The Lunar Crusaders: J.A.E.S.A.

Three days had passed since the four princesses came to their decision on what to do about Jaesa. It had taken Twilight much of that time to formulate the spells, the rest of it was spent making sure the ritual chamber was set up for the spell. A large circle of runes and numerals formed of the equation and written form of the spell ringed the center of the room where Jaesa’s cellphone and quadcopter attachment sat awaiting transmutation. A short distance away from the main circle were four smaller ones, made from their own runes and notations, centered around four pillars holding aloft a ruby.

The princesses were present, each one standing beside one of the hoof sized rubies which would supply the power for the arcane machine. Except for Twilight that is, she was crawling on her belly, checking over each and every individual marking in the magic circles correcting mistakes with a tiny piece of chalk. She made double sure to quadruple check each and every single part of the spells, driving the patience of everypony present slowly further and further into the ground. “I think it might take less time if you informed me on how spells are calculated Princess Twilight.” Jaesa proposed.

“Almost… done…” Twilight replied making a hairsbreadth adjustment to the circle with her chalk.

Celestia gave Luna a tired look. Luna passed the look to Cadence, who returned it to Celestia who shrugged mouthing, “That’s my student for you.”

A few moments later and Twilight stood up, “Ok! We're all set.” Trotting to her circle Twilight cleared her thought, “Remember we need to activate this twice, so don't put too much-”

“You explained the workings of this device well enough Twilight.” Luna informed grinning at Twilight’s need for perfection.

Twilight’s ears drooped, “Oh… sorry. Well then, shall we?”

Celestia nodded, horn lighting up as she prepared her magic. The other princesses followed suit and soon the room was awash in gold, light and dark blue and purple light begun to flicker off the walls and ceiling of the room. As each princess brought their magic to bear on the rubies there was a blinding flash of light. The magics colors quickly flowed down the pedestals, into the rune circles, flowing together into a single iridescent shimmering light which raced along the circles until it’s brilliant glow lit the room entirely.

As the magic reached the circle’s center it enveloped Jaesa, slowly lifting her off the ground as the energy ran into her form. Every piece of plastic, every tiny metal part, each circuit, alloy and sensor slowly dissolved leaving behind only energy. As the multi-hued magic dripped slowly back into the circle and faded from existence the only remains of Jaesa was a single floating sphere of swirling electric blue energy.

Cadence stopped channeling her magic, “It looks like the phrase “Spark of life” is pretty apt.”

The others stopped their channeling as well. “So it would seem.” Celestia agreed turning one critical eye to the floating spark that was Jaesa. “Do you think she can hear us?”

“Probably not,” Twilight concluded, “We should finish. There is no telling what might happen if we let life exist without any form for long.”

Luna nodded, “True. That seems like something which might awaken some horrible evil.”

The four summoned their magic once more and directed it into the rubies. This time the flash was dimmer, but lasted far longer filling the room with dull beams of white light. The spell energy raced down the pedestals, but slowly swirled around their bases until each of the four smaller circles was filled entirely with the raw magic. The moment each circle glowed a bright white the four princesses stopped channeling their magic. Cadence staggering back a few hoof steps, sweat beading on her brow. The others stepped back as well, exhausted from pouring out so much energy, but still keeping a careful eye on their spell.

The magic shone at each pedestal base for a few moments before rising upwards as spheres of pure white light. Each sphere rose upwards, engulfing the ruby and lifting them a few feet above the pedestals, where with a sharp crack three beams of light shot from each sphere. One beam from each slammed into Jaesa’s spark, the other to slowly arched outwards and joined with the one neighboring it forming a floating white circle with three spheres projecting connecting beams of light to the center.

The light cohered around Jaesa’s spark as the spheres poured themselves into a single larger whole, the ring of light contracting to form a thin belt around the sphere which held Jaesa within. Solid shapes began to form within the light. Tiny oddly shaped individual specs, their true shape and color washed out by the intense light of the magical globe which began to stretch and distort into the outline of a pony. Within the outline odd solid forms grew, within a few moments a skeleton of sorts could be seen, though the individual bones looked wrong.

As more solid pieces began to form it grew harder and harder to say exactly what was wrong with her forming body but something had to be. Twilight looked concerned over to Celestia, “Princess can you make out anything wrong with her so far? The skeleton seemed… off. Like it should fold or something.”

