Out of Your Elements

by Kagemoon

Massacre on the Frontier

Arthus had just finished emptying his stomach as the wind kicked a cloud of dust into his eyes. Uttering a string of curses, he attempted to rub the grit away at the same time trying to keep his lunch down. Never in his entire life of fights, hard drinking, and traveling had something made him as sick as Discord’s teleportation.

“Howdy friend, welcome to Aaaaappleooossa,” A too loud voice yelled in Arthus’s ears. If he wasn’t blinded he would have shattered the offending pony’s jaw.

“Where in Tartarus is Appleoosa?” Arthus growled.

“Southern most town in all of Equestria partner,” the country pony said. Arthus was finally able to clear his vision and looked the annoyance. A blond maned yellow pony in a brown vest and cowboy hat stood there smiling.

“Whatever. Ya got a bar here?” the Element of Cruelty asked. Bars always led to some sort of action or another.

The pony never stopped smiling. “We got a saloon, the Salt Block. It’s got everything from cider to pies.”

“Close enough. Where…” Arthus took his first look of the town. In all there were maybe twenty buildings. On the main street any business was clearly marked with old wooden signs. “Never mind, I’ll find it.”

‘It’ just happened to be ten steps from where he had landed. Using a bit of unnecessary force, he threw the swinging doors open and grinned at the frightened looks the patrons gave him. Arthus gave the room a once over, a smattering of earth ponies mixed in with a hoofful a buffalo. He had never seen a buffalo outside of card dealing in a Los Pegasus casino. Here they wore head dresses of feathers and painted their faces with colored stripes, very native looking.

He stepped up to the bar. “Applejack Daniel’s, leave the bottle,” he ordered the barkeeper.

The pony gave him a worried look, but grabbed a bottle from the lower shelf. Arthus filled the glass and quickly downed the first double shot.

“Why would the boss send me here? No wait, he said where we wound up was was random so I’m just here to cause some trouble. No problems there. I do that on a daily basis. But I’m an Element now, working of the god of Chaos. It can’t be my normal trouble. Gotta think big Arthus. You’re the best at being the worst. Come on, think,” he saw the bar pony looking at him. “Hey buddy, how may ponies live here?”

“Welp, bout forty ponies, and twice as many buffalo out thar on the range.”

“So, about a hundred and twenty give or take. Any pegasai or unicorns out here.”

“Maybe a few visitors, but no sir, only earth ponies are strong nuff ta tame this here desert.”

Arthus laughed at the subtle racism. He loved when ponies didn’t hide what they thought, one of the reasons he stayed as far away from Canterlot as possible. The city of double speak and innuendo. “Hmmm. Hundred and twenty ponies, so to speak, no magic no flying, yeah I think I can do this,” the grey earth pony mused out loud.

“Sir?’ the barkeep asked with a worried gaze.

Arthus chugged the a few mouthfuls of the whiskey then gave the server a wicked smile. “Grats bub, you get to be my first victim as an Element. Good news is I’ll probably remember you, probably.” With that he smashed the blunt end of the bottle three times into the barkeeps face, caving in the pony’s skull. The Element of Cruelty laughed as he heard every chair and stool in the salon scoot back or fall over. “Come and get it,” he whispered and turned to face a room full of scared and angry customers.

He didn’t have to wait long for a very large buffalo to charge toward him. Instead of moving or dodging Arthus caught his attacker by the horns and started to twist his head to the right, when the body attempted to follow Arthus jerked the horns the opposite way, reveling in the snap of the buffalo’s neck.

“We doing this one at a time or are you fillies gonna make this interesting for me,” he yelled as he smashed a bottle on a stool and wielded the neck as a makeshift shank.

.....

Braeburn Apple and Sheriff Silverstar stood outside the Salt Block Saloon with a hastily assembled possy. The screams from inside the building had stopped not long ago, but the sheriff decide against charging inside. The possy was made of some of Appleoosa’s biggest and strongest ponies and bison, no pony was getting away from them. Suddenly one of the salons windows shattered as a hail of alcoholic bottles sailed through the air, some smashing on to nearby buildings, others hitting members of the sheriff’s deputized citizens.

No pony had a chance to wonder what the strange action was all about as just as many flaming cloths followed the bottles, igniting the spilled spirits sending everything that had been soaked in alcohol up in flames. Ponies and buffalo screamed and ran from the quickly spreading inferno. In the blink of an eye half of Mane Street was burning and Appleloosa’s citizens were trying desperately to save their town.

“No point foals. No ponies going to be around to live here in a few minutes,” a gruff voice called from the salon. Braeburn watched as the same dark gray pony he had directed to the saloon earlier strolled through the doors with an apathetic swagger and an eerie red glow surrounding him.

