My Life on a Cassette Tape

"You want me to do WHAT?!" I was flustered to say the least. Berry's antics were something I was slowly, ever so slowly, becoming accustomed to. I was doing my best with my circumstances, I had thought, and then lo and behold, the mask on Periwinkle began to slip. The party had knocked the mask off a few inches, but now she was dipping it to me as well as using it as an opportunity to come up with what was both the most ridiculous and yet most likely to succeed hodgepodge of elements that could be construed as a plan if you cocked your head to the side, squinted, and took all of the drugs.

"It's actually quite simple." Twilight said, now seeming to agree with Periwinkle as the mare sat back confidently. "You say that the tape recorder, as an artifact, has near limitless power to alter reality. It has, in your own words, given you 'instant reloads on a bottomless clip'. That being said, you likely can use the power of the artifact to alter your very being. Enhancing your sexual capabilities to the point you describe means that it can accomplish things that are impossible."

"Yeah, but transforming myself into another pony, while all well and good until we can sort out this strange pony, once we handle him we won't be able to get me back. Remember, no contradicting the recording, it prefers to reinforce itself at your own expense." I countered.

"That's just it, though." Twilight said in an excited tone as she leaned over the table, her breasts wobbling freely. "You see, magic already exists that allows you to change your appearance to some degree or another. Those spells and potions, though, are temporary. If you want, you could tell the recording you had your hands on a potion that could turn you into another pony indefinitely and then later tell the recording you had a potion that counteracted the effects of the potion. It's just that simple!"

I sighed as I leaned further back into my chair. After the previous night's accidental enslavement, we had all retired to Berry's house to confer what we should do. A quick night's sleep later, I woke up in the center of the Celestia sized mattress, finding it already starting to crowd when I had previously estimated that it could hold all of my mares and myself on it easily. The previous evening weighing on me so heavily, I simply fell back to sleep, only to wake up with a blow job.

Opening my eyes, I felt something splendid around my dick. In a newly developed reflex from the last few mornings, I petted the head of whichever mare it was that blew me so wonderfully. My fingers traced through her hair, but the more I felt, the odder it seemed to me. It was straight, unlike the wave that Berry had in her hair; it was longer than I recalled Periwinkle's being; and I wasn't smelling Raven's lilac perfume beyond what was left on the sheets.

Cumming finally, I looked up to compliment whoever had done me the morning favor, only to find a pink maned mare who was nothing like Berry, Spry, or Raven. Flinching away, pulling my dick free as I huddled up the wooden frame of the bed, my eyes widened as I tried to recall the previous evening's events that might've led to this. Fluttershy, for her part, scrambled away too, hiding her very naked form behind the bed frame. A second later the door to the bedroom opened as Twilight, Rainbow, and Pinkie barged in - Twilight's horn sparking with a ready to fire spell.

"Master, are you alright?" She scanned the room, and, for the second time in less than a week, I groaned to myself as I realized what the recorder had gotten me into.

"I suppose it could work." I said finally, taking another bite of my croissant as I mulled over Twilight's plan. Berry entered the room, setting her bag down on the marble island with a huff. "Any news?" I asked her.

"Well, there's a whole mess of ponies I don't know about the market. Couldn't engage with them too long or else it would become too obvious. Either way, yeah, we've got problems. Most any pony I talked to simply seemed a tad bit too out of it. Even some of the ponies running the stalls seemed less than present in mind, though most of the ponies were able to zone back in long enough to talk. The weirdest thing, though, was when they didn't know I was around." Berry said, bringing out her phone and tapping a few times before sliding it over to me.

Picking it up, a video was ready to be played. Looking to her, I pressed play and turned up the volume as it went on. "If we can find out who those ponies were, I'm sure Master will fuck you." The first mare said to a pony who could be heard crying in the background.

"B-but there's so many slaves already out there! How can I be the slave to find them when they all have better posts than me!" A stallion whimpered pathetically, catching me slightly off guard. "I just want him to fuck me! But I can't tell him or else he'll cage me again!"

"Shhh, it's ok, we'll find them and get you that fucking yet." I pressed the pause button, noticing it went on for several more minutes.

"Very... disturbing audio." I noted, before looking at the mares around me. "You all... you aren't that desperate to get at me are you?" Immediately Berry and Rainbow raised a hand. I looked at them with a very concerned face.

"What?" Rainbow began. "I have yet to even taste that dick. Everypony who has just goes 'Oh Rainbow, you wouldn't believe how good it is!' and 'Oh Rainbow, he's just perfect!' and I have yet to get to do more than ogle it!" I looked to Berry, who I knew had been fucked at least five times.

