Chapter IV: I Send the Thunder from the Sky, I Send the Fire Raining Down!
And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch forth thine hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, upon man, and upon beast, and upon every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 9:22
Canterlot, Equestria
Celestia looked over her land by the light of morning. She had no power over this world's sun, but she saw no need to tell her subjects that. The wild animals had vanished, like the frogs before them, and she knew the ponies would take it as proof of her victory. No matter what struck her land next, she knew she would never give in to that woman's terms. After all, how could it get worse?
She felt a dim presence in her mind - Luna, her sister. Let her try and stop the Conversion, after all. Nothing would.
~*~
Cloudsdale
The town of Cloudsdale was built in the sky, and had thus endured the plagues better than the rest of Equestria - but it had suffered from the frogs and the animals as well. The pegasi that made up most of its citizens had not met the woman calling down chastisements on Celestia, and by extension, the ponies that supported her, and thus they didn't know what to do when she showed up at the gates.
Not to be deterred, she broke them with a single strike of her hand and walked unbarred to the centre of town.
'You are cowards,' she said. 'You had power over the weather, yet have not made an action or spoken a word against Celestia.'
'You think you rule over the skies and the weather. I will disabuse you of this notion. I will send the storm upon the land you help, and with it I will hurl down the fire and the hail and the lightning. I will stretch forth my hand over all Equestria and you will know despair and fear. Celestia will not save you. Nothing will, unless she accepts the terms I have offered her before she loses her last chance. So be it.'
She struck her staff on the plaza, then left without a word.
From the borders of Equestria, from the furthest reaches of the territory it had spread over like a cancer, the storm-clouds came. Inky-black, they blotted out the sun, covering the whole country in a veil of night. For about half an hour, they seemed to wait.
Then the fire came down.
~*~
Equestria
All over the country, fire rained from the sky. Trees became torches, and ponies huddled in living rooms, basements, the corners of streets, seeking what shelter there was from the merciless flame. Canterlot was hit many times, blasts taking out balconies and blasting holes in roofs and walls. The skyscrapers of Manehattan soon became pitted, cracked by fireballs shattering walls and exploding rooms. The eldest of them, the Stonehoof Building, briefly became a tower of flame, then crashed to the ground with all the ponies inside, burying one of the city's largest avenues in rubble.
Pegasi flying were struck with gale-force winds and bolts of lightning, and for a few hours dead ponies smelling of cooked meat fell from the sky. Occasionally the lightning was more powerful, as when a single bolt completely destroyed the highest floors of Manehattan's tallest building. Massive hailstones smashed into trees and crops, hitting buildings with enough force to smash right through windows. The tallest tree in all Equestria exploded when it was struck by a single bolt of lightning, sending splinters of burning wood all over a large town.
The ponies almost expected it when not a single newfoal was hurt.
Celestia tried to affect the storm with her magic from Canterlot, working together with all the pegasi she could muster, but nothing happened. She knew she was missing something, but what was it?
Appleoosa
Luna was going into the town of Appleoosa under the cover of the largest and most terrible storm any pony, living or dead, had ever seen. She looked over the streets, the ponies huddling in panic everywhere that offered shelter, houses and trees burning around her as fire rained from the black clouds, suffusing the scene in an eerie orange glow.
Right in the town square was a human woman, dressed in blood-red clothes and carrying an iron staff, the ponies not seeming to notice her as the gales blasted through their town.
'Who are you?' she asked.
'I use lots of names,' the woman said. 'But they're not remotely relevant right now. Why do you ask?'
'Did you...cause this?' Luna asked, trying to change the subject.
The woman's face gave a stern expression.
'I'm dreadfully sorry, Princess Luna,' she said. 'But I told Celestia to stop her little scheme and...she wouldn't listen. My job is to stop her plan. I don't know how many more will have to suffer before she lets go of her stubbornness and pride. If you're looking for shelter, head for Applejack's farm. It should be protected from this and from whatever comes next.'
'Oh, and let me deal with Celestia.'
Cloudsdale
The town was helpless. From its position in the sky, the pegasi living in it could see all the fury being rained down on Equestria. The fires burning in Ponyville, Manehattan and Appleoosa. The devastation around Canterlot. They couldn't fly down to the ground, the lightning and the impossibly strong winds blowing through Equestria would kill any pegasus who tried.
So they were left with no choice but to watch Equestria be devastated.
Canterlot
Celestia was in such a rage it was unimaginable, watching the fire and hail from the balcony. Something was striking, killing her ponies and there was nothing she could do. It was worse even than Discord - at least with him she had had an opponent. But with this, there was quite simply nothing she could fight. She could waste her power fruitlessly trying to hold back the storm, but whatever lay behind it she couldn't begin to even see, let alone fight in any meaningful way.
But she would not submit. She gritted her teeth and hardened her heart. Nothing would stop her.
