//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Trickster Priest // by Fresnor //------------------------------// Xellos yawned as he flew back into the airspace over Ponyville after his little trip over the past few months. With spring in swing he didn’t have to worry too much about causing any major disasters with the season change and it made locating certain ponies much easier. Looking down over the town he contemplated how peaceful everything looked and wondered what he could do to liven things up. His thoughts were interrupted though by the sound of screaming from the town and when he looked down he noticed that a fire had broken out at the building he identified earlier as the town’s spa. “This looks interesting, and I didn’t even have to do anything yet.” Flying over the building he noticed a few other things going on with it that he missed earlier, such as a river of suds roiling out of one window as well as Twilight in the front of the building looking a little grey. What really drew his attention though, were the three smaller figures he noticed running out of the back of the building. “Well I guess that explains what happened in there. I guess I missed the period when those three first met up, but since they have now things should get very interesting.” With his attention caught by the trio he faded out of view and followed them to see what they were currently up to. “I told you that a spa pony cutie mark was a waste of time.” The other two rolled their eyes at the orange pegasus but didn’t bother to argue. “I just hope we don’t get into too much trouble for what happened back there.” The white unicorn looked back towards the direction of the spa before shaking her head. “Who stores cement next to the mud they plan to use anyways? It’s not my fault the bags look alike.” “Well whatever happens we can hide out at Sweet Apple Acres until it all blows over. My sister is busy right now to make up for the time she missed yesterday.” The yellow earth pony lead the other two in the direction of her home to avoid being punished for their latest adventure. The three slow down as they disappear among the trees of the apple farm and find that nothing is following them. “So what are we going to do next since Sweetie Belle’s idea was a bust?” The other two look back at the pegasus before moving over to a nearby tree where Applebloom unrolls a parchment and pins it to it. “Well that was the last idea we had so far. It looks like we need to come up with more again.” The three sit in the shade of the tree whispering to each other and where so caught up that they didn’t notice the figure appear behind them. Xellos bowed down a bit so that he could peer at the list before he let out a noise of interest, causing the three fillies to freeze up as he spoke up. “So no attempts at using magic of any kind? I would have thought that with Twilight around that you would have tried looking through her books of magic.” The three slowly turn around to see the legs of the biped which they follow up towards the figure bent over above them. While he isn’t looking at them the three still feel intimidated enough to back away from him until they press against the tree behind them. They stare wide-eyed up at the figure as he looks over their list but eventually the white unicorn of the group breaks and lets out a whimper. “Please don’t eat us.” This causes Xellos to finally look down at the three fillies to see them staring up at him with a look of terror on their faces. Taking his staff he slides the top of it under the orange pegasus and lifts her up to eye level as he stands straight again. He makes an effort to look her over as if debating the edibility of her before setting her back down next to the other two. “Nah, too scrawny for my taste. Besides you looks like you wouldn’t taste very good anyways.” Two of the three look a bit relieved at his words, while the pegasus just glares at him in indignation. “Hey! Who are you calling scrawny? Just look at this flank, does it really look scrawny to you?” Xellos looks at the other two as they facehoof at their friend’s reaction to what she took as an insult. Looking back at the pegasus he crouches down to get a better view of her while he grins at her. “You know, the usual reaction to being told that they aren’t edible is often relief, not to try and convince them otherwise.” Scootaloo started sputtering a bit before she looked a bit abashed over her reaction to being called scrawny. While Applebloom starts ribbing her for this, the unicorn of the group looks thoughtful. “Why did you ask why we haven’t tried for a magic-based cutie mark? It might be possible for me, but Scootaloo and Applebloom it wouldn’t be possible for.” He doesn’t answer the unicorn verbally, but he mentally chants out a phrase and watches as the three start to yell out in shock as the four of them rise up in the air with his Raywing spell. The three fillies huddle together as the slowly rise above the level of the trees, though the wings of the pegasus are fluttering a bit as she looks around with shocked interest instead of the shocked fear of the other two. “I always find it interesting how over times the unicorns brainwashed this country into ignoring the magic of other species. Especially the magic that can be used by the non-unicorn ponies as easily as they use their horns.” The three look up at him in shock as well a few other expressions depending on the filly. The unicorn has a look of disbelief, the earth pony of worry, and the pegasus of pure excitement. