The Journey Against Tyranny

Light-years away, in a planet far away from our Solar system, there was a small system with a single blue planet similar to our planet Earth. Unlike our planet, though, this planet had unusual inhabitants. This planet was compromised of multiple kingdoms, yet none of them were ruled by us humans. Instead, they were ruled by creatures that were unusually intelligent, including creatures that, in our planet, only existed in Greek, Roman, or another type of mythology. The most common of these kingdoms, Equestria, had a long history of peace, struggles, happiness, and magic, a talent almost all of Equestria's inhabitants, specifically ponies and dragons, had learned.

During the kingdom's deadly struggles, thousands of years ago, before the reign of Discord, Sombra, and the Nightmare Moon incident, a more menacing, deformed alicorn, sinisterly named Saddamius, reigned the kingdom in a period of turbulence. Unlike Discord, Sombra, Nightmare Moon, and the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, Saddamius had a number of characteristics that made him the most feared monster of Equestria. His fur was a mix of red and black, creating a color so horrifying, even his own men feared him. His face was half burned, as if he had carelessly played with fire when he was just a colt, and his eyes were red, completely red, always looking redder when he caught sight of his next victim. He had a cutie mark in the shape of a pony’s skull, showing how deadly he was to anypony.

The truly evil demon’s regime was marked with corruption, destruction, torture, imperialism, senseless violence, repression, censorship, brutality, and notoriously, death. In the middle of his regime, he began a campaign to destroy any resistance, local or national, against him, and the millions who were condemned were tortured brutally, forced to work in emaciated conditions, or were executed in the most brutal ways possible, either being dipped into an alligator pool, chopped into six pieces, burned, or, in cases of high treason, instantly poisoned to death by his long, sharp teeth. The poison was so quick and powerful, death would occur exactly two seconds after the victim was pierced by the diablo's teeth . Lasting for hundreds of years, the campaign resulted in the deaths of millions of ponies, including members of the dictator's cabinet that had fallen out of favor. Many of these victims were innocent of any crime, no matter if it was treason or simply not showing up on time at the labor camps. Nopony could escape his wrath; not even the smallest filly or colt was safe from being sent to work at a sweatshop.

One of the members of the Black Army, an immortal black dragon named Corinthians, was in the position of High General at the height of the campaign. He felt sympathy for the families of the victims who were purged, and felt guilty for the atrocities he was forced to commit under Saddamius's orders. Saddamius grew suspicious of Corinthians every time he discovered the High General feeling remorse for killing an innocent condemned person. One day, the dragon defied Saddamius when he was ordered to kill a family, and the diablo tried to execute him. Corinthians and several of his troops managed to escape the scene and went to the Everfree Forest for refuge. Saddamius issued an all-out ponyhunt for the four traitors, which ultimately ended in failure.

As the deadly campaign came to an end, two young immortal alicorns, named Celestia and Luna, used their powerful magic to challenge and imprison Saddamius in a huge tree down in the Everfree Forest. The magic was so powerful, Saddamius’s evil magic could not stop the transformation. He screamed as the tree completely sealed him in, his hooves now trapped in branches and his wings almost crushed to break. This tree Saddamius was trapped in was unusually large in size, and could easily be spotted as the biggest tree in the dark and largely feared forest. Corinthians and his men witnessed the battle while hiding in a camouflaged hut. Following the battle, they decided to remain in the forest, knowing that the public won't recognize them, and instead wrote what they saw in their journals.

The two young alicorn sisters, happy that they had ended perhaps the most brutal regime in Equestria’s long history, assumed leadership of the kingdom and began a long period of reconstruction, abolishing Saddamius's constitution of injustice and separation, jettisoning unfair laws, and rehabilitating many of his prominent victims. Canterlot, which was in a severely dilapidated state thanks to Saddamius's actions, was reconstructed back to near-perfect state in only a few years. As harmony returned to the kingdom, justice was put in force and stability was restored. Everypony was happy thinking the evil leader had been sealed from the public forever.

But his imprisonment was never guaranteed to be forever.

As the years passed, he used telepathy to learn about the events that were happening in Equestria. He smiled to himself when anything dismal happened, such as Nightmare Moon's return and attack on Ponyville, or the Changeling invasion of Canterlot, but his smiles fell to frowns every time these events failed. He vigorously struggled his way out of the tree, his deadly magic growing more powerful in his attempts. The branches that had trapped his hooves began to go up in smoke, slowly. Nopony in Equestria knew that the tree was about to fall, because the tree was too big for anypony to notice smoke coming out of it.

Those thousands of years later, six ordinary ponies from Ponyville now hold the Elements of Harmony, three of their filly friends become desperate to find their talents to get their cutie marks, two of the Canterlot Siblings lead a Crystal Empire in the Arctic north, and the two alicorn sisters, now grown, continue to rule the rather peaceful kingdom, controlling their large planetary stars and raising them when time passes. They are all unaware, however, that an unspeakable evil from thousands of years ago is returning, not only to reclaim the kingdom he nearly destroyed, but also to hunt and splatter the blood of those who replaced him.