“Round em up boys,” Sheriff Silverstar yelled. A group of stallions charged the arsonist who simply grinned. Braeburn watched as, in what seemed if one motion, Arthus bucked the front two attackers in the throats causing them to choke on their pooling blood. He somersaulted forward and jabbed the remaining assailants in the eyes, sending them writhing in pain to the dusty ground.

Silverstar turned toward Braeburn. “Trains still here son, ya gotta get ta Canterlot and warn the Princess. We’re gonna need ‘er guards. This guy’s inpony, an we might not be able ta stop em.”

“Whatta bout Chief Thunderhooves. Ah bet this varmint can’t stand up ta a full bison stampede,” Braeburn protested.

The two watched as Arthus dispatched another hooffull of buffalo who had gathered up the courage to attack him. So far no one had been able to so much as touch the crazed pony. “Might not have too much faith in us son. Get. We’ll buy ya some time.”

With a weak nod Braeburn ran toward the train station, flanked by two of the remaining stagecoach ponies, whose job it was to pull the locomotive. On the way to the station he passed a large group of charging buffalo led by one in a full headdress.

“We saw the fires, what’s going on?” Chief Thunderhooves asked.

“There’s a crazy pony back there killin’ and burin’ everything in sight,” the pony answered his friend.

A little doe stood up next to the much larger bison. “Father, this sounds like the medicine bucks dream. Pain and fire. We must…”

“We will do what is necessary to save the land little Strongheart. You will go with Braeburn Apple and leave here.”

Tears filled the doe’s eyes. “No father, I will not leave our tribe, our land.”

“You must. If the medicine buck’s visions are true then you will be needed to revitalize it.” He looked around the apple orchard they were standing in and nodded at a prominent tree at its center. Without a word a nearby brave kicked the tree causing an avalanche of apples to rain on to the ground. Chief Thunderhooves scooped up two of the fruits and passed them to his crying daughter.

“The ponies of this town tamed the wilds as easily as we ran through them. Together we brought peace to the two races and in the future you will lead the process to bring them back together. Today though, you must run.” He turned to his anxious tribe. “Braves, before us a single pony with the strength of a full herd is destroying Appleloosa, the ponies need our help. Today we show them the power of the buffalo.”

The tribe stomped and shouted. Leading the charge Chief Thunderhooves looked back at the still crying Strongheart leaning against Braeburn for support. The old chief smiled, then focused ahead on the limits of the town. Braeburn gently pulled Strongheart toward the train station, she resisted at first as the dust of her tribe’s stampede faded, but allowed herself to be led away as their screams echoed in the air.

.....

Two hours. That’s how long it took for Arthus to murder or maim an entire town. He sat on a pile of buffalo corpses, wearing the deceased chief’s headdress in a case of after death mockery. There were still some moans and cries coming from the burned remains of the buildings, he decided he’d shut them up after a quick breather. He watched as the smoke of the train faded in the sunset the sick smile never leaving his face.

He had let the train escape on purpose, somepony needed to hear of his fun little afternoon and survivors were the best messengers. He looked over at the body of the sheriff which was draped over a hitch post. The earth pony was the first to lay a hoof on him the entire day and for that Arthus tortured him, breaking all his legs and forcing the lawman to watch as his town was destroyed. The Element of Cruelty didn’t know whether it was shock or blood loss that finally got the old pony, but it did slightly irk him that he wasn’t the one to end his life.

“Hope that was good enough boss. That’s just a start though. I’m not nearly satisfied with some hicks and savages. Maybe a quick trip to Los Pegasus is in order. Bouncers there used give me a bit of a workout.”

.....

The train from Appleloosa arrived in Ponyville as Luna’s moon reached its apex. Braeburn and Little Strongheart stepped out of the car. The doe was still carrying the two apples from Breaburn’s cousin’s prize tree.

“Applejack’s farm ain’t far from here hun. She’ll get us in touch with the Princess.”

Strongheart nodded but said nothing. She followed Braeburn off the platform and into the town proper. They had barely left the station when they heard their names being called. Whirling around they saw a familiar orange earth pony running toward them.

“What the heck are ya’all doin’ here? Ya didn’t send a letter or nothin’.”

“Jackie, there’s… well somethin’ happened.”

They recounted their stories and watched as her eyes widened. “That’s… terrible cuz. Come on, yer in luck, Princess Celestia is staying at the library, we’ll get ya somethin’ ta eat and ya’all are can stay at the farm fer as long as ya want.”

“Applejack,” Little Strongheart spoke for the first time since leaving Appleloosa. “You seem to know something about these events.”

Applejack nodded. “Maybe, if that feller’s who I think it is ya’all are lucky to be alive. Let’s go talk ta Celestia. She’ll be able ta tell ya the yarn a bit better than me.”

