Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies

by The Guy Who Writes

Chapter 62: Humanity's Debut

Silver regained consciousness in what sporting losers and sore winners call the "Loser's Lobby", where the 'corpses' of stunned ponies are teleported from the battlefield. They can stick around and watch the rest of the round if they want, though most leave right away for another game unless they're one of the last few contestants. Or the winner, of course.

"That was a good game, Mithril," said 'Big Bang', the winner of the match. "How old are you?"

'Mithril', who had scored second place, said, "Thirteen." Technically true.

"That's a fake wing illusion, right? Going for a full alicorn illusion once you get the tickets?"

"The wings are real," said Mithril, giving them a flap and making a slight breeze for emphasis.

"Wait, you're not a unicorn?"

"Nope," Mithril said, truthfully but not honestly.

"Then how come your magic is so strong?"

"I've been training," said Mithril, again truthfully, and again dishonestly.

"Huh… okay… but aren't you kinda new? And young? The only pegasi I know who can break my shields are at least fifteen, and they've been at it for years. You're only thirteen, so..."

"I've got a private tutor," said Mithril by way of not explaining. "Out of curiosity, how long have you been here? And how old are you?"

"Joined day one, dude. I'm fifteen."

"Didn't it open thirty-four years ago?"

"Pretty sure it wasn't that long ago. And I meant I joined the first day I could."

"Ah. What's the starting age limit?"

"Seven," said Big Bang, which might or might not be the unicorn teen's real name. "But I was in dueling club before that."

"Did you start dueling as soon as possible too?"

"Yup. Started at five. But my parents signed me up for that one."

"Did your parents sign you up for this too?"

"Nah, this was all me. I've loved fighting ever since my first duel."

"That explains it," said Mithril with a nod. "Well, nice talking to you, but I'm on a schedule."

"Before you go, wanna co-queue some time? It's pretty fun if you've never done it before, and I could show you the ropes."

"How would we set that up?"

"We can exchange Circus ID info."

"Um... does that exchange all the info we submit to Circus? Like our real names?"

"It can. But you can ask Circus to keep all that stuff private, even from your friends. You like privacy, huh?"

"Generally speaking, yes..." But then again, given what he'd submitted as his 'real' name... "But I guess I don't mind if a few ponies know my name. How do we exchange ID info?"

A small chime sound rang in his ears.

"Like that," said Big Bang. "Circus can tell when two ponies want to do it. He can also tell..." a screen appeared in front of Big Bang, "when we want to set up a co-queue. Does a week from now sound fine?"

Mithril tried to do the same by pure mental command, something he had actually been fairly confident would work, but nothing happened. He could investigate later. "Make it two months. Sorry, but I'll be busy for a while."

"Uh... alright. Two months, I guess. Nice to meet you, um..." Big Bang squinted at his screen. "Event Horizon?"

"Call me Mithril while I'm here," he said. "And nice to meet you..."

"Call me Bang."

"Alright. See you around, Bang."

At that, 'Mithril' teleported away from the loser's lobby. He'd chosen his display alias as an inside joke, and because he didn't want the name 'Silver' appearing on the Circus leaderboards. It'll be the sort of thing that was obvious in retrospect, with mithril being magical silver, but nobody who's out of the loop should give the name a second glance in advance. And with his new royal name (slightly modified by himself, though he's still just going to go by 'Prince Horizon' once his alicorn status isn't under wraps anymore), he didn't even need to submit the name 'Silver Wing' to Circus's underlying database. Technically, you don't need to submit your real name at all, you can just make up whatever you want (because deception is chaotic), but he decided to go with Event Horizon.

On his mentor's advice, he'd spent the last month and a half learning the games and systems of Circus rather than actually trying to win. Well, he spent his pony hours that way, anyway.

"Consider it a win," Riddle had said, "if you learn something that will help you in future fights. Otherwise, have fun, and be careful not to do TOO well. A skilled newcomer might arouse suspicions."

'Mithril' hadn't performed all that well his first few weeks, and not because of the advice. It took time to get used to being on a battlefield as a pony, galloping into one engagement and air-bucking away to another, and it also took time to learn the basics of the game style.

There are various kinds of battles, and the objectives often change because Circus hates consistency – one day it might be capture-the-flag, another day might be king-of-the-hill. Most likely, it'll be an objective nobody's ever encountered before, with strategies that have to be developed on the fly.

But there's one battle objective that doesn't cycle in and out of relevancy at the Chaotic whims of Circus and public approval. There's one mode that's been around since the start, since before Circus was open to the general public, and it's still going strong thirty-three and a half years later. It's always on rotation, in all categories of all queues, from solo to team, from ranked to casual play. The 'maps' change, some of the constraining rules might change, but the objective never does:

Stunmatch.

The goal is simple: stun all enemies. The rules are also simple: (1) No reviving stunned ponies (unless Circus decides to allow it in advance). (2) Nothing lethal or permanently damaging (unless certain conditions are met). (3) No outside devices or enchantments aside from Circus-appointed/approved equipment.

