Chapter 32
Lyra lets out a faint moan as she awakens, one hand rising to her forehead.
Hermione’s head snaps up, abandoning the book she’d been reading. “Lyra?” she asks.
Lyra opens one eye to look at her. “Hermione?” she asks.
“You’re awake!” Hermione informs her. “Are you okay?”
“Eh,” Lyra grumbles. “Just a sec, I need to reset my magic.”
Hermione watches in silence for two seconds.
“Alright,” Lyra continues, the pain disappearing suddenly from her voice, as she sits up. “What do you need?”
Hermione points.
“... Oh boy. Ah, do you know what spell she fobbed?”
Hermione watches Sweetie’s head suddenly begin shrinking much faster than it had before. “The summoning charm,” she answers. “I have no idea how she got that result out of it. I had to break it with finite incantatem.”
“Finite incantatem?” Lyra asks. “What’s that?”
“It’s a third-year spell,” she answers. “Disrupts active spellcasting, nothing else.”
Lyra draws her wand. “Finite incantatem… Oh, yeah, it would do that. Only effective against wand magic, though.” She puts the wand away, then hops out of bed. “Anyways, these few over here aren’t going to be as easy to fix.” She glances up at Madam Pomfrey, bustling into the room in response to her commotion. “I can accelerate their recovery by a few times, but that’s about it. Harry’s got a bit of an advantage, so if I play against it, I can boost his recovery about twice as far as the rest. Call it… eight hours for Harry, sixteen for these three.”
Sweetie Belle suddenly leaps into a sitting position, bolting awake with a gasp and looking around. “What- What happened?” she asks.
Hermione and Lyra both look at her, one eyebrow raised apiece.
Sweetie shrugs. “Last I remember, I was trying that summoning charm again…?”
Hermione nods. “Botched.”
“Darn. How bad…?”
Hermione glances at Lyra. “Well, you managed to hit Lyra as well- so, two days?”
Sweetie facepalms. “Darn! Um… I didn’t miss the Quidditch match, did I?”
Lyra sighs. “Yes, you missed it,” she states. Then she glances at Hermione. “Unless it was rescheduled?”
Hermione shakes her head. “Played on schedule. Harry was supposed to be seeker, so we had to add a backup seeker real quick. We won.”
“Really?” Lyra asks. “Who was that seeker?”
“Me.”
Lyra laughs. “Well, that’s an easy one.”
Blink. “What do you mean?”
“Well, your magic meshed with the broom, right?”
Blink. “Uh, maybe?”
“So you had fine-tuned, instant control over exactly what it did, not to mention it could outperform itself by drawing on your reserves as well as its own passive collectors, right?”
She blinks. “Yeah?”
“Anything strange happen just before you caught the snitch?”
“Uh… Everyone’s calling it a ‘Sonic Rainboom’.”
Lyra holds up her hand. “High five!”
Hermione lifts her hand, and Lyra slaps it. “What…?”
“Really? … Right, you’re not familiar with Equestrian legends. The Sonic Rainboom is the name given to the initiation effect of a certain thaumic pattern that allows Equestrians to rather casually travel faster than sound. It’s very hard to kick off, but fairly easy to hold- and top speed depends on how strong you are. How fast did you manage?”
“Wait a second,” Sweetie Belle injects. “Instructor Granger Rainboomed!?”
Hermione glances at Sweetie while Lyra rolls her eyes, before turning back to Lyra. “Um… Mach six, I think- for two seconds. Straight down.”
Lyra nods. “On a broom.”
Hermione nods. “Uh, yeah? How would that…?”
Lyra smiles. “Even the best broom is about two percent efficient in converting Equestrian flight magic into actual flight,” she answers. “If you were to fly under your own power, you’d get about eighty percent efficiency- all the way up to a hundred on a Rainboom. The broom would actually have reduced the Rainboom efficiency to around one percent.”
Hermione blinks. “Meaning…”
Lyra grins. “Meaning, I can teleport to the moon, but you can fly to the moon. Even Rainbow can’t come anywhere close to that.”
“Wait, Rainbow? What about her?”
“She’s the only Equestrian known to be capable of producing a Sonic Rainboom,” Lyra answers simply. “As a matter of fact, the Rainboom is named after her.”
