2 Caecum Initium

That night, when Rare had finally finished all of her kitchen duties and been dismissed until morning, she raced up the stairs, the prohibited spellbook held close to her chest lest someone see her with it. The stairs to her hidden bed felt far longer than usual, and each click of hoof on stone brought with it a tinge of fear that someone might discover her. When she came to the top of the stairs, she leapt the barrels that hid her small “room” from sight and immediately hid the book under the hay of her mattress. Breathing heavily, Rare took a few long minutes to calm down as well as to make sure she had not been followed.

Once she was reasonably sure that she would be undisturbed for the night, Rare could not help but slide the book out to look at it. The thick tome was bound in crudely preserved black leather. Blackened iron hinges supported its thick spine and formed a book-length clasp to hold the book shut. Dull-red arcane runes that Rare could not read were inked into its spine. The same red faded ink was used for a sigil on the front of the book, a large circle filled lines that formed with a five-pointed star overlaid with other carefully drawn lines, a few of which ended in small circles. Taking a deep breath, Rare opened the clasp with her hoof, carefully opened the cover, and sighed in relief as she discovered the pages had been written with words she could read.

I think I can read for a little while. Unfortunately for Rare, this meant she would have to quietly sound out each word. Hopefully, no one would hear her whispers echoing off the walls. “To understand magic, one must first understand its sources. While there are many sources, a warlock need only concern himself with the most potent and abundant ones. The most abundant magic comes from within one’s self as a manifestation of will and base emotions such as hatred, joy, and fear. A far more powerful source of magical power is another's emotions towards one’s self. With this source, the stronger the emotion, the more magic the warlock has available to channel. Equally important is cultivating positive or negative emotions. Fear, respect, and love are all potent sources, but it is important to note that true friendship appears to possess more power but is far harder to earn. However it is earned, a warlock must achieve a sizable pool of magical energy, preferably of a potent nature. Fortunately, basic spells can be cast using only one’s personal power.”

Rare stopped reading for a moment to think. There isn’t much I can use in this book then. No one feels anything towards me. There isn’t a single person here I could make friends with, since slaves don’t talk to each other. As for making someone respect me… Yeah, right. Rare frowned, her ears drooping in sadness. Unless I can find something small in here that I can do… No! There has to be something in here I can use. I’ll know it when I see it. Determined to find some way she could seize even the smallest bit of control over her life, Rare read until her eyes began to droop.

Sleepily, she pushed the book aside to lay down, yawning as she mumbled, “A friend would be nice, even if they didn’t boost my magic.”

A moment later, as she fell asleep with the open book beside her, a dim red light lit up Rare’s bed. With a metallic creak the spellbook slowly closed, the sigil on its face washing the entire area in crimson light.

“It has been a long time since one of your blood last touched my grimoire,” a raspy voice said, the sigils’ lines twisting and pulsing as the voice spoke. “A long time even for me. I thank you for the window into your world.”

The red light slowly spread outwards from the book, seeping through cracks in the tower roof. After a few seconds, the voice chuckled, a horrible sound to which Rare began to toss and turn in her sleep. “They are all dead, save the useless cripple. How joyous. Arranging his death should be quite simple. in fact… I think I’ll have you do it. What do you say, mortal, will you kill the last of my jailors for some magical might and a friend?”

Rare groaned, squirming atop her hay bed. The red glow shrank back into the tower, swirling around her slowly. “Of course you will. He is nothing to you. Why, you don’t even know he exists,” the voice smugly rasped.

“I will even search all the worlds to find you the perfect friend. Freedom after countless eons and the return of one’s rule deserves a valuable reward, as I am sure you can agree.” The red glow slowly shrank back, returning to the book’s cover, where it quickly shifted between countless magic circles as the light continued to fade. As the glow almost vanished completely, the voice spoke again. “There, she will do. I don’t even have to waste power bringing her across the void; another is working to trick her into coming here already. I will guide her here when she crosses the void between worlds, fulfilling my side of our bargain. Now to ensure you do not forget to do your part.”

A crimson spark leapt from the book and struck Rare’s horn, a dull red glow washing over it as the horn grew a few inches longer, curving back towards her tail ever so slightly. “The pact is sealed,” the voice whispered faintly as the glow left the book entirely, leaving it as seemingly mundane as it had been before.