And… that's it.

Circus has learned to accept that even Chaos can't decide what's popular. Chaos can only throw things at the wall and hope they stick. 'Stunmatch' is a favorite for a reason: it's simple, it's realistic, it's fun.

So Circus spices it up in other ways.

The current Stunmatch iteration, for example, is really sticking to the wall. It's extremely popular, and not just because it solved the long-standing complaints against 'campers' – fighters who stay in one place the entire time and drag out Stunmatches far longer than they should go. Even Circus hates their strategy (staying in one place isn't very Chaotic), and Circus tried various methods of dealing with them in the past, like moving map geometry, but then the campers complained that their strategy was being unfairly targeted. That is, until this most recent idea.

As the fight progresses, the arena gets smaller and smaller, with 'random' center points so that ponies can't just go to the arena's geographical center and camp there. Most maps also have low ceilings; good for flying away in a pinch, but it always risks the danger of giving away your location, and in a free-for-all, that's a bad idea. The most common method of travel is by hoof, paw, or claw. It forces engagements, forces combatants to constantly be on the move, and forces a constant flow of battle and state of awareness – it forces chaos, not stagnation. It also forces a good deal of cardio exercise.

That's what 'Mithril' has been playing the most, always in solo queue and typically in Free-for-Alls, not team battles. It was a new experience, fighting only for himself without any concern for teammates or armies or major strategies or maneuvers. In general, you want to stay mobile, you want to stay close to cover, and you want to be on the lookout for enemies. He's come to learn that 'game sense' is pretty important for actually winning – knowing where to be and where not to be at any given moment. It was also doing wonders for his reaction speed, magical strength, and personal battle prowess, which is what he would be needing in his upcoming debut.

And even though some of that recently-acquired experience won't translate to his human body, he'll have his mentor's wordless magic lessons to rely on.

Who'd have thought such an impressive feat of magic would amount to nothing more complicated than 'speak the words in your mind, not out loud'. To cast spells wordlessly, you '''simply''' cast aside the 'crutches' of vocal cords, lips, and ears.

It's surprisingly difficult, even for the easiest spells. It was almost maddening at first to puzzle out where his 'mental articulation' was going wrong. Was he mentally mispronouncing it? Were the syllables not spaced properly? Were their durations off, like when he and Hermione were experimenting with the Oogely Boogely spell so long ago? Is the mental incantation not aligning with the wand gestures at the proper times?

When you are not speaking spells aloud, these questions become arduous to answer accurately.

But while wordless magic is much harder than it might seem when you first hear how it's done, it's much easier than the other wordless method.

Until a month and a half ago, Harry has been learning wordless magic the hard way, i.e. the way that was wordless and wandless: cast a spell so many times that your body gets an instinctual feel for the shape of the magic. Eventually, long after the point that you can cast it without even thinking about it, you find that you can ditch the wand. You spend a hundred sum hours casting Somnium, which Harry once did, and by the end you can do it wandlessly and wordlessly.

It's why, for example, Professor McGonagall is so good at wandless 'teacher' magic – grading papers, writing papers, erasing text on papers, organizing papers, erasing the chalk/whiteboard, and of course her own subject matter of Transfiguration. Learning wandless magic by beating the magic into your bones through a hundred collective hours of practice on a single spell is the hard way to do silent magic.

Learning to do wordless magic the easy way isn't like that at all; it only takes a few days per spell, at least for the easily-articulated ones. The 'easy' way, unfortunately, does not allow you to ditch the wand, and it's not even all that easy, but it is a step up from normal casting. You can think faster than you can talk, after all, so your spellcasting has the potential to speed up dramatically.

Key word: 'potential'. It's not a guarantee. You need the mental discipline for it. And a healthy dose of self-criticism, self-discipline, and self-awareness. Speaking spells within your mind and making the wand gestures at the appropriate times may be simple, but it's not trivial, and it's not a cakewalk. Speeding up the articulation and the gesturing without making any mistakes is even less of a cakewalk. And if you make a mistake with your mental articulation, there's the same potential for misfire as if you make a mistake with spoken articulation. He'd tested it with the glowing bat spell, which (a) he knew for a fact was relatively safe if you messed it up, and (b) was easily-articulated enough to have the first successful failure (a bat missing a wing) happen within the first three hours.

Put all of this together, and you have the reason why wordless magic is basically never discovered by accident. It's simply too difficult. Using just your brain for articulation for the very first time is like using your brain for Transfiguration for the first time. Unless you're Hermione Granger, you're not going to get close on your first day. If you see a wizard who can cast wordlessly, it's almost guaranteed that they were told of the underlying principles by someone else. There's also typically a power drop when you first start using wordless magic because of split attention – it's not the easiest to focus on power when you're so focused on even casting it in the first place.

But despite all this, Harry didn't complain. Wordless magic is what all the top wizard fighters do, and it's the next rung up on the power ladder that isn't just 'learn better spells and develop battle instincts on when to use them'.

Of course, Harry hadn’t been told all of that right away.

