Another week saw no progress on the phoenix problem. Well, not no progress; each session of ‘arguing’ with the phoenix amounted to thinking certain thoughts and seeing how the phoenix felt about them, and he had learned much from those sessions. But he was no closer to leaving Equestria than when he started. So for now, he would focus on events outside the Astral Plane.
Discord had finally sacrificed his magic and informed him that the battlefield was ready. His employer had given him a regiment of fifty fresh Night Guard recruits to train. He was ready to begin truly affecting the military of this country.
His soldiers, as per his request, will be pitted against a regiment of fifty fresh Day Guard recruits that would be trained by Shining Armor in the same time frame that he trained his own – two months – and he will be given the freedom to train his soldiers with minimal oversight, except that everything he does will be monitored and recorded by a court clerk for the sake of longevity. She would presumably report him if he crossed some arbitrary moral threshold, so he stuck with the tactics he had used to train Hogwarts students, not the things he had done to train Death Eaters.
The main problem, he thought going in, was that only around a third of his soldiers were unicorns, i.e. actually useful in true non-lethal combat. He thought this on day one, before any training whatsoever, which gave him time to tackle it. Equestria had no ready-made answer aside from hoof-cuffs and magic-suppressing horn rings used during standard arrests, which his non-unicorn soldiers were expected to manually wrest onto their foes. He put the supply of hoof cuffs and horn rings in a corner and didn't touch them for the entire two months. His solution to the problem of making non-unicorns useful on the battlefield would have to be original.
Step one to any competent magical military force, once basic things like protocol and loyalty and officer hierarchy and communication networks are established, is to improve offensive capabilities. Over half his soldiers basically have no offense, and no means of becoming offensive. The only consolation was that his opponent, Shining Armor, would be bound by the same race restrictions, so at least both sides were equally disadvantaged. Still, he didn't want his soldiers to be disadvantaged. It was militarily crippling, not to mention annoying.
His first thought, when he saw the large number of earth and pegasus ponies in his regiment, was to wonder if wands could be made and used by ponies who were not former humans. He'd never actually tested it.
But he quickly threw the wand idea out when he thought about the implementation difficulty. He wasn't a wand-maker, and although he might be able to learn the art, if he dedicated enough time and effort, two months was not enough time. He didn't have time to invent something that didn't already exist.
That's when he thought to improve mobility instead. Step two in a competent magical military is to improve mobility, which often improves soldier survival rate (thanks to evasion), which his army would be needing since over two thirds did not have access to shielding charms. In this case, mobility would also help offense. Mobility is the ultimate utility any individual soldier can have, both for offense and defense. The advantage to choosing your fights cannot be overstated; it is one of the single greatest tools a soldier can have. It allows them to leave (and thus survive) hopeless battles and remain at winnable ones. It’s why he had trained his Death Eaters in guerilla tactics. It would make the unicorns deadlier and the other soldiers slipperier, if he could do something similar here.
In short, he wanted to teach the pegasi air-bucking, if they did not already know it, and he wanted to try the same for the rest of the trainees, via cloud-walking necklaces. As with wands, he did not know if it would work, but he'd kept the idea in mind ever since Mr. Silver said it back at the Gala.
If his unicorns could become airborne, they would become twice as fearsome in a fight, and the rest would become harder to stun... and he quickly realized that air-bucking might serve as an equivalent to the ventus charm, which was better than nothing.
But before he could even begin air-bucking lessons, he needed to do something about the safety issue of bringing non-pegasi/thestrals high into the air. That led to his decision to make two-hundred recursive portkeys for his soldiers.
It was a similar set-up to Mr. Silver's original four, and it was a boon that non-unicorns proved capable of recharging their recursive portkeys by touch, just like wizards could. The whole thing set him back by two days, one for enchanting and one for teaching. It was annoying, but it should be worth it, and he had his soldiers running exercise drills while he enchanted, so it wasn't a complete waste.
