My green eyes gleamed in the artificial light of the convention center as I peered through leaves of a potted fern, watching a group of three guys as they spoke to one another. My name is Cassandra, Cassie to my friends, and I'm a somewhat short but otherwise average female with auburn hair. I can be bit anti-social sometimes, and maybe some of my thoughts could be considered 'evil', 'crazy', or 'sadistic' by people who view the world in black and white, instead of the shades of grey that it is.
Anyways, I was watching as one of them made their way over to a stall. "Tony" I thought with some venom, "John would be better off without that jerk." The jackass used to tease me relentlessly back in middle school, and he wasn't any nicer to me after that either. I honestly have no idea how he managed to become one of Johns closest friends. I watched him buy some sort of ring or trinket- before falling into the shadows of the stall and disappearing. Admittedly I grinned for a moment at the happy coincidence, before wincing as another guy, the one I had really been watching, then crashed face-first into the stall where his friend had just been.
"Good thing John is pretty resilient.." I thought, noting how often he tended to crash into things when he wasn't thinking or paying attention. I've always thought of him as cute, but my .. fascination? Love? I wouldn't say obsession.. He really caught my attention after I saw just how vicious he can be, despite his friendly and almost.. derpy demeanor. Never really raising a hand to defend himself and laughing everything off, but when something hurts or threatens someone he cares about he can be downright ferocious. I almost felt bad for the guys that pushed me around in front of him. Almost. I still went to their hospital rooms afterwards to get my own revenge.
My eyes narrowed in anger as I noticed that he too had vanished from the stall, having been given some sort of pink gem.
I almost stood from my hiding place, stopping myself as the third and final member of the trio ran over to the stall owner, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him into the display. "Dante.. I don't think I've ever seen him act so recklessly." Dante was the calmest one of the trio. He was usually very composed, and it was unusual to see him rush into anything- especially like this. Unlike Tony, I actually approve of Dante as one of Storm's closest friends. Unfortunately, he was soon spirited away by a helmet that had been slammed onto his head by the cosplay merchant.
Having had enough, I marched over, a single-minded determination taking hold of me as I walked towards the merchant that had caused John and his friends to disappear. "You!" I stated angrily, but not loudly, as I approached.
The merchant looked over with a grin, straightening his clothes and acting as if the little fiasco from before hadn't happened. "Ah, hello there little one. Is there anything you might be interested in?"
"Tell me where John went." I said seriously, ignoring the remark at my height and placing my hands on the table between us to lean across the table. "And either bring him back or send me after him." John was my focus here. Though on the bright side, I won't even have to worry about getting rid of Tony now.
The merchant's grin widened a tad, unaffected by my angry posture or tone. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, my dear." He replied, a hint of humor in his voice.
I almost snarled at the man, but quickly reigned my considerable temper in. There's a time for everything, and losing my temper almost definitely won't help me here. "You gave him some sort of.. Pink.. Gem.. Thing." I stated carefully, keeping the boiling rage under control. I hate being taken for a fool. "I want to know where he went, and how I can find him."
The merchant shrugged, that same damnable smile on his face. "I'm afraid all three of my last sales had some crystalline qualities to them." He said, rather unhelpfully. It was painfully obvious that he was being frustrating on purpose, he probably found this whole situation incredibly amusing even. "I'll tell you what, why don't you buy something? I'm sure it might help clear some things up." The shifty shop-owner suggested, gesturing around to his wares.
My hands clenched angrily, one of them ending up clutching onto some sort of furry rope or string, "I'm not here to buy.. anything.." I trailed off as things seemed to get a bit fuzzy, the world around me falling out of focus. "W-what's.. going on?" I asked as my surroundings disappeared.
"Good luck.." The merchants voice seemed to be coming from everywhere.. nowhere.. Colors were melding, lines were blurring, there was nothing anywhere and everything was nowhere. The void was all around me, dark shapes shifting in the nothingness, staring into my very being...
And then suddenly it was over. The world snapped into clear focus, colors bloomed all around and light shone brightly onto the stone floor in front of me. "what?" I wondered absently, my mind stuttering in shock at the sudden displacement from reality. A large stone floor, lit by the sun coming through an opening in the ceiling above, lay before her. Steps led from the stone floor up to a raised platform, where I was sitting. There was a rhythmic thumping coming from just beyond the doorway at the end of the room. My eyes widened at what came through the door.
Ponies. lots of almost tribal looking ponies filed into the room, spears somehow held in their hooves and thumping along with their march. They lined up along the sides of the room, continuing to thump the ends of their spears against the ground in a rhythmic pattern that could almost be considered soothing.
"Oh no.."