His private lessons for the past few months, before escaping the Mirror, had been to figure out the reason behind this instruction:

"Cast spells as powerfully as possible while uttering the incantations as quietly as possible."

It had been a third-eye opening experience. Like with ambidextrous casting, it literally forced his brain to think about and feel magic in a new way. It made him realize that, in the past, whenever he cast a spell with more power than usual, he would usually say the words louder than usual. But that realization wasn't exactly what his mentor had been looking for, and Harry had decided not to ask for any hints this time.

Once he had guessed the next step on his own a few months later, it took a day's work to produce his first successful wordless spell: a simple Lumos. He'd chosen it because it required no wand gestures and it was easy to pronounce.

And it had still taken him a day.

Upon his success, that's when Professor Riddle told him all those things about mental articulation and speed and top duelers and the power ladder.

Before the lesson, Harry hadn't been expecting wordless magic to be so… obvious and intuitive. He really hadn't been expecting to learn it this young either.

During the lesson, he had tried silent articulation on a whim a few times, but gave it up when nothing was happening. He could cast the Patronus Charm wordlessly by simply feeling the happiness strong enough, and he thought other wordless magics would have tricks like that, something different for each spell, but no.

The Patronus Charm is an outlier. According to the books he'd read two Januarys ago, the spell can come out in times of great emotion, without words or gestures, but such cases are so rare that they are rumored to be tall tales. As far as every scholar knows, no wizard has ever succeeded in casually casting a Patronus wordlessly (i.e. using the mental articulation trick). Same with the Killing Curse, no wordless castings under 'normal' circumstances.

Harry had gotten used to the idea that magic is strange and esoteric, and he'd also gotten used to the idea that wordless and wandless magic would be years away. Until he was trusted with ancient lore at least. But both can apparently be learned much sooner.

What he's been learning over the past year is how normal wizards go about wordless and wandless magic without access to ancient lore, and he now understands why most 'normal' wizards don't bother. The learning process is tedious, monotonous, time-consuming, frustrating, boring, and difficult. Like going to the gym and doing the exact same exercises each week- no, each day. But the results can sure be worth it, also like going to the gym.

He's now able to reliably cast a few combat spells wordlessly, accurately, and in the heat of battle: Lagan, the shield-breaker, Ventus, the 'reposition my enemy' spell (remembered from the Weasley twins), Reventus, the 'blow my enemy towards me' spell, and Stupefy, the stunner.

(Reventus is a spell that, by pure and utter cosmic luck, Harry 'invented', in that he asked Riddle if a reverse wind spell existed, like 'reventus' or something, and Riddle had stared at him for a few moments, then said "Give me a few days, and it will. And did you happen to read any books on spell creation? No? Then don't suggest any more modified incantations again until you have.")

The short list of spells he'd learned wordlessly all have in common a certain simplicity of pronunciation, gentleness of gestures, and usefulness of utility.

He wouldn't be wordlessly casting 'Wingardium Leviosa' any time soon, but he didn't need to. He also didn't need to cast Protego wordlessly; he could cast it once and maintain it for the rest of the fight like everypony and everywizard else.

Perhaps more importantly, he has two aces up his sleeve.

1. He can still cast Somnium wandlessly. Like riding a broomstick, learning a spell to the point of wandlessness isn't something you forget once you learn how to do it in the first place.

2. He can now cast Accio wandlessly as well. Upon his mentor's recommendation, that was the second spell he should, and did, beat into his bones.

If your opponent sends your wand flying with Expeliarmus, simply Accio it back to your hand. Then Accio their wand from their hand for good measure. Although that will stop working even before he graduates Hogwarts; competent sixth and seventh year fighters know how to secure their wands against Accio. Competent fighters in general know how to keep their wands in their hands unless the Disarming Charm lands, which nobody can counter once it connects, no matter how good their grip. That's why most auror-level shields include the wand within the shield, with a built-in clause that allows their own spells to pass through.

Harry had asked why he couldn't just use 'Emergus' on his airborne wand once Expelliarmus connects, since he would know his wand's location at that point.

After a practical demonstration, Harry saw the problem. As Harry watched his wand fly around in the air, unable to summon it, his mentor explained that Accio is a lot more practical than trying to target an Emergus, which doesn't work well when your wand is in motion. Or rather, it can work, but it takes practice. It would probably take as many hours as learning how to do Accio wandlessly, and Accio has a wider range of applications, so it was the better choice.

With all that going for him, plus a few mock spars with 'Riddle Tome', Harry-in-human-form finally felt ready for combat against ponies. On a magical and strategic level. And just in time for humanity's debut to Equestria, which is an hour away. He's looking forward to it, but the only problem, and it isn't a real problem, but he still feels like it matters, is that he has no idea how to cover up his identity.

When wizards eventually start training here, they'll be able to see records of past games. Not to mention the 'dead' Death Eaters that are somewhere in Equestria, who might see his debut as it happens. These battles are sometimes nationally televised. (And hadn't that been a surprise, learning that Riddle had innovated and encouraged the spread of parchment screens across Equestria, like muggle TVs.)