The portkey destinations were:
1. Designated teleportation stalls near the soldier's barracks, one per pony. Riddle had to personally establish them, since nothing like it had already been made.
2. The plains outside Canterlot. This made for easy access to their mock battlefield.
3. Cloudsdale High Stadium, for easy access to Scootaloo's/Flight Formation's lessons.
4. A 'landing zone', i.e. a point in space that lied just above a carefully maintained cloud cushion. It was close to Canterlot Hospital, and it would be for emergencies involving gravity or any other hazard. The portkeys ate momentum, but did not affect orientation, so the cushion would prevent ponies from snapping their necks if they teleported while upside-down.
Once that was done and his soldiers were trained in using and recharging the portkeys, then he took them to their 'flight' lessons to see if it would actually be possible.
Scootaloo had taken Mr. Silver’s place as instructor, and it was much more of a joint effort with Flight Formation than it used to be. The orange filly was not nearly as good at teaching as Mr. Silver, but when it came to pegasus techniques in particular, she was decent enough for his purposes. She was justifiably skeptical that non-pegasi/thestrals could learn air techniques, but did not turn down the students. He was paying, after all.
Riddle had to provide the solid mattresses, however, to prevent earth ponies from plummeting to their dooms (and using their portkeys) if they actually succeeded in cloud-phasing.
When non-pegasi did prove capable of learning and using Mr. Silver's pegasus techniques, Riddle immediately mandated that all unicorns and earth ponies wear cloud-walking necklaces at all times while on duty. Or in this case, since they're just cadets, while 'in training'. In essence, it's part of their uniforms, like the portkeys. Thestrals, pegasi, and Changelings (of which he had 2, 6, and 4 respectively) did not need them, naturally.
It was a bit expensive, paying for all of those necklaces and the flight lessons out of pocket. Not to mention how time-consuming it had been to make all of those portkeys. But the advantages were worth it.
For the portkeys, there were a number of benefits. High morale, for starters. The time it takes to commute to work and depression are statistically correlated; the longer the commute, the less happy people/ponies tend to be, and portkeys are instantaneous. He didn't think it would be so drastic or noticeable, but the day before portkeys and the day after had been like night and day when it came to his soldier's attitudes and eagerness. They no longer had to spend an hour and a half trotting to and from 'Circus', which they visited every day for a mock battle. They didn't have to wait for everypony to be ready for a series of mass-teleports to take them to Cloudsdale. Travel was instant, independent, and autonomous.
His soldiers also never missed curfew. Riddle didn't ever have to deal with tardiness more than once per soldier. (His punishments, tame as they were, ensured a lack of repeat offenders.)
And none of that even touched upon the combat usefulness of an instantaneous retreat option. He emphasized over and over, especially to the non-unicorns, that if they encountered something dangerous or deadly, like a wild cockatrice, then they should teleport to safety right away.
As for the air-walking necklace, it had probably been the single best idea he'd had when it came to improving combat capabilities.
After the first month was over, he had taken his soldiers out of Miss Scootaloo's relatively slow tutoring lessons and simply sped up their curriculum until they made it all the way to air-bucking. He didn't sacrifice quality for speed, of course, and he did not teach air-bucking to anypony who could not do a flawless air-cushion at a moment's notice, but his personal touch made sure that over ninety percent of his soldiers could air-buck competently by the end.
Even better, exactly 100% of his soldiers could actually fight by the end. They had been training in mock battles in the Everfree ever since the beginning, with at least one fight per day, splitting into two armies of twenty-five for simplicity's sake. He had been tempted to go for three armies, because more chaos and enemies per fight means more battlefield awareness and experience, but he decided against it. For now.
After two months of practice, his soldiers understood the basics.
