God, the Devil, and Ponies

by Ponky

No Cheating

“Are you hungry, Mister Star?" Pinkie Pie chirped from above as the Devil approached the top of the canyon.

"No," he lied, hooves shivering under the strain of one more heave. How had she gotten ahead of him so fast? And without even breaking a sweat?

"'Cause if you are, I brought some pie!"

He glanced up, panting. "What?"

Pinkie revealed two wicker baskets from behind her... back? That didn't make any sense. Lucifer blinked as she violently tossed open the baskets' lids. Inexplicably, at least two dozen apple pies leapt from the thing and landed in neat piles all around her.

"Holy horseshoes, Pinkie Pie!” Applejack said. “I’ve never seen so much food come out o’ two little baskets before!”

“Pfff... I have,” Lucifer mumbled under his breath.

"Want one, Morning Star?” Pinkie asked the Devil.

He took a few deep breaths and eyed her wide grin. "Uh... no." He grunted and set his sore hooves onto the next rock up.

"Oh, for the love of..." Rainbow Dash swooped out of nowhere and caught Lucifer under his forelegs from behind. He could only yelp in the time she carried him the last fifty feet or so and set him next to Pinkie's pies.

"Hey!" Lucifer's brow creased.

"You're welcome," Rainbow spat, "slowpoke."

"Have a pie!" Pinkie encouraged, gesturing to the piles.

"I will not have a pie," said the Devil in a huff, "and I'm not grateful for your help. I could have made it out myself." He stood up and shook out his dark grey mane. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way."

"Where are you going?" Twilight asked, landing with Rainbow on the other side of Pinkie.

"Away from you," he said with a sneer, and began to trot away.

The six ponies glanced at one another, then followed.

The Devil heard their hoofsteps and turned around. "What do you want?"

Their only answer were six concerned stares colored with various emotions. Confusion, frustration, suspicion. The usual.

"Go away." He turned again and trotted faster.

So did they. It was like six colorful balloons were tied to his tail and dragging along the dusty ground behind him.

"Ugh! Leave me alone," he said over his shoulder.

"No," Twilight said.

"Why not?"

"Because you're weird," Rainbow said, "and we don't trust you."

"Weird?" He barked a laugh. "You're a talking horse with rainbow hair. And I'm the weird one?"

"Huh?"

"You're acting rather suspicious," Twilight said. "We've been around enough trouble to recognize it when it falls out of the sky."

"Look, I'm not planning anything devious," Lucifer said without stopping his quick trot. "Just leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, and then in a week we'll be fine."

Rainbow Dash landed hard in front of him. He squeaked in surprise and sat on his haunches, wings partly open.

“Does it hurt when you fly?” Rainbow suddenly asked.

"Uhhh... what?"

"You're not using your wings. Are you, like, hurt or something?"

“I just don't like flying,” Lucifer said, examining one of his leathery appendages.

“I have to ask, Morning Star,” Twilight Sparkle spoke up from behind. “You aren’t a pure pegapterus, are you?”

He rotated his head enough to see her. “Excuse me?”

“I mean to say, you must have had only one pegapterus parent, correct?”

“Peg-gap-ter-iss?” Lucifer repeated slowly.

Twilight’s ears twitched. “A… bat-winged pony, Mister Star?”

Something clicked in the Devil’s mind. “Oh, right!” he said with a low laugh. “Is that how you say it? I’ve always pronounced it pega-tare-iss in my mind, see, silencing the middle P. Can’t say I’ve spent much time around others of my kind.”

Twilight's eyes narrowed. So did Applejack's.

"Why do you ask that, Twilight?" Fluttershy spoke up.

“His eyes,” she said. “Your pupils are round like ours, rather than slits like a dragon’s. That’s where the race comes from, you see: interbreeding between pegasi and draconic creatures thousands of years ago.”

“Eeeeww!” Pinkie Pie grimaced, shuddering so badly that her hair quivered through the rest of her protest. “Twilight, that’s gross! Dragons and ponies can’t interbreed.”

“Not dragons, Pinkie,” Twilight expounded. “Draconic creatures. It was long before the Pre-Classical Era; the creatures in question are probably extinct now, at least within Equestria.”