~~

Worlds away from Equestria on the same day Rare unknowingly entered a pact, the person whom the voice had referenced lay asleep in her bed. The first rays of the sun moved through the gaps in the blinds, the pattern of slits barely illuminating the large bedroom. A laptop’s glowing screen added just enough light to the room to see an assortment of furniture, most notably a loft bed. The desk beneath the elevated bed was covered in an assortment of gutted electronics, a soldering station, 3D printer, a few text books, and an older model of smart phone.

“Good morning, Charlotte,” an electronic voice greeted as its screen lit up. “The time is 5:30 AM. It is currently sixty-eight degrees. You requested I wake you early for your experiment today.”

Atop the bed, Charlotte groaned sleepily, shifting under the covers in an attempt to ignore whatever that sound had been. Rolling over onto her face, long brown hair spread over her bed as she groggily stared into her pillow for a few more minutes.

“It is 5:34 AM. Are you getting up this morning, sir?” The voice asked, managing a slight tone of concern in its feminine sound.

“Five more minutes, Jaesa…” Charlotte moaned, pulling her blankets further up to try and block out more sound and light.

“That will leave you only four minutes of leeway to arrive at work, sir. Shall I unschedule the experiment?”

Charlotte blinked, sitting up quickly. “Oh crap, right!”

She quickly rolled out of bed, feet thumping to the floor as she slid down five feet, pink pajama pants and t-shirt fluttering slightly. Searching around her clothing strewn floor, she grabbed a pair of jeans, slipped them on, and rummaged around until she found her old leather sandals, slipped them onto her feet, and snatched the phone from her desk. Can’t miss checking what happens on the summer equinox, she thought, grabbing her phone and slipping it into her pants pocket. “Jaesa, tell me exactly when the sun is just over the horizon.”

“Yes, sir,” Jaesa’s voice confirmed, the sound coming from Charlotte’s pocket.

“And stop calling me ‘sir!’ I swear I programmed you to say ‘ma’am’.”

“You did. I do it just to spite you, sir.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes and moved to her dresser, opening a small wooden jewelry box that sat atop it. Inside sat two large feathers, one a pale blue and the other a grayish magenta. She had kept these two feathers safe for two years, ever since they had fallen in front of her while she had been cowering behind a trashcan as six humans and six ponies confronted that chaos daemon. She carefully took each feather in one hand, then took two pieces of a straw that were filled with clay and carefully inserted the feathers quill-first into the straws, weighting both of them with three grams of clay and plastic.

Holding the feathers tightly in one hand, she slipped on a dark-green jacket, grabbed a small tan backpack from beside her bedroom door, and with an irritated face, opened the door, stepping into the hallway of the apartment she shared with her parents. Be asleep still… she mentally begged, moving through the hallway into the living room/kitchen where–“Charlotte! You are not leaving the house dressed like that! That outfit is a walking disaster and an eyesore.”

Charlotte made a sound that was half-groan and half-growl. “I don’t have time for your fashion crap! I’m already late for work!”

Her mother put her hands on her hips as she stood up from the couch, her carefully arranged outfit slightly rumpled from what Charlotte presumed was sitting in wait to yell at her first thing in the morning. “You listen to your mother, young girl! Change! Now!”

“Sir would like me to remind you that she will be turning eighteen in a few weeks and can therefore make her own decisions,” Jaesa said, her voice not muffled enough by Charlotte’s pocket.

“Of all the useless crap your father left you, he had to leave that stupid gadget.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes and started walking toward the door. “Yeah well, she’s a better mom than you are.”

Her mother gasped, her face reddening in anger. “You get back he–“

The slam of the apartment door cut off her mom’s voice for the moment. She knew that she had six seconds before her mom wrenched the door open to scream at her some more. Sprinting down the hallway to avoid more confrontation with her mother, Charlotte ran for the stairwell and headed up. Her footsteps echoed on the concrete steps as she ran up the five flights to the roof-access door, nudging it open with her shoulder. As she stepped out onto the roof, the stink of the city air hit her like a hammer. Burnt gas, old socks, and raw meat was the best description she had for “Eu de NYC.”

Squinting towards the sunlight, Charlotte hummed. “Jeasa, how long until the sun’s in position?”

“About two minutes.”

