The arrival of the old generals White Nightmare and Dark Moon

The Everfree forest was like always: intimidating and impenetrable… with that strange aura of ancient magic. But there they were, the six ponies who carried the Elements of Harmony, along with Pipsqueak and Spike; looking for the emissary of the Dragon King. Finally after a few minutes, Zecora came from deep into the forest wearing the hood she was using the first time they saw her.

“Sorry for making you wait; now I must guide you to King Flames. Please, follow me”

“Zecora!! I cannot believe this!! You’re that King’s emissary?” surprised Rainbow Dash.  “But we all thought you weren’t an evil being!!”

Zecora glared at the pegasus.   “You truly have to work in your perspective before accusing others of being evil. You have to be open minded, at least for tonight”

And without giving Rainbow the chance to answer, she quietly advanced throw the deep forest. Spike used his breath to improvise a torch so as Twilight and Rarity used their horns to illuminate the way. All of them had the horrible feeling something very big was about to happened; but none of them could say was going to be something good or bad.

Back in Ponyville, the two Princesses were waiting nervously for their representatives wishing them the best of the lucks.

In the forest, the seven ponies and the dragon, guided by the wise Zecora, could avoid every danger that the forest had to finally get to the center of it. They were never so deep on the Everfree forest making the much more nervous that they already were. And just in the center they saw what they thought was a mountain; but really it was a dragon. A gigantic black dragon with red spikes and red eyes that were staring at them.

They all gasped and moved a few steps back.

Then, the mountain-like started to shrink stopping at Spike’s size.

“Good evening, Carriers. My name is King Flames; ruler of all dragons”

They all bowed respectfully at the reptile; who smiled at them. “We are just in the frontier between our Kingdoms; Equestria and Reptilia. If we have to discuss this threat to both kind, better do it in here; in neutral and wild lands”

“And that threat have something to do with the Princesses’ parents?” asked Applejack.

Flames breathed some colored smoke that quickly formed a giant map of Equestria; but this map was divided between the Clouds, the Land and the Forest. The smoke ever wrote the name of every territory to make it easier to understand.

“It all started 500,000 years ago”   started Flames.   “When Equestria didn’t exist yet and it was divided in three different lands; every one of them ruled by different species and I don’t mean the different pony kinds; I literally mean other species. The Minotaurs, the forest people; the Griffins, the clouds people and the Buffalos, the land people”

The ponies nodded, trying to understand.

“In those days, the ponies weren’t separated by kinds neither, they all formed the Pony Empire; guided by Emperor Death Ride; a powerful unicorn with a tremendous power”  continued the dragon with disgust in his face.

The smoke formed a black unicorn, a little bigger than Princess Celestia, with a sky blue mane made of that ethereal material and blue eyes; he was very handsome, but somehow he looked dangerous.

“What happened with that Death Ride and the Empire?”  asked Rarity.

“Those were really dark day, Carrier”  said Flames sadly.  “In the beginning, everything was pure peace; the races lived with each other as equals ruled by the governors assigned by the Creation Spirits. And, to be sure there were nothing but peace, then sent their guardians to keep it. I think you heard about those guardians, they were called Windigos.  They were watching us every single time punishing with the endless winter to those Kingdoms who dared to break the peace making war to their brothers”

The colored smoke changed to create the portrait of the spirits the ponies already knew by the story of the Heart’s Warming Eve. They seemed so beautiful but dangerous at the time. Then the smoke changed again and turned into Discord.

“There’s no Harmony without Chaos and that’s why the only one who can break the peace was the Windigo’s younger brother; but also, the only one more powerful than them. He was our only enemy; but we had to accept his existence because it was necessary.  All the Kingdoms had their own defenses against him, but nothing was more effective than the Elements of Harmony, created by the Minotaurs.   But everything change one day; no one expected what will next; we only thought in congratulate Death Ride. And I’m talking when Emperor Death Ride had a daughter.”

The smoke turned into Celestia’s mother when she was a little filly.

“All little children have some cruelty when they’re little; the ones who teach what’s good and what’s bad are the parents. Sometimes they hurt little creatures without thinking”

“True”   mumbled Flutterhsy shyly.

“Death Ride had a daughter and instead of punishing cruelty, he feeds it. He taught her the difference between what was good and what was bad, but he clearly preferred bad. He turned her into a cruel cold-blooded killer; and he also saw she had talent for magic so he trained her the best he could. You can imagine the result”

The smoke turned into a teenage White Nightmare with her eyes full of evil and a diabolic smile on her face.

“And the day of her birthday number fifteen, she decided to go after the Chaos Spirit only by herself; in a battle none of us ever forgot. That day we learnt why she was named White Nightmare”

“Supposing that was true”  said Rainbow Dash, “I can’t imagine how bad she was after confront Discord. The poor little one…”

Discord materialized in front of them. To the surprise of eveypony, his eyes were a mixture between the most profound hate and the most disturbing, fear.