The non-unicorns knew that, for the most part, their job was to distract the enemy’s unicorns and not get hit. At around the forty-five day mark, or forty for the fast learners, earth ponies and pegasi finally obtained a means of offense: air-bucking. At Riddle's suggestion, they began bucking strong bursts of wind to herd enemies into compromising positions where their unicorn allies could stun them. Earth ponies had particularly powerful air-bucks; they, more than pegasi used air-bucking for area-effect offense, while pegasi focused on mobility, positioning, and single targets. Most grounded earth ponies were strong enough to resist the relatively weak winds produced by a pegasus buck, but the unicorns weren't unless they raised shields fast enough.
On that note, his unicorns were given extensive training on their aim, to the detriment of their mobility. Once they learned to air buck, that was it. They did not go further. Only two unicorns had proven skilled enough to aim while air-bucking. The rest would exclusively use air-bucking to escape hairy situations, or to get into a better position. Other than that, they were drilled over and over on how to hit their opponents.
Guard armor and helmets are spell-resistant, so his unicorns learned how to target the exposed necks of their enemies, and they learned how to protect their own necks with shields. When the battlefield consisted of only unicorns remaining, as it often did, they learned how to break enemy shields with shield-breakers. The non-unicorns trained in avoiding spells, or in using their armor to deflect stunners if they had no other choice.
'Circus', as Discord called it, slowly took shape as Riddle trained his regiment of soldiers there.
It had started as an indistinguishable patch of forest and plains that Discord reassured him was actually Chaos Town. The plain forest suited Riddle's purposes well enough for the first few sets of training exercises.
It slowly evolved after every fight, introducing things like mud patches, surprisingly deep puddles of water, a plant called poison joke, hanging vines that would lash out and capture (but not hurt) nearby ponies, and a number of other battlefield hazards that forced his soldiers to pay attention to their surroundings and adapt to surprises. His unicorns learned many spells, like the cutting spell for vines, out of simple necessity.
Riddle wasn't exactly satisfied when his allotted two months were over. Over half his army still had a distinct lack of offensive and defensive options. But he chose to content himself with the fact that he did about as good as he reasonably could with the tools available to him. He was curious to see what Shining Armor had done to make use of his non-unicorn combatants.
A day later, he learned that the answer to this question is 'nothing at all'. Shining Armor's earth ponies and pegasi had nothing better at their disposal than physical conditioning, tackling, hood-cuffs, and horn-suppressors.
Needless to say, they were utterly decimated by the fifty soldiers who had been trained to win as quickly and decisively as possible, where 'winning' meant stunning every last enemy.
Not a single one of his own soldiers had been cuffed, horn-suppressed, or tagged by a spell, and every single one of Mr. Armor's soldiers had been stunned. The enemy unicorns did not seem like they were given any spell training at all, and if Riddle had to guess, they'd probably been put through the same 'physical conditioning' as the rest of the races.
The fight was quick, one-sided, and utterly pathetic.
Celestia and Luna both attended the mock battle, along with some of the nobility who heard about it. They did not watch the fighting directly; before the battle, Riddle set up repeater screens for their convenience.
After they'd gotten over their shock at the sight of earth ponies and unicorns prancing through the air, Celestia at least had the decency to look embarrassed (and truly feel embarrassed, according to his Changeling senses) by the performance of her Guard Captain, who was gaping in disbelief. His employer had the decency to look (and actually be) pleased.
One of the nobles, after the slaughter was done and the cloud-walking necklace was explained, asked if real members of the Night Guard had been unfairly pitted against mere Day Guard recruits.
Riddle had said no, but that it was a good idea, then asked Celestia to gather fifty fully-trained veterans of the Day Guard. He intended to make his point.
This second fight was not the complete joke that the first had been. Actual members of the guard, especially the unicorns and the two formerly-secret Changelings, were more battle-competent than Mr. Armor's trainees.
But Riddle's own forces had superior mobility and experience in dodging offensive spells. His fifty soldiers were still dominant, and the victory was still one-sided, even if his side lost some of its forces this time.
"Two months," he said to the Princesses. "That is all it took to train soldiers capable of beating your best. And I didn't even let them use their portkeys."
