Trickster Priest

by Fresnor

Chapter 11

Twilight slammed the door to her room shut as she stormed through after dealing with the annoyance downstairs. Ignoring everything else in her room she threw herself down onto her bed before starting to mutter to herself. “Stupid Xellos and his stupid teachings. Of course when something impossible is going on he has to be at the center of it.”

She buried her head into her pillow, hoping for a short nap, but circumstances decided to conspire against her even further that day. No sooner had she started to doze off, then the window to her room exploded inwards as a pony projectile came flying through it to crash into a bookcase covering the pony in the books it once held. The purple unicorn let out a groan as she shoved her head deeper into her pillow before she pulled herself out of her bed.

“Really?! After the day I’ve had you had to choose now to crash into the library, Rainbow Dash? And didn’t I tell you to stop… using… the… windows…” She trailed off when the figure turned out to not be the pegasus she expected, but the younger Scootaloo instead. Before she could form a response to this unforeseen scenario another pony came flying through the window, one that shouldn’t have been able to do so in the first place.

“Scootaloo! Are you all right? Quick we have to get out of here before Twilight finds us. Why are you waving your hooves around like that?” The orange pegasus was trying to get her friend to stop speaking but it was too late as the purple librarian stood behind the earth pony. When Applebloom slowly turned around she came face to face with Twilight’s twitching eye. “Oh, hi there Twilight.”

The two fillies slowly backed away from the unicorn as the twitch in her eye only got worse. The two recognized the look on her face as having seen it before after some of their recent escapades. Glancing at each other they both nodded before covering their ears as Twilight’s mouth started to open.

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“XELLOS!”

The so named creature looks up from his book at the yell from upstairs and wonders what he did now. His attention was then drawn to the front door as it slams open and a white unicorn filly comes rushing through and up the stairs. “Well that secret didn’t last as long as I thought it would. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to have fun with this sooner now than later.”

Spike looked over from the ladder where he was shelving a book. “Now what are you planning to do to Twilight? And was that Sweetie Belle that just ran through and up the stairs?”

Glancing over at the dragon before returning to his book, Xellos just shrugs. “Oh I just taught three fillies a simple magic trick. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom really took well to learning how to fly while their friend Sweetie Belle learned a small healing spell.”

The dragon started laughing but when there were no return laughs his look turned to one of horror. “Wait, you aren’t joking? Why would you teach the Cutie Mark Crusaders something like that? They’ve already caused a lot of damage around Ponyville in the last couple months without being able to do that stuff.” He paused for a moment before glancing over his shoulder. “Do you think you could teach me, too?”

“Absolutely not!” The two turn to see Twilight storming down the stairs with her mane sticking up all over the place. The three fillies warily followed her down the stairs as she marched right up to Xellos and glared at him over the book. “What were you thinking, teaching these three something as dangerous as that?!”

Xellos just smirked as he continued reading the book. “Oh please, that spell has a built in wind barrier making it even safer than those silly chariots you use to fly around in. Besides, the white one knows some healing magic if something does happen.”

Twilight’s glare doesn’t change at all as she continues staring at him. “I was talking about dangerous for the rest of the town. What in the world are you thinking, teaching ponies magic like that? Not just them but Pinkie Pie’s family as well?”

The seated biped sets his book aside before stretching his arms above his head. “Oh you’re just jealous that I haven’t shown you anything yet. As for why I did it? Well that, my dear Twilight, is a secret!”

When the humanoid disappears from sight Twilight’s eye starts to twitch again. The four others in the library start to back away when she lets out a scream of fury. When her voice cuts out all that can be heard around the library is the faint sound of laughter.

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Xellos kept away from Twilight the next few days while observing the fun antics she got up to over his recent action. When her and her friends left towards Cloudsdale for an event he followed along while staying out of sight and he wasn’t disappointed by what he observed. “Those six are just so entertaining even when I don’t bother doing anything. They didn’t even have to try to cause havoc inside that factory.”

He watched as the factory ponies ran around trying to fix everything that went wrong when the six went through the place. Looking over some of the snowflakes as they flew by, he shook his head at the silliness of the ponies making snowflakes individually. “I still don’t know why they make these one at a time instead of using more natural ways to mass produce them. Hmm, maybe I should add that to my list of things to look into.”

As the novelty of the panic wore off he followed after the six ponies towards the cloud coliseum where the competition they were here for was. Getting bored with watching everything from the astral plane he looked around for a good spot to phase in from before deciding to be a bit cheeky. Taking care not to get burned as he moved in close he popped up next to the princess of the sun, surprising the guards that were next to the princess.

The princess felt his presence as he appeared and waved off the guards as she kept her face neutral while she was internally rolling her eyes. “I was wondering when you would be showing up again. I heard that you have been teaching forbidden magic to my ponies yet again. You are lucky Twilight does not know enough about it to recognize the spells.”

Xellos, who was reclining on a garden chair-shaped cloud next to the princess, just yawned before responding to her accusation. “Of course you would say something like that about magic that isn’t normally used by a unicorn. Even though that magic is a natural part of the world and is used by other countries you try to suppress all knowledge of it. I’m surprised you haven’t locked up Pinkie Pie for using non-unicorn magic.”

