"Bye, girls!" Sportsy Sketch waved to her three friends-Empousa, Blue Note, and Mage Plateau-as she walked back home from the swimming pond. She was tired out from two hours of swimming, and couldn't wait to rest.
When she reached her front door, she opened it, relieved.
A unicorn wrapped in a black cape rummaged through piles of mess. They had to be in here somewhere, right? Unless she had hidden them somewhere else, but that was unlikely.
It isn't easy stumbling around in a dark, messy room. The unicorn's cape caught onto a bookshelf. She pulled on it, and the whole thing spilled on top of her.
"Ouch!" she whispered, struggling to get it off of her. As she cleaned up the mess, she came upon something glittering gold. Moving the books away, she noticed that three other ones appeared. The Elements of Creativity. She quickly gathered them up, carefully placing them in the sparkling pink box.
As she slipped the Element of Intelligence in, the door opened. Just in time, she teleported herself back home.
Sportsy only saw the sparkles that were left behind from the spell. She rushed to her bookshelf that was obviously misplaced. When she pushed a row of books onto the floor, she gasped. Where were the Elements?!
Panicked, she looked through the room for a sparkly pink box. Not finding it, she thought back to the sparkles that she saw when she'd just gotten home. It possibly could've been a simple teleportation spell. But who would have stolen them, let alone be in her house at all?
She couldn't figure this out alone. Plus, she wasn't very good at solving mysteries. Sighing, Sportsy once again went out the front door to go find her friends. So much for a relaxing evening, she thought as she knocked on Mage's door.
The blue earth pony with a frizzy red, yellow, and black mane opened the door. "Sportsy, if you're asking to paint me, then my answer's no. I'm tired and-"
"No, Mage. I need your help. The Elements are missing!" Sportsy cut her off.
"Well why didn't you say so?!" Mage said excitedly. "Are we going to get the others?"
"Yes. This is an emergency. Somepony stole them." Sportsy tried to get Mage to understand the seriousness of the situation, but it was almost impossible to get her to listen.
"Oh, hey, I played a video game like this once!" she exclaimed. "So, I have plenty of experience for this situation. Talking about video games, I just got this new one. I really don't understand it, but that's-"
"Um, Mage. You're going to wake up the whole neighborhood." Sportsy giggled, just as they arrived at Blue Note's house. Blue Note was a blue pegasus with a wavy, red and white mane. One of her eyes was green, and the other was purple. She often didn't hear anything anypony said, since she daydreamed a lot. But she mostly didn't get along with Mage, who could get irritated easily. When Blue didn't reply, sometimes she'd lose it.
"Didn't I just see you two at the pond?" Blue Note questioned sleepily.
"Yeah. Sorry for waking you up, Blue, but the Elements are missing. Somepony stole them, and we need your help to find them." Sportsy explained. Blue Note smiled playfully.
"My help? I'm flattered, really." she laughed and joined the group. "But, seriously. At this time of night? Couldn't we have just done this in the morning?"
Sportsy Sketch stopped in her tracks. "Oh. You're right. Well, as long as we're almost at Empousa's, let's just have a quick meeting, then regroup tomorrow?" The others nodded.
Empousa had a straight red mane and red eyes. She was white, but her front legs were brown and her back legs were grey. She also had a lion-type tail.
"Can we come in?" Mage Plateau asked.
"Um, I guess..." Empousa opened the door wider to let everyone in. "Why?"
"Well, the Elements of Creativity got stolen by some unicorn and I'm not sure who, but we have to find them." Sportsy explained again, rather tired of telling the story.
"What?!" Empousa shouted, then covered her mouth. "Sorry. It's just...surprising. I thought you protected your castle-"
"House."
"House, with a high security spell."
"Yeah, I did. But Element Stealer must have broken it." Sportsy used the nickname she had given the Thief.
"Then count me out. I am not dealing with some Element-stealing, spell-breaking, criminal."
"Suit yourself. Come on, girls. Let her miss out on an awesome adventure." Sportsy Sketch started out the door...
"Fine!" Empousa stopped her, and Sportsy smiled. "Just nothing after 9:00 pm, ok?" She nodded.
"We meet at my house, first thing in the morning." Sportsy claimed.
The Next Morning
"Where's Blue Note?" Sportsy said, exasperated, and Blue Note ran in just at that second.
"Sorry!" she apologized. "I ran into ? on my way here, and he chatted with me! Isn't that amazing?! We actually talked!"
"I'm surprised he could even get you to listen to him, The One Who Daydreams." Mage Plateau rolled her eyes and scowled.
"Oh, and it's easy to talk to you now, right Little Miss Talkative." Blue Note retorted.
"Guys, that's not what we're here for!" Sportsy moaned. "Don't you even care that the Elements are missing?"
"Of course we do." Empousa said. "But I think you're taking this a bit too seriously. Nothing's happened yet, and besides, the thief could be anypony in Equestria, for all we know."
"Excuse me, but I-" Sportsy Sketch stopped, something catching her eye. She moved closer to identify it. "Is that...one of the Elements?!"Sure enough, a glittering music note necklace lay in a pile of junk, known as the Element of Music.
"You really need to clean this room..." Blue commented.
"Looks like we've found our first clue." Mage Plateau turned her attention elsewhere, to the bookcase. "I found something else!" The black material used for the Thief's cape was stuck on a loose screw on the side of the shelf.
"At least we know she can't do any harm with only three Elements." Empousa said.
The unicorn let out a deep breath and pulled off her cape to reveal purple eyes and a blueberry mane with pink and purple highlights. Twilight Sparkle smiled and opened the pink box with her magic.
She counted the Elements of Creativity. Element of Positivity, Intelegence, and Strategy. But weren't there four Elements? Of course not, she thought. I grabbed them all.
Setting down the box, Twilight brought the two necklaces and the crown to a room containing only a small square table. She placed them on each corner of the table, expecting a reaction, but nothing happened.
She was obviously missing an Element, but how could she get it? Now that Princess Sportsy Sketch was on her case, it would make her job a lot harder.
An idea flicked in her mind and she grabbed a scroll and a quill. Why go to them, when she could make them come to her?
"Part of some sort of black material isn't much to go on." Blue Note squinted at the shredded cape, looking for any type of clue that would lead them to the culprit, but found none.
"It's all we have. There has to be something useful." the princess suggested. She opened the door to- "Ah! Oh, sorry, Derpy."
