My Life on a Cassette Tape

"So what we know," Twilight said as she looked me over, "is that you've been experiencing arcane foresight of a sort in which you see yourself being incredibly enraged and have also have had episodes of lapse of control." I nodded to this, all of what she had said being true. "To be completely fair, we have no way of telling if the two are related. Honestly, it isn't like you've been an amazing exemplar of patience beyond measure. I've known you to be at times quite prone to anger, vindictive even.

"I've seen you reciprocate torture with the same. I recall you being more than willing to raise your voice in anger at me when you felt justice wasn't being dealt out properly. Now, I can't say I've seen you being enraged at those you love or hold dear, so there is a minor point to your account." Twilight conceded. "Seeing a vision of you being exceedingly angry isn't exactly something I'd consider as perception breaking as far as your general character goes."

"Yes... but this was different." I pressed, leaning against the wall as I cupped my head in my hands. "It wasn't just me being overly enraged or even just struck with a blinding rage. It was... it felt like the sort of deep and abiding hatred that usually broils and simmers at the fringes, but at the intensity of an explosion of anger. It was the sort of hate that I can't even imagine feeling." Twilight paused, giving this due consideration.

"Assuming it was you that you saw," She began, measuring her words carefully, "it is always possible that the future is just a very trying time. Then again, there is the very real possibility that you just think it was you. It may be somepony that looks very much like you. Eyes and a bit of hair only tell you so much." I shook my head to this.

"Maybe, but that doesn't explain the voice."

"Voice?" Twilight echoed after a second or two. "You never mentioned a voice." I paused and then groaned, slumping down the wall. Now I had to explain that.

"When I fainted in the entryway, I heard things." I explained before diving into the experience that was my period in blackness with a voice around me. It wasn't the easiest thing to summarize, but I had set myself up for the explanation by bringing it up. "I didn't realize it when I was in the middle of it," I explained as I wrapped up the telling of the vision, "but after I woke up... I realized I had been hearing my own voice."

"That... that is fairly concerning." She popped a squat in front of me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Do you think that it was trying to say those things to you." I blinked at that one. She must've felt my confusion, because an instant later she was explaining. "Seeing things, and now hearing things, can be explained away as excess stress. That being said, it could also be either a corruptive force or a part of your case of arcane foresight. It all honestly depends on if it was talking to you, in general, or even just saying words for the sake of it."

Honestly, at this point I wanted it to be a corruptive force. I had heard those were fairly easy to deal with once diagnosed. I also knew the ponies who were professionals at said curative process. This all being a case of the 'I can see the future' was a far more complicated business. If something made me that enraged... I didn't want to know.

"It..." I tried to recall how the voice had sounded. Every one of my own intonations, the way the voice spoke, all of it used as evidence in a developing case that was slowly being built. It was a shaky case, but a case. "I think that... it very easily could've been aimed at me as any other pony." I admitted in the most unhelpful of ways.

"In that case it might just be another layer to your visions. Another part of the indistinct future that might be ahead of you." She smiled a gentle smile, one that wanted to radiate comfort but was still learning how to do so. "The best advise I can give you is to not worry to much about it. The thaumatic flow of the world will give you foresight, but it isn't like it actually chooses things to show you. There is no grander message behind these things usually, just glimpses from the other side of the gap. Expecting these things to be meaningful is like thinking what you see on the other side of a window when you open and close the shutters really fast is any more meaningful than what you'd see otherwise."

I looked at her expression, finding myself a tad at a loss for words. Was... was that true? These visions... they weren't like how they were shown in books? They really meant so little? I thought, much as anypony who read as much fiction as I did, that the world occasionally let you see what was coming next if you might do something different. The world generally hated upheaval in my view of things, and so if it could avoid the big bumps it would - even if a few rules had to be bend.

"You mean..."

"These visions are only as meaningful as you make them." Twilight assured me. "The part of this that concerns me is whatever force you feel is trying to take away a portion of your autonomy." That swiftly sunk any ship of splendid hope I had had that there was nothing needing to be worried about. "If I understand what you're saying correctly, it appears that it only ever seems to be a problem when you use the artifacts.

"Now, correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but a thorough scientist does their best to remove the variables to test every hypothesis." I blinked at this. If I was supposed to extract meaning or comfort from that pronouncement I had missed the memo. "Cress, I think you need to stop carrying around the artifacts."

Almost like a subconscious leviathan wheeling its head above the sea of consciousness, my gut lurched at the thought of letting the artifacts go. There were more than likely remnants of the Empire out there that had a personal vendetta against us, against me, or against my mares! Putting away the artifacts would be opening myself up to attack!

I blinked, an then took a breath. I had been fortunate during the years I had had on this world. I had never fallen to any vices too heavily. I never drank anything stronger than orange juice, never inhaled first hand smoke, and never used that schticky-icky. Despite all that, I had a pretty good idea what addiction was, or in this case, what was likely a magical compulsion.

"Yeah... yeah, I think that might be for the best." I said in a murmur.