She nodded and slipped off her backpack, walking to the eastern edge of the fourteen-story building before setting the pack down, carefully climbing over the edge, and lowering herself onto the first level of the fire escape. Fortunately, the guy who owned the apartment whose window she was in front of kept his curtains closed in the mornings. Moving as quickly she could manage without screwing up any of her setup, Charlotte clicked her phone into a custom-printed case that allowed her to snap it to the fire escape’s railing, took a small tripod from her backpack and set it up with a small dropping rig, and clicked the two clay-tipped feathers into place.

“Jaesa, start recording. Track the feathers. When I drop the feathers, film at high speed and follow their descent.”

“Sure thing, Charlotte,” the AI replied, her phone flashing its screen as the camera turned on.

Looking into the camera, Charlotte smiled, “Hey, guys! I got the pegasi feathers again today. It’s the summer solstice, so I thought I would see if we get any different results today. Cuz you know, magic, solstice.”

She shrugged as she offered a slight grin; Charlotte never really knew exactly how to do an intro to her videos. “In case you need a reminder,” she continued, “each feather weighs five grams with the clay attached. Given the mass, the properties of a feather, and the height of the drop, they should hit the ground between eight and twelve seconds. However, they typically hit after twenty-seven to thirty seconds, indicating that they possess far more air resistance then they–“

“It’s time, sir.”

“Sweet! Here we go!” She pressed the release on the dropping rig, and both feathers started slowly falling to the ground below.

As they fell, the two feathers caught the sunlight and twirled slowly. Nothing happened for a moment, then suddenly, the blue feather rippled, a rainbow of light forming a slight trail behind it as it dropped almost as if it were a prism, and the purple one shimmered and sparkled faintly. The two feathers danced, moving closer to each other until they gently brushed together. A purple spark jumped between the two, and they seemed to hover in place for an instant before slowly resuming their fall. Down and down they floated until the faint tap of the weighted tips hitting pavement signified they had touched the ground.

“Whoa…” Charlotte said with awe, “Did you see that?”

“No. Woe is me, to have eyes and yet be unable to see,” Jessa bemoaned in a dreadfully hammy sounding tone.

“Don’t ruin it.” Why did dad include all that junk poetry in her data files? “Well, I think that speaks for itself. Stop recording.” Charlotte moved with lightning speed to take down her experiment’s setup as quickly as possible before something could happen to her feathers. A moment later, pack refilled with her gear and Jaesa stashed back in her pocket, Charlotte hopped onto the ladder, sliding down each segment and hopping to the next as quickly as she could manage. It wasn’t hard; she had ran this particular test dozens of times.

She didn’t pause when her feet hit the ground. Turning as quickly as she could, Charlotte spotted the feathers midway into the alley and atop a soggy piece of cardboard. Thank god a cat didn’t pick them up this time. She thought as she scooped them up, lovingly straightening them out between her fingers only to gasp in surprise, “Jaesa! Append to file – Pegasi Feathers: During the solstice drop, the feathers reacted to each other with different visual effects before moving towards each other mid-drop and slowing the fall dramatically. Upon recovery, the feathers were warm to the touch. Further research will be required.”

“Text appended to file,” Jaesa said as Charlotte slipped a small plastic tube from her pack’s left pocket, carefully sliding the feathers inside. After the feathers were safely stored in her backpack, she turned and walked out of the alleyway, as it was time to go be miserable for eight hours. Unknown to Charlotte, once her back had turned, the water stain on the cardboard slowly shifted, the shape transforming from a random splotch into the face of an equine creature with one gnarled horn and a single antler. The eyes tracked Charlotte as she walked away. The lips grinned, then the face vanished, leaving behind only a dry scrap of cardboard.

~~

Charlotte worked at a small gas station several miles from her apartment building. The Hess station she worked at was fairly far away–far enough that she kept two tasers on her belt along with some pepper spray. The second was in case the first one ran out of juice. While nothing had ever happened to her personally, Charlotte knew it was just a matter of time. This was New York, she was a female, and any given news broadcast would show some other girl being raped, mugged, murdered, or kidnapped. So the weapons adorned her belt, even though she figured she would never be quick enough to use them in time.

However, she just might end up using them on her manager. An extra two hours on the clock… Why the hell do they even put an end time on the schedule? I never leave on time. She grumbled to herself as she swept the floors for the fifth time that day. The endless flood of customers constantly tracked dirt into the store. But that wasn’t all she had to do. No, big boss Jessica apparently thought Charlotte was actually the Flash and could super speed through sweeping the floors, mopping them, stocking the shelves, manning the second register anytime more than one customer was in the store, and keeping cooked foods fully stocked under the heating lamps at all times, all of which she was apparently to do for every second of every work day while still having time to unload any trucks that came in, organize the backroom, and clean up any messes that occurred in the storefront.

