Shown Up, or Walking Wounded
Another fine sunny morning had shifted with the westering sun, until noon shifted all of her shadows, of envelope and rigging and the occasional flitting fluffy cloud, directly overhead, and left the remnants pooling below one's hooves. Lyra had discovered the new ensign's inability to cast simple shielding spells, let alone the newfangled workings that her aptly-renamed friend had invented over the winter.
Somehow, that discovery had evolved, until she'd found herself in full magus mode, twirling on her right rear hoof and coaxing under-employed troopers to take up various javelins and throwing spikes and implements of destruction, and throw them at her fool self with all the strength those big griffon hens and beefy earth pony stallions and wily thestrals of both and either genders could muster.
The two enlisted unicorns had been chased out of their respective hidey-holes, and made to attend to Lyra's presentation with all the attention her considerable force of personality could evoke, while a greater crowd of troopers, winged or otherwise, looked on from their various perches in the riggings above, the railings around, and a pair of hatches propped up in the deck itself, below.
"Now, mind you, most of the horned races aren't magus material. Hup!" Lyra spun, and caught the flung javelin in a fragmentary variant on the spell Gleaming Shield had described in her Gonne Research Group paper. It hung, quivering in the kite-shield-shaped bit of jellied air, not stopping the weapon dead, but rather allowing it to hang, wobbling, like the javelin had struck an actual wooden plank-shield like the ones used by hill-country hicks up in the feuding back hollers of the Smokey Mountains in their endless idiot skirmishes.
"If your average unicorn - your J. Random Hornpolisher - was asked to do the things we are taught in the academies and the Princess's own school, well, their poor horns would crack, flare, and catch fire like the wick in a jack-lantern." Lyra had been fascinated to discover the jack-lanterns of backward Burrostan, west of Somnambula on the fringes of the Undiscovered West. The donkeys' lack of 'free' magic had led them well along the road of mechanical and chemical innovation, which ponies of discernment and wisdom knew to keep close tabs on.
Where else did a clever pony get ideas? Her own noggin? Ha!
"So what is the answer?" Lyra asked, rhetorically, and caught three throwing spikes thrown by one of her griffon assistants from her blind spot, way up in the riggings close to the envelope itself. "Nice try, Gwaine. See this?"
Lyra swung around her jelled cantrip-shield around, the three iron-headed darts stuck haft-deep in the surface of the mana construct.
"This isn't that. You don't have to be a credentialed magus or a wizard to cast this beauty. In fact, it's less taxing than the old rigid-shell shields. Which is why your regimental major is a certified genius, my colts and fillies. Not because it's a difficult spell, but because it's so easy. You could learn this in a morning's singalong! And you should have, Sunburst. You were a student at the Princess's Gifted. What happened?"
"Well, er, magus, you know, I just -" And as he stuttered out his embarrassment, three troopers flung javelins at Lyra, who had stopped dancing about to give the ensign her proper attention.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! went the three implements of destruction as they met two different shard-spell constructs, spinning around Lyra's otherwise-unprotected corpus.
"GAH! Could they stop doing that while we're talking?" yelped the shaggy orange colt.
"It wouldn't be an exercise if it was easy, Sunny," laughed Lyra, dropping her new catch ting - ting - ting on the pile of other captured weapons. "And hello, have you met me? I never stop talking. So, where was I?"
"How easy what you're doing is," prompted one of the other unicorns. Lyra hadn't bothered to learn either of their names, yet. They were very, very young, both of them.
"Right! You don't need to be Celestia's gift to harmony, to learn how to shieldcraft, especially not the Gleaming Shield method. So, what are the steps?" Lyra dismissed her floating kite-shields, and let her horn grow dim.
"EVOCATION!" and then let her horn go two-shrouds bright.
"Concentration", she whispered with stress, and formed the glow into a less showy single shroud.
"IMAGINATION!" and Lyra was surrounded with the distinctive oil-sheen shimmer of Gleaming Shield's reactive barrier spell.