There's also a room in Circus dedicated to showing cool/interesting/funny events, past and present, and it's one of the most popular rooms in Circus. If Harry lands himself in one of those broadcasts… well, he doesn't need to cover up his identity, but he would prefer to hide his name and face, in case he goes down in the Circus hall of fame/infamy.

The obvious solution to this problem is to use 'Circus Tickets'.

Like at an arcade, they can be exchanged for various prizes, some of which are cosmetic…

Actually, now that he's browsing them, they all seem to be cosmetic.

Sorting by popularity, the 'uniform guard' enchantment seems to be a common choice, probably because it's a dual purchase. It can make you look like a royal guard, day or night, when you fight (although there's a warning that reads Note: Armor is not made with real mithril and does not deflect spells).

In the same vein, there's a general warning for all ticket purchases that they don't impact gameplay, and they are always disabled outside of Circus's influence. If Harry had to guess, it was to prevent mischief-makers from masquerading as guards or whatever else they can be made by Circus to look like.

Other popular options seem to be fur colour changes, mane colour/styling, and even cutie mark appearance alterations.

Non-ponies can do this too. Dragons can get different scale colours, Griffons different feather colours, and 'Changelings' different chitin and wing and eye colours.

When sorting by ticket price, the crème-de-la-crème was, unsurprisingly, the Alicorn mane enchantment. It doesn't turn you into an actual alicorn. It doesn't give you a horn or wings or earth pony strength. The enchantment isn't even permanent, lasting only when the helmet is worn within Circus, according to the all-caps disclaimer. But it does give you an ethereal mane, which is why it costs 2,000 Circus Tickets – far more than anything else. Strangely enough, it works on non-ponies too. In the wider atrium, he once saw a dragon with fire in place of spine scales and smoke coming from more places than its snout. It was pretty cool.

He had thought, after seeing a few ethereal manes and inquiring into the situation, that 'Mithril' might not have needed the mundane mane spell after all. At least, not when he was within Circus's borders. 'Going natural' wouldn't have informed Equestria that there was a new ascension.

That had been his initial assumption. Then he asked around and realized that it would have still drawn unwanted attention. 'Mithril' had gathered plenty of intelligence, from conversations, research, or just stumbling across it. When you see somepony with an ethereal mane, you can guess that they've spent at least a few thousand hours playing games at Circus.

Tickets are typically earned by playing Circus games. Ponies who play long enough to earn the ethereal mane are decent fighters, and him being a complete newbie would have raised eyebrows and questions about how he got his mane.

Even after a month and a half, 'Mithril' doesn't have enough tickets for a major purchase, though he is close.

He does, however, already have 2,000 tickets in his human account, which might be enough for what he has in mind. If the ticket options satisfy his current, human needs...

...which they don't seem to be doing, on further inspection. Half of the ticket rewards don't even work for humans in the first place (the 'preview' option returned 'error') and the rest don't cover his face. He didn't need his skin to be blue, he needed a mask, and none of the clothing options worked.

If this is how it's going to be like, he might as well just… you know what, that actually might work.

"Hey, Circus," Harry said out loud. "You there?"

"Always." A Draconequus appeared at his side. "I'm always here because I am here. Though for future reference I'm not at your beck and call no matter how much you help me. That said, what'cha want?"

"Can I blow all of my tickets on a special request?"

"What kind of special request?" asked the Draconequus. The creature pinched Harry's cheek. "You can block your brain, you early bloomer you, so you'll have to say it out loud."

"You can read my mind if I lower my Occlumency shields?" Harry asked, deciding not to be bothered by the lack of respect for boundaries.

"Well, I won't know until you give it a shot," said the avatar of Chaos. "Nopony who has 'em ever drops 'em."

"In that case," said Harry, remembering a certain moment of yesterday's outing to the movies as solidly as possible, then adjusting his shield of Perfect Occlumency to actually be the same as his own mind, just without any sensitive information, "I want to look and sound like this. You see it?"

"Oh, I see it," said Circus, a slow grin creeping across his face. "And hear it. Nice music."

"I don't want the outfit to get in my way, though," said Harry. "Let's see… that means a face mask that's transparent from the inside, just like the unicorn helmets already are, a cooling charm so I don't get hot, and a non-trip cape. I can do the weapon myself. Oh, and I'll need a voice charm. Think you can manage?

"Love the idea, and I could snap it up for you in a jiffy, but I'm not sure it'd be fair. Normally I'd say if you want a no-trip cape, or a cooling charm, you'd need to do the enchantments yourself after the battle starts. I can do the physical outfit no problem, that'll be 1,000 tickets since it's on par with the other top tiers, and maybe I could do the voice charm for you… I might even turn voice charms into a regular reward, actually… hm… anyway, I've got a 'no-ticket-to-win-it' policy. Your 'special request' is cutting it pretty close to giving you an edge. Tickets aren't supposed to give in-game advantages. If anything, they're supposed to draw more attention and put a target on your back, which makes things more difficult for you; nopony underestimates an ethereal mane, after all. That's why the very best go for a plain look. But anyway, it wouldn't be fair to the other players if I gave you some of the enchantments you're asking for."