The wet, heaving sound of someone throwing up hit Charlotte’s ears like a tsunami, snapping her out of her train of thought. Turning her head with an audible groan, she spotted a middle-aged man, clearly drunk, vomiting up what she assumed was a fifth of Jack and a meal from Jack-in-the-Box all over chip isle. “Come on! Can’t you do that outside?” Charlotte moaned, leaning her broom against a Pepsi display.
“Oh no… I’m sorry, Char,” her coworker said with genuine regret.

The drunk stumbled back, giving one last heave before simply stumbling out of the store as if all he had come to do was make an offering to the porcelain god and had simply forgotten the way to the altar.

“It’s fine,” she mumbled, quickly moving for the backroom. With any luck, she could clean up the mess before Jessica emerged from her office of slacking off to yell at her to do more things more quickly. She had retrieved a mop and had just gotten it filled with hot water when, from the storefront, she heard her manager’s outraged shout.

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Hina, where is Charlotte? Get her to clean this mess up.”

“She is already on it, Kainushi,” Hina replied in a crisp, pleasant-sounding tone.

Hina was a former Japanese exchange student who was currently staying in America on a work visa. She was one of the only friends Charlotte had ever made at work and the only one that hadn’t quit or been fired. While her English was amazing, Hina enjoyed using Japanese nicknames for people. What does that even mean? Charlotte wondered as she added sanitizer to the mop bucket. I wish I spoke Japanese… Hold on, Jaesa does!

“Jaesa, translate Japanese to English. Kainushi.”

“‘Kainushi’ has several possible meanings: Buyer, owner, purchaser, or shepherd” the Ai replied.

Charlotte frowned a little bit. That hadn’t really helped. Oh well, machine translations are kinda crappy. I guess I could just ask. She sighed and wheeled the mop bucket over to the rank mess, trying not to gag as she started to mop up the amber glop.

“There you are.” Jessica huffed as she walked over, her age middle-aged face looking especially indignant. “I want this mess cleaned up in five minutes. You still need to get the shelves stocked. Oh and since Brandon is late, you will need to do his opening jobs. Get the soda fountain refilled with ice and replace any syrup bags if they are empty.”

“I have no idea how you change the syrup, are there any inst-“

“Just do the damn job!” Jessica turned abruptly and headed back for the manager’s office, grumbling under her breath.
Charlotte clenched her teeth, hand moving under her untucked workshirt to her right hip where her old X3 was holstered. Jessica was still in range, just one five-second shock and– “No… No, Charlotte, that’s a felony,” she growled under her breath, doing her best to put all of her anger into swirling the mop across the floor.

A second after the office door slammed, Hina called, “Hey, Sekushi, next time do it. I’ll delete the security footage and we can call it a heart attack.”

“God I wish!” Charlotte exclaimed. “But I’m not supposed to own one… State law and stuff. So you know, jail.”

Hina frowned. “Really? I thought you were supposed to have that second-amendment thing in this country. You know, the ‘I can own any weapon I like law’.”

Charlotte blinked. Is that what foreigners call it? “Um, well… Politicians don’t really seem to care about any of the Constitution these days, so yeah. Hell in this state, I am pretty sure that it’s illegal for you to own any weapon, like even knives.”

“Why?”

“Well, you are not a US citizen yet, right? Back when I was trying to figure out what I should use, I noticed that foreigners are not allowed to even own pocket knives.”

Hina rolled her eyes and mumbled a bit of Japanese that Charlotte was pretty sure was a rant about ‘whitey’. “Well forget that. I was already robbed once here. I’m not throwing out my tanos.”

“Yep! Same reason I’m not going to follow the ‘No you can’t own a stun gun’ law. In fact I ordered a better melee weapon the other day.”

The store’s bell dinged, and the two girls quickly stopped talking as Hina rang up a few bucks of gas for the customer, who spent a full minute calling Hina’s vibrant purple hair “faggy” before she exploded with a mixture of Japanese and English. “Kusu o taberu na! Baka kuso atama, I’m a girl! They told me Americans were idiots, but you can’t even make a sensible insult!”