They entered the library tree to see the alicorn princess, her student, and the fasionista lying in various positions around the common room.

“What if we use the prisoner’s magical matrix as the spells secondary base?” Rarity ventured from as she stretched over the couches backrest.

“Then it’ll find him just fine, but it’ll be useless for the other Elements,” Celestia told her, the princesses uncrowned head rested in the library’s beanbag chair.

“We could copy our Elements then reverse the aura with polarity change spell,” Twilight mused.

Celestia though for a moment then shook her head. “Too much of a chance of that affecting your Elements of Harmony. Then we’d have two sets of Chaos Elements on our hooves. What if we—“

Applejack cleared her throat to get the magic users attention. “Sorry ta interrupt but we’ve got a problem.”

“Braeburn, Little Strongheart, what are you doing here,” Twilight shouted in surprise.

“Ah think they had a run in with one of the other Elements,” AJ explained.

Celestia stepped forward, her horn glowing. She waved it a few times in front of the frontier pony and the bison doe. “She’s right. There’s a trace of chaotic energy surrounding them. It’s much too strong to be normal bad run of luck. It feels like Discord, but twisted and weaker at the same time.” She let her magical aura scoop at theirs, taking a small sample of the chaos she found with it. She moved the blackened sample to a small magic vial. “Now we have another sample.”

“So what’s it all mean Princess?” Applejack asked.

“It means our prisoner wasn’t lying, strangely enough. Discord randomly teleported his Elements around Equestria as a means to spread his chaotic influence.”

“You know, if you second guess everything I tell you then we’ll just end up having the same conversation over and over again when I end up being right,” a new voice said from the basement. Nightshade crested the staircase rubbing his wrists.

“How did you get out?” Twilight demanded to know as Spike jumped in front of Rarity in a protective manner.

“You left me alone for a few hours with so much as a check-up and of course I’ll find a way out.” He turned toward Braeburn and Strongheart. “So they ran into Arthus huh? I met the stallion for less than a minute and I knew he was nuts. Sorry to hear about your town.”

“He ain’t lyin’” Applejack announced.

“Is this going to be our thing? I say something, you announce whether or not I’m telling the truth. You just wanna ruin all my fun cowgirl.”

“Hey now, that’s ma cousin,” Braeburn growled. “Who’s he anyway?”

“He’s like the guy that ya’all met. A bad Element,” Applejack told them. Braeburn and Little Strongheart scowled. The two displaced Appleoosans started to advance on the red unicorn.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Your cousin and I seem to have a different idea of what bad is. I don’t work with Discord or Arthus, not really, I mean I guess I can’t just quit lying, it’s my nature after all but I was kinda drafted into the Chaos Army, if you know what I mean. I’m a good pony, okay not a good pony, but not evil, not really.” His arguments didn’t stop the angery doe or frontier pony.

“CEASE THESE ACTIONS NOW,” Celestia demanded in a quieter version of her sister’s royal Canterlot voice. All the beings in the room froze in place. “Braeburn and Little Strongheart, I will make sure Luna sends a contingent of guards and medics to Appleloosa, until you two are ready to return I’m sure Applejack will allow you to stay on her farm.” Applejack nodded. “Nightshade, you say you no longer wish to work for Discord, then help us now. How’s your magic theory knowledge?’

“Less and a Doctorate more than a Bachelors.” He looked at Applejack expectantly, who frowned and nodded to Celestia. “I’ll do what I can on one condition.”

“Condition,” Rarity screamed. “The world’s in danger of ending and you’re asking for something in return for saving it?”

Nightshade shot her his most winning smile. “Yep.”

“What do you want?” Celestia asked before anyone else in the room could start and argument.

“Full pardon for any of my past crimes, no matter what they are and amnesty for being an Element of Chaos.”

“Deal, but only if you don’t betray us, and do you best to stop lying.”

The rest of the room stood slack jawed. They had just watched their ruler make a Faustian deal without blinking an eye. Nightshade rubbed his hooves together. “Excellent. So what are we doing are how are we doing it?”

Comments

[Kagemoon]

I need the magical synonym for techno babble. I got nothing. Magi Babble? Magic Babble? Magik Babble? Mag Babble?

[Inferno demon Dash]

Damn.....CRUETLY JUST SLAUGHTERED ALL OF THEM, KNID OF STRANGE HOW HE DOES NOT EvEN HAVE A SCARTCH ON HIM THOUGH...REALLY AM ENJOYING THIS STORY, BUT IT'S ODD HOW THE ELEMENT OF DECEIT IS TRYING TO BE THE GOOD GUY, WELL FOR A WHILE AT LEAST, CAN'T WAIT TILL FLUTTERSHY MEETS HER DARK HALF, this is going to be fun...sorry for the caplocks. And I like Magik Babble.