God, the Devil, and Ponies

by Ponky

Arrival

Six mares sat in a crystal tree.

Twilight's tongue played at the corner of her mouth as she filed through a stack of neat papers, scanning her eyes and humming to herself. "Annnnd... yeah, I think that's it. Well done, everypony! Our first Conference is complete!"

A round of relieved groans and sighs spun around the table. "Thank goodness!" "Finally..." "Is it gonna be this long every time?"

Twilight winced, but smiled. "No, Rainbow, hopefully not. I think the more of these we have, the faster we'll get. We can learn to streamline past the less important subjects and focus on what matters most."

"Less important subjects?" Rarity glanced over her copy of the same list. "Twilight, the Princesses have yet to assign us anything that even hints at being 'unimportant'. This country is essentially run on the fuels of friendship and harmony, and as the selected Committee in charge of--"

"We know, Rarity," Applejack piped in, cracking her neck. Fluttershy winced. "We all know what we're in for. Life ain't lookin' to stay the same fer anypony here. Probably not for anypony in this whole town."

"Oh, dear..." Twilight said under her breath.

Rarity lifted her snout. "It's not very nice to interrupt, Applejack."

"Well, we ain't got time to list--"

BOOM! A mighty crack and a flash of light ripped the scene's tranquility. The mares gasped and rushed to the nearest window. A bizarre hole closed itself low in the sky, and from its vanishing point a streak of otherworldly smoke curled downwards at a clear angle.

"What was that!?" Pinkie yelled.

"Something must have come out of that portal," Twilight said, squinting. "I think following that smoke would take us to it."

"Looks like it went to Ghastly Gorge!"

"Come on, girls!" Twilight swept above them on trained wings, turning regally to face her friends from the glittering room's tall entrance. "There's not a moment to lose! Ponyville could be in danger!"

