Author's Note: This little plot bunny (plunny for short LOL), has been in planning for quite some time now, and I am finally able to begin posting!
Xellos, everybody's favorite Trickster Priest, gets an unexpected day off! But is a day off for a monster really a good thing? Well, let's just say he isn't in for rest and relaxation! Actually, he gets quite a bit more than he bargained for!
All questions, comments, and/or suggestions are welcome. Let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Slayers, I just like to write. ^_^
My beloved readers, I present to you now…
Xellos' Day Off
By Kuroneko
Chapter 1: Freedom! Now What?
Xellos the Trickster Priest resisted the temptation to stick a finger in one ear in order to make certain none of what the humans called "earwax" had somehow accumulated in it. Certainly, he wasn't hearing correctly. Lord Beastmaster hadn't really said what he thought she had…
Had she?
Zelas Metallium caught the disbelieving look on her subordinate's face and rolled her eyes.
"Yes, Xellos, you heard me correctly," she said, crossing her legs lazily. "You have a day off."
…
Thus was how he came to be walking along the well-trodden road, tracks of wagons and horses coming together in odd patterns intermingled with the usual footprints left by both human and nonhuman. It was a very normal day in the Red World to be sure. Blue skies, green grass, birds in the air…
The clement conditions did little to improve his mood. To the unsuspecting world, he was, for today at least, a wandering priest taking in his surroundings with a grin as he walked. To anyone who knew him, he was a Mazoku who was currently in a rather foul mood, grinning or not.
A day off? Xellos, General-Priest to Lord Beastmaster Zelas Metallium, slayer of the golden dragons, and Trickster of Tricksters – he was getting a day off?
Since when did no one of the Monster Race need him for some evil deed? No treachery, no secret treaties, no abhorrent scheme leading to the destruction of this fragile world? Not even a teensy request to break a few vases in a certain golden dragoness's shop while "gathering information" on the progress of a certain reborn ancient dragon?
Nothing?
Xellos gave a hefty sigh as he walked. For humans, having a day off mean rest and relaxation, a chance to unwind and do something for entertainment. As a monster, he didn't require any such things. He thrived on his duty, even when he loathed the assignment; he craved destruction and fear, relished in the cacophony of mortal emotions as he laid forth his own version of what he deemed "fun".
Having a day off was just… well, boring.
He stopped off the side of the road to sit on a large boulder on the edge of the nearby forest. Leaning his staff against the formation, he put his chin in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees as he thought. It seemed that monsters just weren't meant to do nothing, even for a few moments. All he wanted right at the moment was to irritate someone at the very least.
He raised an eyebrow. Now that Xellos thought about it, maybe having a day off wasn't quite so terrible after all. He'd been so busy with recent assignments that he hadn't been able to follow through with his normal routine of irking his on-and-off traveling "companions". The last he'd seen of Lina Inverse had been in passing on the Astral Plane, and he'd materialized briefly, just in time to see the flaming redhead whack Gourry Gabriev with a slipper, evidently for yet another characteristic display of idiocy.
That train of thought coupled with others:
Saillune Xellos steered clear of, mostly because of the overwhelming influx of positive energies within the city. That, and Princess Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune had the sickening habit of gushing, which never bode well for a monster of any caliber.
Taforashia held little interest to him these days. There simply was nothing there for him to work with any longer; not even fouling up the reconstruction sounded remotely appealing. Saillune and the revived kingdom had developed close ties, which only gave him further incentive to steer clear. If things kept going in the direction it had been, it would be only a matter time before Taforashia erected a barrier similar to the one surrounding the City of White Magic.
The Kingdom of Zoanna might have been interesting, but he'd been temporarily banned from there a few months back. Queen Martina Zoanna Mel Navratilova and her husband King Zangulus apparently hadn't appreciated his gift to them on their fourth wedding anniversary. How was he to know that no one in Zoanna would like a baby kraken? It wasn't his fault that it grew larger than the Royal Dining Hall in less than a week!
Xellos grinned once more. Now that he thought about it, he really hadn't had much time to irritate everyone. In order to rectify his lack of communication with his, ahem, "friends", he needed to pay them all a nice little visit. Especially Filia. It had been well over a month since he had popped up in her little mace and antiques shop. If memory served, she'd frightened off a good portion of her clientele that morning.
The grin intensified. Now, whom was he going to visit first?
His question was unexpectedly answered as a loud blast from within the forest behind shook him violently from his musings. Xellos turned around and raised an eyebrow. In his recent line of duty, flashes of red hair ordinarily accompanied loud blasts like that.
He grabbed his staff and quickly teleported in the direction of the blast. If he had come across Lina Inverse this quickly, maybe his day off wouldn't be so bad after all!
Ah, now whatever could that loud blast be? Xellos is in for a loooong day! Until the next chapter!