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You mean that we could learn how to fly and stuff if we learned this magic?” At his nod the pegasus started bouncing around excitedly before she clung to his leg. “Please, please, please, teach us!” She would have continued on, but she was pulled back into the group by Applebloom who looked at the monster suspiciously. “That’s all well and good, but who are you anyways?” “I was sure word would have gotten around by now. Anyways I am Xellos, the traveling priest.” The three look at each other in recognition for a moment before backing away slightly. “I’m not sure if my sister would want me talking to you. She was saying some pretty mean things about you over the winter.” The others nodded along with the unicorn as they had heard similar things as well from the ponies they hang around. Xellos just shrugged as he landed the three back on the ground again before he started to walk away. “That’s too bad really. Just remember if you ever want to try for a cutie mark in magic then I’ll be around for a while.” He grins as he walks away as he knows the three won’t be able to resist finding him again after he worded it like that. As soon as he gets out of sight from the three he pulls out a list and makes a mark by the line ‘Teach CMC for greater havoc’ before finding a place to relax. It wasn’t until the next morning that the three find him again which he found to be a good thing as the only thing of interest he’d seen that day was Fluttershy flying away with a wagon. “Hey Mr. Xellos, would you still be willing to teach us some of that magic?” Looking over he notices the three fillies walking along towards him. “Oh? What happened to your sister not wanting you to talk to me?” The three look at each other for a moment before turning back to Xellos again with Applebloom continuing to talk. “Well they never did say that we shouldn’t talk to you and they ran off earlier today.” Xellos nods as he rises to his feet and stretches. “Well I guess I can show you a bit if you want. Just don’t try to teach anyone else, especially Twilight.” The three fillies look at each other in confusion, but eventually turn back to the monster and nod in agreement. Seeing as they seemed interesting in the one spell he showed them, or at least two of them did as Sweetie Belle wasn’t very enthusiastic. While Applebloom and Scootaloo paid close attention and at least memorized the words easily enough, the unicorn just seemed bored. After watching the pegasus member of the trio actually get off the ground a bit before crashing hard into a nearby tree she just sighed and pulled out a small medical kit from somewhere and walked over. Seeing this and the scrapes on the pegasus, Xellos got an idea that the three could find especially useful. “Wait a moment; I think I have an idea of something else that you may want to try instead of that other spell.” The two young ponies look at him curiously as he pauses to concentrate for a moment and starts chanting. “Blessed humble hand of God. Breath of Mother Earth, I pray thee come before me, show your great compassion to this person and deliver them RECOVERY!” The two gawk as a ball of light appears at the end of his hands and he presses it over the small wounds. Sweetie Belle’s ears perk up as the wounds on her friend slowly close up and fade away as if they had never happened in the first place. “So would you be interested in learning this instead?” The unicorn nodded vigorously at the question and he focused on teaching her the spell by letting her practice on a small papercut above her hoof, as well as the other two when they got injured. She got plenty of practice as they did crash often enough, Scootaloo twice as often as Applebloom, and she was able to close up minor wounds by lunch time. The other two were also able to get in the air a respectable amount, though the instincts of the pegasus interfered with her and broke her concentration often which gave her trouble. Eventually he taught them as much as they needed for those spells and all they needed to do was practice. He left them to it and wandered around the town for a bit looking for something interesting. Eventually he got a spike of curiosity and made his way towards the library to looks through a few books. It was empty when he arrived so he made himself at home in a corner while looking through a few history books to see what lies were being perpetrated lately. Much of what he read was correct, as far as he knew, but there were a few incidences that he noticed were altered or even missing that he was around when they happened. Eventually his reading was interrupted when the door to the library opened, revealing two familiar purple beings. “Spike, I think I’m going to go lay down for a bit. It’s been a very long day and… What are you doing here?” Xellos looked up from his book to see Twilight and Spike staring at him as he turned another page of the history book. “Well this is a public library isn’t it? Though I’d hesitate in calling it that if the history books are going to be inaccurate.” The unicorn’s eyes narrow as he says this. “What do you mean by inaccurate? A lot of research has been done to make sure that everything in them is true and even the princess has written off on them.” Xellos scoffs as he calmly turns yet another page. “Has she now? Well she seems to have forgotten all the innocent griffons that were killed during the Prench-Griffonic war that were living in Equestria at the time, and there isn’t any mention at all of King Sombra and his reign over the north.” Twilight’s mouth opened to respond before she shook her head and let out a groan. “You know what? I’m not going to deal with this now. After trying to figure out how Pinkie Pie does what she does all day I really don’t feel like getting into another debate right now.” Xellos looked up from his book in interest at this and smiled as he looked back down at the book. “You mean how she can appear out of the oddest places that she shouldn’t be able to fit in? That’s easy to explain. I taught a member of her family how to do that over a thousand years ago and they seemed to have passed it down.” Twilight froze up at this and her eye started to twitch in frustration over what she just heard. Xellos, seeing an opportunity, reached into the bookcase next to him and booped Twilight’s nose as his arm came out of the flowerpot she was standing next to. Twilight’s mane started popping up all over the place until she finally let out a scream of anger before rushing up to her room a slamming the door shut. With a smile Xellos pulled out his list and crossed off an entry before setting it aside and going back to his book. Curious about what that was about Spike walked over to peek at the scroll before he looked up at the monster with a quirked eyebrow. “Really? You have ‘Cause Twilight to snap’ as part of a checklist?”