“Your mane’s different, too,” Fluttershy added softly. “Pegapteri have webby manes that match their wings. Yours is lovely.” She seemed surprised at her own compliment, shrinking beneath a lock of pink hair that she somehow managed to drape over her entire face.

Lucifer was thrown off by the comment. "It is?" he asked, and reached up a hoof to feel the hair that curled around and under his large ears. "Huh..."

Fluttershy smiled at his strange reaction. "Hasn't anypony ever complimented your mane before, Mister Star?"

"Uh... yeah, sure," Lucifer said, playing with the locks above his eyes. "All the time."

"Y'know," said Applejack, "if you really don't got nothin' to hide, you could just tell us what yer doin' here without all the lies."

"Hmm? Oh." He cleared his throat and slicked his mane back. "Force of habit, I guess. Yeah, no, no one's ever complimented me before."

“Well, she's certainly right,” Rarity said, approaching him. “Your coloring is simply dazzling. Such rich, somber tones in your mahogany coat and dark grey mane, stunningly contrasted by those brightest of eyes.”

Lucifer grinned a little, his curiosity getting the best of him. “What color would you call them?”

“Your eyes?” she asked. “Goodness, I can hardly say. Common nomenclature hardly seems to do them justice. I suppose that, refraining from slang, I would have to call them… chartreuse!”

Well, that didn’t exactly help. Hailing from the colorless depths of Hell itself, Lucifer had never been much of a decorator. His smile drooped as Rarity put a thoughtful hoof to her chin.

“Oh, I bet you look absolutely fabulous in black…” she mused, more to herself than anypony else.

"Rarity, this guy could be some kind of crazy villain!" Rainbow Dash said. "And you're thinking about playing dress up with him?"

"Well, can't you just imagine him in a top hat?” Rarity said, pointing to indicate the invisible piece. "Oh, no, never mind, it would hide your coiffure. Oh, of course! A fashionable collar piece!”

“Rarity—”

“Oh, what am I saying? Hoity Toity stopped wearing his weeks ago! Celestia forbid I design you something out of style.”

Lucifer grunted. "Yeah, I'm not a model, lady."

“A bow tie wouldn’t be enough,” Rarity continued under her breath, “but a cloak would be far too much... maybe a vest?”

Lucifer's ears pricked. "A vest?" He looked down at his chest. "Hmm... that would actually be pretty..." He blinked and shook his head hard. "No! For Dad's sake, leave me alone! I'm just gonna head out into the desert or whatever and hang around for a week. If you don't bother me I won't bother you, and everyone south of the clouds will be happy."

"South of the clouds?" Twilight repeated, glancing upward.

Lucifer whipped around and galloped away. Rainbow started to follow, but Applejack grabbed her tail in her teeth. "No use, Rainbow," she said, shaking her head. "Some ponies just ain't lookin' fer friendship."

"I'm not looking for friendship either, Applejack," Rainbow yelled. "Can't you see he's clearly dangerous?"

"He's headed away from Ponyville," Twilight said. "Maybe he's serious about staying away."

"I don't buy it," Rainbow said, folding her forelegs.