"They have portkeys?" asked Celestia.
"Yours don't?" asked Riddle.
His employer giggled.
"And to be honest," said Riddle, "they are no-where near where I want them to be. I managed to lift the non-unicorns out of dead weight status, but without stunners of their own, they still feel like liabilities. I'm tempted to ask that we fund a grant to Canterlot University, or maybe offer a simple cash prize to anypony who can make a unicorn equivalent to the cloud-walking enchantment. Until such a thing is invented, however, I will always prefer unicorn and Changeling soldiers to members of other species, just as most ponies would always prefer a pegasus mailmare to an earth pony one."
"We know," sighed Luna. "My sister and I both. Remember that we have fought wars, my fool. When given weapons, crossbows and swords and spell-repellent shields and armor, earth ponies can become more capable fighters. And pegasi who are given access to thunderclouds are a force to be reckoned with. I admit your use of the cloud walking necklace was ingenious, and I am sure your use of portkeys would have been equally brilliant, and I will compose the grant you suggested as soon as this is over. But... sister? I believe you would rather criticize my fool than I."
Celestia nodded. "Your army only looks impressive because it has been trained for the specific circumstance of non-lethal mock battle-”
"That will change as soon as they are taught lethal spells."
Celestia brought a hoof to her forehead. "That is beside the point. And in fact it is against the point. The point I am making is that my ‘best’ did not thoroughly prepare for this battle for two months straight."
"That is precisely the problem," Riddle replied. "Why weren’t they prepared? Will you give that excuse at the funerals of your citizens, if tomorrow you are invaded by a lethal foe who uses this new and terrible advantage of two months of preparation time? ‘I apologize your husband and child died. My guards were not prepared for that fight.’" Riddle shook his head. "If they are not prepared to fight at a moment’s notice, then they are not good soldiers."
Celestia was frowning heavily. "There is no such foe on the planet Equus, as far as I am aware-"
"The planet isn't fully explored, yes?"
"-and remember," Celestia continued, undaunted by his interruption, "that they are supposed to be guards, not warriors. Your trainees have been taught to defeat their enemies. They do not, I suspect, know proper arrest procedures, or how to defuse a tense situation between citizens. Am I wrong?"
"Pause," Riddle held up a hoof, frowning. "You are not wrong, but... wouldn't it be wise to delegate two forces? Soldiers for fighting, guards for arresting? If Mr. Armor is required to teach both, it is less his fault that he lost and more the fault of the surrounding system. I still think he would have lost regardless, but his army might have at least put up a fight if he had exclusively trained them to fight."
Celestia did not answer.
"Perhaps," said his employer, looking thoughtful. "I admit, I have not thought much about that nuance. In my day, our military served as guards when they were not engaging in active combat."
"We have not needed a standing military for hundreds of years," said Celestia.
"Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it," Riddle quoted. "Chrysalis proved as much, as did Discord."
"I concur," said Luna. "Sister, perhaps it is time to reinstate our military?"
"That is a bit extreme, Luna."
"Well at the very least we should have something more than we currently do." She gestured at the screen. "This is not an acceptable state of affairs."
Celestia sighed. "I was hoping the world had moved away from warfare… but…" she stared at the screen, which continued flicking between fallen day guard after fallen day guard. "…But perhaps you are right. Maybe we do need a contingent of reserves."
Riddle would have argued for more, but since the training regiment would ultimately be his responsibility, he decided to ease himself into the role. Best to start small, then expand after a scalable operation is in place. He has plenty of time.
Celestia ended up giving a speech to all three armies simultaneously. She said that, due to the recent national disasters, a test was conducted. She said that the Court Scholar has correctly observed that current Guard training is not sufficient for national defense. She emphasized that it is sufficient for guard duty, for making arrests and making sure citizens obey the law. She emphasized that the 50 Night Guard trainees had been given no actual guard training, only war training. She emphasized that if they still wish to be guards, they shall have to go through remedial training with Shining Armor.
