War of the Worlds

Chapter 5 - The Red Weed

The Next day, the dawn was a brilliant fiery red and the group of friends walked through the weird and lurid landscape of another planet; for the vegetation that gives Mars its red appearance had taken root in Equestria. As Pony kind had succumbed to the invaders, so their land now succumbed to the Red Weed. Wherever there was a stream, the Red Weed clung and grew with frightening voraciousness, its claw-like fronds chocking the movement of the water; and it began to creep like a slimy red animal across the landscape, covering field and ditch and tree and hedgerow in with living scarlet feelers, Crawling, Crawling.

Twilight suddenly noticed the body of a Parson lying on the ground in a ruined churchyard. She felt unable to leave him to the mercy of the Red Weed and decided to bury him decently. As they were lifting him off the ground a mare ran over shouting “Nathanial! Nathanial!” As she reached them the stallions eyes flickered open, he was alive.

The mare came closer and said to him “Nathanial! I saw the church burst into flames are you alright?”

“Don’t touch me!” he said loudly rearing backwards, causing the ponies to drop him onto the mud. The mare looked hurt and said in a concerned tone, but with a touch of sadness

“But it’s me – Beth, you’re wife”

“No, you’re one of them, a devil!” He yelled at her backing away further. She turned to Twilight and her friends and said
“he’s delirious”.

“LIES!” the Parson yelled at them, “I saw the devil’s sign”.

Twilight looked confused and asked the mare “devil, what’s he talking about?”

“I’m guessing he means discord” the mare answered, “What are you saying Nathanial?”

“The green flash in the sky” the Parson answered pointing at the leaden sky with a hoof, “his demons were here all along – in our hearts and souls – just waiting for a sign from him, and now, they’re destroying our world”.

“but they’re not devils, they’re Martians.” The mare pleaded, desperately trying to reason with him. Midnight looked around and said in a commanding voice

“We must leave here, they’re coming”

“Look Nathanial, a house still standing, come, quickly” the mare said helping the stallion to his hooves. They took shelter in a cottage and black smoke spread, hemming them in. Then a fighting machine came across the field, spraying jets of steam that turned the smoke into thick black dust. As it went past, the Tripod emitted a low groaning sound that shook the windows of the cottage. “dear Celestia, help us!” the mare cried.

“The voice of the devil is heard in out land!” the Parson yelled, before continuing “Listen, do you hear them drawing near, in their search for the sinners? Feeding on the power of our fear and the evil within us. They’re the incarnation of Satan’s creation of all that we dread, when the demons arrive, those alive would be better off dead!”

The mare, who had identified herself as Beth, desperately tried to calm him down, “there must be something worth living for, there must be something worth trying for, even something’s worth dying for, and if just one could stand tall, there would be hope for us all”.

But it seemed not to phase the parson, who continued on his rant with renewed vigour, “Once there was a time when I believed, without hesitation, that the power of love and truth could conquer all in the name of salvation, but tell me, what kind of weapon is love when it comes to the fight, and just how much protection is truth against all Satan’s might!”

Beth then walked right up to him, and said softly “people loved you and trusted you, came to you for help”.

The Parson Nathanial turned to her, his eyes wide and pleading and said “Didn’t I warn them this would happen? Be on your guard I said, for the evil one never rests. I said EXERSIZE THE DEVIL. But no, they wouldn’t listen; the demons inside them grew and grew, until Satan gave his signal, and destroyed the world we knew!”

Again Beth tried “No Nathanial, oh no Nathanial, there must be more to life, there has to be a way; that we can restore to life the light that we have lost”.

But the Parson didn’t listen, “Now darkness has descended on our land, and all your prayers cannot save us, like fools we’ve let the devil take command of the souls that Celestia gave us! To the alter of evil, like lambs to the slaughter we’re led, when the demons arrive those alive will envy the dead!”

“Nathanial”. Beth cried, close to tears now, but the Parson continued in his mad rant, oblivious to the cries of his mare.
“Forget about goodness and mercy – they’re gone, didn’t I warn them…… Pray I said…… Destroy the devil, I said……. They wouldn’t listen, I could have saved the world, but now it’s too late, TOO LATE!!!”

Just then Twilight heard a whistling sound, like an object dropped from a great height made as it fell through the air, and Twilights eyes widened as she realised that they had only seconds. “DOWN!” Twilight screamed, the others looked at her in bewilderment before hitting the deck, just as the thirteen tone cylinder hit the house.

The cylinder impacted with the force of a small bomb, there were sounds of breaking glass and smashing timbers and brickwork, Twilight was forced down as an interior wall fell on top of her, the heat from the cylinders glittering metal exterior was incredible. “Dear Celestia, a cylinder’s landed on the house, and we’re underneath it, in the pit!” the Parson cried. The humans spent the night making a new machine; it was a squat metallic spider with huge articulated claws, but it to had a hood in which the human sat, Twilight watched it pursuing a group of ponies across the field, it caught them nimbly and tossed then into a great metal basket upon it’s back. A little time passed before the Parson yelled out again “Beth, she’s dead, buried under the rubble, WHY? Satan! Why did you take one of your own?” before breaking down into uncontrollable sobs.

As time passed in their dark and dusty prison, the parson wrestled endlessly with his doubts, his outcries inviting death for them all – and yet Twilight pities him. Then on the ninth day they witnessed the aliens ‘eating’, inside the hood of their new machine, they were draining the fresh living blood or stallions and mares and injecting intravenously into their own veins.
“It’s a sign!” the parson suddenly cried “I’ve been given a sign! They must be cast out, and I’ve been chosen to do it! I must confront them now!” the Parson yelled moving towards the door.

“No Parson No!” Midnight said trying to calm him down

“Those machines are just demons in a new form; I shall destroy them with my prayers! I shall burn them with my divine light!” the parson yelled a furious fire burning in his eyes. “I shall…..” the Parson started but fell silent mid-sentence, Twilight looked around to see that Midnight had hit him over the head, knocking him out.

The curious eye of an alien appeared at the window-slit, and a menacing claw explored the room. Midnight dragged the parson down to the coal cellar; they heard the alien fumbling with the latch. In the darkness Twilight could see the claw touching things, walls, coal, wood, and then it touched Rarities leg – she almost shouted. For a time it was still, then with a click it gripped something, the parson, then with slow, deliberate movements, his unconscious body was dragged away…..and there was nothing they could do to prevent it.

Twilight crept to the window-slit and stared out past the Red Weed’s creepers, the invaders and all their machinery were gone, trembling, they dug their way out and clambered onto the top of the mound. Not an alien or Tripod in sight, the day seemed dazzlingly bright after their imprisonment; and the sky was a glowing blue. Red Weed covered every scrap of ground, but a gentle breeze kept it swaying, and oh, the sweetness of the air.

Again they were on their way to Canterlot, through towns and villages that were blackened ruins, totally silent, desolate, deserted. Pony kinds empire had passed away, taken swiftly and without error by these creatures who were unhampered by the complex systems that make up ponies, they made and used different bodies according to their needs. They never tired, never slept and never suffered, having long since eradicated from their planet the bacteria that cause all fevers and morbidities.