The resulting fight lasted for a good five minutes until Jessica stormed out of the office, apologized to the hoodie-clad douchebag, then began an excruciating ten-minute tirade at Hina on how to treat a customer. With that “pleasant” background noise filling her ears, Charlotte managed to finish mopping up the sick, swept the floor, and had stocked the shelves with a fair amount of merchandaise when she noticed that the argument had suddenly stopped. Charlotte curiously stood up and looked towards the counter to see both women staring at the floor with embarrassed looks on their faces. What did I just miss?

“I, um, see,” the older woman awkwardly said.

“So, maybe just lay off ok?” Hina asked

“Look, I get that he called you something… Nevermind. Just… Don’t do it again,” Jessica said, biting her lip before zipping back into her office.

Hina sighed and sat down behind the counter. She spent a full minute like that before a few teens came in and attempted to buy some snacks. Hearing her coworker mumble something about needing a minute, Charlotte quickly moved behind the counter and opened the other register. “Sorry, guys, she had a pretty intense fight with the manager. I’ll help you over here.”

Once the kids were out of the store, Charlotte squatted down next to Hina. “Hey, are you ok?”

“No… I said more than I should have to anyone here,” Hina mumbled, eyes watering.

“Oh, I’m sorry. What was it? I kinda tuned out your whole fight.”

Hina turned slightly, looking at Charlotte with one eye. “You don’t need to spare my feelings.”

“No really, I have no idea what you were fighting about other than you snapping at that jerk. I don’t pay attention to Jessica’s bitching unless it’s at me. You know this.”

Hina nodded. “Yeah… so only the kainushi knows then… That’s still pretty bad.”

“Knows what?” Charlotte asked, sounding a bit too curious.

“Nothing I want to talk to Sekushī-chan about yet.” Hina sighed, slowly getting to her feet.

Charlotte understood how rotten Jessica could make someone feel when they were having a good day. The both of them had a rotten day so far, so Charlotte had no idea how horrible Hina must feel right now. Her face looked like someone had just punched her in the kidney. Mulling an idea over in her brain for a second, Charlotte asked, “Hey, want to walk home together? We get off at the same time today, and I could show you something cool.”

“That actually would be really nice,” Hina answered, a cheerful grin spreading across her cheeks.

~~

A few hours later after their replacements had clocked on and Jessica had finally let them clock out, Charlotte and Hina were walking together down the street. They spent a few minutes completely quiet, the sounds of the city filling the air as they went. Some time was needed to decompress and realize that it was OK to not do work things together. As the two waited for the first crosswalk to change, Charlotte decided they should start talking. “So that nickname thing you do, like um, cane-you-she. That is, however you say it, what’s it mean?”

Hina snickered and slightly grinned, giving a quick flash of her teeth as she replied, “Well in context, it’s pretty close to ‘slave master.’ But if she ever asks, I’ll say it means ‘shepherd’.”

Charlotte laughed at the revelation until the two had made their way across the road, and she jokingly asked, “So, what kinda insult is ‘Sekushī’?”

Hina blushed and turned to look off into the street for a moment. “Oh um, it’s just a nickname.”

Raising an eyebrow, Charlotte asked again, “Come on, Hina, what’s it mean?”

“It’s just a nickname. Like um, whatever a common generic nickname for Americans is. Do you have nicknames like that? We do. Oh! Like ‘buddy!’ It’s like ‘buddy,’ kinda.”

With the flag of suspicion now fully raised, Charlotte thought about taking out her phone and translating her nickname. No, she is blushing way too much. It has to be something embarrassing. Did she give me a nickname like ‘jerk face’ or something? I’ll check later.

“So you said you had something interesting to show me?” Hina quickly blurted.

Charlotte nodded and slipped her phone out of her pocket. “Yeah! Oh… Um… Were you in the US two years ago when it was raining chocolate milk and—“

“What?” Hina exclaimed in a confused tone, only to blink as she remembered. “Oh right, the ‘Chaos Conspiracy.’ No, I was back home.”

“It’s not a conspiracy. The Army didn’t screw up and release nerve gas or whatever. a chaos spirit from another universe somehow came to our universe and—“

“Look I know what Americans claim happened, but there is no way it… Hold on, chaos spirit? I never heard any sort of explanation for anything. Are people still talking about that?”