But she also congratulated them on their performance. She said that they shall be the first members of the Equestrian National Reserves, if they wish to be. She said to the other 100 ponies that if they wish to become reserves as well, if they want to learn how to do what was done to them that day, if they wish to learn how to be soldiers capable of defending the nation, not just guarding law and order, then they shall have to go through remedial training with the Court Scholar.
She pointed out the difference between guards and soldiers, saying that they are slightly different career paths with vastly different mindsets. She said that anypony can be both, but it will require more work. Members of the reserves will be required (upon Riddle's insistence) to meet at least once a month to maintain their combat skills, but they will also receive a relatively decent paycheck in comparison to such few hours worked. The money will not be enough to live by, "unless you are quite the miser," she said, but it would be more than enough to supplement a normal income. Although of course, she said, the true benefit of joining the reserves is the satisfaction of knowing that they can protect Equestria during times of need. Side benefits include learning such abilities as they saw this day, like air-bucking, though she has not yet decided if it shall be legal for non-pegasi/thestrals to use them outside of officially sanctioned purposes. And emergencies.
Afterwards, around three fourths of the Day Trainees and two thirds of the Day Guards who had lost to his soldiers approached Riddle to ask if they could become members of the national reserves.
He did not quite get to work right away; first he informed Celestia that he would be needing a budget, and a unicorn assistant to aide with the creation of portkeys and other enchantments.
It took a while to get started, but he slowly began the work of reforming the country's defenses.
He was careful to ignore his impulse to use the Cruciatus Curse and impose a Dark Mark for better results. He intended to make this test of exploiting passions, not fears, as fair and honest as he could make it.
Around two months after the grant proposal, in which Celestia and Luna pledged to reward a large cash prize to whoever could invent a spell structure for allowing non-unicorns to cast spells, a unicorn in Canterlot University by the name of High Stars proposed an enchantment structure that would alter half of anypony's magic to that of specifically a unicorn's. After Riddle proposed a much larger prize to whoever made something he'd actually use for the reserves, a colleague of High Stars – a unicorn by the name of Big Mech attending Manehattan Tech – quickly went about inventing it a month after that – he called it the 'unicorn helmet'. A practical, straightforward name for a practical, straightforward product.
Celestia and Luna steamrolled the patent through Canterlot's bureaucracy and bought up the rights for exclusive ownership and manufacturing of that patent, with of course a good percentage going to the original creator. For the next fourteen years, it would be illegal for citizens of Equestria to use the helmet outside of the reserves, or officially sanctioned locations, like classrooms or training studios. Some would call that government overreach. Celestia called it 'easing her citizens into the new technology'. And she might not have been wrong to do so.
They quickly learned that non-unicorns who wore the helmets experience side-effects. Pegasi and thestrals had trouble flying as well as they normally did, and earth ponies lost some of their strength and stamina. Furthermore, the spell effects they created were always weaker than anything a true unicorn could produce (though about as strong as anything a wizard could do). The effects reversed themselves the instant the helmet was removed, and they didn't seem to cause any harm, even when the helmets were worn for extended periods of time.
A study was then done to measure the effects that cloud-walking necklaces had on non-pegasi/thestrals, to see if that enchantment also had side-effects. It was found that unicorn and earth pony magics were indeed dampened by about 10%. The scholar in charge of the study theorized that it had gone unnoticed for so long because the amount was so small. Most ponies would write that off as a 'bad day'.
Despite the side-effects, Riddle immediately outfitted all members of the Equestrian Reserves with such armaments as would give them access to both aerial mobility and magical combat. Unicorns wore necklaces, thestrals and pegasi wore helmets, Changelings wore neither, and earth ponies wore both.
If an earth pony had ever complained, Riddle would have explained that unicorns and pegasi had to go through physical conditioning that earth ponies did not often need, or if they did, they could get in shape more quickly, with less effort, than the other races. But nopony ever complained. Most earth ponies had simple pleasures. They liked casting spells and prancing through the air. Why complain?
