Wrong Choice (Patreon)

edit: made some art tweaks~

So this would be how Smokescreen and Montezuma first met. 

Monte stole the Sapphire Stone from Daring Do's private collection (along with a number of other priceless relics.....and he might've also burned down his childhood home), and special agent Smokescreen was tasked with retrieving the plundered treasures and bringing Montezuma to justice. Smokescreen easily proves to be too much for Montezuma, so when the villain makes to surrender, Smoky believes him. Smokescreen has, after all, grown up hearing all manner of stories of villains who gave up their fiendish ways upon defeat, and chose the light of friendship and harmony.

Wrong-o.

At the start of his journey, Montezuma is very, very, very angry. He feels utterly lost and alone, and wants to make others suffer, as he himself has. He wants revenge, not just on his parents, but on all of ponykind. His early ideology tittered in the edge of extremism, and he was not above threats and violence to cow ponies into handing over the treasures that did not belong to them. For Smokescreen, he felt nothing but rage and disgust. How could the agent- a unique hybrid, just like Monte- willingly allow himself to be molded into the ponies’ attack dog? What a waste. What an insulting, vile act of submission. Where is your pride as a dragon? As a changeling? He calls Smokescreen a fool and a traitor. He insults Smokescreen’s agency, Equestria, and Celestia herself. The venom he injects Smokescreen with completely incapacitates the agent, for the first time in Smoke's life....and ignites the flame of a brutal animosity between the two.

It is only with time that Montezuma begins to calm. The more time he spends bonding with his father, the more conversations he has with the Sphinx, the more he befriends the native ponies of Ahuizotl’s temple, the more he meditates on what exactly he wants from this life...the more his anger begins to recede. His villainous plans become more cunning- elaborate heists that flow smooth as silk, nothing like the snarling rants and petty theft he’d inflicted on Equestria before. The more he interacts with Smokescreen, the more he comes to enjoy their rivalry......and the more frustrated he grows that the agent won’t renounce his stupid, stubborn pony loyalties. Still, their dynamic slowly grows more playful and flirty, with Monty eventually playing the part of theatrical Saturday morning cartoon villain largely just for the fun of it. He grows more committed to the idea of cultural preservation and restoration, pouring all his spare time into learning ancient art and history. He doesn't stop scheming to steal relics out from museum guards' noses, he doesn't stop being a thorn in Smokescreen's side, he doesn't relinquish the idea that Equestrian society is in need of a wake-up call.....but his villainy does lose the note of genuine malice and toxicity he held in his early days.