“... Oh.”
Lyra heaves a sigh. “Well, I’ve got classes to attend and homework to finish. I’ll see you around!” She vanishes.
Hermione stares at the spot she’d disappeared from, and drops her head into her hands.
“Is- Is something wrong?” Sweetie Belle asks, hopping off her bed to come running.
“Does that girl ever stay put long enough to hear everything you have to say?”
Sweetie pauses, one arm around Hermione’s shoulders. “Um… No, I don’t think so. She is less, uh, flighty in potions class, but…” She heaves a sigh. “But Dia- er, Instructor Tiara ends up answering my questions more often.”
She looks up at her. “And can you please stop calling me ‘Instructor Granger’ outside of class? My name’s Hermione.”
Filch can’t decide on anything that could make his day worse.
But he’s very aware of the fact that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; thus, he refuses to make the notorious statement, “things can’t get any worse”. He knows perfectly well that they can, he just doesn’t know how.
It’s Monday evening, after the Quidditch match. Some fifth-years managed to plaster frog spleens all over the ceiling in one of the dungeon classrooms; he’s just finished scrubbing them all off. Before that, though, the Crusaders managed to flood half the library and set fire to the lake.
He’s still not sure how they managed to do that from the bathroom halfway across the castle from both locations.
Fortunately, no permanent damage had been done; the Giant Squid and all the merpeople had been smart enough to stay underwater until the flames went out, and Madam Pince has a spell she can use to restore the books to their original condition.
He pauses in the passage, cleaning supplies in his hands. There’s that Lyra girl, leaning against the wall next to a closed door, eyes closed and looking mildly put out.
He quickly decides that his day probably just got worse, though he can hope it hasn’t. Lyra is, after all, the ridiculously powerful Equestrian with no qualms about flinging that power around. At least she’s a little more responsible than some of the others he can name.
He glances sideways at a few classroom signs as he approaches, verifying his position in the castle and comparing it against his memory. Ah, yes, she’s permitted to be here; she’s not breaking any rules. So, at least his day hasn’t been completely ruined- yet, at least- by this encounter.
He doesn’t want to simply pass her by, though. If something’s bothering her enough to make her look like that, he at least wants to know what it is. That way, he can- hopefully- keep it from making his day any worse than it has to.
He pauses again, a few feet away from her. “Something the matter?” he asks, in his usual, irritable tone.
“Not really,” Lyra answers him, not looking up. “I’m just… trying to solve a little problem. Not long after we started, I figured out how to expand a British wizard’s magic matrix to match that of an Equestrian- and rather promptly discovered a facet of British magic that Equestrians simply don’t have. A few days after that, I found out that British facet is the one that makes self-transfiguration possible- including animagi. So I’ve been trying to find a way to expand an Equestrian’s magic matrix to include it, but I can’t seem to-!” She stops suddenly, eyes snapping to him. “Wait a minute. Why…?”
He blinks, backstepping slightly. “Uh-!”
“Oh, sorry- no, I just happened to notice that your magic matrix seems to be more… well, lacking. Almost like… Yeah. You probably have trouble using active magic?”
He takes another step backwards, debating running for it. “Active magic?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Lyra nods. “Accidental magic, wand magic, and so on. As different from passive magic, like magic resistance or perception.”
“Uh, yeah, I can’t… do that.”
She winces. “Yeah… You’ve got the facilities for it in your magic matrix, but it’s so badly damaged it might as well be missing. Hmm…” She leans against the wall again, staring at the ceiling. “If… Yeah. If I adapt my papa tango spell- that’s the one I used to expand British wizards’ matrices- I should be able to… Yeah. Magical manipulation facilities should be a large enough segment of the overall matrix for it to work… And if I do the magical perception facilities as well, I can heal someone that has those damaged… Add the thaumic reservoir, thaumic rejuvenation facilities, and that extra British facet, and it should be big enough I can apply it to an Equestrian as well.” She glances down at him. “Any part it tries to add that the subject happens to already have, undamaged, would be skipped. Um… Yeah. Gimme a couple days to refine it, and to talk to Bonbon, and I might be able to restore your active manipulation capabilities. We’ll call it, uh, Whiskey Tango.” She vanishes into thin air.
