Blessed are those who sparkle

(the image vector was found on dreamstime.com)

“Help! Please!” Yells a man running in a wasteland. “Sanctuary!” The man was frantically knocking on every door and gate he could find, only to realize that the buildings were abandoned. From a distance, a figure on a cliff was watching the man desperately trying to find shelter. “I’ll take care of this,” the figure said before shortly disappearing. Down on the ground, the man continued to plead until he came across a heavily guarded building armed with searchlights and two massive turrets. Seeing this, the man yelled, waving his hands frantically to get the people’s attention. The searchlights turned and pointed to the man as he made his way to the front gate. A soldier on a turret radioed in and said, “Boss, we seem to have a survivor. Orders, sir?”

“Hold your fire. I’ll go see what he wants.”.

The man banged on the front gate, yelling, “Sanctuary!” Above the man’s head, a voice speaks through the intercom. “Identify yourself.”

“I’m…. I’m.. Kevin, I’ve just escaped from an internment camp. Please, you gotta help me! They killed my family. I need someplace to go or.. or.. they’ll find me.” Kevin kept pleading in front of the gate until finally, he broke down crying. After a few seconds, the gate slowly opened as a six foot three inch burly man with armor and a holstered pistol walked out. The burly man extended a hand to the kneeling Kevin. “I’m Joseph, the leader of this base.” Kevin grabbed the hand and proceeded to thank his apparent savior. Joseph took a good look at Kevin and noticed his clothes were ragged and slightly distressed. Kevin’s eyes were red from all the crying; his voice hoarse from all the yelling. Joseph gave Kevin a quick pat down to make sure he was unarmed.

“You’re safe now,” Joseph said. Feeling more at ease, Kevin thanked his savior but profusely pleaded with him, “You have to get me inside!”

“We will as soon as we check that you are ok.”

“You don’t understand, I have to escape right away.”

“From what?”

Tears began to form in Kevin’s eyes as he spoke, “The blessing.”

Joseph’s eyes widened from the revelation, but before they could continue, the two men heard heavy galloping footsteps. Both the searchlights and the turrets targeted what came towards them. The men saw a galloping white horse. The horse’s sparkling white mane was flowing in the wind. The horse stopped a couple feet away from the front gate. Giving the horse a once over, Joseph saw the horse was wearing a cowboy hat with shades. After a few moments the horse stood on its hind legs. Towering over them on two hooves, they could see that the horse was wearing gunmetal grey armor with a few scratches on it. The horse chuffed a bit before speaking.

“Kevin, you know damn well you can’t escape your blessing, boy.” The horse said this in a heavy southern drawl. Kevin tried to hide behind Joseph.

“Who the hell are you?” Joseph asked, pointing his gun.

“The name’s Dallas, and if you knew who I was, you’d know better than to point a peashooter at me, boy.”

“Good point.” Joseph pressed a button on his radio. After a few seconds, five soldiers moved out from behind Joseph with automatic machine guns aimed at Dallas. Dallas was unperturbed by the surrounding soldiers, and proceeded to light a cigar by shifting his hooves into human appendages. After letting out a puff of smoke, Dallas began to speak.

“You humans always gotta feel safe behind your toys.”

“Big talk from somebody coming to a military base by himself.”

“Check again, boy,” Dallas said as he pointed behind Joseph.

Kevin began sweating profusely. His eyes still red, they began to glow with a rainbow-like light. His body twitches uncontrollably as he falls to the ground. “Did I forget to mention, Kevin? You’ve already been blessed,” Dallas said with a smirk. Joseph got down to check on Kevin, when he found a rainbow colored wound on Kevin’s arm. Joseph jerked back as Kevin began to twitch more violently. His hair started to grow uncontrollably, long tufts sprouting out, while his neck elongated. His face transformed into a snout. Kevin’s fingers slowly started to recede as his cries of pain became ear splitting, slowly turning into muffled snorts and whines. Dallas began to laugh savagely at the sight until a single gunshot could be heard. Joseph had a pained expression as he lifted the gun from Kevin’s half transformed corpse and glared at Dallas.

“Now that wasn’t nice, was it ...ya sumbitch?” Dallas said.

“Shut up! Do you animals think this is funny? Showing up and attacking us and forcing some to turn into that?”

“It’s funny how you humans call us animals, ‘cause if I recall you brought this on yourselves. Your greed knows no bounds. It started when you slaughtered our kin, but it wasn’t enough for you. It was only a matter of time before you came for us - slaughtering us one... by... one. AND FOR WHAT? FOR FOOD?! Did you even care about the consequences?”

“Why should I?” Joseph said, not moving his gun away from Dallas.

Dallas removed his cigar and slowly took off his shades to reveal the unbridled rage in his eyes. He then revealed a heart shaped locket around his neck.

“You humans hunted my family down like dogs to feed yourselves without a care. On that day, I vowed to burn as many of you suckas down as I can, and Imma start with that base first.”

“Fat chance of you doing that by yourself, Dallas. See, your mistake, ‘boy’, was coming here alone and threatening a whole military base,” Joseph said with a smirk. Dallas ignored the taunt and put his sunglasses back on, returning the cigar to his mouth. The two continued to glare at each other until Dallas said, “Come get it.”