"Well, we'll keep an eye out," Twilight said, pushing her mouth to one side. "I doubt Morning Star is worse than anything we've handled before."

~~~

Lucifer grumbled under his breath. "A vest... wants to make a stupid black vest. Who cares about a vest? Can't believe I was gonna... pff. Stupid ponies and their pies and..."

He glanced over the shoulder. The six mares were nowhere in sight. In fact, nothing much was in sight at all. Just a brown, cartoony desert filled with rocks and dirt.

"That's more like it," he said with a crooked grin. He dropped to his haunches and outstretched his wings. "Ooohh... that does kinda hurt, actually," he said aloud. "Maybe I just need to..."

Still sitting, he started flapping his wings as hard as he could. A few rough flaps slid him through the dirt, but there was no takeoff. "Pff... stupid wings." He folded them back at his sides and stared toward the horizon. A great, skinny mountain poked up in the distance. Some sort of city hung from its side.

"Looks like Olympus has been sliding," he said, chuckling at himself. "Too bad. That kept 'em distracted from the Big Guy for centuries."

He stared at the hazy silhouette a bit longer and then drug his hooves through the dirt. "Yup. Just gotta sit here and wait... for one week... and then I'll win the challenge. Ha haaa. God won't know what hit Him."

"I know everything," a voice said from behind him.

The Devil yelped and spun around, on his hooves faster than he knew he could jump. "Jeez, Dad, don't do that! Especially when I'm totally powerless like this."

"You're cheating," God said. He wore an amused grin.

The Devil guffawed. "What?"

"You're cheating. You can't just hide away in the desert and expect to win this bet. You have to be among the ponies for one week and not make a single friend. That's the only way I'll let you keep your garbage on the internet."

"Okay, first of all, it is not my garbage. That stuff is disgusting. But it does its job." He cleared his throat. "Secondly, I can't cheat if we didn't establish any rules in the first place."

"We did."

"And lastly, I'm the freaking Devil! Cheating is kind of my thing."

"And justice is kind of mine," God said. "So if you want to win this fair and square -- which is the only kind of winning I accept -- I suggest you follow their hoofprints back to their village and prove to me that these ponies are nothing more than exploitable fiction."

Lucifer groaned. "Thaaaat's soooo stuuuupiiiiiid."

God only laughed, shaking the rocks around them, and then he disappeared. Lucifer offset his jaw and paced in tight circles.

"Go back to their stupid village and show the stupid ponies... exploitable? They're less than exploitable! They're Flash animated nothingness with forced adorability! Grruuugh..." He stopped and looked back to where he'd climbed out of the gorge. "Okay, fine. I'll go crash these ponies' party. What's a better way to avoid friendship than showing them just how villainous I really am?"

Comments

[g5reg5]

first, also much lolz. been waiting a while for the chapter thanx!

[Brony Tom]

I am laughing so, so hard right now. You are an amazing author.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful with my comments, you seem to have knocked the seriousness out of me. What I mean to say is, I can't wait for the next chapter.

[Ponky]

835677 Wow, thanks! That's exactly the kind of response I even write this stuff for, so thank you from the bottom of my ! I love your profile picture, by the way. Did you draw that? (New chapter should be posted by Monday. It's a little... different.)

[Brony Tom]

836741

Unfortunately, I did not draw my profile image.

Now that I'm a bit more rational, I can really appreciate some of the finer things in the story. My favorite part is how you sneak in little bible references, it's so genius! Plus, the characterization of Satan is just awesome, and your style is excellent- just the right amount of description to give me a feel for where the story is, but you keep the story moving at a nice pace and not bogged down with unnecessary details.

This is really a Grade A work of fan fiction.

[Ponky]

837834 If there was an emoticon for :ponkygrinningwildlywithtearsinhiseyes:, I would use it here. Thank you so much! I'm glad you appreciate the bible references. I really hope the chapter I'm about to post doesn't totally ruin the whole story. Let me know? If it's stupid, I'll delete it and write something else.

[shortskirtsandexplosions]

It will be a glorious day when every brony fanfic author finally agrees to stop making Cupcake references.

Was it really that supremely important to detail the spatial relationship of the Mane 6 to the reclining Morning Star?

Another reason why I think this fic deserved to start out with a greater focus on the Mane 6 was to establish your style of expressing them within character. Here we have one of the first major scenes with all of them in a collective conversation, and they are borderline out of character due to Lucifer's proximity and his charms.

I have a hard time imagining Pinkie in my mind grimacing at the topic of sexual intercourse. I'd say either she'd giggle at it like a middle schooler or simply be too naive to grasp the subject. If anything, I think the "Eeeeww!" bit could have been expressed more eloquently by the likes of Rarity.

Spending several pages having the characters analyze a central protagonist's ponysona is like performing fellatio on the concept of Gary Stuism.

I don't see Fluttershy using the word "weird" to describe animal parts. I think she'd be a bit more well-spoken in the zoological department.

I dig your Rarity dialogue.

Hello, scene change.

