The Journey Against Tyranny

The night was dark and gloomy at the Everfree Forest, and the only sounds that could be heard there were the sounds of crickets doing their usual chirping. It was pretty somber given that not much has happened in the forest, and the awful smell of the merciless Timberwolves doing their nightly hunt kept frightened ponies away from the large and expansive forest.

Deep in the forest, far away from any ponies’ sight, was a large, rusted hut that had been unnoticed for almost all of its lifetime. The hut was severely dilapidated, as if it had been untouched for thousands of years. The hut was in a completely blackish-greenish color, in an attempt to adapt to the forest’s own color. The creatures who painted the hut didn’t really do a good job.

Inside the hut was a single room. It was quite large and expansive, despite its extremely poor quality. The hut was mostly crowded with one bunk bed and one smaller one, each of which were occupied by skeletons of ponies in black armor, as if they had stayed in those beds for two thousand years. The skeletons stayed in their position, not moving their muscles, if they had any. There were nests of small parasprites inside the skeletons, treating the skeletons as a home or den. They laid on the skeletons, sleeping and enjoying the open air around them.

A shadow of a large dragon illuminated the room as it slowly walked to a small desk and sat down in its chair. Dragon fire illuminated a small candle on the desk’s overhead and cleared out much of the darkness. An old black dragon with glowing orange eyes slowly picked up a dusty feather on the left side of the desk, dipping the tip of the feather into a pot filled with some sort of magical ink, an ink that nopony had ever recognized before.

The dragon took a deep breath as he began to write on an old journal that he had written since he was living in exile with his men. “It has been a thousand years,” he said to himself as he wrote in his journal, taking deep breaths every time he paused, “since I have written in this journal. All of my guards have died, and now I am all alone,” He wrote whatever he said to himself in his journal, “I have spoken to the gods of our planet. An evil being that I had worked for and defied thousands of years ago...is returning.”

The dragon stopped writing for a moment, because his hands were cringing. For much of his life in exile he had feared that Saddamius would return from his imprisonment and nearly destroy Equestria again. Earlier that night, he was visiting the large tree where the notorious dictator had been imprisoned when, after looking around it, he noticed large amounts of smoke coming out from the branches, and at the same time, the ground began to shake, immediately realizing the former High General's fears. He quickly ran back to the hut and wrote down what he had saw.

The nervous dragon shook his hands and continued writing, “If any action is not taken, the lives of everypony in Equestria will be in great danger; Even the royal sisters are not safe from this...diablo.” The dragon knew that if the royal alicorn sisters were captured by Saddamius, he could not imagine what he would do to them. His fears only grew more steeper.

“It is perhaps best that I do nothing at present. I shall pray for them all.” After finishing the entry, he signed his name, Corinthians, on the bottom right side of the scroll.

Corinthians stood up from his desk, extinguishing the candle with his large hands. He walked outside, closing the door behind him. He looked up at a constellation that resembled five small stars being somehow connected to one big star. “The Elements of Harmony,” he mumbled, “I hope they are safe, too. Children, if you can hear me, your friends and families are in great danger, you must prepare for this era, or Equestria…is doomed once again.”

He closed his eyes in fear, and returned to the hut, closing the door behind him. Directing his attention at the bunk beds where the dead pony skeletons were sleeping, he spoke to them, “My sons, if you all were still around, you would help me stop this catastrophe before it would begin.” Corinthians paused as his thoughts collected from those fateful thousands of years ago. He could still remember the time he defied Saddamius by extinguishing a torch the demon had given him to burn down an innocent family’s home.

A brilliant flash, and then a familiar scene appeared in his mind. Hundreds of ponies, all dressed in black and red armor, surrounded a small straw house in Appleoosa, with other citizens and several buffalo spectating the event in horror. A simple family, compromising of a stallion, a mare, a colt and a filly, had been suspected of treason after false rumors began circulating around Equestria that someone in the town had been making blueprints of an assassination plot against Saddamius. The dictator, covered by High General Corinthians and several of Corinthians’ highest-ranking pegasus guards, had been inside the house questioning the father, the master of the household.

