To the Moon

...Air?

James stepped down from the upturned lander, jumping from the door frame to the dusty ground. His familiarity with the moon was once again thrown off as the dust around his feet barely moved. He had been ready to be forced to leave gear outside once the dust covering it made it unusable. It was almost as if this really was air, but that was impossible... just like being on this moon. putting the thought away in a now best selling book, James started towards the centre of the crater.

After fifteen minutes of walking, it became apparent to James that the crater was bigger than it looked at first. Quickly becoming bored with his solitary walk, he decided to try the famous moon jumping. If the gravity in orbit was anything to go by, James should be able to float quite a bit more than what he would on Earths moon. Not bothering to calculate the difference and clearly not thinking about his experience walking along so far, James climbed the next small rise and jumped with all his might.

After he had finished rolling down the small hill in a stream of curse's, James decided to really think about what he was doing. The first thing he noticed, was how he had been acting up until that point. Normally, James did not consider himself cold and calculating, but he accepted that he did tend to come off like that to others. Ever since he had gotten to the moon, he had been as careless as a child. James could have simply fixed the fuse on the lander and then checked the readings normally, but instead, he had decided to leave the lander with only half an hour of air. he did not even know if he could reach the 'lake' in that amount of time, let alone make it back. James decided to make some observations.

"The moon's gravity seems almost normal, it can't be less than two thirds of earths." He spoke aloud.

"That fact alone is making this suit harder to wear than it's supposed to be, I'm using more air because of this." The thought of running out of air was very scary to him, although he would not admit it to many that asked him, he was scared.

Suddenly, James's attitude took a 180 and he started walking towards the lake with a slight bounce.

"What the hell. If I'm going to die, I want to explore the moon first!" His cheery demeanor ceased at the thought of death and he walked a few more feet slowly. Shaking himself a little, he stood straight again and marched on-wards, the spring returning and a large grin plastered on his face.

As James walked, he thought about many things; most of them consisted of questions about the moon, but every once in a while he would ask himself a strange question.

"I wonder what my sister would think about me being on th- what?" confused, James paused briefly, a dark shadow passed across his face briefly before it turned to a confused expression.

"I don't have a sister!" Shaking his head he kept walking.

Luna's sleep was very deep, not properly sleeping for four hundred years was not a fun experience for her. The nearest she had achieved was a sort of half-sleep, where she receded her awareness fully into the moon in an attempt to shut out the ponies that would shun her but have the gall to enter her dream world.

That was another thing she hated. Being unable to see ponies dreams and not influence them in any way was terrifying for her. It was what she considered to be her greatest power, to create worlds of her own where her dreams came true. She was sure that the lack of contact with others or the ability to fake it with dream magic was driving her insane. Luna was afraid that if she left the moon, her insanity would be worse than nightmare moon ever was.

Her new body, however, had a brain. And like all brains, it's subconscious worked perfectly well. The whole 'large' soul thing was a blessing and a curse to Luna, as it meant that her subconscious was nearly nonexistent when she was inhabiting just the moon. Neither Luna nor Celestia knew why being disconnected from a body effected some parts of a pony's thought so much more than others, but there never seemed to be a good enough reason to look into it as the two of them were the only living things that could 'live' as an inanimate object.

But Luna was not currently thinking about such puzzles, Luna was dreaming.

She dreamed of other versions of reality where she was hunted as a mutant. She dreamed of slowly somersaulting through space and throwing a stick in the air accompanied by music. She even dreamed of working a boring job instead of as a princess, struggling from day to day, trying to fix appliances for an office full of idiots, All the while trying to avoid being called "a desk-rabbit"

Spreading herself throughout her dream domain, Luna started looking into ponies dreams.

The dreams she saw were generally terrible, haunting nightmares. She set about calming these nightmares and gifting ponies with peaceful dreams, calming many a crying filly and colt. In her wandering of her dream domain, Luna suddenly encountered a mind that she recognized. It was her sister.

Celestia was having a nightmare, a nightmare so terrible that Luna all but forgave her on the spot for going against her.*

"No pony should have to live through this torture, not even her."

Quickly calming Celestia's dream world, Luna once again turned her attention to the dreaming minds around her.

"Oh my! That soul is a lot closer than should be possible..." Luna exclaimed.

This must be the soul that gave her the spark to create her body, she would have to thank it personally.

Luna slipped into the mind of the dreaming creature and got ready to give her thanks, she found it quite easy to gain access to this mind because part of her soul was still attached to it.

"Strange, most souls would reject one like mine. I did not expect this soul to live so long, let alone correctly join with mine." Luna muttered to herself.

"Well, This just makes it easier for me to connect with this ones mind." Shrugging mentally, she carried on connecting minds with the strange creature, finding herself accepted into its mind with open arms.

Out of nowhere, Luna encountered a block in the creatures mind. no matter where she pushed or poked, it would not budge.

Ordinarily Luna would leave such a mind as this for fear of damaging the mind with overpowering force, but Luna had several ways of getting around this particular problem. Carefully she started casting a spell, this particular one was designed as a 'needle' for getting past obstructions, this would allow her to observe the mind behind without leaving a large hole in the thought process of the target.

Taking longer than she would have liked, Luna completed the spell.

"My! I do seem a little out of practice." Luna exclaimed.

"This creature must have no small intellect to create such a masterful block as this" Luna did not know what kind of creature this would turn out to be, but it must have an incredible sense of self and will to hold the mental barrier.

