Out of Your Elements

by Kagemoon

Of Betrayal and Lies

Nightshade groaned. He hated teleportation of any kind. The things transporting ones matter and soul across time and space did to his stomach was not pleasant to describe. He started to stand on wobbly legs when he heard the all too familiar sound of somepony losing their lunch beside him. Slowing turning his head he saw the Wonderbolt, Element of Treachery throwing up all over the ground.

“Are you bucking kidding me? What part of I work better alone didn’t you understand,” Nightshade shouted into the air. For the first time in weeks the voice now known as Discord didn’t answer.

“No so loud. I feel like I tried to out drink Spitfire again,” Masqurade whimpered as his cheeks puffed out, barely catching more of his upcoming lunch in his mouth. He doubled over and vomited again.

“Teleportation sickness,” Nightshade told the pegasus in a scholarly tone. “If you think you have if bad you should see what it does to an earth pony. At least pegasai are used to quick motions.”

Masquerade wiped his mouth with a hoof. “Whatever. Where did Discord send us?”

The two ponies surveyed their surroundings. In the distance they could make out Cloudsdale and in the opposite direction they spotted the spires of Canterlot. Without a word they crested a nearby hill and saw a simple town greeting sign. “Welcome to Ponyville.”

“Oh Come On!” the two stallions shouted together.

“I thought you were supposed to be the backstabber. Discord sent us straight to the Elemental of Harmony. Two of us versus the six of them. Nu uh, not happening. I’m getting while the getting’s good,” Nightshade huffed and turned to put as much distance between him and the small burg. He was stopped by the pegasus chomping down on his black tail.

“Look, I bet he sent us here to scout the enemy,” Masquerade said hopefully through a mouthful of hair.

“Do the words random teleportation not mean anything to you? We lost the lottery fly boy. Unless he was lying, which given what he is, is a distinct possibility.”

Masquerade spat out the unicorn’s tail. “So he sent us here. It’s not like the other Elements know who we are. It’s simple, we go into town, scope things out, and make a plan. If we can take out two or three of the mares all the better for Discord, right?”

Nightshade disliked the way the Wonderbolt thought so nonchalantly about killing. As a con artist, Nightshade had caused deaths to be sure, but never against someone innocent. Always against partners who wanted to go farther than just bits, or marks who hurt others to get into positions of power. In his youth he considered himself a new aged Robin Hoof, but as he grew older and wiser he knew he was more of a Thomas Triplecrown. Still the Wonderbolt was right. Scouting a town was a normal event for him to find the best targets for whatever trick he was planning to pull.

“Fine,” Nightshade said with a nod. “Scope and slink. No actions yet. By the way, you may want to ditch the flight suit. You kinda stand out.”

Masquerade was about to protest about being famous, but realized only Soarin and Spitfire were the only Wonderbolts immediately recognizable out of their uniforms. With practiced ease he stripped off the costume and stuffed it into his saddle bags.

“Let’s go, we’ll grab something to eat first. Outdoor cafés are some of the best places to pony watch from.” Leading the way Nightshade felt somewhat uncomfortable letting the one pony in Equestria mostly likely to stab in him the back stay behind him.

Ponyville was as colorful as many of Equestria’s towns, sans the frontier settlements. Pastels and off spectrum paints marked nearly every building from the town hall to the apartments. No conformity. Nightshade wondered why Discord felt the need to change things. Shade spotted a grouping of outdoor tables and led his new companion to the café.

As he had thousands of times in his life, he acted as if he had been to the restaurant before and ordered a water and rose petal sandwich without looking at the menu. All of Equestria’s cafés had the item in stock, no exceptions. Masquerade on the other hoof spent and agonizingly long time scanning the menu, Nightshade guessed he was looking for something expensive or rare, something from Canterlot.

“Do you have flax seed soup,” the pegasus asked the when the waiter came back with Nightshade’s water. Nightshade nearly face hoofed. The blasted Wonderbolt seemed determined to bring as much attention to them as possible.