“Take him.”

As soon as Joseph gave the order, the five soldiers slowly moved in, making a kill circle with their guns raised at Dallas. Dallas spat his cigar at Joseph, hitting him in the eye. This caused Joseph to fire his gun, which missed Dallas by an inch, blowing off the horse's hat and revealing a rainbow colored horn on his head.

“It’s a rainbow horn!” One of the soldiers shouted as others opened fire. Acting fast, Dallas swept the leg of the soldier to his left, knocking him to the ground. Dashing to the guy in front of him, Dallas knocked the soldier’s gun away while punching his face repeatedly, using his horse shoe as a knuckle brace. Sensing someone approaching from behind, Dallas got down on all fours and bucked, kicking the soldier behind him with his hind legs. The remaining two soldiers moved in and started shooting. Dallas used the soldier in front of him as a shield as the two soldiers continued to fire. Taking cover, Dallas took the horseshoe in his hand and threw it at one of the attacking soldiers. The soldiers managed to dodge the incoming projectile, but the horseshoe managed to ricochet off a lamppost and hit one of the soldiers in the back of head, cracking his skull. Seeing what happened to his fallen comrade, the remaining soldier quickly turned around and prepared to run. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, Dallas quickly moved in and snapped the soldier’s neck.

Clouds started to take shape in the night sky as if preparing for a wild storm. The five soldiers were laid across the ground. Dallas walked towards one of the men on the ground to retrieve his horseshoe, placing his hoof on the man’s chest. The soldier tried desperately to reach for his gun on the ground. Joseph glared at Dallas in contempt. In that brief moment, Joseph grabbed his radio, yelling, “NOW!” Suddenly, the iron doors lining the ground began to open, with soldiers pouring out like ants. Some were armed with firearms, others held axes and knives. Alarmed, Dallas covered his head from the incoming bullets. While the soldiers with firearms shot from a healthy distance, others wielding close range weapons moved in to attack. One tried to swing the knife down on Dallas’s head, but was intercepted by his horn. Dallas used his horn to disarm the soldier and stab the man in his chest. Dallas grabbed two more incoming soldiers and used them as a meat shield to block the bullet storm headed his way, carrying the impaled soldier over his head with his horn.

At that moment, the clouds roared with thunder over Dallas’s head. A few of the soldiers looked above to gaze at the roaring storm. Immediately, Dallas let out a loud neigh towards the sky as the lighting struck him on the horn, like a lighting rod. The electricity quickly advanced throughout Dallas’s body, permeating the air. Spreading from the man impaled on his horn to the man underneath Dallas’s hoof, the surge quickly spread to the surrounding soldiers. All of the soldiers screamed in pure agony, to the point where Joseph had to cover his ears. As the screams continued, Dallas yelled out, “MAY YOU BE CLEANSED!!” The lighting intensified along with the screams of pain, till the lighting returned to Dallas. Noticing the lighting's disappearance, Joseph uncovers his ears and is greeted with a scene of pure carnage. Joseph stares in shock, as all of his men have been burnt to a crisp. Dallas, appearing unharmed, casually tossed the body on his horn off to the side and stared at Joseph. Feeling supercharged from the lighting strike, Dallas said, “Your mistake, boy, was pissing me off.”

Terrified, Joseph grabbed his radio, yelling, “Open fire!”

“But sir, you’re too close-”

“I SAID OPEN FIRE!”

The gun turrets began to open fire on Dallas. Gazing at the incoming attacks, Dallas snorted as his horn began to gather light and power up. Once charged, Dallas released a rainbow beam of destruction to destroy the right turret’s bombardment. Not quite finished yet, Dallas angled the beam to destroy the right turret above. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, the soldier stationed at the left turret jumped off to safety just as the beam obliterated it. Without feeling the least bit exhausted, Dallas aimed the beam at Joseph, who was in front of the gate. Not wanting to be vaporized, Joseph desperately jumped out of the way as the beam destroyed the front gate. Seeing that the door had finally opened, Dallas tried to walk through, but was stopped when he felt a bullet bounce off his armor. Joseph was aiming his pistol at Dallas.

“I’m not letting a single Unicorn in this base, you hear me!?”

Unperturbed, Dallas whistled into the sky. They were greeted with silence for a moment until they felt a heavy tremor. Joseph, still holding his gun, felt his heart sink as he saw a tide of Unicorns running towards the gate.

“What is this?” Joseph said, surprised.

“A blessing.” Dallas said this with assurance.

Not wanting to stick around, Joseph ran back inside the military base to prepare for his next move. Dallas allowed it, feeling the human’s situation was already hopeless. The horde of Unicorns stopped in front of Dallas, awaiting his orders. Dallas took one more look at his heart shaped locket, opening it up to see a picture of his family. One female unicorn with two younger unicorns. Dallas kissed the locket as he mumbled to himself, “Please, forgive me for not being there for you when you needed me the most.” Returning to the present moment, Dallas points to the military base. “Burn it to the ground!” Dallas ordered as his army of unicorns ran to the military base. This was only the beginning of a long, tedious war.