My Life on a Cassette Tape

Finally, after multiple teleportations, we arrived inside Twilight's castle. I quickly flopped down into a chair, running a hand across my face in exasperation at the evening. No sign had been given who this new contender was. My mind occasionally flicked back to the first stallion, possibly even the waiter, but neither had given any sign, neither had a physical artifact I could find in my brief searches. I hadn't searched the waiter as thoroughly as that first stallion, but I also needed to be at least a little bit discreet. Maybe they had hidden their artifact? Then again, did they need an artifact? Perhaps it was a homunculus again, a being with innate magic woven into their very being that they could manifest at will. What was I supposed to do.

"And that's what we're up against?" Double asked Raven, his unflappable nature starting to waver in that regard. Every pony had their limits, and an underground society of mind controllers seemed pretty close to his limit - that or finding out Berry and Periwinkle were bound to me through my own brand of mind control.

"Yes, it's been a hectic few days around here." Raven said with a short nod. "I also should be upfront with you two as I have been with the others. It'll prevent future mishaps since... well, you're unfortunately a part of this now." With that, Raven transformed, the green line of crackling energy flowing across her body in two separate waves, one reshaping her body as it trailed from her midriff to her head, while the other flowed downward - leaving her without a dress, wearing nothing but bare chitin.

"A changeling then... figures there's more to it than what is on the surface." Double said in exasperation before turning away, walking off as he ran his hands through his hair. "And you've talked to the guards?" He said, turning to me.

"Yes, the guards were talked to when the first mind controller got himself torn asunder by his talisman going off. All his slaves were released and many of them went straight to the guard. It didn't even take an afternoon for all the charges to be disregarded." I said with a huff, closing my eyes as I leaned my head back into the plush cushion of the chair. "They either have somepony in the guard at a decently high level or they are just really good at avoiding the guards just enough that they aren't caught."

"Great... just great." Double said, he stood there, looking about, unsure what to do with himself. Knowing him, he was wavering between screaming and kicking something - honestly it could go either way or both ways. Double let out a huff and just kicked at the floor, struggling with his own frustration and exasperation. "And this Empire, it was the thing that interrupted our dinner? What were they doing exactly?"

"Making you guys into puppets." I said, my tone unintentionally darker than even I wanted it to be. "They made you all say things and do things. I tried locating the artifact user using various means, but none of them seemed to work."

"This really isn't good." Double shook his head, looking about him as he continued to try and sort out his emotions. Honestly, I also needed a moment too, though I had a slightly better understanding of the situation. I was confused, worried, anxious, angered, and - above all - fearful. Not the sort of fear that made me want to run, but the type of fear you'd feel when a bear is stalking you. The type of fear that made you alert and ready to lash out, the fear that makes every muscle tighten like a spring and your brain flood with endorphins and adrenaline, the fear that gives you strength to face the source of your fear; now all I had to do was figure out what that source was.

"Where's Twilight?" Berry asked, breaking the moment silence. I perked up at that. I had honestly expected her to have just been standing in a corner of the room silently, but looking around, we seemed completely isolated. No pony was around. Standing up, I gave a look to Double, to which he nodded, and moved up shoulder to shoulder with me.

"Everypony, on us, form a semicircle behind us. Periwinkle, watch our rear, Berry, find something to lash around her that you can hold. Find something in here to use as a weapon if you can. We might have more problems in this castle than we anticipated." Double said, taking on a commanding tone, transforming in a way from the young stallion he was to a full guard pony. Everypony moved with purpose, grabbing chairs and fire pokers. For a lash, Berry found a spool of thread that had been being used for a knitting project that sat next to an open book about crochet techniques. I didn't take its state of looseness as a good sign. Most ponies would clean up after finishing a project, and Twilight was tidier than most ponies, or at least so said my brief acquaintance with her.

Forming up, Double on point with me right up behind him, we opened the only door that led out of whichever room we were in in the castle. The corridor before us was still well lit, arcane crystals giving a gentle glow that filled the halls with a cool light, the type of light you'd expect from ice crystals. Moving down the corridor in our little turtle formation, Double opened door after door, the fire poker at the ready to strike, though controlled well with his steely nerves as we pressed forward - as ready to find friend as foe.