"You see," Lyra continued from inside of her shimmering protective shell, "when you layer the idea of a nice gelatin sorbet over the feeling, you shall not pass, you get the Gleaming Shield. A collapsing-reactive protective layer, which unlike the old math-heavy diamond-shell casting, gives easily when struck. Gwaine, come down here and give us a stab!"
And Lyra's helpful corporal assistant dropped out of the rigging with his spear, striking slightly off of her center-of-mass. He'd have missed her if he'd gotten through her shield.
He didn't get through her shield. His sharp spearpoint slipped sideways on the spherical construct, creasing it like a balloon punched by a painter's brush. The tom, caught off guard by the sudden sideways reactive force, turned end for end, bouncing off of the shield by his rear right flank, and ending up, spearless, tumbling into a pile of surprised onlookers.
"Oops, sorry about that, Gwaine. You ok over there?"
A talon stuck up out of the tangle, thumbs up.
"Right, that's a lesson for another day. Make more room, ya lookie-loos! Or else you might be the next to get a muzzleful of griffish flank!"
Lyra turned around, looking as the rest of the crowd gave them another cable or two's worth of space.
"Right, where was I?"
"'Ow 'imagination' makes a spell?" prompted the third watching unicorn, a half-grown filly who was probably too young to have signed up, but somehow, here she was.
"How else would a spell be made?"
"Uh, maths?" her filly student said, scoffing.
"What is mathematics, my little apprentice, but imagination in a very firmly laced saddle? You can use math to lace in your will and your imagination, or you can use feeling. The better the feeling, the better the constraints on your imagination! I'm not talking about these mean sorts of feelings, jealousies and dislikes and angers and dire vengeance! Will! Be! Mine!"
Lyra looked around, her features crumpled into a saturnine scowl, doing her best to look like her least favorite instructor at school, Celestia's Gifted's infamously grim potions master.
Then she grinned, dispelling that old bokor's dire memory.
"But that's the sort of thing that leads to doomsday devices and the magi coming by your tower with an assault team and a horn-restraining ring! Also, it's rarely all that effective. Harmony is a real thing, my little ponies and not-so-little griffons! Harmony sings in every spell, and if you sing a discordant song, you'll get rotten miracles."
"OK, you three, give it a try, why don't you? Sing it a bit, let's see what you get. EVOCATION!"
And the three of them lit up their horns, Lyra following along after making sure they were glowing.
"CONCENTRATION!" Their concentration-glows weren't much more obvious than their initial horn-glows, but they were all frowning, fiercely. Even the Gifted Unicorns' School dropout with the goatee.
"IMAGINATION!" And Lyra tried to not laugh as all three of them screwed up their lips and their brows, trying to picture the mental image she'd painted of dessert and determination. But....
All three of them had the oiled-glow of that distinctive shielding quivering around them. The smallest of the three, his construct was shaking like a beaten dog, and Lyra wasn't certain what was doing it - was he just that excited?
Lyra picked up Gwaine's discarded spear, and stabbed at Ensign Sunburst's shield. It distended, warped - and wrapped itself around her spearhead, deflecting it away from his right forearm.
"Not bad! How about you, sweetling?" She stabbed at the little filly's gleaming globe, and the spearpoint skittered, shifted - and was knocked back into Lyra's grasp as the filly's shield burst in a rain of red horn-light. "Interesting. Not really what it's supposed to do-"
And then the last unicorn's shield just failed, for no apparent reason, the colt gasping and breathing like a bellows.
Lyra looked at him, and looked deeper at his eyes, which were a bit - ah.
"Children, you have to remember to make your shields air-permeable. You want to keep out things that will put holes in you, not that stuff whose absence will make you a dead pony!" Lyra bugged out her eyes and leaned her head back against her withers, her tongue stuck out like a suffocated pony.
"Right! That's the basics, my horny friends! You can't fly - well, aside from Major Shield, damn her brilliant eyes - and you can't take a hit like our earthy friends here. But you can bloody well learn how to shield, yourselves and your fellows! Because some day, and it might be some day soon, some crazy parrot or hidalgo griffon will be coming after you with a slugger or a bigger gun - and try to shoot you, your fellow trooper, or the ship itself."