Here's a thought. We're breaking third-person limited to follow the rest of the Mane 5 outside of Rarity's Boutique, effectively separating us from Lucifer's perspective. I thought that MLP was acknowleged within the canon of this fic to be a fictitious television program. In a way, God essentially creates a temporary sub-dimensional universe for Lucifer to subjectively experience. Does that make all of the ponies an illusion, existing solely to provide Morning Star with some moralistic, allegorical experience? And if that was the case, what substance should the characters possess beyond the boundaries of his perception? Do they truly exist? Do they have souls? Does what they think or do truly matter? When Lucifer returns to Hell to have his conclusive discourse with God, will the characters having their private scene here end up vanishing, thus making the private scene redundant and self-serving from the get-go? Just something to meditate on...

Oh god. Please. For the love of dung beetles, don't ever use "marshmallow" as an adjective unless the entire fanfic is at least 6 degrees more kaizo than this.

There's something self-defeating about introducing a rape joke only to have the unsatisfactory nature of that very same rape joke redundantly highlighted by the devil himself of all people.

Darn it. I wanna like Rarity. I really do.

"Ponnequin," heh...

And it ends on Rarity turning into a love-swooned revengeaholic. F'naaaa.

So anyways. Delightfully written, just like the previous chapters. There's an ever-persistent toungue-in-cheekness that fills the story with an element of charm. Even if the ponies are borderline out-of-character because of the (legitimately supported) plot contrivance of Lucifer's charm, I mostly like their dialogue and accents and choice of words and stuff. You got their speech down pat. It's always worth a slight snicker or a giggle whenever Lucifer's inner monologues invent increasingly bizarre puns and references to his sinful nature.

But what makes this qualify as a "story?" The lastest plot shift so far is "he left the picnic by the gorge and got flirted with by Rarity while she was dressing him." I get the feeling that if this pace keeps itself up, this is going to be a very long, long fic. And it feels as if the extent of it is measuring the Mane 6's reactions to Lucifer in Morning Star form. Without reading the rest of the fanfic, I'm tempted to guess that the overall plot is going to be structured around Morning Star interacting for a chapter or two with a different member of the Mane 6 and we the readers witnessing the various unique ways in which they fawn all over him like cats in heat. I hate to say that such a scenario doesn't feel like a slice-of-life story of MLP. It sounds like anime.

Just what is the goal of Lucifer's journey again? I flipped back through chapters 2 and 3 to remind myself. He's being sent to MLP-verse to learn about some Good inside him, right? And somehow this relates to him relinquishing control of the Internet and his conjuring of Rule 34 material? Where does God state that this whole endeavor will slam into a brick wall the moment Lucifer engages in the genital gallop with the likes of Rarity? Or am I missing something here?

I think I've said it before and I'll say it again. This story feels like something you've written for yourself. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it may be a good to kick this story into further gear in order to avoid the trope of this being nothing more than an exercise in MLP self-insertion. I mean, if that's what this really is--a fictitious journal with Sir Ponky as the Morning Star--then you're doing a fine job of making it silly, amusing, and interesting to the readers. But bronies say "I watch it for the plot" for a reason. Nmiaow.

My bones ache.
-SS&E

[Ponky]

1028142 Eventually I'll lengthily reply to every one of these--and I wanted to wait to do that until you were done, but I'm jumping the gun by a few minutes because I'm impatient--but this comment brought up a point I'd like to get out of the way.

Your "thought" on the third-person-omniscient sections was a good one. I will ruin it for everyone who cares, though, and tell you that it was done on purpose. I wanted the reader to wonder about the switches in perspective and realize that Lucifer is inside an actual, pre-existing world that has functioned before and will continue to function after his presence. He never really grasps that concept, though, since he thinks it's all some big test God put together just for him. If I ever finish this thing, the very last chapter will be a short coda between God and Celestia where they sort of wrap up Lucifer's experience and tie any loose ends, "explaining to the audience" through their conversation that Equestria is real and Lucifer is dumb.

But I might not ever finish it, because it really has no point. I didn't write it with any purpose other than teh lulz. Maybe that was a bad idea. Meh. I like to think I've improved a bit with "The Sisters Doo".

[Schroedingers_Katze]

Don´t know if this was intentional from your part but when Pinkie pestered Lu with pies, I instantly thought of Big J getting tempted by Uncle Lu with food and water while being in the desert.
Taste of your own medicine and all that.

[Dragonlover553]

He could mention that he only got his wings back recently. They were torn of his back long before that. Truthful. Perfect excuse for not flying(though it may jage up the Pity Meter). He could say using them brings back the memories.

[Dragonlover553]

We did."

Yes, and none of them involve... pretty much anything God's demanding. The rules were quite simple: live among the ponies for seven days, as a pony. That was it. Stripping him of his powers, forcing him to go back, etc, that's all outside the bargain, all cheating on God's half.