"I say it's not fair that ponies can wear cool-looking capes without worrying about tripping while I can't. And it's really not fair that dragons have magic-proof scales."

"Can't do a thing about biology," Circus said with a shrug. "Unicorns have the most magic, pegasi and griffons and thestrals are naturals in the air, earth ponies have endurance, dragons don't, the list goes on. And you have… what do you have?"

"A brain," said Harry.

"Hm… that is a bit unfair. Tell you what. A temperature charm isn't an advantage as long as I charm it to be the same temperature as outside. And now that you've brought it to my explicit, self-aware attention – thanks for that, by the way – some ticket outfits are probably unpopular because they're a little impractical. I'll add no-trip and ease-of-movement magic to all my other outfits. That way you won't have a special advantage, and everypony else might finally start using my wider selection. Win-win."

"Like the jester outfit?"

"And the fat suit," said Circus with a wistful sigh.

"So my special request is doable?"

A snap of the creature's fingers brought a mirror in front of Harry, and another snap clothed him in a comfortable costume.

With his mental image no longer needed, Harry re-established his typical false personality while he admired his reflection.

"Oof," said Circus. "Felt a dip there. Maybe that brain is a big advantage after all."

That remark drew Harry's attention away from his own enticing appearance. "Don't you have a bunch of brainpower from everyone else?" he asked. "Why would you feel a dip from a single loss? And wouldn't you have noticed the… I don't know, the 'jump' when I first lowered my shields earlier?"

"Easier to notice a dip than a jump," said Circus. "And I'm not as smart as everybody put together. That would be insane. It's more like, I'm only as smart as the smartest dude or dudette in the tent. My main borrow is always one pony or person at a time." She pinched Harry's cheek, again in a non-painful way. "I use all the other brainpower for normal things that normal ponies can do; that's how the floating heads are powered, and the screens are managed, and et cete-yadda-blah. But for my main brain, I go for the smartest. Whatever you're doing to your mind, it's only letting me think as fast as a bit-a-bunch university student."

"Bit-a-bunch?" Harry echoed. "Oh. I get it. We say dime-a-dozen." He looked down to the translation charm he was wearing. "I wonder why it didn't translate all the way."

"Translate?"

"You know, the Gift of Comprehension?"

"The gift of what?"

It developed that Riddle Tome never told Circus about that. It also developed that it would probably take Circus a few days to implement a Circus-wide spell that grants visiting humans and other non-equinoids the Gift of Comprehension for the duration of their stay beneath his canvas. No, Circus can't just 'scale up' Harry's example necklace. Besides, that would be cheating. Circus wants to figure it out on her own.

"And wondering about your wonderings," said Circus, "it probably would have translated all the way if you weren't the type to figure it out from there."

"What?" asked Harry, who had forgotten about that thanks to the digression.

"Anyhoo," Circus went on, "if you're gonna keep your brain at university level I'm switching my main borrow to somepony else again."

Harry blinked, consciously acknowledged he was dealing with a Pinkie-Pie equivalent, and just started going with the flow.

"Hm…" said Harry. "Well, my standard pretense is a boring, straight-A student, so I guess that makes sense. Yeah, I'm keeping my pretense up. Does that mean the real me is the smartest in the stadium right now?" Was it egotistical for him to think that it was basically what he would have expected?

"Not necessarily," said Circus. "There are a few others who can protect their minds and prevent me from borrowing however smart they really are. But the real you is up there. I'd say you're around Twilight Sparkle's shielded level… maybe a bit lower for raw brainpower, but definitely higher for ingrained skepticism."

"Am I Riddle Tome level?" asked Harry.

"Your normal block is a little dumber than his block. I've never seen his real, so I don't know."

Darn. That probably means the real him is a little dumber than the real Riddle. Well, he was expecting that too.

"Besides, I know someone who's way smarter than all of you, so don't get a big head. Your first game is in thirty minutes," said Circus. "I'll match you based on how much magic you have, not your age. That'll put you with the eleven-and-twelve-year-old ponies."

"Better than the fifteen-and-sixteen-year-olds," he grumbled.

As a magically powerful Alicorn, 'Mithril' had been put in the higher age bracket for his placement matches. As Circus just said, he estimates your initial placement based on magical strength, not age.

Mithril had lost all of his placement matches fairly quickly.

When it's standard practice for everyone else to have a powerful shield at all times, and you're not expecting it the first time, and you haven’t gotten accustomed to using full-strength shield-breakers at a moment's notice, it's kind of impossible to even beat a single opponent.

With any luck, the reverse would happen this time, now that he's in a lower bracket. He might even be able to pull out a win if he encounters a dragon. The Charm of the Most Ancient Blade supposedly goes through dragon scales. It also draws on raw magical might, so it should be able to consistently beat the strongest shields of twelve-year-old ponies if he uses his elder wand.