Slowly inching forward, clearing room by room, we all froze as the crystals in their sconces dimmed, and then faded completely, leaving us in darkness. I cursed our luck, but blessed the recorder that still sat in my pocket. Pressing the record button, I whispered into the mic that sat comfortingly around my ear.

"The crystals reignited and the hall was filled with light once more." Just as I had said, the crystals reignited, but a moment later, they dimmed once more. I scrunched my nose in disgust. "The lights returned." And so they did, only to die away once more. This was getting annoying. "The mechanism to turn them back on malfunctioned and the rooms were filled with light once more." We all heard a pop in the distance as the lights returned to us. Suddenly all the crystals vibrated in their sconces before shattering into dust within their holders, returning us to darkness. Fed up with the back and forth, I turned off the recording and reached for my phone to give us some light that wouldn't be contested, but felt a hand on my arm stopping me.

"Wait." Raven whispered in the darkness, loud enough for our group to hear. "I can still see, let me lead. That way nothing can see us before we can see it." I would've looked at her, but I fought the automatic urge, knowing it wouldn't do any good.

"Alright, good thinking." Double said from in front of me, his tone even quieter than Raven's. "Everypony, grab each other's shoulders. Periwinkle, seeing as we can't see, you can stop watching the rear. Everypony else, be careful. Raven, on point." Raven shifted in front of me, Double and I placing our hands on her shoulders, our weapons unsure in our hands, any attack would need to be initially a blind affair until we could bring up our phones to shed some light on our situation.

Moving forward once more, we proceeded to clear more rooms, or more accurately, Raven cleared room by room as we followed her blindly, holding on to each other's shoulders. The air was tense, and only became tenser as a scuffling sound was heard.

"What was that?" Thyme said in a quivering whisper. Silence followed for a few moments.

"I don't know, I didn't get to see it." Raven admitted after a moment, her voice so quiet it barely broke the still air. Leaning in to be beside her ear, I whispered.

"Should I have my phone at the ready?" Raven shook her head, evident by the feeling of her mane... frill waving back and forth across my hand.

"No, it might shine when you don't want it to. Let's just move cautiously with everypony else in a crouch so I can swivel my head more." She said, already looking about the room as she spoke. We all complied, moving our posture lower as she scanned the open room with her faintly shimmering amber eyes. "Nothing." She said finally. "Let's keep moving."

Corridor by corridor, door by door, we walked in a huddle bunch, Raven on high alert for us as we made our way ever deeper. Occasionally Raven would stop, focusing on a point in the indistinct darkness for a good long while, only to begin moving once more. I couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on us, the prickling sensation that made the hairs on my neck stand to attention growing stronger and then fading, only to grow ever stronger. We were being stalked, I could feel it, and the occasional rustle, an unaccounted for shifting, and the brief sounds of a breath from none of our mouths kept us all fully alert to all things that surrounded us as the darkness bore down mercilessly.

If I had had a free hand, I know it would've been circling around the indentation of the record button, but I wouldn't have pressed it either way. Before we had escaped when no pony around us was likely going to be any more danger than they usually would. It was a pragmatic fact of our current existence that we needed to weigh certain lives a tad more heavily, and the Elements and Button were at this point the platinum of lives in my mind, only out weighed by the osmium of those ponies who were gripping each other's shoulders around me.

Creeping slowly forward, led by the only one who could see, I swallowed back my apprehensions, steeling my resolve as best as I could. This certainly was not the evening we had hoped for, much less dressed for. Only Raven was truly prepared, with the stallions a close second, followed by Thyme with her scandalous cut dress giving her maneuverability, while - at least in my opinion - Berry and Periwinkle were a close competition. Our nerves, however, were all equally on edge, each pony on guard for any possible threats, visible or otherwise.