“He’ll have a water and asparagus salad,” Shade told the waiter as he snatched the menu from Masquerade with his magic. He ignored the death stare from his partner as he went back to pony watching.

Many different races and colors of ponies crossed the streets. Food venders, most likely farmer from nearby fields hawked their wares. Strangely an orange earth pony selling apples caused his skin to tingle, not in a good way. Their meals arrived and Masquerade attempted to refill his empty stomach as quickly as possible. Nightshade in contrast slowly munched on his sandwich, mentally he put it in his top five he had tasted.

“Are the princesses still at Twilight’s?” a passing butter colored pegasus asked the pink earth pony bouncing beside her as they passed the café.

Nightshade’s and Masquerade’s ears perked up.

“Yep, they’re all working really, really hard to find some magic to find the meany Elements,” the pink pony answered.

Masquerade leaned in close to Nightshade, again Nightshade almost face hoofed as the pegasus’s conspicuous actions. “The princesses are in town? We need to get the buck out of here then.”

“Oh, now you want to leave. Well guess what, no. I’m staying now that I’ve staked a claim. You, you can go. Run back to daddy Discord and tell him what he already knows, Celestia and Luna are looking for us.”

Masquerade scowled. He hated being talked down to more than anything. No pony got away with it for long. Without another word he flapped his wings and flew away from the table. Leaving Nightshade smiling despite having to pay for both their meals.

“Too easy,” Nightshade said as he finished his sandwich and pulled the remainder of Masquerade’s salad toward him. The Wonderbolt wasn’t the first partner he had purposefully chased off. After finishing the meal he paid the bill and set out to see the rest of the town. As he passed through the market street the tingling under his skin increased neared the apple stall, but weakened when he put some distance between himself and the orange cowpony now scratching the back of her neck unconsciously.

The urge to break out his old card table was strong. The ponies of this little town seemed to be blissfully cheerful and would likely be unaware they were being tricked out of their bits until he was long gone. As he trotted through town he began to wonder how many of the thoughts he was having were his. He wondered if he always thought about scamming
ponies at every turn, or if the invisible piece of jewelry was affecting his mind somehow.

“Hold it right there partner,” a thick country drawl called from behind him.

Nightshade turned. In front of him were six mares two of each race glaring daggers at him. Amongst the mares were two much larger alicorns, one white one night blue. Behind the group was a seemingly beat up mint green pegasus in a Wonderbolt uniform with a smirk of crossing his bruised lips.

“Oh come on,” Nighshade cursed under his breath. “Can I help you ladies?” he said plastering on smile.

“Is this the one Masquerade?” Celestia asked the wounded Wonderbolt.

“Yes Princess. He’s the Element of Deceit. Equestria’s biggest liar. I heard everything before Discord found my squad,” Masquerade answered, his smirk disappearing as a fake pained grimace replaced it.

The mare’s glares hardened. Nightshade sighed. “I don’t suppose you would believe me I told you he’s an Element too. Treachery. He killed that squad he’s pretending to pine over.” No gasps. No confused looks among the Elements of Harmony. Just ice cold eyes focused on Nightshade. “Yeah didn’t think so. Let’s see nine versus one. Okay I give up.” He put his fore hooves in there air in surrender.

The mare’s jaws dropped. “Wait, wait wait,” the rainbow maned pegasus shouted. “You give up. No epic battle. No tricks. You just give up.”

“Don’t believe him,” Masuqerade begged the princesses. “He’s trying to trick us.”

Nightshade shook his head. “Nope, no tricks. Go ahead, tie me up. I’m done with all this working for a creepy god and associating myself with sociopaths.”

Twilight looked at her mentor who gave a nod, her eyes never leaving the red unicorn. Twilight levitated Applejack’s ever present lasso and bound Nightshade tightly. Never taking a step closer to him.

“Um, now what?” Pinkie asked.

“We must interrogate the traitor. We will need a darkened room, a chair, and a very bright light,” Luna told the group. Secretly she was excited to play out the role of a hard lined detective from the books she had recently read.

“Hey, I’m the liar, he’s the traitor,” Nightshade said in another desperate attempt to get the group to at least entertain the fact.”

