Trickster Priest

by Fresnor

Chapter 27

Xellos quirked an eyebrow as he looked at the chain that Twilight had just strapped to his wrist. “There! Now as long as you're chained here then at least you won't have anything to do with whatever is about to happen.”

Lifting it up for a better look Xellos just shook his head. “Really? You think that something is about to happen and you think that this would be enough to stop me? I don't even have anything planned for right now anyways so I don't know what you're trying to stop me from doing.”

Twilight ponders the monster for a moment before she nods. “You're right, better add a few spell just to make sure. Can't have you escaping if you really were the one that caused that disaster next Tuesday. I just wish that I told me exactly what it was that happened to make me look like that.”

Xellos just blinked a couple times as the words registered with him before he started chuckling. “Wait, you actually met your future self? As in time travel? Wow, I haven't seen a time travel spell being used since old Swirly started researching them and recording everything he found.”

“I thought I told you not to call me that!” Both heads turned to the side to look at the brown-maned, tan stallion that just spoke with raised eyebrows. Realizing what he just said the stallion cleared his throat before walking off while whistling. Twilight and Xellos' eyes followed him, the former in confusion while the latter with realization, before turning back to each other.

“Right, disregarding the craziness of Doctor there and the nickname, do you mean to tell me that you actually knew Starswirl the Bearded?” Xellos' glanced back in the direction of the stallion before turning back to the purple librarian.

“Oh, we've met. He always kept trying to lock me in his science dungeon just to study me since I never acted like the others of the monster race. Of course it didn't help that he had problems remembering when he was with all his studies.” With a roll of her eyes Twilight just brushed him off and went to check on her friends since she had trouble believing his far-fetched claims. Once she was out of view Xellos effortlessly slipped the chain off and followed after from above.

While he could probably guess what would happen in relation to Twilight's issue after seeing the many things that Starswirl got up to. Seeing her directing her friends and half the town to try and cover all possibilities should also have been predictable but what came crawling into town wasn't something he expected or wanted to see. “Oh dear, the poor thing! What in the world happened to you?”

“Fluttershy! Be careful! That thing could be dangerous!” The buttery pegasus ignored Twilight as she approached the form of Cerberus and looked over his injuries. Only one of the heads was still conscious and had managed to drag its mangled body to the town before finally collapsing. The mare found that most of the creatures ribs were shattered and three of its legs were broken as well, making it a wonder how it had made it so far. Even stranger was about seventy percent of its fur was missing and replaced with burns which should have been impossible for a creature of fire.

“Oh dear, this isn't good at all. I've never seen anything be this injured before and still be alive, what do I do?” Her panicking over the injured creature was stalled by a bright flash as Xellos appeared next to her along with a dazed Sweetie Belle.

“Hmm, not good. Not good at all. Sweetie Belle, help Fluttershy take care of Cerberus, I have something I need to go take care of.” The nearby ponies looked at Xellos warily as his eyes opened angrily before he vanished from sight. Looking at each other for a moment the mare and filly proceeded to start helping out the injured canine while the others wondered just what the monster had planned.

<><><><><><><>

“Send in the next petitioner.” Princess Celestia sighed internally as one set of nobles left the room just for another pair to trot in with more inconsequential complaints. The princess was looking forward to when she could close up court for the night and do something else, preferably reading a new report from her student or, surprisingly, from Prince Blueblood. While his mother still pestered her to bring him back, the stallion himself had actually improved after being sent off with a diplomatic group to the neighboring countries. She had sent her most strict former-general to keep an eye on the prince, but even her own reports described a surprising change to the stallion as he actually acted like one for once.

She settled in to listed to yet another boring presentation, which was obvious as the nobles had servants setting up a pair of easels with charts and diagrams. Suddenly there was a a commotion in the room as the nobles were sent flying by a flash of light. The princess sat up straighter in interest at hopefully something more interesting happening but she slumped down when she noticed that it was only Xellos. She gestured to her guards to stand down before turning her attention back to the biped. “Xellos, what brings you here today?”

