"Considering everyone was praying when we found them, yes." Josey agreed.
"The book of Revelations explains that Jesus Christ will wash away our sins in His blood. That rain out there certainly fits the bill," I pointed out, motioning my head toward the nearest window.
"Let's see if I remember the verse... 'behold, he comes with clouds; and every eye shall see him'. I saw a lot of eyes up in the clouds while we were on the rooftop," I suggested.
"That does sound like what we were seeing, yes," Spritelight agreed with me.
"All the children of the Earth shall wail because of him, I think the next verse goes," I pondered. "I honestly didn't pay too much attention during Bible study, but the signs of the apocalypse, the four horsemen... it's all in there."
Josey looked around at Turkey, Rainbow, Spritelight, and myself. "I guess I see how the four of us descending upon your school could have made someone think we were the four horsemen, but none of us are guys... Well, Turkey used to be."
"But she's not," Spritelight decided forcefully. "So what's this stuff you two are talking about then?"
"Religion," Josey pointed out, looking around the room until she spotted a Bible laying around.
Her horn shimmered a light green as she picked it up with her magic, and I watched the book fly over with considerable interest.
I had a horn too, so this was part of what I could potentially do myself now?
How did she do it?
Josey hovered the book in front of us and flipped through the pages until arriving at Revelation 1, then put it on the floor between us.
"Here, verse 5 is what April mentioned;" she spoke, reciting from the book before us; " 'And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,' definitely could point to the rain outside."
"Then there's verse 7; 'Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.', so April was almost right," Josey chuckled. "Kindred, not children."
Spritelight snorted. "It sounds like an old language, like the old tomes I read in the archives in Canterlot. Difficult to wrap your head around nowadays. That's why I ended up here on Earth, instead of staying in Equestria where Earth used to be."
Josey flipped to the next page of the Bible. "Can't... find anything about the horsemen here?"
"I think it's later on in Revelation," I pointed out. "It's where they're talking about seals."
Josey kept flipping on to Revelation six, then nodded. "Right, here it is, verse 2; 'And I saw, and behold a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.' Hm."
"Yeah, no rider on any of you, although Spritelight is closest to being white?" I suggested.
"Silver, actually. My coat has been a bland grey ever since I arrived here. It's more vibrant in Equestria," Spritelight defended herself.
"Yeah, but it's going farther than that; 'And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.' So the first horse would be the leader, then the second would be war, or strife..." Josey pondered.
She continued reading, "Then there's the third horse; 'And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.' I think I remember that one; it's famine."
"Right," I agreed. "And the fourth one would be Death."
Josey gave a curt nod. " 'And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.' Lovely stuff."
I noted the sarcastic undertone to Josey's words and shrugged at it. "This is why my brain tunes out during Bible study. I grasp half of it, but there are too many words. I don't have that kind of attention span."
"Exactly," Spritelight agreed. "That's the same with me and the old tomes of magic, although they hold a power within them which draws me to them."
"The headmistress would have let you believe that there's a great power hidden in the Bible as well," I pointed out.
"Maybe there is," Josey mused. "Maybe Spritelight isn't far off with her idea that our worlds used to be one. What if it actually describes the situation we're in right now?"
"What, we're in the Apocalypse right now?" I whimpered. "So we're all going to die?"
"Not necessarily," Spritelight scoffed. "Your old life as a human might be over, but you're transformed into a pony now. Maybe they didn't have words to describe that?"
"Maybe they did have words to describe that, but they became lost in translation," Josey mumbled to herself, then spoke up louder. "This is a two-thousand year old book. It has been translated to every language known to mankind, edited by people who thought they knew better than others, and has been interpreted so many different ways that it might as well be describing a recipe for making popsicles for all we know."
"Hey now," I protested. "That's no way to talk about the Bible... A lot of people find comfort in it."
"Oh, no, I'm not denying that," Josey warded off. "I'm simply saying there might be something here in the texts which has been hidden in plain sight. Some way we can stop this thing from destroying the world."
"I'm pretty sure the Apocalypse is unstoppable once it starts," I coughed warily, laying my head down on the floor. "But what do I know?"
"That's a good question; what do you know?" Spritelight countered. "You said yourself you have had to study this book. Can you give me a brief synopsis about it?"
"Er," I started. "Let's see... God created the Heavens, the world and everything on it, and then put humans on it. They didn't really behave in Eden, so got cast out and multiplied among themselves. Then they didn't behave again and God washed the sinners away with a great flood. Then He sent His son down to Earth to try and teach people to stop sinning, but they betrayed Him and put Him on a cross where he died. Then there's a whole lot of warning stuff about how He will return one day, and of course the whole Apocalypse thing."
"He will return," Spritelight caught.
"Yeah, The Second Coming of Christ," I listed. "That's mostly in Matthew, if I remember correctly."
Josey instantly started flipping pages again.
"So how are you doing that, if I may ask?" I asked, pulling my head up from the ground to look sideways at the bigger horse.
"Just... do it," Josey offered enigmatically. "Celestia told me to envision an image of what I wanted to do in my head and then push that out through my horn, but Luna and I can just sort of do it instinctively without having to envision it first. It's somewhat faster."
"Ah, here," she continued when she found the passage she was looking for. "Matthew 24, verse 29; 'Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.' apparently."
"That sounds about right; it's long-winded enough," Spritelight commented.
"It continues; 'And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.' " Josey listed, then skimmed a few lines. "Apparently half of everyone would be saved and the rest left to die."
"Yeah, the rapture; ascension of the faithful," I agreed.
"I wonder," Josey pondered. "Would us going around transforming people into ponies be a decent allegory to that? We can't save them all, but we can save a lot of people if we're smart about it."
"I'm not so sure I want to test that theory; we'd have to go through the wall of flesh and end up unscathed on the other side of it to be sure," Spritelight considered.
"What actually is this wall of flesh, since you've mentioned it a few times now?" I asked, turning my head to look between the both of them.
"Exactly what it sounds like; it's a giant wall made out of the flesh of the humans it encountered in its path; everyone merged together into an unholy abomination several miles across and reaching up to the sky, crying out in pain as it moves forward across the planet in an effort to find more victims," Josey muttered with a frightful shudder.
"It leaves empty buildings behind. No human survivors. How has this not been in the news yet?" Spritelight asked curiously. "There were reports about the pony 'fad' while I was transforming my ambassadors. Nopony mentioned the wall?"
"We don't have a television here. It's school and Bible study, and nothing else," I pointed out.
"So no way to know what the world is thinking about it until someone decides to launch nukes at it, I guess," Josey sighed darkly.
"We do have a radio," I suggested, and both Spritelight and Josey stared at me.
"Where?" Josey demanded.
"Next to the headmistress' office; we have a little radiobooth for announcements and such," I remarked, and Josey immediately pushed up on her four hooves. "I don't have a key to it..."
"We don't need a key," the tall horse chuckled; "I have alicorn magic."