“I barely escaped alive; if it wasn’t she was only a kid without experience in battle, I would probably die that day. She not only wanted to kill me, but also make me suffer beyond my greatest fears. And she made it; I tried my best to defend myself from her monstrous power and evilness, but it was pointless. At the end I took advantage she was too concentrated in prepare my next torture that she distracted for a few seconds; and that’s what I used to escape from her. That was the beginning of the end. I was much more powerful than my older brothers, so my horrible experience against White Nightmare terrified them so much than they decided to leave the Empire alone”

Flames grumped.  “The coward didn’t attempt to protect us anymore; they were so afraid to end at White Nightmare’s hooves than they looked at the other side when the Pony Empire started to attack. They didn’t want to conquer and rule over the other races; they wanted to exterminate them all”

Now the smoke was showing a group of ponies with armors; but not golden an gorgeous armors as Canterlot’s guards but scary armors with spikes all over the protection and with a pile of blood under the ponies’ hooves.

“Your stories tell how the lands where is Equestria now were completely dessert when the three different kinds of ponies arrived, but I already told you who lived there first.  The ponies made the greatest massacre of all times. The only survivors were little children who were taking as slaves to the Empire. Why do you think there are only a few of Griffins, Minotaurs, Buffalos or Donkeys? Because they were exterminated until almost extension by the damn ponies under command of General White Nightmare”

The image changed again, showing the babies from all species taken by the ponies. All of them had chains and walked quickly under the cruel look of Celestia’s mother. She seemed like a monster.

“White Nightmare never had any special treatment by her father; everything she reached she did it by herself. That was really sad; she quickly escalated the military and turned into one of the youngest generals in history. But something bothered her very much: a young pegasus who also managed to become a general; who was younger than her. He was famous because he liked to rip off an enemy’s head only with his hooves; and like White Nightmare, his thirst of blood was insatiable. His name was...”

“Dark Moon”  mumbled Twilight shaking in fear.

King Flames nodded and the smoke turned into the father of Celestia and Luna.

“A damn sadist executioner he was. He used to speak bad about White Nightmare, telling she was a daddy’s girl and she doesn’t deserve her title. Because of this Death Ride made them work together to exterminate the Minotaurs.  Thanks to the Elements of Harmony, they resisted the best they could to the Empire but their luck ended when confronted the two bloodiest generals at the same time”

Discord sighed sadly.  “I liked Minotaur King. He was kind, good person… he didn’t deserve to be killed that way… with his head being ripped off by a crazy pegasus who don’t even bothered to use a weapon.  And the original Carriers of the Elements… they didn’t deserve to die that way neither. I still remember when White Nightmare took the Elements from their death bodies with that creepy smile of her”

The ponies and the dragon listened the whole story completely terrified. They didn’t know what to believe but they could say Discord’s fear was real.

“Then they fell in love”  continued Flames.  “Love make anyone vulnerable and that’s why Flames didn’t want to his daughter ever know the feeling; but it was too late. The two murderers were clever and kept their marriage in secret until your Princess of the Sun were on her way”

The King Dragon took a deep breath before continue.

“The only solution was kill them; kill them all. I used their love to finish them once for all. I think they already told you that the Governor’s immortality is shared with the one they’re in love”

The ponies and Spike nodded.

“Our love goes even beyond that and we not only share our immortality; we also share our death in case someone kills us or kills our mates.  I killed Death Ride’s wife and he died instantly”

Twilight gulped knowing what that meant and Discord nodded.  “If Celestia die, you die. If you die, Celestia die. The same for Luna and Pip, the same for all who share a bond with a Governor”

The smoke vanished and Flames saw the horrified ponies sadly.

“Right after I killed Death Ride and his wife I decided to kill the murderers; but I couldn’t took their life in front of their babies, so I decided to lock them in the Nowhere praying to their never free of their supposed to be eternal prison. And to the babies… well, every race has the right to be ruled by their legitimate Governor so I enchanted their castle to take care of them until the time they arrive to rule over their people. Finally I created the Everfree forest to keep the damn pony race into their lands let them keep the territory they stole from the others only to their never think to go beyond”

They all stayed in silence for a very long time. Who to believe? What to do?  At the end, King Flames sighed sadly and turned back to his lands.

“I don’t expect you to believe me; but trust me when I tell you something big is going to happen now than the killers are free.  I expect to never see each other again, but my warning is already done”

…

Luna and Celestia were waiting for their representatives, who came a few minutes after the sunrise. They were the living portrait of confusion and fear.  Twilight ran to her mentor and lover.

“What happened, Twilight?”

The purple alicorn cried for a while before answering..

“Celestia… I just don’t know who to believe!!!”