It would be best if he could 'unsheathe' his lightsaber wordlessly, but the incantation was definitely too complicated…

"Circus, one last request. That device on the chest is canonically a modulator for the mask. Can you put a button on it that mutes and unmutes my voice if I press it?"

That way, others would only hear him say the words he wanted them to hear.

"Can, but won't," said Circus. "Fairness, remember? I'll let ya turn off the breathing sounds, but mute your voice yourself."

"Okay, scratch my request. I'll think of something…"

And even as he said the words, he did think of something.

He had already trained himself to speak incantations quietly, even when exerting great amounts of magic. He had practiced that for months before finally seeing the insight to wordless magic.

Meaning that if Harry is just trying to prevent his opponents from hearing his incantation, he doesn't need full-on wordless magic. He only needs to cast the blade as quietly as a whisper. After that, he can just maintain it until he wins…

---

"We're in the home stretch, but stay alert," whispered 'Madam Chaos' to the pony she was helping. "Don't give away your position by talking too loudly. And keep an ear out for noise. You always want the element of surprise."

"Um…" said 'AwesomeStallion109'. Even his name screamed 'I'm new to this'. "Okay."

"You're doing fine," she whispered. "We're in the final four. Just pay attention. The easiest way to lose is to lower your guard. Never lose focus."

"Okay," said the shy earth pony colt.

She tried to give him her best friendly smile. They're always like this. Bragging and confident until their first few matches, then humbled by the reality of the battles. This is probably his fourth or fifth qualifier. Naturally, placement matches are done in the unranked section. No, she doesn't know how Circus calculates a starting rank from that, or why they insist that ponies start in the unranked free-for-alls.

Even still, 'Madam Chaos' loves unranked free-for-alls.

She's reached the point in ranked matches where she's up against ponies who are much older. She's always at a disadvantage. Everyequus else is magically stronger – it's not like her ethereal mane is real. One mistake and she's done, but others can make tons of mistakes before they go down. It takes a bunch of focus and effort to overcome a single opponent if she meets them head-on, and there's only so much she can do to not meet them head-on. Surprise attacks are getting much harder to do. It's only a matter of time before she gets to a point where they stop working altogether, and then she's really got to up her raw battle skills. Being matched with fifteen-and-sixteen-year-olds as a recently-turned-eleven-year-old is hard, Even with the best tutor in the world.

That's why she likes to slum it in the unranked matches. In this arena, she's always put with ponies and changelings and griffons her own age. She can have fun without completely throwing the match. With shields honed by hundreds of hours of difficult fighting, she doesn't really have to worry about surprise attacks. It would take a coordinated team to break her shields at this level. Or another slummer.

Which makes it extra fun to be a 'friendly' the entire match – somepony who doesn't actually fight, but helps her opponents at random. And whenever she sees a beginner who's really struggling, she can help them get the 'winner winner lettuce dinner'. (Or fish dinner for griffons, or crystal dinner for dragons, though dragons usually didn't need help to win, especially in the younger brackets).

Circus liked her antics so much that he gave her bonus tickets on some of the funnier times. Then he stopped liking it when she tried to exploit it for extra tickets.

So now she helps newbies because she wants to, not for tickets. She was doing that at the start, and she's doing it again, and she learned an important lesson along the way: Don't try to exploit Circus's generosity. Just have fun, and he'll have fun too.

"Hey," said 'AwesomeStallion109'. "I hear something!"

"Quiet," she whispered sternly. "I hear it too. Let's duck behind this bush. I'll cast a darkness spell to hide us."

It wasn't as impressive as invisibility, or even disillusionment, but it's something she can actually cast with her own power. It still fools ponies all the way up through the adult levels, so long as nopony casts Equinum Revelio.

"Remember," she whispered when they were hidden. "Surprise attack. And not against me. Yet."

"Uh…"

"Shh. They're coming."

From around a hill close to the edge of the arena, an earth pony / unicorn (you couldn't tell which with the helmet, but you could tell that they didn't have wings) was sprinting at a speed that you don't usually see outside of active combat or emergencies.

"HELP!" The pony shouted. "SOMEPONY! HELP- AHH!"

From their hidden vantage point, they watched the pony get swept off his hooves. He flew- no, he was magically dragged through the air… or was that a wind spell? The grass was blowing beneath his hooves... Well, whatever it was, the pony quickly disappeared behind the hill, followed by a bzzzt sound.

Then silence.

Then…

"Hooooh, haaaah. Hooooh, haaaah."

From around the same hill, a non-pony emerged.

'Madam Chaos' couldn't believe her eyes. She saw, right there in a black-clad hand, a wand with the Charm of the Most Ancient Blade. The wand wasn't surprising; Minotaur and Diamond Dogs and Centaur have been learning how to use them since before she was born.

But as far as she knew, nopony in Equestria was supposed to know about the Charm of the Most Ancient Blade. Not because it was some big secret, even if it kind-of is, but because of how impractical it was. It's powerful and cool-looking, sure, but it takes a bunch of magic and it's melee range, so-

"What do we do now?" asked the colt she'd been helping. He sounded utterly terrified.