After she had finished musing to herself, Luna cast the final elements of the spell, 'injecting' herself into the memories of the unknown entity. Aligning her consciousness into a spike mentally.

Luna pierced through the barrier.

James screamed in pain.

His body felt like it was boiling from the inside, his muscle and bone bubbling and bursting through his skin as a hot liquid, only to be met by a freezing cold surrounding him and turning into a painfully cold layer around him, sending shards of ice into his body so cold they burned.

His blood was replaced with liquid fire and his innards felt like one big burning mound of flesh.

Every nerve in his body felt like it was being twisted around itself and stabbed with minute knives. James collapsed to the ground shivering in pain, his helmet hitting the ground with an audible crack going unnoticed.

When James was a child, he had dislocated his leg on one occasion. The pain he was feeling then was nowhere close to what he was feeling now, it was blinding, searing, exquisite pain.

After what seemed like hours to him, the pain started to lessen around his body and then stopped as quick as it started.

Panting, James started to cautiously move his body. Wiggling his fingers a little brought a little stab of pain, but when it did not continue to hurt he continued. Shifting his arms under his chest to support his weight, James gently lifted his torso from the ground.

Pins and needles covered his body as his muscles unclenched from the locked position they had been in, revealing some startling new facts about his body.

For one, James was sure his suit was not quite as roomy as it currently was. His head felt like it was lose in the helmet and he was unable to move his feet.

"WHAT THE FUAAAAAAAAAA."

Staring down at his legs, James barely had time to exclaim at the severed feet sitting beside his prone form before the pain returned as suddenly as before.

Although James was not conscious enough to notice, several flashes of blue were going off in quick succession from the lakes edge; a mere twenty meters or so from his position.

Luna huffed in annoyance.

She had been attempting to give this stupid creature some of her magic, hoping to let it use the part of her soul that she had healed it's soul with as a magic battery. By doing this, Luna hoped to allow the creature known as "A Hue-man" the same ability her current body had.

Luna's creation, her body, was only reliant on the usual needs as a normal pony body when she was not connected to it; as long as she had access to her magic it could survive even the vacuum of space without aid.

Her progress was being impeded by several factors.

This hue-man's mind was so different to hers that she could only make out some of the basic facts about it, like what it needed to live. Its needs were effectively the same as a pony. It ate vegetables and fruit like a pony, it had a similar bone type to a pony and it's senses did not seem to include anything a pony wouldn't have.

It was different at the same time, however, and the difference she was having the most trouble with was what it breathed.

This thing seemed to breath a mixture of things including oxygen as a main factor. How any creature could live on such a toxic mix of gases instead of the nearly pure Adorabellium and cuetoxide that everything she new breathed was a mystery, but Luna did not want to modify such a core mechanic of a living being.

The other major problem she now faced was this creatures resistance to magic.

Never in her life had Luna seen anything resist such a strong spell, from a goddess for bucks sake!

After casting the spell for the first attempt, Luna had only succeed in forcing a small amount of magic into the ..man.

Pausing for a brief respite, she gathered herself for a stronger attempt, this time Luna would cast the spell multiple times in the hope of wearing down its magic resistance for long enough to force the magic into it. Luna did not know what effects the magic would have on the man, but this was the only solution she could think of short of changing it into a pony; a spell not even she could pull off by herself.

Readying herself, Luna started to cast the spell again and again. Over and Over until she felt the resistance withing the target lessening, pushing her victory she forced as much magic as she could muster in her corporeal form into the man.

Yes, this was the best solution for the mans survival on the moon. empowered by her resolution, she forced even more magic into the creature ensuring, she hoped, its future as a living being.

unbeknownst to Luna, the magic she was forcing into James, while it was allowing him to live without any of the requisites of a normal human, was having some adverse effects.

When Luna used part of her soul to heal James's essence, she fused a small part of herself to him and while his soul did connect with the fragments of hers, his soul had never been magical. Therefore when Luna flooded James with magic, the part of his new soul that Luna had given him became the dominant one, empowered as it was by magic.

The effects of a total soul conversion were... interesting to say the least, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

PAIN

Pain was all James could feel.

All he could hear, smell, see and taste was pain.

What did pain taste like? It tasted like copper and raw air, although that might have been from the fact that James had clenched his jaw so hard several teeth shattered under the pressure.

He barely felt the air hitting his destroyed throat and lungs for it was all hidden in the noise of pain.

Adrenaline surged through his veins, making each second seem like eternity and causing his nerves to be super sensitive. Needless to say that did not make things better, he had stopped screaming almost as soon as the real pain kicked in. To scream required at least a small part of his body to cooperate with his will, but he could control his body as well as he could control the orbit of the moon. He was forced to lie there, his entire being and soul racked with pain as though he was splitting into individual atoms. One. At. A. Time.

James wavered in and out of consciousness, the pain not letting him fall into the blissful ignorance of unconsciousness.

No, this pain was the purpose of his life, the culmination of all the chances from the big bang all the way to his life being created. This was his destiny, his destiny was pain.

Slowly but all at once he understood everything in the universe, but he also was shown how little he knew at the same time.

He knew everything but nothing... nothing except pain.

It was so indescribable that to call it as such was to insult it, like naming nothing, pointless and impossible.

This was infinity but more than nine thousand time so, it was... it was... it was pain.1

The pain faded, but James would not realize this for another minute or so.

Slowly he drew himself out of the trance like state he had been in and opened his eyes.

His eyes flickered open for a mere second before he fell unconscious, the deep blue cat-like orb contrasting against his green-blue one.