"I'm not sick of it yet, and you're the easiest pony to get to fuck me." She shrugged. "Plus it helps you are a goooood fuck when you put your heart into it." I really couldn't have expected much else from her.

"But no," Twilight said, "I feel no... overwhelming need to have your penis. I did suck it the once, but beyond that, I've had no real desire for it."

"Oh, we gotta fix that for you!" Berry said, slamming her hands into the table, startling all present. "I'm going to get you on that dick, and then you can say 'oH I hAve nO gReaT nEeD.' Then I might believe you." Berry mocked.

"Continuing on, Berry," Twilight reasserted, giving the raspberry mare a terse look, "I was going to say that it is very likely that the pony controlling them has given them a compulsion to need his genitalia more than anything. It provides them a reward in their mind while servicing him."

"Hey maybe you should do that, Champ! Spice it up a tad!" Rainbow said, giving me a playful nudge. Looking at all the ponies giving her less than pleased looks - all the ponies except Berry who instead nodded encouragingly while giving thumbs up to the idea - Rainbow moved back from her seated position on the table, raising her hands defensively. "I'm sorry! Master, you should consider making your cock-"

"Titles aren't why we are mad, Rainbow, dear." Rarity said flatly, setting down another tray of croissants on the table, wearing only her sexy apron.

"I know." Rainbow replied, giving her award winning smile. The ponies at the table groaned as we returned to the topic at hand.

"How much progress are we thinking we could make should we actually transform me? What purpose is there in it?" I asked, more so hoping to keep my body.

"Oh, we're finally on that suggestion?" Berry asked, looking at Twilight with a wide grin, to which the purple alicorn simply nodded with a sigh. Looking back to me, her grin growing larger. "Turn into me, and I'll turn into you." I was taken aback. Shaking my head a few times as if I'd have cotton falling out of my ears to hear better.

"Run that by me again and this time include the reason why that's a good idea?" I said, knowing full well I had heard correctly. This was Berry, there was very little beyond her in terms of perversion; body swapping was likely one of the many many kinks she had.

"Okay, hear me out." Berry said, pulling a chair up to the table, sitting in it backwards like some sort of hip teacher. "They are looking for you. You are a definite target that they want. Am I right?" We all nodded slowly. "I am not one of the ponies that is really going to be looked for; right?"

"Debatable, but I can see where this is going." I said slowly, letting her finish.

"If I turn into you and you into me, we get two benefits. For one, you will be able to do more snooping for precisely the information that you want and need for this... plan. I assume there's a plan. Of course there's a plan." I wanted to object to that, but Berry was in too much of a flow to notice my weak attempt at interrupting. "Now, the second benefit is that you get any attention that's on you put on me, meaning more ponies are after me. If there are any ponies after me, you only have to deal with them. Plus, added benefit: I'm from this town. Therefore, most ponies will just look at you as me and go 'oh, there's Berry Punch' and anypony who sees you acting weird will jump go 'Eh, it's Berry, she drinks any time she wants' and then leave you in peace unless they were aiming for a good time, which most ponies in town won't be 'cuz I wasn't publicly as much of a slut as you'd think."

"I think you were more of a slut in public than you think you were." Rainbow said, placing a hand on Berry's shoulder. "Most stallions in town would talk about you behind your back, and a lot more of them claimed to have slept with you and were believed than most any other." Berry considered this for a moment before shrugging.

"Scratch that, I guess you can act as much of a slut as you might think me in public. I guess my estimation of my public persona is a tad off the mark. So yeah, as slutty as you want as long as I get pics and vids." Berry said, before turning her attention back to me. "So what do you say? Time to go incognito and show these randos exactly why you aren't to be messed with?"

"Why shouldn't I be messed with?" I asked, which apparently caught her and most everypony in the room off guard. "Look, just hear me out. We can grab some things, hit the road, hang some place else for a few days - maybe a week or two - come back, and boom, the problem blows over on its own."

"Cress," Applejack, who had been eating her way through a stack of pancakes, looked up at me as Pinkie took away her empty plate to fetch another, "I ain't sure what type o' ponies you figure us for, but we ain't runners - we're fighters."

"Indeed," Rarity chimed in, "not to mention that problems such as these rarely blow over. They are like poorly made trends. If you don't speak your mind up front, it might catch on and then everypony is wearing lime with neon yellow highlights."

"Look, I said I was sorry!" Pinkie exclaimed as she set the new stack of pancakes in front of Applejack, who went back to eating. "But yeah, we don't do the running gig. Plus some of us have family that either lives here or nearby! We can't just run without a good bye card!"

"You... you would actually settle for a card?" Twilight asked, getting a shrug from Pinkie.