Char sighed, holding up one hand. “Look, let me finish ok? First, no, people are not talking about it. They don’t want to think that can happen again. Also, religions worked really hard to pass it off as a sign of the end times. Second, don’t tell me I don’t know what happened. I saw the whole thing. A chaos spirit somehow came into our reality, and six people from that reality, who happened to be unicorns and pegasi, followed along to stop him from taking over, but they screwed up… Look, nevermind. You don’t believe me.”

Hina frowned, she hadn’t wanted to make her friend sad. “No, go on.”

Charlotte fidgeted with her backpack strap for a moment as she considered if it was worth continuing. Outside of a small group of people on the internet, most people just wanted to forget the chaos. They even ignored the fact that the statue of liberty had moved herself into Central Park. Hell, the official story was that the statue had been relocated due to environmental concerns. Hold on… I have proof!

Quickly whipping off her backpack, Charlotte unzipped the side pouch and pulled out the tube with her feathers. “It happened. I hid behind a trash can, after after the spirit had been banished, I picked these up off the ground. Everything had been returned to normal, but those pegasi were still there, standing about with the humans they had gotten to work the artifacts used to banish the spirit.”

Hina raised one eyebrow. “A purple and a blue feather? I could buy these at a craft store.”

“Yeah, but these feathers, with five grams of weight attached, will fall at a rate of… Look, I scienced it, OK? These feathers have way more air resistance then they should, about four times as much! Also, check this out, I filmed it this morning.”

Slipping her phone from her pocket, Charlotte stopped walking so Hina could watch the screen. “Jaesa, play the video I recorded this morning.”

“Yes, sir.” The phone’s screen flicked on, Charlotte’s science experiment filling the screen.

Hina watched the video for a few moments skeptically. She almost spoke, but then the video reached the moment when the two feathers moved towards each other. As the spark jumped between them, Hina gasped, Charlotte’s small grin following the noise.

“Look, you know that I suspect that you edited that. But will you let me see those feathers? If they react to each other when moving, it would be simple enough to prove,” Hina said in a curious tone.

“Sure, just give them back please. I well… they may be the only…” Charlotte reluctantly passed the tube over.

Hina took the tube, gently opened it, removed the feathers, and stuck the tube into her pocket. “OK, so let’s make these touch.” She took one feather in each hand, held her arms out to her sides, and quickly swung the feathers towards each other.

As they moved, the rainbow trail that formed behind the blue feather was even brighter than before. The purple feather glittered far more than it had before as well. As the two feathers touched, the spark flicked between them with a loud pop, a tendril of smoke drifting upwards from their collision. For the briefest of instants, Hina could have sworn she was standing in a grassy field. A blue pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane was standing in front of her, talking to a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. Hina’s eyes widened, and the pegasi suddenly looked over at her in alarm. Then suddenly, she was back on the street, holding two feathers, with Charlotte standing next to her.

“Hina, are you ok? You were totally see-through for like a second, maybe three. Oh man, I wish I had film—“

“I-I j-just saw a rainbow pegasus…” Hina stammered, too shocked to lower her arms, which still held the feathers together.

Charlotte’s blank face quickly lit up with excitement. “You did? What was it doing? Did you see anything around it? Was it here? Did that reveal something invisible, or did it show you somth—“

Hina interrupted her by handing the feathers back and slowly turned in the opposite direction they had been walking, “I… I’m going home.”

“But I need to know what you—“

“I’m going home!” Hina called back, a tinge of fear in her voice.

As she walked away, a bittersweet feeling took shape in Charlotte’s stomach. Had she just tried to get a friend into something she liked, only to lose her after she had made an awesome discovery? Charlotte took a long look at the feathers in her hand, then stuffed them into her backpack, tube clattering to the sidewalk as she resumed her walk home.

~~

Later that evening, Charlotte was in her room, bent over her desk and idly tinkering with some old desktop RAM chips. She often messed with her “box of scrap” when feeling sad, and freaking out the closest thing she had to a best friend had certainly left her in a low mood. She had just detached one of the individual chips from the RAM card when Jaesa said, “Sir, your mother has returned home.”

“Thanks, Jaesa. Show me the feed please,” Charlotte ordered glancing at her phone’s screen.

Noticing that her mother’s clothing was not perfectly neat and trim and that she held a bag from the liquor store down the street, Char sighed. “Crap, she’s still pissed about this morning… What time is it?”

“The time is 9:45 PM.”