Her friends galloped after her, mostly in silence. Fluttershy's chants were the exception: “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness…”

~~~

“Oh my badness, oh my badness, oh my badness, oh my badness…”

Lucifer grumbled as he rolled out of the steaming crater at the bottom of a daunting canyon. He certainly had not been expecting such a violent entrance to this spur-of-the-moment challenge.

“Hey, thanks for the nice soft landing!” he yelled at the sky through a cloud of dirt. “Really makes me want to give this thing my all.”

“You don’t need help there,” God’s voice answered unexpectedly. Lucifer yelped and leapt back, nearly stumbling over his four burgundy legs.

Wait a minute…

The Devil swung his head downward, surveying his new equine body.

“Oh, sweet!” he cheered, twisting his pony-neck left and right to see the whole picture. He was tall and thin, his coat a sheen maroon, his thick, long mane a charcoal grey.

“Hey, what color are my eyes?” he asked God through the surrounding walls of dust, pointing to his face.

“I’ll let you find out for yourself,” He responded, but Lucifer had moved on to another source of curious excitement.

“Wings!” he nearly squealed, experimentally flapping the leathery, bat-like appendages sprouting from his back. “Awesome!”

“You seem rather excited,” God’s voice acknowledged playfully.

“Yeah, well… what’s the point in being otherwise?” The cloud of dust had finally settled enough that God was visible. He was not a pony, but was no longer wearing His concealing cloak. Instead His muscular body was adorned with a pinkish-white robe of exquisite fineness that seemed to flow ethereally around His frame. His dark blue eyes shone with power, popping against the white waves of His hair and beard.

“Lookin' good, Dad,” Lucifer said.

“Can’t quite say the same for you,” God replied with a fatherly grin, “though you look much better than you did a moment ago.”

“Gee, thanks,” the Devil droned. He stretched out his limbs, flexing different muscles and getting a feel for his new body.

“Everything in order? Are you feeling dizzy or unbalanced?”

“Not more than I ought to, considering I just plummeted into solid stone from a few hundred feet in the air,” he complained. “Remember, Dad, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been transforming into animals since day one.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Lucifer hissed.

“Well, thanks for making me an alicorn, at least,” he quickly added, flicking his wings in and out a few times before folding them proudly at his sides. “That should make this a lot more fun.”

With a kindly smile, God stepped forward to Lucifer and patted his hornless head.

“Sorry, Lucy,” he said, “no magic. That would ruin the whole game.”

The Devil’s giant, expressive eye twitched in terror.

“No… magic?” he asked. “No… no horn? I’m just a pegasus!?”

God laughed for the second time that day. It was not a scornful laugh, but genuinely amused. “Oh, Lucifer. I’m beginning to think your brother was really onto something with this idea.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, this has got to be a mistake.” The Devil’s pupils gleamed. “I can’t do this without powers. I… I won’t know what to do!”

“Good luck, son,” God offered with a smile. He pointed. "Remember: not one friend." Unceremoniously, he vanished.

The dust had settled completely now. A tall, maroon pony with bat-like wings stood stock still on four spread legs, staring into space with an exaggerated expression of total disbelief.

“I don’t know what to do,” he breathed, trying to wrap his mind around his sudden, ridiculous circumstances. How had this even happened? Why was this happening? His Father never became this involved in his affairs. Their battle for the souls of men was heated, surely, but rarely were the Devil’s plots snuffed out or even tampered with by his far more powerful opponent. Both of them knew that in order for mankind to willfully choose Good, they must be subjected to Evil. Opposition in all things. What did his ponification have to do with the ultimate war?

His answerless train of thought was interrupted by the thunder of distant hoofsteps. Snapping out of his trance, the Devil turned his burgundy head toward the worrisome noise. Approaching ponies? Were they royal officers bent on detaining him? Or frightened villagers with torches and pitchforks… or whatever rioting ponies used? He swallowed nervously, pattering his hooves against the canyon’s ground…

Far down the canyon, Lucifer spotted a relatively small crowd of silhouettes barrel around a corner into his section of the gorge. Their colors immediately stood out against the dull brown of the canyon walls: white, pink, orange, yellow, sky blue, and light violet.

A curious grin began to pull back the corners of the Devil’s mouth. Along with it came a hurricane of conflicting thoughts and emotions that ricocheted around his skull like houseflies in a cardboard box.

You can do this. Keep your cool. You are one of the most powerful, influential entities in the universe. You are Satan, the Adversary, the Father of Lies, the Prince of Darkness, the Rebel of Heaven, the Beast of Revelations, the personification of all that is Evil.

Huh... they're kinda cute.

I don't have a single friend in the universe, and none of these ridiculous creatures can change that. There is nothing they can do to make me give in to my brother’s absurd demands.

I really like their manes.

“Excuse me?” Twilight Sparkle called out to him from quite a distance. “Excuse me, sir? Are you all right?”

He cleared his throat and looked away, waiting for them to approach before he answered. “Yeah, I think I’ll be just fine,” he said loudly as they stopped and looked on from fifty feet or so, "as long as you lot stay out of my... uh... mane."

Comments

[Gypsy]

Gotta say Job was one hellavu guy, lol I wanna be like him but then again if I do everyone I know will die.

funny story

[Poodicus]

[youtube=QVgZqnsytJI]

[Frost]

I lost it at "Oh my dad". Please, keep writing.

[shortskirtsandexplosions]

Hey, it's Tank. I don't think I've ever witnessed a story featuring Tank ever.

Hello, long and obviously structured paragraph of character exposition.

Is there any singular way to spell the dayum owl's name?

Yaaaay, Tartarus. My new favorite poni poni subject.

I like your choice of words and stuff. But this initial scene's handling of character dialogue feels a little stiff, like you're obligating yourself to introduce each of the ponies for the sake of reminding the readers that they're there. It's nothing terrible, mind you. I just hope the entire fic doesn't do this.

Hah. Wonderful transition from Fluttershy's inner thoughts to Lucifer's. By the power of tildas...

Thank Nietzsche you made Lucifer a pony. I have a hard time stomaching HiE fics as it is.

This is like Quantum Leap starring Alice Cooper.

I get tons of editors bitching to me about the expression "Gee." But that's mostly because I always spell it at "Jee." And THAT'S mostly because I once heard a college professor himself bitching about it live to a real class, and how the "Gee" spelling suggests a hard "g" instead of a soft "j" as in "Jesus." *shrug*

Hah. Lucifer has been transforming into animals since day one. Nice touch.

I know this is inner voice and all, but the caps is getting kind of obnoxious.

So wait, Satan is a brony too? I thought Christ was the brony. Hell, is Mohammed, exalted by God, a brony too?

Oh, now I see what you're doing with the scene dividers. I can't remember the last time I purposefully went for a dual third-person-perspective, thingy. I just hope you're consistent with it.

Oh please, please don't have the ponies get infatuated with Lucifer. That's ringing bells of self-insert tropes automatically. And I don't truly, truly think you wanna be the Morning Star, Ponky.

Again, this stuff is immaculately written. It's got a lot of confidence in its narration. The word-use is playful without getting too kaizo. Your vocabulary is superb. There's no need to show off. Everything feels quaint and easy to read.

It goes to show that you have the God/Satan dynamic down pat. Problem is, we have very little substance to go on when it comes to analyzing your poni poni handling. I guess that'll just have to be in chapters to come. Cuz from what I've seen so far, this is kind of riddled with something that tends to infest a lot of fanfics--in that the story is like an original work of fiction that thinly veils itself as an MLP fic. I think that's kind of why Fimfiction demands that the first chapter at least be full of poni poni, for the sake of relevance.

But, of course, this is just the third (second?) chapter. Still, I wonder just how long this is supposed to be. Because at this pace, I shudder to think.

Nmiaow
-SS&E

[Dragonlover553]

Okay, now God's just cheating! No magic was not part of the deal. Why is the greatest evil in all of Creation, the Prince of Darkness, the King of Hell itself, more trustworthy than the creator of the universe, whom is beyond all corruption? Poor guy can't even make Faustian Pacts... pity.