//------------------------------//
// Deus Ex Plot Device 
// Story: Destination: Thataway! 
// by Hawattie 
//------------------------------//

	Thousands of faint whispers, all distinctly recognizable as being Ner's voice, sounded out in my head. My ears flattened against my skull, but it wasn't enough. The whispers told me to obey Ner', to follow his orders unquestioningly, to kill his enemies. I whimpered and tried to cover my ears with my hooves, but this did nothing except get the oil on my ears and in my mane too. For several unbearable eternities I cowered on the platform slowly losing my will to resist the whispers.
Then a powerful voice said "No." And the whispers stopped.
When I peeled my eyes open the oil-filled room where I was fighting Skittles was gone. It was replaced with some sort of mindscape; presumably my mindscape, if the backwards-spinning carousel and floating cardboard boxes were anything to go by. A hostile force of dark energy in the shape of Ner'Ghalad's face was intruding on the mindscape.
Surrounding me and shielding me were four vaguely equine figures who seemed to be composed of living elements. Directly between myself and the shadowy Ner' was a pony made of the most sluggish fire I'd ever seen. It looked like someone had dropped a camp fire into a vat of molasses. Flames licked lazily where its mane and tail would be and its eyes were made of coals. 
To my right was a pony made of dirt and rocks that flowed constantly as if they were a river. It was rather cool watching the rocks flow around each other. On my left stood a pony made from some kind of flickering water, bits and pieces of the pony-shaped water droplet would flash unexpectedly, then wink out of existence for a second or two. Guarding my rear was a pony who looked to be made of crystallized tornadoes. Little swirls of wind were frozen in place and not a single bit moved more than necessary.
"We have invested too much energy into this project to allow for its corruption," the fire pony said. My addled mind connected its voice with the one that had stopped the whispers.
"We banish your influence from this vessel, Necromancer," the fiery pony said. All four elemental ponies raised a single hoof and blasted a stream of their specific element at the shadowy Ner'. The shadow vanished with a wail.
Then the four elemental ponies all turned in unison to face me directly. It was honestly rather creepy. "So, uh," I fished about for something to say to the mind police I didn't realize I had. "Where were you guys when I died and Ner' took control of my body?"
All four of them looked abashed and refused to answer. I scrutinized them all with my best glare. The air pony mumbled something.
"I'm sorry," I said, cupping a hoof to an ear. "Did you just say you find me uncomfortably attractive?"
"What?" the air elemental exclaimed. The other three elementals all gave the air elemental funny looks. "No! I said we were all taking a coffee break!"
"I see." I wasn't sure whether to be thankful that I had my very own set of mind police, or annoyed that they had all messed up the last time I needed their help.
The water elemental whacked the air elemental in the back of his head reproachfully. Don't ask me how a hoof literally made of water can hit a pony literally made of wind, but it worked. "Dammit, you weren't supposed to tell him that."
"Well excuse me, princess!" Air shot back sarcastically. "But I wasn't gonna let the idiot put words in my mouth."
"He's got a point, you know," the earth elemental helpfully put in, leaving the statement intentionally ambiguous.
The water elemental rounded on the earth elemental. "Oh don't you start!" it shouted.
the earth elemental opened its mouth to respond, but was cut off when the fire elemental stomped its hoof with a bang. "Enough! All of you apologize!" The fire elemental glared at the rest until they all apologized. "Thank you. Now, back to business," they all turned to face me again. At some point they'd moved so they were now all in front of me in a line. Having them all in front of me allowed me to truly appreciate how weird they all looked.
I, being me, didn't keep my mouth shut. "You guys look incredibly weird," I said. "And coming from me, you know that means something."
The four elementals all gave me identical blank stares for a second. The fire elemental then glared at the other three. "Whose idea was it to remove his inhibitions?" it asked. I looked to the other three to see their reactions. The water was still looking at me with a mildly shocked expression. The earth one was shifting about guiltily. The air one was trying to suppress giggles.
I decided to put in my two cents. "It was totally the water guy!"
"What?! No!" the water guy shouted, his watery eyes darted about in search of some way to clear his name. His eyes locked on Air who was now openly laughing. "It was Air! You know how devious he is!" Judging by the way the water elemental capitalized Air, I assumed that was his name. Since I didn't want to make an ass of u and me, I didn't assume anything about the rest of their names.
Air, for his only defense, fell over backwards laughing.
The earth one looked relieved that suspicion had been averted when the fire one berated Air for being irresponsible. I threw the earth elemental a conspiratorial wink. He looked mildly surprised and thankful.
"Ahem," the fire elemental cleared his throat to get our attentions. "I believe recent events have shown that our vessel here," he pointed at me, "Is incompetent and needs more help keeping bad guys out of his head." Everyone in the group, including me, nodded in agreement. "Anyone have any ideas on what to do about this?" 
Then, as if he only just realized I'd been listening to everything they were saying, the fire elemental pushed me out of the group with a hoof. The four of them went into a huddle and I pouted by my reverse carousel.
A minute later the fire elemental's voice rose out of the huddle. "Alright, those in favor of giving him the tools he needs to defend himself?"
All four of them chorused, "Aye."
"Alright, break!" Their huddle broke and they all walked over to me. Three of them stopped a few feet away, but Air walked right up to me.
"So the big man over there," he said, pointing over his shoulder at the fire elemental, "has asked me to activate your latent homosexual tendencies..." Air was interrupted by the fire elemental clearing his throat loudly.
