, practically indestructible, and unmarred by centuries of decay. The words “Be Smart” imprinted in gold letters…
Sure enough, when she placed the statuette under the arcane scanner, the reading was the exact same as the foal’s scar tissue.
The bobbies had brought the thing in a few days ago, and placed it in cold storage… The thing was some kind of insect, but horribly oversized… The doctor, Robert Homes, pulled the thing out and began an autopsy, after continuously inspecting it, disappointed that the sample he had was so torn by the shotgun blast that killed it, he was left with one conclusion, this was a new species, one not discovered on earth so far! He was ecstatic, and told his assistant with glee, he would need to do a bit of research, but perhaps he might go down in history, giving his name to this new species of insect! He had picked up the phone, about to address his colleagues in London, not noticing as a man walked up behind him and whispered something “Obliviate-”… Everything he had experienced in the past week had vanished from his mind… The flayed and dissected corpse of the insect was taken off the tray, and without being noticed at all, the man had left, disappearing around the corner, vanishing into thin air with another whisper, the flick of a small twig of wood.
Harry awoke from the same dream, but stronger, and more horrible than ever before… His mother crying, the laughing, the flash of green, and pain, horrible, horrible, horrible pain! That flash of green, it was so similar to that weapon Rosemary used, a different shade, but Harry could almost imagine a raider-man, holding a series of tubes and coils and glass and spikes, firing a blast of magical energy into Harry’s skull, leaving him nothing more than a puddle of green gel.
Harry turned, feeling something on his… Her… She would still need to get used to that. On her bed, she felt around, feeling a strange rush as she pulled a small ceramic statuette of a purple mare. There were golden letters carved into the base of the statuette, “Be Smart”, she rolled the words over in her mouth, then shrugged, or at least tried to, she was still getting used to this whole, being turned into a pony, thing… On the bottom of the statuette was a small sliver of paper “Wanted you to have this, don’t lose it - Silver Heartstrings”
Harry put the trinket into her scribe robes, collected the parts of the revolver she had spent all night disassembling, and went to train some more in magic with Sparkweld. The stallion, upon seeing Harry’s work, nodded, “Now,” He began, “Reassemble it, back exactly the way you took it apart.”
“What?”
“You heard me, put it back together.”
Harry, suddenly nervous, looked down at the parts of the gun scattered on the table, “Be smart…” She muttered to herself, and started pulling out the most obvious pieces first and trying to fit them together… She could already feel herself a little smarter as she quickly learned where everything was supposed to go.
The Headmaster sat, smiling gleefully at watching the new first-year students file into his hall, the sorting began, the hat was pulled out, singing his latest song, Hogwarts’ ghosts were floating around at their tables, the new children coming in with a mixture of fear and wonder. Minerva began calling out names, and one-by-one they were sorted, Dumbledore chuckled as Frederick Weasely was placed into Gryffindor even as the hat was almost a meter off his head, his sibling George followed. It was expected, the entire family had only ever been in that house, but it was still amusing to see their siblings all cheer at another two Weaselys being sorted. Filius and Quirinus weren’t looking over the sorting, but quietly discussing some of the finer details of Gilderoy Lockhart’s new book… Albus was somewhat proud of what the grandnephew of his old friend T.E. Lawrence had become. Perhaps when Quirinus decided to retire, if he ever did, he would ask that man to come join as a professor. Snape on the other hand was observing the sorting intently, for once, and seemed particularly interested in the Hufflepuffs for some reason, and even his Divinations professor had come to observe the sorting this year.
Minerva finished the sorting, and Albus stood to address the students. While he was doing this, his only real thought was “Two more years, only two more years… And at last Harry would be joining!”
Harry sighed internally as she raised her magical energy pistol, she didn’t like the thought of killing another creature, but at least these were just animals, it was much easier to fry an overgrown and mutated alligator than kill a pony, Harry somehow was glad that she was in this horse-world, she didn’t think she would ever have it in her to take the life of a human… Not yet… She thought grimmly to herself as she bit the trigger, and the radigator slumped over with a glowing, burning hole in its head. A colder and more logical part of her mind had slowly been taking over ever since she got here… It seems that cold logic was all this group of Steel Rangers she had been assigned to had. It was her second time out in the field, and this time, instead of being with Sparkweld, or Rosemary, or Silver, or Lighting… This time the two ponies accompanying her were both knights, who didn’t even bother giving their names, or even calling Harry by hers, they just addressed her as “Foal”.
Still, she pressed on, going through this gator-infested ruin, some old water treatment plant. She doubted if there really was anything left in this place that was really worth it, everything just seemed like rust.
Eventually, the knights retrieved what they had set out to gain, some kind of magical device, to Harry, it just looked like a jeweled box… An ugly one, although perhaps that was just all the algae and slime the damned thing had been coated in.
The moment they were back in the Stable, Harry sat in bed and listened to the radio, the DJ was on again, telling a quite frankly amazing tale about a stable mare who had killed a dragon! And freeded over a hundred slaves too by the sound of it. Harry shivered a little, realizing that, if there were dragons out there, she may need to fight one someday… Then, she got up, realizing she was late for her magic training with Sparkweld!
She arrived in the maintenance bay, the stallion waiting for her with another gun sitting on the table, she had done this before at least a dozen times now, this was going to be easy, she wanted to learn something new… Sparkweld said, “Stand, you will not be sitting tonight.” Harry did so, and Sparkweld pointed the revolver squarely at Harry’s chest, “We are moving on from telekinesis to shield spells… Do not worry, these are just rubber bullets…” Harry suddenly realized some ironic lesson about getting what you wished for. The next few days were going to be painful.