The increasing military strength of Equestria – which was sometimes, as a muggle would call it, 'televised' via repeater parchment screens across the nation, both for entertainment and as a recruitment pitch – eventually drew the notice of visiting Griffons, which eventually drew the notice of Griffonia itself, which eventually prompted a meeting between high-ranking members of both governments.
When your formerly-peaceful neighbor begins to militarize, it's only natural to get a bit worried about the reasons. Celestia intended to use the meeting to put such fears to rest.
It started as a relatively standard affair, as these things went. There was a bit of fanfare at their arrival – solar manipulations by Celestia, carriages flown through the air, trumpets announcing their presence and identities to the watching citizens. To the watching Griffon citizens.
The event was hosted in Griffonstone, not Canterlot. It's easier for Griffons to accommodate ponies than the other way around due to their dietary differences. Griffons could make vegetarian dishes easily enough, but ponies could not make carnivore meals. Pony delegates with weak stomachs and easily-offended sensibilities were not in attendance. Thorax was in attendance, along with a few of his favourite Changeling officers.
Like cockroaches, Changelings could eat just about anything, except with the added benefit of being able to graze plants like ponies. They never lacked for physical nutrition, only magical, though they could appreciate a good chef, and might appreciate whatever the Griffons made. But of course, they were here as part of the explanation, not as freeloaders. Celestia hoped their willingness to indulge in Griffon meals would help to build bridges.
Equestria and Griffonia aren't exactly hostile. They haven't been openly hostile for centuries, ever since Griffonia learned that Celestia controls the sun. Or rather, ever since a competent enough griffon, one who actually understood what that implied, rose to rulership. Skirmishes had continued for a while after they first learned the fact because Celestia never once used the sun against them, despite how many ponies had died at Griffon claws and steel.
For that reason, Equestria and Griffonia have been something like grumpy but mostly peaceful neighbors the last few hundred years. They have their differences, but they let their kids (i.e. citizens) visit each other without much hassle. The two countries respectfully leave each other alone unless their citizens get in a fight of some kind. And even then, the punishment for the offending party is usually just banishment to the homeland, or a fine. After centuries of dealing with those kinds of disputes, both sides have come to agree that if their children can't behave when outside the house, then their children lose the privilege of leaving the house. Celestia would personally visit Griffonia for the Coronation of a new King or Queen, but that was about it as far as diplomatic relations went.
Cloudsdale's Flight Week often sees the most Griffon activity in Equestria annually, but there's no Griffonian equivalent besides general tourism. Thus, while Equestria's diplomacy problems are often concentrated to a short time frame each year, Griffonia's are more spread-out and random.
Celestia claims that the Griffonian government is more likely to be 'unkind' to rash ponies than the Equestrian government is 'unkind' to Griffons, but Riddle wrote that off as untrustworthy bias. It might be true, and given the general nature of ponies, it probably was true. But he wouldn't take her word for it. Not without experience or statistical evidence.
The whole ordeal was an elite and fancy affair, despite the dilapidated state of the surrounding city, and the dinner promised to be extravagant. But first there would be a meeting between the heads of state and their advisors to discuss the recent Equestrian military action.
It went more quickly and less tensely than Riddle had been expecting. Griffonia had suffered a bit of Chaos back when Discord had been released, and they had also suffered a bit of fear during Nightmare Moon's return. Its officials were actually glad to hear that Equestria was strengthening its soldiers so that such things wouldn't happen again.
They hadn't heard about the Changelings, though. They were a bit nervous that Equestria had basically allied with an entirely new nation, one that could theoretically infiltrate other nations without much difficulty, and whose species appeared menacing and nefarious as well, but...
"You know," said Thorax at that point in the meeting, "I've never tried becoming a Griffon. Let me see..."