Lyra turned to the earth pony who she'd gotten to stand over by one of the falconets with a lit slow-fuse in a linstock. "Everypony, make a hole for Mickle Joe. Mickle Joe, whenever you are ready, my friend!"
The crowd looked back at the pony with a lit fuse in his hooves, and wide-eyed and more than a little panicky, scattered out of the way of his line of fire.
And more importantly, from behind where Lyra was standing, her horn lit up three-shrouds deep, and collapsing back down into a proper double-layered 'Gleaming Shield' special.
"FIRE!" Lyra yelled, and all she saw was a bloom of fire where the open mouth of the falconet had been.
Very little of what happened after that stayed with Lyra, until she looked up at the envelope above her from what must have been a bit of decking not far from where she'd been standing before she'd had a pony set off a cannon in her face.
There was some twittering noise, and Lyra tried to focus enough to figure out where the birdies were…
She lifted her aching head a bit, and realized that the blue blur overhead was her dear, dear friend Trixie.
"-you Bobtail-blasted foals ever touch my gonnes when I'm not here, I'm going to have the ship's master keelhaul you! Twice! All the way around! You could have killed her! You could have killed yourself, you idiot! I'm going to have you cleaning every single one of those things in storage, with your tongue if you can't get them perfect with a tooth-brush first!"
"Not his fault, Trixie darlin'..." Lyra tried to say through a mouthful of cotton. Why did she have cotton in her mouth?
Oh, that was her tongue. Ouch
"And you!" continued the angry, scorched-looking blue unicorn, staring down at Lyra. "What made you think that was a good idea, you lime-green imbecile!"
"What? Iss what the spell is fer. Far. Four. For. Had two shells runnin', shoda been nuff."
"SPARKLE- that is, Major Shield designed that spell to take slugger volley fire. Not cannon fire! You used a load of shot and powder four times the weight it was rated for!"
"Nonfeenfe, a fil' of for firin' oughta been th' favme as tha."
"What? Could you repeat that? I don't speak imbecile!"
Lyra worked her mouth a few times, and tried again. "A volley. Fire. Oughta been the same af a falconet."
"Concentration, you dolt! Not to mention you took it point blank range! And Trixie has been told you weren't using the safeties that Sparkle built into the spell to keep it from feeding back to the caster!"
"The what?"
"SAFETIES! The original construct would feed back on the caster's horn!"
"That wasn't in the writeup!"
"Not everything is in the initial writeups, you loon! The final manual certainly had it laid out!"
"I… oops?" Lyra tried for a 'my bad!' and managed to just punch herself in her horn with a wobbling forehoof.
"Stretcher!" yelled Lieutenant Trixie Lulamoon, as Lyra went down for another rest, her horn screaming at her.
Where had Trixie been, anyways? was Lyra's last woozy thought before the stretcher-ponies hauled her off to the infirmary.
"SPARKLE!" roared Lieutenant Lulamoon as she burst into the office behind the operations room.
Gilda looked up from her paperwork, and narrowed her eyes at the artillerymare.
"You! Hen! Where is that idiot we call our master and commander?" demanded the unicorn.
But not Gilda's unicorn.
"I'm back here, Trixie. What's the problem?" came a voice from the cot wedged behind the major's own desk.
"Trixie demands to be heard!"
After a beat, the other unicorn's voice rose over the edge of her desk, wavering a bit, "OK, I hear you. Was there anything else?"
"Trixie also wants to see you, Sparkle!"
That was more than enough, Gilda thought, and rose from her desk to toss the artillery lieutenant out of the office.
And then paused, taking into view the soot-scorched coat and tattered field uniform the lieutenant was wearing.
"What happened to you, lieutenant?" Gilda asked, instead of laying her talons on the officer.
"What didn't happen to Trixie?" she demanded. "A disaster of an exercise, and then some butterhooves dropped a lit fuse into a nearly-full caisson, and then we had two gunner's assistants injured putting out the blaze, and what does Trixie find when she returns from this nightmare of a day?"
Gleaming Shield had finally gotten up from her cot, and was staring blearily and heavily bandaged over the edge of her desk.