Celestia’s eye twitches slightly but she makes no other reaction as she continues watching the event going on in front of her. “I know that you did not just call me a tribalist? I have been working for years to make sure that all my ponies are treated equally and you dare call me a tribalist?”

The princess is forced to duck as a cloud flies above her head and breaks apart on the archway behind her. Xellos looks up to see a familiar cyan pegasus for a moment before answering. “Well you certainly don’t do anything to disprove that image. Everyone knows about Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but where is Celestia’s School for Gifted Pegasi? Or Earth Ponies? And of course when two kinds can use magic that is powered by nature itself it just has to be forbidden. Then of course there is your little plan for your student, who just happens to be a unicorn, when there are other perfectly good candidates that aren’t unicorns.”

The princess’ head whips around to stare at him wide-eyed before her attention is dragged away by an explosion of color from below. She decided to just ignore his comment for now but she couldn’t forget it as it picked away at her mind. Noticing what happened she made to leave and consult with a couple others but she was brought up short again when Xellos said something else she wasn’t ready for. “Oh, before I go pester your sister, you should know that the walls of Tartarus are failing.”

Looking back at where the monster was once sitting, the princess felt her knees shaking in actual fear before she regained control of herself. Her guards looked at her with worry as she muttered to herself. “Please mother, tell me that for once he is actually lying about something.”

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“We cannot believe that our sister just left us here while she runs off and fools around at some show. At least our new niece decided to keep me company.” Princess Luna looked up from her meal to look across the table at the pink alicorn that was helping her adjust to the thousand years of changes that she had to catch up on. She was wary at first when Celestia introduced her adoptive niece to her but she quickly grew on her.

“Aunt Luna, I told you before that the Royal ‘We’ is not used anymore. It is ‘I’ and ‘my’ now, not ‘we’ and ‘our.’ Besides, this gives the two of us time to get to know each other better without Auntie Celestia hovering over us.” Princess Cadance took a sip from her teacup before waving off one of the servants as she refilled her cup herself. She looked over towards the Captain of the Royal Guard, who was watching over the two, and winked at him causing a blush to form on his face.

Luna was about held up her own cup for a refill, but her eyes narrowed when she noticed the hand holding the teapot, causing her to let out a growl. “And just what do you think you are doing here Xellos?” She shifted her gaze to glare at the biped who was standing there grinning over at her. The rest of the room only now realized that he was there, causing the Captain to enter a combat stance and the other princess to stare in shock.

“Creature! Get away from the princesses!” With a quick spring forward he thrust his spear at the monster, just for it to shatter inches away from his upraised hand. Xellos didn’t even spare a glance at him as he lowered his hand and took a seat between the two princesses.

“Come on now Luna; is that any way to treat an old friend.” He scrunched up his nose a bit before glancing around. “And did someone forget to clean up in here? Something doesn’t seem to be agreeing with me.”

Luna just glared at him as she watched the Captain try multiple ways to dispatch the biped but he sat there ignoring it all. “Captain, you can stand down. We have been trying to get rid of this creature for centuries but nothing we do have been able to work. While it can be therapeutic to try your actions are pointless. While I may despise this creature it has never actually tried to hurt us.”

The Captain looked over at her and nodded before backing up to his post again, though he didn’t take his eyes off of Xellos. Luna turned back towards the biped and raised an eyebrow at his actions as he kept messing with his collar and looked a bit sick. “And why are you here now? Do you not have better things to do than to pester u-me?”

After the last incident she had a long talk with her sister about him and learned about the interesting things that had happened while she was gone. In the end she had at least tried to be a bit more civil with him even though his attitude grated on her. She had never seen him like this before though and it piqued her interest as he almost looked sickened about something.

“Well I was planning on waiting before saying, but I just told your sister how the walls of Tartarus were breaking down. I’m sorry but something just doesn’t agree with me here and I have to go. I hope you have and enjoyable wedding Princess Cadance and Shining Armor.” With that he disappears from the area leaving two of the three ponies staring at where he was in confusion.

The pink alicorn turned towards her aunt with a questioning gaze. “Who was that, Auntie Luna? And how did he know about the wedding?”

The princess of the moon looked back at her with a similar look on her face. “He’s… Difficult to explain. But he always seems a bit strange and seems to know things. Neither my sister or I have ever mentioned the wedding to anypony.”

Author's Note:

Hints...

Comments

[The A I]

do I sense that he will be either severely weakened, bed ridden for months or maybe even,( and lets hope it doesn't), die...
more please!

[SilentMech]

Well, seems like he is negatively affected by changelings. Either their magic or the changeling them selves. Not sure which would have a stronger affect on him. Then again, such a strong negative effect as to make him sick while sitting in Canterlot with Luna and her magic providing a counter, there probably was a switch already and Chrysalis is merely waiting to make things happen.

[Fresnor]

6283478 Oh that is still the real Cadance there. As for what is going on you'd have to look up some of the lines from Mazenda in the anime and a monster is.

[SilentMech]

6283536 ... Or I could be patient. Or peg it as being near Cadance actively hurts him. Well, that limits him quite a bit in one place, but means he can pretty much have free reign over the rest of the world.

[Liqwidice]

Heavy positive emotions damage him.