Raven's occasional pauses didn't help us either, each stop along our path, whether to open a door to check it, or simply pausing in the hall to look around, brought pangs of anticipatory fear that rose in an ever grander wave to our limits. We were doing great, but we had to press on, despite the rustle of fabric here, a shudder there, a distant whisper in one ear, and a faint hush of movement in the other. We felt surrounded, especially since we so relied so heavily on Raven as she led us through the winding halls, our eyes useless in the pitch darkness we wouldn't break lest it alert whatever was haunting us that we were scared enough to shine a light on it, if it was even truly there.

Slowly, Raven opened yet another door, the soft creak of it catching me off guard for the lack of having turned. I supposed we were at the end of this hall. Closing the door behind us, we all moved silently as Raven got a better look at the place around us.

"Alright," she said in a low tone, "we're in a sort of study... kind of cozy compared to the other rooms. No pony still, but there is another door that leads in here. If you want to turn on phone lights, I think now is the best time. Gathering your wits before we press on and all that."

"Good idea, everypony is fairly on edge with the darkness." Double confirmed, releasing Raven as he fished out... something with a wind up crank? A few seconds of something whirring away in the pitch darkness, Double clicked on a small flashlight. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"You brought that to date night?" I asked incredulously. Double looked at me and shrugged.

"Hey, I expected something weird tonight. Granted, I was expecting you to invite us to walk through Everfree or something like that, but I prepared either way. Even got my electric lighter and scout knife." I was... well flabbergasted. But I suppose him bringing those things was less audacious than me bringing two artifacts to the restaurant. We both had our reasons for bringing things we otherwise might not need except for preparedness, and in the end, we both had needed the items we brought. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight, pointing it around me, comforting myself in the ability to see. I was good to see, comforting.

I froze stiff, my light having past a sparkle of something reflective. Moving the light back over, I saw... eyes!

"Guys! Company!" I managed before the thing bolted out front cover and tackled me to the ground, sending my phone skidding across the floor. The thing lept away from me almost as soon as I hit the floor, knocking over Double before its silhouette turned and lept on Raven. leaping to my feet in a fluid motion, I raised my fire poker, only to have the shadowed thing still shrouded in darkness glare back at me as it slithered away from Raven, darting back into the darkness from which it came.

"Circle! Form a circle!" Double shouted, moving up beside me, the others moving in quickly, surrounding Raven as she lay on the ground, still crumpled where she had fallen. Crouching down, I fumbled in the dimly light darkness, pressing my fingers against her throat. I froze, turning fully to face her. She was bleeding from the neck.

No no no no no no no! Without thinking my one hand clasped around the wound while the other darted into my pocket for the recorder, only for me to be tackled down fully as the thing came back, this time letting me feel claws in my back as it tore into me.

"It's breached!" Double roared, bringing down his weapon on the back of the thing's head. Suddenly a pain broke out across the back of my skull, causing my eyes to shrink in fear. In the faint light I could see him, his eyes wild and his teeth bared. There was no mistake. Thrusting my fire poker into his gut, I kicked him away, standing back up, only to realize too late I had let go of the poker.

"It's the doctor! He's here!" I said, looking around for any sign as I fought against the pain of my throbbing skull. This wasn't good, this WAS not good. I gripped the weapon, and fished my hand into my pocket once more. Pressing down, I began to record. "Raven was healed of her wounds, she was fine; she was healthy and fine and alive!" I whispered harshly. I was about to add another line, but the doctor once again tackled me, leaning down with a snarl as I felt something warm dripping down on my back, only for a searing pain to develop in my abdomen as my eyes widened. My world tilted as pain overcame everything. I dipped a hand to my gut and felt blood trickling out. What vision I had blurred, and I simply lay there, unable to do anything, despite the ponies around me as they fought a silhouette.

Darting back and forth, tackling pony after pony, ripping into them, and then darting off again into our blind spots. I fought against the pain and the rising tide of unconsciousness, trying my best to help, but every second left me weaker and weaker, each passing moment agony as I tried in vain to breath evenly, much less speak. I tried to stay awake, but it wasn't working. Too much pain and too little blood staying in my system. Slowly I faded, despite my efforts, watching helplessly as my friends, my family, and my lovers were battered by the unrelenting force.