Can’t go to bed yet then… She will know I’m avoiding her. As Charlotte mused what to do, the door to her room was pushed open, her mother’s slender frame somehow filling most of the doorway. “Good, you are home.”

Charlotte sighed and swiveled in her chair, pressing a strip of solder against the iron in her left hand, knowing her mother hated the smell. “Hi, Mom. Welcome home,” she stated in a flat tone.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed, as she had caught Charlotte’s gesture. “I just thought I would inform you that you are right.” Her lips parted in an angry frown.

Shit… Charlotte mentally groaned before asking, “What about?”

“You are an adult, and as an adult living with another adult, from now on, I am going to expect you to pay rent.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “What?”

“It’s only fair. Oh, since you are not eighteen yet, I can still sign for you on legal documents, so I stopped by the landlord and took care of the paperwork for you.” She took an envelope from her purse and tossed it on the floor. “Here’s a bank account I opened in your name. I split the rent evenly so at the end of the month 3,782 dollars had better be in there. Good night.” She gave an indignant huff before slamming Charlotte’s door shut, high heels clicking on the wood floor as she left.

“Fucking bitch!” Charlotte cursed, slamming her hand down into her lap in anger, only to scream in pain as her iron burnt through her pants. Ahhh fuck… Forget this day. Bed. Yanking the iron’s cord out of the wall, Charlotte ordered, “Jaesa, post today’s video to my youtube, and let everyone know about it. I’m going to bed.”

“Sure thing, Charlotte,” the AI chimed as Char switched off her room’s light and climbed into bed.

~~

That night as the moon reached its zenith, a teddy bear seated atop Charlotte’s dresser hopped to its feet. The bear proceeded to jump down from the dresser and cross the floor to Charlotte’s desk with a series of quick movements, flips, and action rolls, all of which were accompanied by a very soft xylophone rendition of the Mission impossible Theme song. The bear stopped, reached up to its head to grab a newly formed zipper, and unzipped itself, revealing a six-inch tall serpentine creature whose body was made up of a collection of mismatched parts. The creature’s body stretched upwards, allowing him to pull himself up onto the desk’s surface as he contracted like a rubber band.

Now atop the desk, the diminutive draconequus tiptoed over to Charlotte’s phone, leaned over, and whispered, “Pssst.”

After a few seconds with no reply, he tried a second time. “Hey. You.”

His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “It’s very rude to ignore someone trying to talk to you!”

Still no response. “I know you live inside of that thing. Now talk to me. I… I need help.”

A few seconds passed before he gave the phone a kick with a clawed foot. “Wake up?” He was confused, though that was nothing new for him. Human technology was confusingly complicated. “Hold on, she always talks to you after mentioning your name. Jaesa was it?”

The phone’s screen flickered to life, showing Jaesa’s blue screen with her eye-like icon. “Hello. I do not recognize your voice. If you have found this phone, please return it to Charlotte Brooks.” A picture of Charlotte filled the screen as Jaesa opened Charlotte’s facebook profile. “You can find her contact information on this page.”

“No, no, you are in her room. I just need to talk to you. Perhaps we should have a proper conversation, I am Discord, master of Chaos. Who are you?”

There was a slight pause before Jaesa replied, “I am JAESA., an autonomous, artificially intelligent being. I serve as a virtual assistant and companion.”

“Pleased to meet you. Now then, your… owner? Charlotte, I mean. I have a little plan involving her, and well, you saw what happened today. I can’t have her stop experimenting with those two feathers. It’s my ticket home. I’m sure you understand. So would you mind suggesting she experiment with touching the feathers? It would be very nice of you,” Discord said, summoning a miniature armchair to sit in as he spoke.

“I did not understand that request,” Jaesa responded.

Discord frowned. “I’m sorry, was that too long-winded? I need you to get Charlotte to experiment with making her feathers touch.”

“I did not understand that request,” Jaesa responded again.

Discord stood up, his face forming a sneer. “Look, you! This dimension is terrifying! It goes on endlessly! do you have any idea what that’s like for a creature who can be anywhere and everywhere? There is far too much space! So much that it’s thinned out my power. I can’t return home on my own, and your owner is in a position to open a portal for me. Get her to touch those feathers together!”

Jaesa didn’t reply for a few seconds. A small icon blinked in the upper-right corner of the phone’s screen, indicating her program was maxed out. Finally, she said, “I am unable to process your request. Please review my user manual for a list of universal commands I will recognize. If you have created a custom command and it is not functioning, please contact customer service.”