"What happened to the caisson?" the major asked.
"NOT RELEVANT!" Trixie screamed. "We put out the fire! And the mechanics and the pool ponies can probably put it back together! What I would like to talk about is PONIES MESSING AROUND WITH MY STUFF WHEN I'M NOT HERE!"
"What stuff would that be, lieutenant?" asked Gilda. "And if you would, kindly modulate your tone. Some of us are walking wounded."
"Yes, they ARE! Trixie has NOTICED! Trixie is, if you haven't noticed, A BIT SCORCHED! Also, she may have DAMAGED HER HEARING A BIT TODAY!"
"OK, calm down, lieutenant. Here, have a seat." Gilda got up out of her chair, and let the shaking blue unicorn sit down. Or rather, pressed her into the chair.
"Trixie thought everything was going so well… The teamsters had put the targets into place, the escorts were on their game, it was such a good exercise, when it got started…"
"Wait, first things first," Gleaming said, looking concerned. "What's this about ponies using your stuff? And does this have something to do with that backfire the engines made about twenty minutes ago?"
"You need to pay closer attention to what happens on your own ship, Sparkle. Also, Lyra Heartstrings got one of your troopers to shoot her with a double charged falconet with, as far as I can tell, a double load of buck and shot. She's lucky to be alive!"
"Lyra did- how badly is she wounded?"
"Bah, that mare could be thrown off the Canterhorn and not break a leg. She's mostly very badly horn-burned."
"That's serious! That's career-ending!" Gleaming gasped.
"Well, perhaps Trixie is exaggerating for effect. The surgeon didn't look that concerned. She just over-extended. I think. She's supposed to be some sort of magical genius?"
"Oh, blast. Gilda, I should look in on her. What was she doing to have her horn-"
"She apparently didn't read the full writeup on your new spell, Sparkle. Or else she didn't read it properly."
"She- did she get the horn safeties wrong?"
"She didn't seem to think there was such a thing, but she wasn't fully lucid, so Celestia only knows, Trixie doesn't. Not fully relevant! Trixie would like to return to the issue at hoof - ponies MESSING WITH HER STUFF!"
"Trixie," Gilda said, provoked, "you can't leave the ship and expect the rest of us to police your department. That's why you're lieutenant, the battery is your responsibility."
"Horseapples!" spat Trixie. "Trixie isn't just your battery commander. Not anymore! A battery lieutenant just has to take care of her caissons, and her gun sections, and that's it! You've got me running a pocket armory, enough falconets to arm this entire, preposterously huge hulk you call a 'light carrier', and a gun deck!
"We're lucky so far that nopony's taken it into their heads to start messing with the carronades. But there's the rocket-mortars, too! And it feels like I need more help out and about, the caissons were a complete mess on today's exercise."
"So, not hitting your targets?" Gleaming Shield asked, meanly.
"Of course we did!" Trixie said, proudly, her nose in the air. "We just also blew up a caisson afterwards. A little bit."
The artillerymare shook her head, and looked down at the major.
"Trixie's point is that she's understaffed. She either needs another sergeant and a reliable corporal, or - and this is the important point! - another ensign."
"Trixie," Gleaming groaned. "Don't get started again. We don't have any more ensigns. We have no more prospect of new recruits until we hit Well Burn at the earliest, and we're not planning on a long stay in the New Territories. As if they'd have officers to spare out there on the frontier!"
"Nonsense! You recruited two perfectly serviceable ensigns just before we left!"
"We did?" asked the concussed major. "Gilda, when did this happen?"
"The lieutenant's talking about Ensigns Sunburst and Short Fuse, major ma'am," Gilda reminded her.
"Yes, but what's this about perfectly serviceable ensigns? Those two are idiots."
Gilda winced a bit. Gleaming Shield's concussion had loosened her tongue a bit, and they were still working on getting her filters back on line.
"That's as may be, but Trixie needs another subaltern, and has a good feeling about this 'Short Fuse'. It's a lovely artillery-pony sort of name."
"Trixie, you know that isn't his talent, right? As far as I can tell, the name was earned by his temperament," Gleaming Shield observed.