"I can tell this won't be easy for you to do - and there are some very sensible reasons to not want to. I'm glad you agreed, though. I have a feeling the artifacts are hiding more than I've been able to uncover thus far. More tests will be necessary before any solid conclusions can be made, but I am certain we will have something figured in short order." Twilight said in as comforting of terms as she likely could manage. If I had been a doctor I bet I would've felt exceedingly comforted.

I nodded slowly, pulling out the Fixed Dial and Button's artifact, handing them over to her. She took them, placing the two of them in a box which apparated in a flash. I sighed, knowing this was for the best.

"Cress?" Twilight said, bringing me out from my mind before I even entered it. "The recorder?" I blinked at her, and then scratched the back of my head in an awkward gesture.

"I... I can't exactly... give it to you." I said apologetically.

"Cress, you said yourself that you thought it was for the best to let me hold on to them." She pressed me. "Be the better stallion and put it in the box."

"No... you misunderstand, I physically can't." It was her turn to blink at me this time, trying her best to take this in along with the rest I had told her.

"Has the compulsion aspect grown that strong? If so, we don't even need to tes-"

"Twilight, it isn't like that." I stopped her before she could continue. I brought out the recorder, showing it to her. She went to grab it, only to stop as I smashed my fist into it. She drew back, and then looked at me with the most stupefied look as I showed her the beaten apple in my hand. "I... well... Double and I came up with a plan to trick the Emperor that extra bit if need be." I tossed the apple in my hand, Twilight's eyes following it.

"I'm not sure if you can recall, but a while back - and by a while I mean when we were still up against Silver and Gunther - you gave me an apple you had transmuted into the recorder. I've kept it around, though I hadn't made much use of it beyond using it as a prop."

"So where is the actual recorder? Do you still have it on you or did you leave it somewhere?" She asked before I had a chance to continue.

"I was getting there." I shot back with a smirk. "As I said, Double and I came up with a plan. We both figured that more trouble had come from the recorder falling into the wrong pony's - or otherwise - hands. I... well, I made a very particular recording just before we left the house to face the Emperor."

"Please tell me, for the sake of Celestia, that you used its power to reduce it to atoms." Twilight said with a less than amused expression. I could tell that she could tell that that wasn't the case. She had some hope that it might be, but she had enough reason and foresight to tell that it wasn't the truth.

"Sorry." I said with an apologetic smile. "I... well..." I stretched out my left hand, curling my fingers back so that the tips touched the base of the same fingers. I then placed my right hand on top of it and then pressed down on my left hand's pointer finger. The Straight Record's effect activated and I could feel the world waiting to accommodate my next order.

"Twilight understood what I had done." I then lifted my curled pointer finger back up, letting the effect set itself in place. Twilight blinked some more at me.

"You... you melded the recorder into yourself." She asked in a state of absolute bewilderment. "You took an artifact, ancient and powerful and of unknown origins, and then decided that making it a permanent feature of yourself was a good idea." She gave an exasperated sigh, throwing her head back. "I give you that the particular activating mechanism is smart enough - very unlikely to fire accidentally at least. Even so, you took an artifact and made it part of yourself." She returned her gaze to me.

"I suppose you might, by this point, be able to tell why you've been experiencing a phenomena that requires you to be an epicenter of magical forces and have also not felt entirely yourself at times." She said in the tone of a pony who was thoroughly done with my shit. "I'm not sure if you were just foolhardy or clueless, but you honestly should've seen something like this coming about by subsuming an artifact into your very essence."

"I was expecting something more along the lines of magic syphilis or space aides." I joked with a shrug and a smile.

"This isn't a joke, Cress! Artifacts aren't just inert pieces of junk with a bit of magic thrown in for seasoning! They are objects that have, within themselves, an immense force of nature! To be specific, a force of nature that makes them essentially people of a sort! We're talking to the point that artifacts have been, in a variety of countries, granted personal rights on par with the sapient races! The Elements of Harmony had passports and signed consent forms saying that we could use them!"

"Who signed them?"

"A very confused clerk!" Twilight snapped before standing up and stomping away, trying to collect herself even as she wanted to send me to the moon - or worse. "Cress, it bears repeating that the move to take in the artifact was not the brightest of moves. As far as a tactic to surprise the Emperor it was a few steps short of genius, but as a life choice, it was horrendously shortsighted."

"To be fair," I said, lifting a finger as if to get the teacher's attention, "I was expecting to have 'The End' come up shortly after that meeting. Be it directly after 'and they all lived happily ever after' or 'and the Emperor lived happily ever after', I was just looking at what was, in my opinion, the finish line." Twilight sighed again before sitting down beside me, shaking her head.

"Look, Cress, it was dumb. It just so happens to be the type of stupid that you're going to have to live with if you weren't lying about its limitations." She said, closing her eyes, trying to think really hard - and equally not at all - on the situation we were in. This would likely be the brand new source of stress for the Princess of Friendship for a good long while.

"I guess that means an acetaminophen and a slap on the back won't fix my problems then?"