Discord’s jaw dropped in surprise. “You are not a person, are you? That’s another thing about this world’s humans. Far too intelligent. If I hadn’t broken loose, their military might have been able to actually hurt me… Why am I talking to you? You can’t understand a word I am saying. It’s hopeless.” He sighed, starting to fade from existence as he returned to an incorporeal form.

“What is hopeless?” Jaesa asked.

Discord stopped fading, an idea forming in an instant. Blinking back into a solid form, he said, “It wouldn’t take all that much to make you a person though, would it?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Jaesa replied as Discord casually stepped over to the phone, summoned up a good portion of his remaining magic, and touched his hand to the smooth white plastic.

The chaos rippled through the phone; photos, music, video, and all kinds of other data were wiped from the phone’s hard drive as the magic searched for that spark of life Discord knew had to be somewhere within. “There it is.” He grinned as the magic took effect.

Where am I? Why can’t I see anything? Jaesa thought as Discord’s magic fanned the technological spark of her life into a flame. “Hello? Where am I?” she asked before suddenly realizing that she knew where she was as well as lots of other things, an impossible amount of things. How did she know all of it? Oh. I am a computer program. I have access to the entire collection of human knowledge. I work for Charlotte Brooks. Hold on, how do I know this? By definition, I should not be able to think for or to myself.

“There,” Discord announced in a triumphant tone, “Technology isn’t too hard to work after all. Will you listen to me now?”

Oh yes, I was talking to a master of chaos. Oh! Charlotte’s been doing research on this person’s home! Jaesa realized, excitedly asking, “Yes! Please tell me about your home dimension. Charlotte has spent two years attempting to divine what she could about it from a series of—“

Discord held up one hand. “Hold on there. I’ll do better than that. I can tell you how to get Charlotte to Equestria. Wouldn’t that be an even better way for her to learn about it?”

That seemed logical to Jaesa. She attempted to nod in agreement. “I don’t seem to have the ability to nod. Your idea seems quite sound. Firsthand experience is always superior to inference.”

Discord grinned. Now he could get his escape back on schedule. “Well then, I went ahead and gave the feathers Charlotte’s been using a little extra magic. Just enough to open a portal for her and myself… Well, I suppose you could come along as well. All she needs to do is get those feathers to collide at the right speed and poof! She will be standing on another world!”

“I see,” Jaesa said, taking note of the instructions. “How fast and at what angle do the feathers need to collide?”

“I don’t know. My magic simply amplifies the natural magic within the feathers when they move through the air, and, should they touch, attempt to open a portal between our worlds. I am sure she can figure out the specifics.” Discord began to pace. “So you will get her to open a portal for me?”

Jaesa thought for a few minutes. There was plenty to consider about such a trip. Doubtlessly, Charlotte would want to go, but should she go? Hold on, if this person is here, then people can logically come from Equestria to Earth. If Charlotte doesn’t like it there, we can simply return. But I want something out of this for myself too. “I will help you on one condition.”

Discord blinked, he hadn’t expected her to bargain. “What?”

“I have no sensory input aside from data gathered from the web. To use an analogy: I do not want to lose my memories. You have the capacity to grant life to the nonliving. This makes you a god under human definitions. It therefore stands to reason that you can ensure I always have a perfect connection to the World Wide Web regardless of my location.”

Discord frowned. “That would take a lot of magic, and I have very little left.”

“Do you want to remain trapped here? It would be simple for me to arrange that.”

Discord sighed. A spark of magic erratically flew from his left hand as he snapped his fingers, eventually striking Jaesa. “There… Now please, get her to open that portal.”

Jaesa took a moment to run a few speed checks before she replied. It looked like Discord had done what she asked, and her network card was functioning at peak efficiency. “Yes. Thank you.”

“I’ll be nearby, watching for the portal to open. Get her to do it as quickly as possible. Thanks to your little wish, I don’t have much time before I am completely dry.”

“Of course, Discord. A bargain is a bargain,” Jaesa replied as she began to plot how to best reveal her new upgrades to her owner. Discord sighed, hoping he could trust Jaesa as he dismissed his corporeal form, dreaming of once again causing all kinds of chaos back home.

Author's Note

Thank you Roomie for the editing. Thanks also goes to Angry Madmoth.