• Published 9th Jun 2012
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The Conversion Bureau: Thus Saith The Lord - Kamin 989



Celestia's Conversion Bureau project meets a totally unexpected problem.

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Chapter IX: The Greatest Cry

Chapter IX: The Greatest Cry

This is what the LORD says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.'
- Exodus 11:4-6

Mount Ponyville, Equestria

Celestia looked at the woman, silhouetted against the setting sun. Her face was stern, harsh. There seemed to be pity in it, sorrow at what had happened and what was going to, but it warred with a cold contempt for Celestia and what she had done, as her eyes seemed to silently analyse her soul. Celestia spoke.

'What judgement do you presume to bring on me now?' she demanded. 'How will you chastise your superior this time, filthy human wretch? What will you do that'll be worse than what has come before?'

'You know,' the woman replied. 'You still are conceited. But after tomorrow, no more. Because this night, as the sun rises, the greatest, most mournful and dreadful cry ever heard in all Equestria will be heard in all the land. They will turn away from you, Celestia. They will ask the question that has been echoing in their souls all this time out loud - how could this happen, why couldn't you save them? And they will turn against you. This night, the penultimate chastisement will come, and the morning after, you will be judged and sentenced. Because Equestria will have suffered for your pride and conceit enough, and there will be none left to punish but you yourself.'

'The Elements of Harmony left you when you began thoughts of the Purification, when you concieved it in your mind to destroy those different from you because of that difference. Your command of the sun left you when you merged Equestria with this world. The full capability of your power left you when you attacked a messenger telling you to change your ways or meet the consequences of your actions. All that is now left to take from you is your conceit.'

'Now go from this place and wait at the bottom of this mountain. You will know what my punishment for you is at noon on the morrow.'

Celestia left in fear, and the woman turned back to look at the setting sun, tears streaming down her gold-framed face from the dreadful foreknowledge of what would inevitably happen next.

~*~

It was seconds before midnight, and there was no moon to mar the cloudless star-streaked sky. Somehow it was fitting that the moon should turn her silver face from the slaughter about to happen. At the exact second of midnight, the very moment that one day became the next, the sky twisted over what had been Canterlot, above even the sky-built town of Cloudsdale, and a hole opened in it. A kind of glowing silver mist snaked out from it, dividing into multiple tendrils that forked in the directions of various remaining towns and concentrations of refugees.

Time seemed to halt as the tendrils forked, subdividing again and again as they ran through unnaturally quiet streets, running like a silent wind through Equestria. The wind stole breath and took life, its presence extinguishing lights and torches near whatever it passed. Meanwhile, jackals dug fervently, digging up corpses and dragging them to places unseen. The woman overlooking the silent tableau of massacre hid her face so as not to look on that which she could not bear, until the destroying angel had passed, the cold and silent wind returning to its place in the Empyrean, the hole in the firmament sealing behind it.

~*~

An hour before dawn Equestria awoke to grief. Mothers and fathers looked at the cooling bodies of their firstborn and wept, while others looked at bodies dragged back to their families by dogs and felt renewed pain and devastation. Curiously, when the firstborn were not the most loved children, they were spared and the favourite child taken instead. If the family had no children, a favoured pet or other much-loved thing was taken instead - a family picture smashed, a mage's familiar killed, even a spouse struck dead in the cold, uncaring night. Every native Equestrian either knew somebody killed or somebody struck by the heartbreak of their passing. Statistics amassed later would describe the amount of deaths as a quarter of the population, eclipsing all the other plagues combined, but this was an attempt to put failing words on the level of mortality.

And they asked questions. How could Celestia have power, when she couldn't protect those loyal to her from this? If she did, how could this be allowed to happen by her?

The newfoals and those who had taken sanctuary with Luna were untouched, and the latter came up with a plan. She and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony would go to challenge Celestia, try and stop whatever dreadful thing came next.