She wasn't scared herself, but she didn't blame him. The red glowing blade and the black costume, the cape, the in-equine mask that almost looked like a skull… everything about this opponent screamed 'scary'. But that's all looks. Fight enough Circus battles against opponents with high ticket counts, and you get desensitized to scary looks.

The actually bad news is that this opponent already has a blue shield around its body, as if it was used to fighting in upper divisions like she was.

"Surprise attack," she whispered. "But it might not work. Even if one of us acts as a diversion, we'll have to break the shield…"

For the briefest of moments, the… breathing? The breathing paused, and immediately after it did, her darkness spell unraveled, as is if the Equinum Revelio charm had just been cast.

"Change of plan," she said as the black mask focused squarely on their position. "We fight head-on."

The figure began walking at a calm pace towards the two of them, still making that mechanical hooooh, haaaah sound.

"Um…" said the colt, sounding incredibly scared.

"Don't worry," she said, raising a shield of her own. "Let me do the fighting. Just run around and-"

'AwesomeStallion109' flew from in front of her with a sudden gust of wind and a screamed "AAAAAAAAAaaaaah!"

That's when she noticed the biped holding a second wand, aimed directly at the flying, flailing form of 'AwesmeStallion109'.

She was forced to watch as the Most Ancient Blade slashed straight down his middle, leaving a bright red line where it had struck.

Thankfully it didn't bisect him. It must be on the stun setting.

She breathed a small sigh of relief as his body did not teleport away. If he had been hurt, it would have happened instantly. When ponies aren't badly hurt, their bodies stick around for a while in case someone wants to fake being hit.

'Madam Chaos' got into a battle stance, lowering her head slightly to position her horn. It was down to the last two. Should she get airborne? Normally she doesn't fight head-on, but she was a little angry at what she'd just seen. Surprise attacks might be the name of the game, but 'Awesomstallion109' hadn't deserved that.

When slumming it, she always did her best to fight ponies at their level, not hers. She could beat everypony here without much effort, but that's just bullying. If you're good, winning is for ranked fights. Doing that here is mean.

This creature is going down.

"Where'd you learn that charm?" she asked, slowly moving from her position as the shrinking arena pushed her closer to her opponent, who stood dead-center.

The creature didn't answer. It just continued making those breathing sounds.

"What are you?" she asked. "Minotaur? Diamond Dog?" Although its proportions...

Again, no response. Just breathing.

"Fine," she said. "Fair warning, I normally fight teenagers."

(If the one across from her had been able to understand her, he might have replied with, "What a coincidence. So do I." But Circus was currently in possession of the translation necklace, since it was an outside magical item, and they had not yet developed a Comprehension spell of their own. For now, since Harry couldn't understand the pony across from him anyway, he decided to just interrupt what she said next.)

"Can you even hear what I'm -ah!"

Her brief surprise was almost her downfall, but she'd been careful to pay attention, even as she talked. A green arc shot from his second wand without any words preceding it, colliding with her shield and tearing it to shreds. The magical strain of maintaining it for so long had been bad enough, but the backlash from losing it almost made her lose focus.

She was instantly on the move, air-bucking to avoid a follow-up attack. She didn't have much room to maneuver with the shrinking arena, and she couldn't get too close to that blade, but she shot a stunner his way while she repositioned. The creature started its dodge as soon as her horn began to glow. She had to admit, they had some experience.

But her enemy didn't go on the counter offensive, they just continued leveling their wand on her as she landed from her projectile motion. Why weren't they…?

In a flash of intuition, she erected a simple barrier that wouldn't stop a full stunner, but would stop weaker attacks.

Her intuition was right. Something impacted her barrier – a spell so weak it was naked to the eye.

"Well done," complimented the creature in a deep, scary voice. "You are strong in the Force."

(She could still understand him, of course.)

'The Force'? she thought. What the heck is that?

"But you don't know the power of the Dark Side!"

And, like the two ponies before her, she found herself being pulled towards the creature – a combination of wind first, then magical pulling, she finally realized. It was only because she was half-expecting it that she managed a last-second air-buck to avoid the swipe of the stunning blade. She was hoping the air-buck would push the creature back, but its blue shield protected it from the wind.

Then its left wand twitched, and her eyes widened, but she couldn't react in time. Not at this range.

---

"Winner winner beef steak dinner!" said the screen to the audience – the gaping, Circus-wide audience, which only grew more horrified at the 'beef steak' line.

Circus had been slowly having more and more of the screens within herself show the battle of the new creature. By the time it was down to the final two, the battle was being shown on every screen that wasn't being used for administrative or other set purposes.

As if to combat the inevitable claims of unfairness, half the screens immediately showed a magical scan of the player who had chosen the name 'Darth Vader' while the other half showed the standard display of after-battle statistics.