“I'm only stopping by to let you know that Cerberus is horribly injured and in Ponyville now so you might want to enact whatever preparations you had.” With that he vanished leaving the princess to stare wide-eyed at where he was a moment ago. Standing up from her throne she spread her wings and turned to her guards. “Court is over for the day! Guards! Awaken my sister and have her meet me at the chariot grounds! Then enact Emergency Procedure T until further orders!”

As the guards rushed to follow her orders and the nobles were escorted out of the room Celestia made her way down to the armory. Unlike with when Discord escaped she was going to be fully armed this time.

<><><><><><><>

The plains outside of Tartarus looked like a war-zone as the area had craters scattered all over it, some of them still aflame. The great gates of Tartarus had been blown open from the inside and even now creatures were still pouring from the prison. When Xellos arrived most of the strongest creatures were already gone, including whatever had broken the gates, but there were still many of the weaker monsters around and even a few medium level ones still had yet to escape. “Well this is about what I expected, but who knows what has already escaped. As much as I hate to do this, I guess it's time to push up my plans a bit.”

Flexing his arms forward and cracking his knuckles, Xellos began his decent towards the broken gate and started materializing a swarm of black thorns. Phasing back into the physical plane he unleashed a barrage of them upon the escaped prisoners, mostly focusing on those of the monster race that were away from the gates of Tartarus. His landing was met with screams as his attack shredded through the fleeing creatures without them having a chance to fight back.

Upon landing he immediately stood tall as he planted his staff into the ground next to him in the center of the open gateway, halting the advance of any more prisoners. The more mindless inhabitants as well as the stronger monsters held back as they could sense something was off about him, but one of the lesser monsters was more reckless and charged him heedless of the danger. Only seeing an enemy it spat a stream of acid from its gaping maw and charged into him expecting an easy kill. Unfortunately for it Xellos didn't even bother to defend and instead thrust his arm into the creature's chest before ripping out its core effortlessly, forcing the escaping horde to pause even further.

Leveling his gaze on the gathering forces of Tartarus, Xellos watched them warily as he sized them up for potential threats. Most of what he could see were relatively weak compared to him, but he could sense at least one upper level monster in the bunch that could potentially be a threat if it caught him off guard. Luckily for him the monster he was searching for stepped forward to the front of the group allowing him to identify it while it tried to parlay.

“So the pony's pet monster that I've been hearing about deigns to show himself before his own kind only after we free ourselves. Tell me, what did those lesser beings offer you so that you would betray your own kind? Betray your very nature?” Xellos looked over the monster's form as it stood there waiting for an answer. He could tell that this wasn't the real body as it was only a beefier, wolf-like diamond dog than normal but the headgear it wore was highly suspicious. From what he could tell the bat-winged headband across its eyes was the true form of the monster and was of the type that took over and empowered others and had little real personal strength. Seeing the ease of his opponent Xellos smirked and finally answered.

“They haven't given me a thing to do what I have been doing and I haven't betrayed anything. Unlike all of you I actually plan for the long term and don't act recklessly. Of course I can't have anyone interfering with my plans so there were bound to be some casualties.” As his glare hardens the mob slowly backs away leaving the leader of the band isolated.

“If that is true then why not let us know those plans so we can avoid messing with them. Then we can each just go our own ways without having to fight.” The monster had its eyes closed when it was saying this but when it opened its eyes the world had turned sideways one it with Xellos having disappeared. Screams followed the view shortly after but were soon silenced as its former body fell in front of it revealing that it had been decapitated.

The monster's view soon changed yet again as its head was picked up and turned towards the view behind it. The horde that was once behind it had been reduced to a pile of meat as something had went and shredded them all. Angling its eyes it saw that it was Xellos that had picked him up who was yawning at the scene. “Well you see my plans involve all of you being out of the way so I can focus on ending everything. I know you all are trying the same but its a matter of pride with me and letting someone else do it just doesn't sit well. So unfortunately for you that means you have to die. It's nothing personal really, but these things happen.”

With a flick of his wrist Xellos sent the head flying upwards with the monster still attached to it as it started screaming. “Wait, wait, WAIT!” Ignoring the creature Xellos spun his staff before unleashing a beam of light, vaporizing both the head and mask-shaped monster. Looking around at the bloody and barren area Xellos let out a final sigh.