In a flash of green fire, he became a pony with a colour scheme that matched the Griffon King, down to a yellow patch of fur on his muzzle where the 'beak' would have been. There was a bit of laughter as he turned back.
"Nope. Just ponies."
The Griffons were reassured by this display that they were not vulnerable to a Changeling infiltration like Equestria had been, though Thorax's diplomatic personality probably played a role in defusing tensions.
Privately, Riddle thought that the Griffons were too trusting. This could have theoretically been a ploy to lower their guard. It could have been an act to hide the fact that Changelings actually can become Griffons. It wasn't, but it could have been. He didn't openly remark on their gullibility, of course, but he kept it in mind. Still, all that was relatively boring. It wasn't until dinner that something actually interesting happened, completely out of the blue.
His standard series of 'taste-testing' charms, which he habitually casts on anything he puts into his body, actually produced a result. For the first time since he'd arrived on Equus, too.
The interesting part was that the normal standard charms didn't show anything anomalous. His standard charms checked for things that most paranoid wizards did not think to check, like active magic that could be dispelled by a finite, no matter how minute.
This meant either an intelligent assassin had come from Earth to try and kill him (unlikely and nigh-impossible), or an assassin from Equus had chosen an unusual method and gotten lucky (which was slightly more likely), or it was just something innocuous that Griffon chefs included in their meals. Like a magical ingredient that they added for flavour, or something along those lines.
Again, it was the charm that detected active magic which had triggered. It had gone off in his wine, and it had gone off for a relatively small amount of magic, at least when compared to the background 'noise' of the rest of Equestria. It was probably harmless. But just in case it was an assassin, he silently and hornlessly threw up a few wards, including an anti-teleportation ward, an anti-portkey ward, and a locking charm on all the doors, which were conveniently closed at the moment. If the assassin was in the room and wanted to witness his success, he would now be trapped.
Then Riddle levitated his cup a few metres away from the table and erected a few bubble barriers around it, in case the assassination attempt was something messy, like a magical detonation.
"What are you doing?" asked Luna, who was sitting beside him.
"Just checking something," said Riddle. "I detected active magic in that cup. It might be something harmless, like magic in the vineyards that produced the grapes. But I want to see what happens when I dispel it, just in case."
This drew the attention of Celestia, Thorax, and a few Griffons, including the Griffon King, who looked on in curiosity.
"Finite incantatum."
The cup violently exploded as a massive boulder expanded to a diameter of about six metres – twice as large as the biggest Alicorn/Griffon in the room.
The magical barriers he erected in advance, which could not be dispelled by finite, could expand to accommodate explosions, even explosions of mass and volume. They caught the shards of cup, the wine, and the boulder in place. It hovered in the air for about a second before the charms deactivated. The whole collection then fell heavily and loudly to the floor, making a floor-shaking THUD that rattled all the silverware on the dinner table.
After his initial surprise, and in stark contrast to the gasps of the rest of the room, Riddle began laughing. "Well," he said in between chuckles, ignoring the looks he was getting. "That certainly would have been lethal."
He turned to face the Griffon that he had noticed, but carefully not seemed like he had noticed. It was a Griffon who had been subtly inching away from the action earlier, and who had just now tried and failed to push one of the doors open. Riddle's short term memory offered that this Griffon, who looked a bit sickly, had been the one to give him the wine. And now that he looked more closely, he felt a spark of recognition, like he had somehow met this Griffon before... but he had never really met any Griffons before, except... ah!
It's that retard he Legilimised when searching for the phoenix roosting ground. But wait... retard? How could the simple mind he saw have composed and enacted such a relatively competent assassination attempt? The first and obvious guess was that he had seen a false mind, that he had been Legilimising a Perfect Occlumens. But that didn't make sense on this side of the mirror. Maybe there was some other explanation, like the creature being mentally impaired at the time, but recovered now?
Well, there was an easy way to find out.
"So," said Riddle, "would you mind explaining why you want me dead?"