"Fine!" Air sighed exasperatedly. "He actually asked me to activate your latent elemental affinity for light magic."
"My what?" I asked.
"Just, hold still," he told me. "This'll only take a second." Air didn't wait for me to hold still. The second he closed his mouth he shoved his hoof straight into my ear. It was highly unpleasant and I may have shrieked like a little filly.
After a few seconds of rummaging around Air announced, "That sorceress mare sure knows what she's doing. His lasers are linked to his affinity, just like we thought. It won't be too hard to attune him the rest of the way."
Something twitched inside and I involuntarily kicked my leg out. "Careful man!" Air yelped as my hoof passed through his gut. He jerked back a bit when my hoof came out of him and I felt a little tingling about my eyes. "Oh, oops!" Air exclaimed.
"What happened?" I asked, blinking my eyes a bit. They felt funny.
Air looked a bit sheepish. The water elemental butted in and said, "Your eyes are glowing."
"Really?" I blinked a few time and rolled my eyes every which way, but I couldn't catch a glimpse of my own eyes. "Cool! How glow-y are they?" I concentrated my gaze on the watery pony and imagined I was shining a flashlight into his face.
"Gah!" the water pony recoiled back from the sudden spotlight being shined in his face. "Turn it off! Turn it off!" he shouted.
I shut my eyes to stop blinding the poor elemental and noticed a steady decrease in the tingly-ness of my eyes. I reopened my eyes when the tingly-ness was back to the original level and I was no longer shining twin spotlights wherever I looked.
Air, meanwhile, had been rustling about with his entire leg up to the shoulder stuck into my ear. "Got it!" he exclaimed and at the same moment I felt the same tingly-ness from my eyes shoot down my legs and settle in my hooves. I then got to enjoy the "pleasant" sensation of Air retracting his entire leg from my body through my ear.
"So, what did you just do?" I asked.
Air surreptitiously wiped some blood off his hoof before answering. "Well, like I said. I just activated your latent elemental-"
"Up, up, up!" I stopped him with a raised hoof. "Technical stuff goes way over my head. Explain it to me like I'm five."
"Like you're five?" Air asked, then he grinned before affecting a concerned look. "Oh my gosh! Where are your parents, young pony?"
I raised an eyebrow. "I got the impression that you four made me, wouldn't that make you guys my parents?" I countered.
Air opened his mouth, but the fire guy beat him to the punch. "Don't make an even bigger fool of yourself, Air." Air closed his mouth and then went over to my reverse carousel to pout. the fire elemental then addressed me. "In answer to your second question, no. We are not your parents. We are the spirits of the raw elements consumed to create your current body. In essence, we are you. To answer your first question; you now have light magic in addition to your lasers.
"In your previous life you had an affinity for elemental light magic, this carried over to your current life, but the ability was sleeping within you. Your sorceress friend managed to partially awaken this affinity to grant you your laser-firing abilities. We just fully awakened it. You've already noticed one aspect of this, your eyes, but there is more."
One thing he said really resonated in my head. "Wait," I asked, "You knew what I was like before I woke up on that hill?" 
"Yes." Was all he said.
"You're not gonna tell me about it, are you?"
A small smirk graced the fire guy's face. "Nope."
"What about how to use my new magical light powers?" I asked hopefully.
He considered for a bit, shrugged as if to say, 'why not,' and then said. "Fire a laser for me." I complied, firing a laser at Air, who yelped and glared at me as the beam passed through him. I noticed the tingly-ness in my hoof react to the shot. "Do you feel that in your hoof?" the fire elemental asked. I nodded. "Focus on that feeling, then move as if you were throwing a baseball."
I did as I was told, imagining there was an announcer saying, "Here's the windup, and the pitch!" To my surprise, (although honestly, I should have expected this,) the tingling in my hoof increased and a baseball-sized orb of light materialized in my hoof during the windup, which I then threw as hard as I could directly at Air.
Air only barely managed to dive out of the way.
The baseball, instead of falling to the ground after a few meters like it should have, continued flying in a straight line unaffected by gravity. It shot off into the distance and I noticed that, as the ball went farther and farther, the less my hoof tingled. When the tingling dropped down to where it was before I'd made the ball the orb of light exploded into several sparkles which twinkled for a couple seconds before going out.
"Good!" the fire elemental praised. "Now do it again, but this time focus on your connection to the ball, that feeling in your hoof, and command the ball to return to your hoof once you've thrown it."
I made and threw another ball easily enough, - Air had to dodge out of the way again, - but this time I imagined the tingling feeling in my hoof was caused by an invisible rope wrapped around my leg which was tied to the ball. I mimed yanking back on the rope and, surprise, surprise, the ball came shooting back.
On its way back the ball passed through Air's head and I burst out laughing as he jumped nearly three feet in surprise. As soon as I stopped focusing on the ball to laugh it burst into the same sparkles as before. The fire guy let out a chuckle of his own.
Our training session was interrupted by the earth elemental who pointed out a glowing portal which had opened in the mindscape. Through the portal I saw the room I was currently fighting Skittles in. "Looks like it's time for you to go back," the fire elemental said. "Keep experimenting with that magic and there's no telling what you'll come up with."
"Thanks for your help!" I called to all four elementals before running towards the portal. Air grumbled and pouted, but the other three waved goodbye as I ran off thataway.