“Restore?” Filch asks, confused.
He’s not sure whether to classify the encounter as a good thing or a bad thing, overall. Lyra seemed to have realized he’s a squib- but she also said something about changing that.
Then she’d mentioned whiskey.
He doesn’t know what to think.
He stands for a few more seconds, trying to process it, before he discards the idea as gibberish and resumes his path to the supply closet.
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Gotta say I'm starting to lose interest. I mean what the hell was with this chapter? Why did half of it focus on Lyra figuring out she can cure Squibs instead of dealing with the fallout of Hermione being attacked by Quirrell?
This story had such an interesting premise, what if hundreds of ponies enrolled in Hogwarts? But the ponies barely get any focus, the only ones we get to see are these unflappable hyper-competent ponies who constantly steam roll the wizards. What about the ponies adapting to a strange new world, or the ponies who are getting to cast actual spells for the first time ever?
I'm so sick of "ponies do something" followed by an explanation filled with technobabble and I'm sick of Lyra and RESS, in general, being used as a plot device for making things happen. You have dozens of characters at your disposal but you make them all significantly less interesting when you add them to the Mary-Sue corps.
9682835
Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
As for why I'm not focusing on the Quirrell attack, that's probably because Dumbledore's keeping it on the down low. He doesn't want to tip Quirrell off that he's onto him, and he doesn't want to look like a warmonger by throwing Quirrell out, either- nobody'd believe he'd attacked a student, or been related to Voldemort.
Uh oh. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot trot trotting down the bridle path.
And so, another timeline where an Equestrian has figured out how to turn Squibs into Wizards.
A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone
9683078
Oh hey, you've found my editor's story! (Note that Gerandakis started publishing that long before becoming an editor on here.)
... Yeah, you're right. Even if the mechanics of my Whiskey Tango are a little different than his Void Star Syndrome...
Honestly, I'm not one to usually agree with everydaygamer, but this is getting ridiculous. What's with the balls to the wall absurd power levels and completely uselessness of wizards helping the story with? If the ponies were one tenth as hyper competent as you put them as they'd never need to come to Earth, they'd simply create their own wands or similar tools and create better magic.
They're so bullshittingly powerful and versatile that this story looks like just an excuse to show how you imagine them to be. And the entire premise kinda goes down the drain. You have thousands of ponies in Hogwarts, even two princesses, and you just use the equestrian secret service to any extent. Or more precisely, the absurd Lyra Sue.
What happened to the story about thousands of ponies getting interested in going to another world to learn magic and the shenanigans that cause? Because currently mostly all we see is "look how overpowered this character is! I've even deliberately Worfed another one for that!"
9683152
I'm not going to argue with that evaluation.
After all, there's no point in arguing with the truth. The problem is, I don't make outlines, or detailed plans, for my stories... because I can never stick with them. As a result, this tends to happen. It goes where it will, and sometimes, that means the story falls apart. The reason more than half of my stories are either cancelled (11 of 30), or likely to be (some 50% or so of the remainder).
I'm sorry about that. If you're looking for a good story on this premise... Well, I don't know where to point you, because I'm not sure if it even exists. But I can say you're not likely to find it on my user page, no matter how much rewriting I do, simply because I'm not a very good writer. And, in case you're wondering, this is why I say that.
9683216
I honestly didn't expect this answer, but it's an honest and understandable one. I might not like it, but I can certainly respect it.
9683287
Yeah, I always view honesty as the best policy.
In reference to your original comment on how dominate-everything the RESS has been, if you stick around for another most-of-a-dozen chapters, they do get beaten down... Eventually. They might be all high and mighty in peacetime, but face an actual wizarding threat and they're tin soldiers.
9683362
I don't intend to abandon ship, even with how it's been going.
I'm honestly quite curious on how anyone with firearms and magic could possibly see a wizarding threat as a threat at all. Unless said wizards are permanently hyper-aware and can shield on a hair trigger a bullet is better at killing than any Avada Kevradra would ever be.
9683463
Sure in a straight up fight guns beat wands but magic offers enough versatility to balance that out. You're not gonna see a wizard facing off against someone with a gun like a wild west showdown, real fights don't work that way and wizards could just disable the gun before engaging. Or protect themselves with magic if they know its coming.