“Yeah right. He’s a Wonderbolt, there’s no way somepony would throw that away to work for Discord,” Rainbow Dash retorted.

“Or, because he’s a traitorous little shite, that’s what made him perfect for an Element of Cha-" He was cut off by a globulus blue-black glow clamping his mouth shut.

“We will hear no more of thine lies,” Luna growled. “Fluttershy, Pinkie, please take Masquerade to the hospital. Applejack, you and Rainbow will come with me to interrogate the stallion. Sister, take Twilight and Rarity back to the library to work on that locator spell.” Luna’s orders sounded absolute. Even after a thousand years on the moon her military mind had not dulled, even her sister obeyed without question, following Twilight and Rarity. “Now then, to the cellar,” she called happily to the two remaining Elements who shared a worried look between them.

…..

“Who are you working for,” the blue alicorn yelled. A sharp smack split the room as her hoof struck Nightshade’s face.

“Ow, ow. You crazy bucking mare. You know who I work for, Discord. For Lu… for your sakes, not even Stalliongrad cops start hitting until I’ve insulted them at least twice,” the red unicorn yelled back.

Luna looked at Rainbow Dash and Applejack confused. “Truly? But Jack Plower does it in the books all the time.”

As the two mares looked lost Nightshade laughed. “Really, I love those books. Jack, saving Equestria from all the terrorists, changelings, and subversive elements, pun intended by the way.”

Luna looked back to him. “I know, wonderful reads aren’t they.”

“Um… weren’t we, you know, asking him about Discord’s plans?” Rainbow asked.

Luna stiffed and blushed. “Oh, right.” Her voice went deep again. “What are Discord’s plans?” she yelled.

“No clue,” Nightshade answered quickly.

“He’s lyin’,” Applejack said as she stepped forward. “Ah can feel it.”

“Really?” Luna looked at the orange earth pony. “That my make sense. You two are opposing Elements, you might be able to sense when the other is obeying their nature.” She shot a glare at Nightshade. “Say something truthful,” she demanded.

“I like pizza,” Nightshade answered with a wry smile.

“Now lie,” Applejack ordered.

“You seem like a learned and cultured mare,” he said his smile growing wider.

Rainbow Dash burst out laughing and even Luna sniffed a giggle. Applejack was not as amused as her friends. “Every time he lies all the hairs on the back of ma neck stand up. Ya can’t trick us now, so answer everything.”

“That was kinda the point of surrendering,” he told her.

“Yer lyin again.”

“Damn, sensitive aren’t we. Fine, I figured it was safer to get captured than try to fight you. Besides at least while I’m here I’m safe from your Wonderbolt buddy.”

Rainbow flew forward, her hoofs slamming the wall on either side of his face. “Are you still going on about Masquerade being one of you? He’s a Wonderbolt, Equestria’s best fliers and Special Forces. He’d never join you.”

Nightshade shot a glare at Applejack. “Yes he is.” He waited for her to react. The Element of Honesty’s eyes went wide.

“Rainbow, he aint’ lyin.”

“What!” the cyan mare screamed. “Come on AJ. He’s got to be, there’s no way…”

Luna put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder to calm her down. “Are you sure Applejack?”

Applejack glared at Nightshade. “Say it again,” she demanded.

“Masquerade is the Element of Treachery. He plans of killing as many of you girls as he can,” the unicorn told her, the serious look never leaving his face.

Applejack continued to glare at him. “We’ve got to warn Pinkie and Fluttershy,” she said finally.

There was a gust of wind and the cellar down was obliterated in an instant letting Celestia’s sun fill the once darkened room. Applejack and Luna stood frozen, never had they seen the Element of Loyalty move so fast. In the distance a loud explosion could be heard, from their view in the cellar they watched as waves of rainbows filled the sky.

Comments

[Kagemoon]

Ponified references. Yay.

[Inferno demon Dash]

LOL, Awesome, Applejack met her stallion dark half, nice, thought he would be more meaner towards her though, but I really enjoying this.