“Well that was disappointing. Now what will I do while waiting for Sunbutt to arrive?”

<><><><><><><>

Despite his complaints Xellos easily found ways to entertain himself as more prisoners trickled their way out of Tartarus. Seeing the slow rate that they were coming, he decided to set up obstacles for them to pass through to escape, and even allowed some of the ones that managed to escape to go free. He was watching the latest batch when Princess Celestia finally arrived with a large group of the Royal Guards. “Xellos, what-”

“Shh!” He cut her off with a raised finger as he intently watched his latest victim. “He's about to get to the final part before he escapes.” The princess watched as some sort of draconic gryphon approached the threshold of the vast prison but just as it was about to cross through into Equestria it was impaled as a multitude of spikes hit it from multiple directions before shredding the body apart. “Ooh, so close, too.”

Celestia shook her head at the biped while one of her guards vacated her stomach at the sight. “Xellos, this is not the time to play around. Tartarus has held for millennia and nothing has ever broken out like this before. We need to find what caused this and get everything that escaped back in.”

Xellos just yawned as he watched for the next batch of prisoners to approach the gateway. “I haven't seen anything worth getting serious about and whatever did this was long gone when I got here. It shouldn't be that hard to find out what could have done this though since there isn't much that Cerberus couldn't have stopped. Besides this was bound to happen eventually since nothing lasts forever. Now how is Cerberus doing? I assume you sent Luna to help out in Ponyville.”

With a sigh the princess signaled to her guards to spread out through the area to scout it out. “Yes, I thought it would be better to keep you two apart during this and she always did have a soft spot for him. Whatever escaped from here though we need to find fast, can we at least assume that you'll keep an eye out for it if you won't actively search? I've learned that expecting you to go out of your way to help never turns out right.”

With a smirk at the princess he starting walking away. “Well it seems one of you are finally remembering how I work. Besides if these things could do that to Cerberus then I doubt they will be hard to find yet fighting them alone would be more trouble than it's worth. Anyways I have a puppy to go look in on so I'll leave things to you. Oh and you might want to warn your guards about the blood, things got a little... messy here.”

Before she could respond Xellos had vanished leaving her to deal with the cleanup, which was made more complicated when the guards realized that the 'mud' that was spread out as far as they could see was in fact blood and gore from everything that the monster had already handled. Celestia brought a hoof up to rub at her temple as one after another of her guards started adding to the mess with the contents of their stomachs.

Far away from the site of horror, Xellos stopped in his travel to pull out an orb from his pouch. “That was good for a start, but there is still much more to do until I'm finished.” Faint screams could be heard from the orb as he stashed it away yet again and ghostly images passed across its surface including one vague bat-like form.

Author's Note:

Huh, I was wrong. NEXT chapter is the flashback one.

Comments

[Crescent Glaive]

Well, at least he's a fair sport to some extent

[AyanamiRei]

Wow! Another chapter again so quick! <3

I am VERY curious to know how exactly Xelloss plans to end everything, while helping all the ponies so much.

Furthermore I am also curious to know what in Tartarus is going on!? What/who was it that destroyed Tartarus' gates?! How are they able to hide so well?? What other changes can we expect?

Also how in the WORLD is StarSwirl still alive? Is it because he's secretly a Timelord??

[SilentMech]

7510078 That wasn't Starswirl. That was Time Turner, otherwise known as the Doctor, the oncoming storm, bane of Daleks, Cybermen, the Sontaran army, and so on.

[SilentMech]

7510622 Fair enough.

[Fresnor]

7510078
7510333
7510622 Eh, that was just one of those random "Hey this would be cool" moments I had. Really it would make a lot of sense if they were the same person if the Doctor was around since with how they had to lock up Starswirl's research due to the danger it would fit with the Doctor's lack of common sense. That's why Donna was the best companion.

[TheExplodingChipmunk]

7510622
Well, River hates the old wizards of story's. They tend to turn out to be the Doctor after all.