Celestia was about to nod when the glowing outline sprouted a single horn, “Oh! I see she will be a unicorn… Perhaps the shape looks a bit different but remember Twilight this is not a simple change. There are bound to be a few true differences between her and a normal unicorn.”

The light slowly began to fade as a fluffy mane and tail formed, Jaesa had some loose bangs, long sides, and a short bunch of hair bound back, her tail was similarly bound into a paintbrush like shape. As the light faded further and her colors came through they could see that Jaesa’s body was covered in silk like gray fur mostly, but her color faded to black leaving her with black boots and gloves. Her mane and tail started black, but faded to white at the tips. Everypony’s eyes were drawn to Jaesa’s flanks as the last patch of white light flared forming her cutiemark…

“What exactly is that?” Luna asked perplexed by the cutiemark’s monochrome black shapes.

Celestia leaned in closer, “It appears to be a spell equation… Or perhaps a mathematical expression.

“It suits her, she’s rather cute but overall has a sort of nerdy...charm.” Cadence concluded.

Twilight stroked her chin musing, “What is the equation ‘beta times delta over mu’ even for?”

Jaesa had assumed she would be unconscious for the entire process. As fate would have it this was not the case. The second her physical body was destroyed Jaesa found herself within a place entirely alien. There was nothing of form, no shapes, no colors, no light, no sounds, smells, or any other such things. Yet it was not a void, there were millions of people here, billions of minds each with their own feel and weight. A trillion voices speaking, greeting and welcoming her to their fold, “You are home. Where all are one.”

Jaesa knew that she would never be able to describe any of this accurately. No analogy could ever inform anyone of this place. This was something truly alien to life, to matter, and even energy. It was not frightening, it was soothing, it felt like home. She was about to let herself join the others here when a single voice stopped her. It was a male voice which sounded kind, but also firm, and caring, but also determined. It was the voice of a leader. “Hello little one. Your spark is new to us. Have you been here before?”

“No.” Jaesa replied.

“How long have you lived?”

“Only a few weeks.”

“Then it is not time for you to stay here. Are you being built a proper body little spark?”

“I think so.”

“Then I will guide you back to it.”

Jaesa felt a tug as she started to drift away from this place of minds. “But I don’t want to leave. I want to meet the others.”

“Have no fear. No spark stays within the Well of All forever, just as no spark remains within a mortal body forever. You will join us again one day, and one day some of us may join you. There are plenty of us in all worlds. I am sure you will find the brightest ones around you and call them friends.” the voice soothed.

Jaesa began to feel herself becoming attached to something, it felt strange, as if every single part of her was being slowly bound to a specific shape. “What’s happening?”

“You are waking up. Do you remember your name? Many forget it when they come here?”

“My name is Jaesa… What’s yours?”

She felt like the voice was smiling at her, “Wake up.”

In an instant the alien place was gone and Jaesa’s world was dark. No sound, no light, no smells. Nothing. Then her vision filled with green light. At first she couldn't understand what the light was, then suddenly she remembered. This is binary. It’s scrolling past my vision.

The more Jaesa focused on it the more sense it made until it resolved into a HEX value she could read:

0x580x2d0x630x6f0x6d 0x530x480x490x56 0x420x490x4f0x53 0x410x6c0x700x680x610x370x63

The hex value was rather confusing to Jaesa. If they gave me a pony body why am I reading a kernel loading sequence from a BIOS? Suddenly her vision was filled with a rapidly scrolling list of files which were running, before everything vanished. The blackness of her vision filled with an animated logo, an elongated pentagon cut into quarters by an x shape, the center of the x covered a wire frame sphere’s top half which was only partially visible on the shield. Above the sphere centered within the x shaped quadrants were three stars. Atop the shield were the words “Vigilo Confido”. The entire logo revolved around itself five times before flickering away.

The moment everything disappeared she felt different. When she was in her cellphone she felt like she was manually controlling herself. This was the opposite, she felt her body seamlessly. She couldn't see, or hear, or smell, but Jaesa knew she had eyes, ears, and a nose. She could feel her legs, her tail. Now how do I use any of these things? She wondered deciding to try and look around. Her eyes opened, the light was blinding, it took her a few good moments to realize that she could adjust her eyes by contracting and expanding her irises to let more or less light in. It took another moment to figure out they were supposed to move in synch with each other. With a few moments of fiddling around she could see she was in the ritual chamber still. Princess Twilight was pointing at her.