“We’ve heard from our advisers that you have been conducting activities against the Fatherland. Do you have blueprints in here?” Saddamius asked sinisterly. The father was shivering lightly, fearing not only for his life, but for the safety of his family as well.

"Our family would never betray the kingdom of Equestria. We’re always open to anyone no matter who they are. Please believe me, my Lord!” the stallion begged to the supreme leader of Equestria. Saddamius was undeterred, “Until I get to the bottom of this, I am placing you and your family under house arrest. If what you say is true and you and your family are indeed innocent, then you have nothing to fear.” Saddamius grinned as he left the house, taking General Corinthians and the three guards with him.

The father gulped, “But we are innocent, I assure you!” Just as the father finished his begging, Saddamius slammed the door shut. Just as the General was about to disperse with his three loyal troops, the dictator halted them, and barred the front door shut with a piece of wood. A unicorn guard used his magic to give Saddamius a torch as the dictator turned to his highest-ranking General and handed him the torch with his magic. The General took the torch with his own hands, looking perplexed.

“Burn it,” Saddamius ordered. Corinthians shook his head in shock, “What?”

Saddamius stepped back from the house. “Until there is nothing but ashes left. These ponies are traitors to the Fatherland and should be eradicated from this planet.” Saddamius pointed at the house to the General. The General felt that this raid was more like a kangaroo court, which Saddamius was notorious for implementing many times.

“Forgive me, sir,” Corinthians asked with the highest respect, “But I cannot carry out your order. I was never told that I was going to murder innocent ponies.”

Saddamius became furious; his red eyes grew redder, “But you were told about the penalty for any insubordination.” He did not appreciate it when his High General was hesitant to carry out an order he deemed to be atrocious.

Corinthians did not appreciate Saddamius’s anger. He remembered all the crimes he was forced to commit under Saddamius’s supervision. He felt tears going down his eyes. The growing remorse he had thanks to his actions made him slave to Saddamius. The three guards looked at each other, feeling sympathetic toward the General.

No longer willing to be treated like a slave to the dictator, Corinthians fought back tears and, in an act of defiance, swallowed the torch, the whole stick. The dictator's eyes grew redder, his hooves shaking on the ground.

“You incompetent traitor.”

Deciding that it was every stallion for himself, Saddamius used his magic to take another guard’s torch and, standing on his two hooves for a few seconds, threw it above the hay-styled chimney, instantly setting the house ablaze. A brave and desperate Corinthians broke into the house and saved the family just as the roof above them collapsed.

Immediately after the family gave Corinthians their gratitude, Saddamius sneaked up behind him and, using his magic, threw a large rock at the General's head, knocking him out . The dictator later attempted to bite down the dragon’s neck with his poisonous teeth, intending to finish him off, but Fire Twister, one of the three loyal guards, flew right past the dictator and set his mane on fire, distracting him as he screamed in anguish. Seizing upon the opportunity, Corinthians threw Saddamius off of his neck and fled quickly with his loyal guards, getting caught in a storm of arrows by other guards in the process. During the escape, Twister tumbled on the ground and cried out pain. Corinthians stopped, turned around, and noticed that the guard who had saved him had been hit by an arrow through his left wing. He quickly ran back and retrieved the injured pegasus as he and the rest of the unscathed guards escaped from Appleloosa and fled into the Buffalo Territory. Saddamius, now without his mane, stopped his guards, knowing the consequences of what would happen if Equestrian officials trespassed on foreign territory.

He carried a disgruntled look; he realized that he had a new traitor in his midst.

The flash subsided, as present time returned to view. Corinthians looked at Twister's skeleton. “If you hadn't saved me,” Corinthians said, “everypony in Equestria would have been caught unaware of this catastrophe.” He rubbed the skull of the deceased pony. "Thank...you."

Corinthians caught glimpse of a small flash of sunlight, implying that the early morning hours were had come. He went to his old, small bed, bowed his head, and made his nightly prayer to the Princesses. After his prayer, he climbed into his bed, covered himself with a blanket, and closed his eyes. Before going to sleep, he muttered to himself, “Elements of Harmony, heed my warning: the turbulent past you may never had heard of before is revisiting us.”

He closed his mouth, and said nothing further.