The magical scan showed the silhouette of a species never seen before in any Circus battle. The colors and numbers clearly displayed a power level of a pony aged 11-12, even though the creature's age was 13, implying to the most astute watchers that the species is magically weaker than ponies. At the very least, it had been placed in the correct bracket for its qualifier.

A new species had found its way to Equestria. It is menacing. It is vicious. It is merciless. It's on 'the Dark Side'. And it eats cows.

And this one is only age 13. What would an adult be like?

---

"Well done, Mr. Potter," said Riddle Tome, producing a smoothie. "You have given us an excellent debut."

"Thanks," said Harry, accepting the reward. "I was afraid the new you would say I went too far."

"Not quite. Twilight and Celestia might think that you have. But Luna knows and approves, for equinoids must eventually learn that your average human is comparatively lacking in the departments of ethics and empathy, in practice if not in words, and I shall explain to my fellow Alicorns that I am attempting to accelerate that learning process in a harmless manner. We'll hold off on your second qualifier until I can acquire your heroic opposition. It's interesting, though…"

"What is?"

"Hm... when it becomes relevant, I'll tell you. If you would excuse me, I'm needed elsewhere. Feel free to take the rest of the day for yourself."

That was a rare reward indeed. Harry made the most of it by catching up on some reading at home.

Comments

[Fireeaters]

Lmao, he got the first darth vader skin

[keybounce]

Ok ... this is a powerful young pegasus, who knows about ancient blade, and does NOT know about star wars.

So first question for us to ponder: Where could this pegasus have learned of the ancient blade?

[ColtKit Productions]

Did Riddle take another apprentice, while trapped in Equestria? Or maybe Quirrel took one...

That's the only way I can think this Pegasus knows so much, but doesn't know who Dark Vader is.

She reminded me a lot of Harry, himself... so is she maybe Tom Riddle's DAUGHTER!!! (Asexuals can still have sex, and some do strictly for reproduction).

[Greenhorn]

"But you don't know the power of the Dark Side!"

Hope it won't leave a wrong impression of the humanity.

[TheGreatFox]

11499053
11499467
11517134
It's all coming together.

Continuing the hypothesis from chapter 61:
Madam Chaos is 11 years old, the same age as the mystery girl (likely Autumn Query) who just got her hogwarts letter, and I consider it likely they are the same person.

Her personality and knowledge are consistent with what I would expect from someone being raised by Luna and redeemed Riddle in Equestria. She knows the lightsaber charm, and also knows almost nobody in Equestria know it, but doesn't know Star Wars. And Riddle's actions at the end of this chapter also point to a connection between them. The name Madam Chaos may well have been inspired by stories Riddle told her about Harry/General Chaos.

The "second place" comment from chapter 61 might refer to how Riddle mentions he also got an EE+ in defense class in HPMOR chapter 103, the second highest grade. (Incidentally, that was Riddle "marking" Harry as his equal.)

Scootaloo mentions in chapter 60 that unlike "stoners" (those that got immortality via philo stone), Alicorns can have kids at any age. So Luna at least could have. Whether she would is another question, but we didn't see any pony-turned-human on the theater trip that it could have been instead, so occam's razor suggests it's Luna.

[MLfan]

Hello again, daughter of Riddle and Luna. Sorry about Riddle and Circus conspiring to pit you against Harry, they're just mean like that. Don't worry, you'll have your chance one day! Really, though, I'm interested to see more from the character. She's been great so far, and I have the feeling she's going to grow into a main character over time.

On an unrelated note, wonder who the one "smarter by far" than HJPEV is. Doubt it's mystery girl, since she's in the tent when Harry gave Circus the 'boost.' Yes, occlumency barriers are a thing, but she also doesn't see 'leagues smarter' than him. Probably one of the immortals, then. Honestly, though, Harry is definitely overestimating himself lol. Is he a supergenuis? Of course. But he is leagues beneath Riddle, and he will be until he grows up. Riddle's occlumency barriers are not a reflection of his true intelligence. Ah, Harry, when will you learn?

[Booster Spice]

But for my main brain, I go for the smartest.

Dr Brain Mane is in da haus?

At least the musicll be Rockin.

Hermiones going to end up as Riply?

Which one, the cat, or the flood?

[mishun]

You can think faster than you can talk, after all, so your spellcasting has the potential to speed up dramatically.

I remember seeing long time ago a paper that tied how fast you can say a few digits directly to how may you can remember. And subvocalization is a thing.

[Skulltan]

He's now able to reliably cast a few combat spells wordlessly, accurately, and in the heat of battle: Lagan, the shield-breaker,

The spell is written "Lagann" in HPMOR. Also, now that I'm writing this, I'm remembering that Stupefy was misspelled as Stupify at some point, though I don't remember where. I'll edit this comment if I remember.

Edit: I found it in chapter 60:

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

"Expecto Patronum. Stupify-"

[Poparakelis]

Always with a plan

[Black--Soul]

Priceless
Epic, fear and uncertainty is indeed a powerful ally

Damn this chapter was extreamly entertaining.
Grinning from ear to ear ♤