Plus I disagree with the idea that drawing a gun is faster than drawing a wand unless you're stowing your gun in a half-hazard way with the safety off. Not to say it isn't possible but not everyone is gonna be able to draw a gun at world record level speeds.
9683518
There are people that can draw and fire a holstered weapon, to hit a target, in less time than it takes another to simply pull the trigger of a pre-aimed, pre-armed weapon. I think it was either Mythbusters or the Slo-Mo Guys that did an episode on that.
That said, I agree. The gun is most effective as a surprise, when the wizard is not expecting it, not as a primary weapon. Guns are pretty easy to jam even without magic; add a quick sticking spell, and it's a major hazard to try using it, even if the bullet makes it out the end of the barrel. The thing isn't designed to handle that massive of forces for very long, after all... And that's just one of many ways a wizard could disable such a weapon.
9683528
Oh yeah it can definitely be done but that's generally against stationary targets it gets significantly harder if the target is moving. I mean you had Fluttershy draw a gun and shoot a wand out of a hand mid cast which means his arm would have been moving around. The fact that she pulled off the shot was ridiculously unlikely. If she had been aiming at his body it would have been a lot more plausible that she could draw and shoot him before he finished the cast.
Heck if they're really intent on non-lethal it would have been safer to dodge the spell then try and shoot the wand out of his hand which is still a lot riskier than just going for the kill.
9683545
I did kinda make Fluttershy a bit of a crack shot, yeah... But ignoring that, because she's unlikely to try fighting in any kind of war (more likely to serve at St. Mungo's), the big advantage a gun has is the lack of a need for an incantation. Against an experienced duelist, who will have refined their rapid incantations to a fine art (completely unlike Wormtail, who was counting on the element of surprise to give him the time needed), that advantage is largely annulled- and may make it slower... leaving the gunner completely unprotected against the far more effective magic. Had the gunner had a wand out instead, they would have at least been able to fire off a quick-incantation spell to deflect the incoming spell (there probably exist single-syllable-incantation spells expressly designed for this purpose).
I do have, in my headcanon, that a magic wand need only be aimed in the general direction of the target- so long as the target is in mind, the spell will be launched directly at them, including leading them if the caster thinks of that. Like bullets, they can't be directed after they're launched- but that makes the wand far less sensitive for the exact aim. I mean, it's possible to empty an entire clip in a full-auto rifle at another person at, oh, twenty feet... and miss every shot (kinda difficult, but possible). Not so much with a wand, aimed as much by the mind as by the arm.
That's how Hermione was able to hit Quirrell with not one, but two spells from two miles away, without really worrying about missing. It's not like he saw them coming in time to dodge, after all... (The sun will have hidden the flash of light quite well)
9683518
I was thinking more on the lines of reacting to a supersonic projectile. As in, for example, the Death Eater attack in the seventh book. Wizards striding through open ground towards a castle. Any long arm there would cause so much death it wouldn't be even funny, simply because you can't react to a shot. You can do things to aiming and before the trigger's pulled, but after that it's simply impossible.
That being said, if computerneek can come up with a way it's both believable and entertaining it's going to be well worth being proved wrong.
9683827
Well sure but once the element of surprise is gone they just have to adjust their strategy. It's not like they would just keep doing the same thing once they realize they have such long-range weaponry. Guns are not a be-all end-all weapon. There are plenty of ways to counter them and Voldemort would have had no shortage of bodies to throw at them in book 7.
Not to mention Voldemort isn't an idiot he would almost certainly have thought of a way to deal with firearms that had not previously existed, that was kind of his thing.
I swear when people imagine guns used against wizards they only ever seem to imagine wizards just standing still while they get shot at.
9683852
That's why I mentioned having firearms AND magic in the comment that started this. Magic sure has answers to firearms, but when the other side has them and countermeasures of their own gunpowder becomes quite the advantage.
9683874
You can shoot a gun or counter spells, trying to do both is just gonna cause you more harm than good.
9683880
Fair enough, but you could enchant said gun to be magical-tamper resistant and then shoot it. Bonus points if you can also make your ammunition disrupt magic enough to lessen the effectiveness of your enemies' protections.
9683931
I would think just being shot would be enough to disrupt any immediate attempts to use magic.