Vatican City
The Pope listened to the news of the events in Equestria with fascination. He was going to give a mass today and well, this was quite unexpected. At least the wild animals had been somewhat explicable, but this, this was obviously a miracle. The papers, the radio channels, the televisions were now explicitly equating the events with the Ten Plagues of Egypt. The main Bible verses quoted this week were from Exodus. Quite irreligious people were practically queueing up for conversion.
Well, if God had judged Celestia and found her wanting, it was not his place to question that judgement. The least he could do was point it out.
"Quite irreligious people were practically queueing up for conversion."
I lol'ed. I can totally imagine athiests giving up their humanity if the entire world excepted that there was a supreme being.
2198995 ya there a religion within them selves....
So the Princess of the Sun refuses to yield, even though she is quite clearly facing something she cannot even fight.
After all, one does not just fight against the primal forces of nature. Refusing to yield against those odds is the utmost degree of foolishness.
... Seriously? You really think that people would abandon their humanity if they're atheistic or not strongly religious, just because God chooses this moment to do some serious intervening when the dude had been practically AWOL for thousands of years? No, the appearance of this strongly god-like being would cause great discussion amongst atheists, but would persuade no one to be converted were they not already committed — especially if it seems like ponies are getting their rumps handed to them by whatever it is. The kind of "irreligious" people who would queue up for conversion are an invention of the religious.
But that's not why I downvoted this story. No, I downvoted because I don't care about any of these characters. I don't care about psuedo-Moses, who really didn't have any reason to be in New York before becoming a mere instrument of God's will — and instruments are to be used, not cared about. I don't care about this Xenolestia, for no space was spent selling the character to me — par for the course in ACB fics, but still a bad point. Her only purpose is to serve as a Pharaoh stand-in and all-around punching bag for God; she's not even a clear antagonist because I'm just told she's evil. No character from the ponies to the humans is developed enough to care about. With no clear protagonist, an antagonist, or even an interesting perspective, what am I supposed to feel about this fic other than a big, fat "meh"?
TL;DR, it reads like a Bible story, and not in a good way.
2198995
I wouldn't!
There's no way in Oblivion that I would give up my Humanity!!
Okay, I'm honestly more Agnostic than Atheist, but you get my point!!!
And I know several Atheists who would stand by my decision.
3850786 Wut. You down voted because you didn't care for the characters. WHY IN ALL HELL DID YOU EVEN READ THIS! You knew that this was a CB story why read it and also why did you even vote you could have just left without voting. I only down vote stories I truly HATE, other then that I don't vote or I hit like if I liked it.
4313609 3850786 2198995 2221003 4964982
I am almost completely sure that 'conversion' in this case is referring to a change in religion, rather than getting ponified.
Considering what is going on and the fact that it is the Pope that notes this, there's almost no doubt.
5487937 yep, atheists in general would believe in a supreme god if proof presented itself, and most would judge it based on its actions and formulate opinions accordingly, this god, from what I can tell, is like what I imagine most non-physical gods would be like, intervening only when something is going horribly wrong, but what is going wrong would depend on the god. In this case, it is the death of humanity, but it could be something else for a different god.
3850786
If you're watching God tear apart a species for heresy, would you want to risk being on his shit list? Besides, why wouldn't atheists and agnostics convert to a religion if God personally reveals his existence and proves it? The atheists and agnostics both believe that if there is irrefutable proof of God given to them, they will accept it. Well, here's the proof to the ones in this story.
As for God being AWOL for thousands of years... the next time you feel a sudden urge to look up and it gives you barely enough time to avoid road-killing a pedestrian, think about that. Don't expect pillars of fire and smiting of cities. Expect the subtle and inexplicable.
6189553
By this point in the story -- I haven't read further yet as I write this, so there are still chapters to go --, the only thing anyone in the setting knows for halfway certain is that after the land of magical bullshit ponies popped up there's now also apparently somebody magically reenacting the plagues of Egypt. Whether that somebody actually is the specific God of the Old Testament, some powerful other pony that got their hands on a Bible somewhere and used that for inspiration, Q, or perhaps even an ascended Cecil B. DeMille remains unclear until further notice.
In other words, while the atheists and agnostics of the setting certainly would acknowledge that there's something new and weird going on, I wouldn't automatically see them jump to the conclusion that Christianity (or on closer examination maybe Judaism or Islam instead, for that matter?) had it right all along...nor that they'd necessarily consider the existence of a self-styled supreme being a good thing in and of itself. After all, they already had to deal with Celestia and her all-too-similar attitude...
6189553 that is actually my belief. He saw that direct intervention doesn't work. He is subtle. But sometimes he is not. He works through us. I believe that he was the one who gave the Russian soldiers to fight back against the Nazis and the allies strength to fight. He doesn't change, he suggests.
Famous last words.
At this point I would've said fuck it, and started doing drugs, because nothing makes sense anymore.
1 Samuel 2:3 Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the
Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
8323348
her soul been weighed and she been found wanting of pride, heresy,vanity,greed,wraith,Violence,Fraud. add Treachery to her crimes.