Sympathy For The Devil

3/24/2058

South Palomino Desert…

2:15am…

We shouldn’t have let our guard down, just when we thought this whole thing had blown over, they hit us, like they knew we had moved on with our lives. They came in the night, when the moon was full and the air was cool. It had been a stressful week ever since that stranger gave the whole town a scare, and ponies were just now starting to move on with their lives. Everypony was just beginning to act like the whole thing hadn’t really happened, like they had pushed it out of their mind. But of course, that's when all Tartarus broke loose, when we least expected it.

I slept soundly in the corner of the house on a small bale of hay that we had built over the course of the past couple years. Suddenly I woke up to, what I thought was nothing. Nothing was making noise, nothing had bumped me, and my mother slept soundly next to me. Yet, I had awoken, my head still resting on the hay. I looked quickly around with my eyes before picking my head up off the ground in confusion, and did a full 360 of the building.

The moonlight somewhat illuminating the home, giving everything a calm blue haze. Nothing was out of place, and nobody was here yet, I had still woken up, why? I was about to rest my head again, but in the few seconds that it took me to look around the room, something had cut the air with a whistling hissing noise that was immediately followed by an earth quaking explosion. In a heartbeat I shot up from out of the corner and looked to the front door where a new light came from, a bright orange and yellow light. I instinctively ran to the door and flung it open to see where the light was coming from. The light that was coming from the outside originated from beyond the alleyway to our home. I ran as a fast as I could to the end of the alleyway only to stop at the mouth of the passage as fire and smoke filled the streets to the right of me.

“Oh my god,” I heard myself say as the origin of the fire was revealed to be coming from the church.

It’s steeple, still hanging high as the under parts of it burned like the deepest pits of hell. The roof had fallen inward as some parts of the walls on the left and right side, no longer existed in some places, being replaced with smoke and flames. Then before I could turn back to home, another whistle came from far above me. I turned and followed the hiss as it seemed to move through the air downwards. Then another explosion came, this time to the left of me. The ground shook and the air seemed to pass through me with immense force. A giant fire ball spewed up from the ground and into the air as iron panelling flew through the sky and into the street, all coming from a place beyond my vision. From beyond the tall walls of the building to the left of me where the explosion hit, came another smoke trail, but this time I knew where the fire came from. It was the farm.

With new found fear I turned around and ran back towards home as a third explosion echoed throughout the town, sending a shock wave through my body, my mind racing with so many emotions and thoughts. We were under attack, and the town was officially doomed and broken beyond repair, we needed to escape, and fast. I nearly busted the door down as I reentered my home, a light that wasn't burning before had now lit up the room, it came from a single oil lamp that flickered on the table. Mother, being visibly mortified by the bombing, had finally gotten up and was already packing things inside my worn saddlebags.

“Mom, the church is gone, and the farm has gone up in flames, Faith is under attack!” I screamed at her, shaking, not in anger, but in fear. Her head snapped around to look at me clearly in a state of panic.

“Azalea, help me get our things packed!” She yelled back as another bomb came from above and exploded outside. I said nothing and in a flash I instinctively moved to her side and began to help stow things away with my magic.

We barely had anything to begin with, no valuable items like jewelry or clothes. The house was practically empty, besides food and my binoculars. We made sure that every little morsel was packed away inside my sacks. Every little hiding place was picked clean, everything and anything that could help us on our way out was put inside. And when that was done I slipped on the bags without hesitation and made for the doorway, expecting my mother to do the same. But when I turned around to make sure she was coming, I saw her just standing there, with tears in her eyes. She just stared her mouth slightly agape, her face and soul making a honest to god effort not to collapse and cry.

“Mom? Why aren't you coming?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I walked from the door frame back to where I had left her. I looked at her as her glossy, leaking eyes locked with mine. “I know what you said mom but, I can’t leave you like this, not now, not ever,” I said finally confessing to her what I had realized and had come to know before now. She shut her eyes as she folded her hooves around me. She quivered and wept, drawing smaller and smaller breaths between sobs, tears wetting my fur as they streamed down and hit the sand. Through the crying she spoke.

“Azelea, I can’t lose you too, this world has taught me that life is too short, and can be taken away when you least expect it. That’s why you need to go now so that you have a better chance at living than me. Plus all I’ll do is slow you down,” She leaning backward resting her forehead on mine as she sobbed her sentence out. I was at a loss for words, nothing I could say now could change her mind, she was stubborn headed that way. But I could at least try.