"Nevertheless, Trixie likes the cut of his jib! And he seemed to know what he was about while he was supporting her exercise out in the field. Did a fine job helping put out the fire! Trixie adores a colt who knows when to drop a raincloud on a conflagration!"
"We wanted him for Baker Troop…" Gleaming Shield equivocated.
"Nonsense! The bat ponies can govern themselves. As far as Trixie can tell, they've been doing it for time immemorial! And TRIXIE NEEDS ANOTHER ASSISTANT!"
Gleaming Shield cringed in pain.
"OK, lieutenant, we'll take it under advisement. Thank you, good day," Gilda said, as she pried the mare out of Gilda's chair and chivvied her out of the office.
Gilda slammed the door behind the artillerymare, and looked at her slightly-ashen major.
"You take another pair of aspirin, and lay down again, major ma'am. I'll get Bob to look in on you, and see how much of the ship's been damaged, and look into whether we're down a caisson chariot or not."
Gilda went to get Bob, and wondered how many walking wounded they'd have before they reached Well Burn.
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I know it's not necessarily that, but I still ship em!
Good to see the story back, man. I was hoping to see an update for a while now. Gotta love Lyra though, no sense of self-preservation.
Lyra is going to get herself killed doing something stupid like this and no one is going to be surprised.
However, a possible idea for the griffins to counter this kind of magical tactic (and possibly more traditional shields) would be to strap what is effectively a grenade to a spear so that the spear can give the explosive a bit more accuracy/range and the explosion can kick in moments later. If weight is an issue, glass or clay can be used to make these grenades in a manner once employed by the Ottoman Empire.
I still ship it no matter what you or anyone else says!!
Lovely to see this one being updated again
Excellent. :D
Nice to see more of this. :)
Huzzah! An update!
Lyra...would it kill you to double check something? Also, why does Gleaming have a concussion?
is that third person thing contagious or am i missing something?
10369607
Last time, it was Gleaming Shield's turn to be showing off, and she got knocked in the head while sparring with a bat-pony. It's been a rough couple days for the unicorns of the Crystal Guard.
10369613
Had to go back & double-check, because I was self-editing on this chapter, but no, it's still the same tight third-person it always is. Gilda had earlier given Trixie her chair to try and calm her down, and now is cordially kicking her out of Gilda's seat, and the office while she's at it.
I am so glad this is back! The comedy in it was very nice people getting hurt with stupid mistake is always fun.
Lyra being an insane and eccentric teacher fit her very well.
I think you forgot to mention Trixie is also the head of the artillery R&D in this company too. I think it's good that Trixie is kept occupied rather than wallowing in her misery but not enough bodies and officers will cripple her division. Trixie did put her hooves on a very real problem. I hope recruitment goes well in future ports.
And poor Sunburst, everyone is looking down on him like he is something stuck to the bottom of their horseshoes. Yikes.
Now you made me curious about Smokey Mountain. Who fights there and why? Frankly, if you ever write a story about this crazu Lyra running around the world to find lost civilization, mythical creatures and other misadventures, I would be really down for it!
I love it when the world at large get developed like this. But when you are speaking of jack-lantern you are not talking about Jack-o-lantern isn't it?
Severus... is that you?
Always good to see more of my favorite wandering military installation.
This deeply concerns me.
It's always the potions master, ever since Rowling took out her dislike of a bygone chemistry teacher on Snape.
Well, hopefully the other unicorns learned a lesson Lyra wasn't even trying to teach: Always read the full manual before you let someone shoot you in the face. Also, gunpowder is not a toy. Trixie is a trained professional, despite all appearances.
10369666
That's actually canon, the mountains where the Hooffields and McColts indulged in their feuds. Burrostan is, however, very much not canon. But I liked the idea. And yes, jack-lanterns are a technological marvel. Something like a kerosene lamp.
Yay, bored soldiers with little to do!
10369677
What could possibly go wrong?