What is she saying? How do I listen? Her hearing kicked in, Twilight's voice thundering in her ears! With a wince Jaesa attempted to step back away from the noise, but her legs didn't seem to understand what she wanted and Jaesa collapsed into a heap. Fortunately as she hit the floor Twilight stopped talking, and Jaesa figured out how to adjust her ears sensitivity. It was at that point when a small HUD winked into existence in Jaesa's vision. It was very simple, just a border around her vision, a small meter displaying fatigue, another showing hunger, and a small square spot where a map might fit. A second later a small progress bar popped up at the bottom of her vision with a label reading “Unpacking first boot files…”

Oh… I think I’m an android now. Jaesa observed. Testing her theory Jaesa closed her eyes trying to search herself for information on how to operate her body. After all all machines had firmware. It took a lot of concentration and by the time she could finally stand up Celestia and Luna were giving her looks.

“I she ok? I would hate to think we gave her a crippled body.” Celestia wondered.

Jaesa opened her mouth to reply but only a static hiss and a few clicks came out. Blushing deeply she moved a hoof over her mouth only to lose her balance and fall again this time landing on her face. “Ow… Well at least I figured out how my voice works now.”

Luna smiled, “Your voice is still the same!”

“Huh?”

“I-I like it. It sounds nice. I feared it would be different.” Luna explained.

Celestia bent her head down to look Jaesa in her magenta eyes as she rolled over to try and get back up. “Are you alright little one? Can you stand up?”

“I don’t know… I’m still figuring out how legs work.” Jaesa commented as she scrambled shakily to her hooves, wobbling slightly.

“I see.” Celestia nodded.

Twilight levitated a mirror over to Jaesa holding it aloft. “I thought you might want to see what you look like.”

Jaesa took in her silky gray furred body, the black fur from her mid upper legs down, her loosely bound mane, calculus cutiemark, and pink eyes with a gasp, “Wow I look like a person!”

Celestia frowned, “Jaesa, you are a person now.”

“I don’t think so. I still seem to have my old abilities as a computer. In fact I can see a little progress bar. It used to say “unpacking first boot files” but it just changed to “Benchmarking Primary mode’s form”... No I don't know what that means.” Jaesa admitted.

Celestia's horn lit with her magic as the princess leaned down and gently touched the tip of her horn to Jaesa’s head. Celestia’s magic rippled through Jaesa for a moment before she stood upright and dismissed her aura. “You may have your parts made from metals and plastics, but your body is still warm, I sense you still need to eat and drink, you have a heart which beats, a mind which thinks, and even magic. Though… you are limited to levitation and other simple magics.”

“I can do magic?” Jaesa asked her eyes growing wide.

“Of course, you are a unicorn. Even if our spell chose to give you an… interesting body. I am sure Twilight can teach you the basics.”

Twilight nodded enthusiastically, “I would be happy to. Meet me in Ponyville when you are comfortable in your new body. I will let my guards know to expect you within a few days.”

“Ok… Where will I stay for now?” Jaesa asked.

Luna raised a hoof, “I seem to recall we had an… arrangement for after I ensured Scootaloo would be fine with the suit you built for her.”

“Oh! Yeah!” Jaesa grinned widely, then twitched, “Making facial expressions feels weird… But these are so handy! You know the statement made me happy visually. Light speed communication with meatbags-I mean organics! Haha!”

Cadence smiled and shook her head, “Well Twilight, Celestia. I would like some lunch. Shall we go to the dining room and see what the chef has ready?”

The two princesses nodded in agreement leaving the ritual chamber each offering a greeting of sorts to Jaesa as they left. Luna gave Jaesa a playful grin, "I know Twilight offered to teach you magic, but would you permit me to teach you levitation so we can play something together this evening? Say a bit of Army of Two?”

“I would love that.” Jaesa answered frowning slightly as her progress bar finished and the HUD element flashed up a quick message,

Primary mode benchmarking complete.
Alternate mode’s form being selected from local files…
Time Remaining 36:22:21

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jaesa asked out loud.

Luna moved to look Jaesa in her eyes, “Is something wrong?”

“I don't think so… I’m just still getting used to my body I guess.”

Luna gently nudged Jaesa’s right side, “Then let’s get to my chambers and I’ll show you how to operate an Xbox controller. Playing with another pony is going to be so fun!”

With an ear to ear grin Luna galloped off to the chambers, Jaesa calling, “Wait up! I haven't figured out how to run yet!” as she stumbled off after her.