“Mom please, I-I can’t I jus-,” I began to try and make an excuse, but she cut me off rather abruptly and sternfully.

“You listen here,” She said through her teeth and tears, lifting her head up again, “I’ve already made up my mind, now I need you to grow up, and walk out that door with dignity, not begging like a baby. I can’t survive out there, I’m too soft, I’ve never climbed a mountain, or lived off the land. But you, you’re different, I can tell. Ever since you were born I knew you were destined for greatness. That’s why I tried to keep you safe all these years, sheltering you from the outside. I now know I was hurting you more than helping you, but I know that you’ll learn, and adapt, something that I can’t do,” She said having opened her eyes, “You have the will of your Father and a heart of iron, and if I know him he’s still out there, wondering if your okay, I know he is.” As she said this, smaller cracks and pops seemed to explode from outside the walls to our home. It had to have been our guard fighting back against whoever was attacking us.

“Now you have the chance that I can’t take, go out there and find him, I know you can, I believe in you, now GO!” She said pushing me off, with force. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, my mind refused to make words or sense of the situation. Turning my back on family, the one of two living relatives that I knew existed. She was a part of me, and now I had to leave her behind. It was physically killing me as I carried my body towards the door, like I was tearing myself apart into two halfs. Pitiful tears fell from my eyes as I reached the door frame, the fire outside growing bigger and hotter by the second. I turned my head around to see my mother staring back at me, standing in a now even more empty home then before.

“Mom, I love you,” The words flew right from my mouth as if pulled out by a pair of claws. A weak smile came from her face as her eyes shined in the dim light of the lamp, a final goodbye, forever.

“I know, I love you too,” She came back, the words thrashing into me like daggers. They echoed in my mind as I left the building behind into the new burning reality around me.

‘I'm going to die…’ I thought to myself as the door behind me shut slowly. But before I could go anywhere a pony turned down the Alleyway and came barrelling towards me. His body movement and clothing, had painted him as a guard, a knight in silver armor, the only thing keeping the enemy at bay. He stopped a few hoofsteps in front of me, his height and body type nearly taking up my whole vision.

His armor, unlike what I thought or remembered was different than before. It was stained, and tarnished. Blood and oily black patches of muck were painted on his chest peice. His fur, originally white and clean, was now nearly blackened with ash and dirt. His eyes were heavy with fatigue and stress and his helmet was tilted slightly off center almost exactly resembling his chest peice in condition. To make a long story extremely short, he looked like shit. In his horn’s grasp he carried a long tube looking weapon. It had a large wooden stock in the rear and what looked three rotating barrels affixed on a single gear face on a center box. On the opposite side of the box was the stock. A hammer and strike face was present on the right of the center box, along with what looked like a pan underneath.

I had seen this kind of weapon before, but never in combat. The guards and Dad called them Muskets, long tubes that fired small little metal balls at really fast speeds that could rip a ponies arm off. Of course, I had never witnessed this, and the claims of its destructive power meant nothing to me, unless I could see it. But a part of me wished I never would half to see anypony get their arm blown off, yet I could tell this night would change all that.

“Hey, pay attention! Are you alright?” A voice came to me cutting off my thoughts, it was the guard. He had turned to the left and had begun to aim the Musket the same way he was facing. I shook myself awake.

“Uh, y-yeah, I’m alright,” I stuttered back.

“Alright good, you’re coming with me, I’m Corporal Morion second in command, orders from Sergeant Shallot are to evacuate the town as the larger bulk of the guards fight off the Griffon attack, we will be exiting via the rear of the town and will be heading south from here until further notice,” He said as more ponies followed up from behind him. All of them looked shaken and scared, the guards escorting them all looked like the guard they followed. They all clumped together in a herd as the guards surrounded them with all different looking muskets and weapons as they pointed them in different directions.

“Okay Let’s go then,” I said anxiously. He nodded and turned back up towards the alleyway and ran upwards as two other guards followed him. Soon the rest followed suite.

I needed to go on, my life may have just changed drastically, and reality as I knew it was falling apart, but. I needed to push on, no matter the odds. If not for me, then for my family, my father, my mother. I will see them again, I don't care if its ten minuets from now, or ten years from now, I will see them again. Family may part ways, but they will always be together, no matter what. I will make sure of that.