"We're on a tight schedule if we are running, I can do the 'Farewell and Hello Again' party when we get back." Pinkie said as if it were a fairly obvious solution. It was sensible as far as I could tell, but the point that we weren't running was setting in.

"I guess I'm outvoted as far as running."

"Well technically," Periwinkle said, lowering the paper she had been reading, "you could vote for all of us. You are our Master, and we the slaves - for as much liberty as you do give us. You do have executive veto, you could just tell us we are leaving and we would start packing. It is, after all, your prerogative." I blinked at her.

"Wait... I could do that?"

"Well duh!" Pinkie exclaimed. "SLAVES!? HELLO!?"

"What Pinkie and Periwinkle are trying to say," Twilight interrupted, "is that, yes, as our Master, you do have the authority to tell us what to do, and we fully accept that. You could order us to do things that would ruin our lives, or go against our moral philosophies, and I have no doubt that we'd comply - our philosophies making room for the order with the order ranking as the greatest moral prerogative over all other moral concerns we might have otherwise. We'd do anything - short of harming or killing you or killing ourselves."

"I..." My eyes widened in horror. "That leaves out certain very important 'won't do it, even if you ask's. Like, kill another pony, or commit any number of crimes. There's a lot of room in that list of things you wouldn't do for things you aren't saying, but implying, that you would do."

"But of course." Rarity replied, lathering butter onto her croissant casually. "You are our Master, and though it would pain us to commit such acts; at your request, we would but only hesitate a moment to confirm your will, and then execute it." She set the butter knife down, smiling at me in a way that suddenly felt disconcerting. "It's as simple as that." I felt sick. At that moment I knew what I must do. Grabbing the recorder that sat at the center of the table, I pulled it close.

"Twilight, a piece of p-"

"Master." Twilight said, placing a hand on mine. "Master, don't make it so we can't obey you." I blinked at her. "There is nothing that can be said into that artifact that would work the way you'd want it."

"What about... 'I can't order you to kill anypony through action or inaction', sounds pretty airtight to me. Not many downsides to that one; in fact, I'd say there are no downsides." I said simply.

"What if you order us to save somepony instead of you, but we know that that would kill you? Your order isn't explicitly to kill you, but through inaction we would be killing you. I know that if you wanted us to prioritize another's safety you wouldn't want us disobeying because we fear you will die and so make it impossible to obey. You'd want us to save the pony, not freeze and help nopony because we can't help either since it would doom the other." Twilight's tone was cold, and more frighteningly, wholly reasonable. "You can't then specify 'through direct action', because then you could order us to do something we'd know would end in another's death, but you wouldn't know. You'd force us to obey in that dire situation, and then know the blood of the ponies who died was on your hands.

"Master. You can't limit yourself because though it seems best to remove those options from the table, there are situations you may face in which, though they aren't you asking us to cut another pony's head off, you may have to have us face the possibility of collateral damage." I blinked slowly, lowering my head as I considered this. "The best risk preventor you can give to yourself is your own moral code."

"Twilight, you need to lay off those philosophy text books..." Rainbow deadpanned. "Look, if the kid wants to limit himself, let him. He is the Master after all."

"He is the Master," Twilight conceded, "but he let us keep our minds and a larger part of our freedom so that we could help him."

"No." Raven said simply, drawing everypony's attention. "He didn't do it so you could help him." She reiterated firmly. "If he wanted you to be solely usable as tools, he would've made sure to remove your personalities and freedom of thought for everything but problem solving skills. He would've asked you about the most effective means of elimination of the target by military means that is within your scope of power, Princess Twilight. If he needed help, he would've used his tape recorder by now to say that he had command over the entire military and be sending the kill order on the pony who now poses the greatest threat to him. But he doesn't, because he isn't doing this because he wants your help." Raven pressed, setting a hand on my shoulder.

"He left you with your minds and the greater part of your freedom because it's the right thing to do. Damn easy, damn efficient, he's going for the high ground. And that's why I love him, and that's why if he decides to limit his power, its fine; and if he thinks he shouldn't, then I'm still behind him." I smiled at her. Raven was seldom outspoken, but she certainly had things to say when she was.

"Well." Twilight paused before finally turning back to me after my gray mare's speech. "What's the decision. Need a piece of paper still?" I paused, considering it for a while.

"I want restrictions... but I think it would be best to follow Twilight's words on this one." I said finally. "If I say 'I can't order you all to murder ponies', it cheapens my resolution to not kill. It's... it's better I have a sword that I never use not because I've thrown it away; but because, though I carry it wherever I go, I dare not unsheathe it." I looked up to Twilight. "I will still need some paper if I'm going to figure out how best to switch place with Berry." She nodded, and Berry gave a silent 'yes', while the needed supplies were gathered.