10369675
Obviously she’s never watched Mythbusters, who helped redefine what a trained, experienced, and competent professional looks like. Then again, that’s probably a very good thing. She’d get all sorts of ideas
10369676
Ah ok, I remember the episode now. Man, put one of them in an army and you could be sure the other family will join the opposite side. Or better yet, put both of them in the same unit and direct all that energy at the ennemies.
If there was ever a need for vegetable weaponry, those two families would lead the best research companies on the subject... thinking about it, mixing vegetables, magic and warfare in a single subject sound like a very dangerous subject... ok now I want one of them in the Crystal Guards...
And the Donkeys technology sounds like something the Guards would also profit from. If they could swing by there someday to see what they could upgrade with or even get a couple of engineers/inventor, it could lead to great results.
Hooray! I love this story.
Put in broader context, Gleaming Shield has kind of earned her assumed name. Lyra's description of the toughened shield spell drove that home. It's a great technological achievement.
It really feels like a short-handed outfit. You know things are serious when Lyra has teaching duty and Trixie wants Short Fuse to help handle the artillery and associated explody paraphernalia. Moreso when something like that happens and Gleaming and Gilda are out of the loop.
Gleaming channeling Blackadder is also good for a chuckle.
10369487
I ship them too, with a similar level of indifference to whether they actually develop a romance I think. Their existing good relationship is what makes me ship them, and that relationship is already fairly satisfying to my shipper's brain.
64.media.tumblr.com/cbcc44dd9beac4f522b98e19987f18ab/tumblr_p17i1x7TMy1qe9lpso1_500.gifv
Yeah, that might be a good idea.
But in all seriousness, Lyra's not a half-bad teacher.
Well, until she nearly shot herself with a cannon.
Still...I'd go to her class. At least I'd know there'd never be a dull moment!
Oh, I think that is rather relevant, Trixie, so I'd advise you at least loop back around to that later.
Ah, I don't know about that, Trixie...I'll admit, it's been long enough that my memory's a tad fuzzy on some of the finer details of this story, but one thing I distinctly recall is that the bat ponies are a seemingly unsuspecting, but still very mischievous bunch, and we've already established that some of their kind are definitely up to something. Giving them some direct but outside supervision might actually be a good idea, if only as a precaution.
But hey, it's Gleaming's ship.
Further, Trixie again manages to raise a very good point--by the sounds of it, she does need the additional help.
...Seriously, it's great to see a new update on this fic again. I'd missed it.
10369683
Well they could start drawing dicks on everything.
Happy to see another chapter!
I absolutely adore your version of Lyra! Oh, and Trixie, too. And... (I'm sure you can see where this is going.)
The advanced magic reasoning is very solid and believable.
It is great to see another chapter. I have enjoyed Good Trooper Gilda and The Princess's Bit a lot.
I come for the characterizations and the hi-jinks, and stay for the epic world building! Thank you for sharing your ideas and your hard work!
10370096
Bored batponies probably moon people or something.
10369675
Lyra taught a lot of lessons besides the one she intended.
10370700
lol I got one downvote, guess they don't know any US Marines...they are the finest dick artist in the US military
10370858
I didn't downvote you. Different cultures have different traditions, though. Mostly I was going for the obvious pun.
10370994I I know good ...sir? no worries
10369487
So donkeys are the ones who come with most if the tech stuff. Good to see done authors remembering they exist.
Also, "free magic"? Are there other types of magic available to those without horns?
10372607
It's one of Lyra's theories about physics and thaumics. She's one of those nuts who hold that magic comes in two flavors: bound or entailed magic, which informs the world-as-is, and free magic, which is available to ponies or other 'magic-using' creatures.
Our professional soldiers, everyone!
10438539
As someone with a father and several friends in the Army, i leave you with this, bored privates can and will do stupid shit the moment the sergeant cant see them.
Hmm, when will Bob be revealed as a cherngelerng, ermahgerd?
With lyra walking around I'd say everyone by midmorning the following day.
Wow.... when you mess around so bad that Trixie ends up the (very loud) voice of reason... you reached Epic Fail levels of whatever you tried to do.
So... the question becomes. Which is more dangerous, bored grunts, or grunts being kept from being g bored by Lyra?
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