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// Principio Finis 
// Story: The Harbingers of the Apocalypse (In Preambulis De Apocalipsi) 
// by Matthebrony 
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Our story starts on a warm summer day in Equestria, the flowers were in full bloom, the reds, yellows and blues of all the blossoms shone brightly in the brilliant sunlit day. The field glowed in the warm light, every now and then, somepony would wander onto the grass, playing or chatting, but they would pass by, they never lingered. Why they never stayed depended on the pony you asked, some just said there was something wrong about the place, that the serene scene didn’t quite sit right and looked like it was trying to blanket something darker. Other, more educated ponies, would probably tell you it was because the field sat on the gates to hell.

If one were to measure the exact latitude and longitude of the three-mile grassland, they would tell you that right in the center of the field there was an enormous boulder. Now if it were any other field, that pony would simply tell you it was a natural rock, but in this area, here were no rocks or trees all three miles across. The boulder was only a boulder, nothing more, but it served a purpose. It was a marking stone, five thousand miles under the ground, through all the dirt, rocks and fossils sat a large metal room. Perched on a suspended platform in the room was an enormous, three-headed dog. The name of this dog was Cerberus, and he was currently snoring and drooling with great, shuddering breaths. Underneath the sleeping behemoth’s platform was something far greater, underneath the platform was a great, massive swirling purple and black supernova of a portal. That portal lead to Tartarus, the prison of demons and monsters.

Tartarus had seven levels, these were all based on the severity of the sins and dangers the monsters inflicted or would have inflicted on Equestria. Tartarus had no guards, save for Cerberus, any regular pony caught in the pits would be tortured to insanity from the otherworldly howls and jitters the broken beings emitted there. Every thousand years, Princess Celestia visited the pits herself, the Princess is not a fragile pony, but she refuses to retail the horrors she has seen in the pit. Because the last five millennia were spent putting defensive charms and traps on the pits, and because the loyal guard-dog stays at his post (most of the time)  no one has ever escaped. Therefore, no accounts of Tartarus have ever been recorded, nopony ever complains about this, they remain blissfully unaware of the horrors beneath, and five-thousand feet up continue to play on the boulder or maybe canter or chat in the fields. Unaware that, if you’re powerful enough, and use a thousand-year old carnation of the modern-day teleportation spell on top of the rock, you can go to the platform, where the guardian sleeps at that instant. Unaware that if even one of the horrors below were to escape, it could launch Equestria into the apocalypse.

In the seventh pit, on the forty-second branch off, there stood four giant, metal gates all locked with the best enchantments magically possible. The aforementioned apocalypse almost happened several thousand times, with the princesses always capturing the culprit and throwing them into the ever-growing prison. However, four creatures working in tandem brought Equestria so close to it’s dying day that they were named with a fitting moniker. And above the four gates stood in giant letters the title of the four demons.

The Harbingers of the Apocalypse

Marked above each of the gates stood a symbol embroidering the cell of each Harbinger. A scythe, a biohazard symbol, a bloody sword and a gnawed bone were adorned on stone plaques before each entrance. Inside each gate lay four angels, all slumped against their cell wall, strength used up centuries ago. They were all enduring pain beyond imagination, of their own torture and design. Since they made the ponies live through such torture, they were forced to endure their own pains for all eternity. 

One felt a burning, gnawing huger at all times, their body crippling in on it’s own weakness, chiseled to the bone, all their tissue decaying from years of famine. One felt an oozing illness inside at all times, even now, in their slumped state, a drop of bile fell and sizzled on the floor, corroding the ever-growing hole even more. A disgusting, rotting creature, barely able to think from the clotting pestilence. One was always screaming, even now, as it’s screams faded from it’s throat, it still screamed internally. Invisible fire burned away it’s brain and insides, imaginary needles and knives forever adorning it’s bleeding soul, like open wounds of war.  One felt nothing, everything it could have been was gone now, robbed of soul and body, never to feel anything again, only a sentient pile of bones, forever clinging to life even as the incarnation of death.

In Canterlot, well away from all the chaos of the dungeon, a library visited and revered by many stood. The Canterlot Library, renowned for it’s records, spells and scrolls. There was one wing of the elaborate library that was as mysterious as it was powerful, a wing named after the brilliant unicorn prophet Starswirl the Bearded. This wing dealt with time scrolls and prophecies, combining both, there was an hourglass in the center of the wing that had trickled slowly for one hundred-thousand years. The old rumor was that the hourglass counted down to the end of days. The rumor was put down as nonsense and the hourglass forgotten by even Celestia herself. It was on this very moment that the last grain of sand slipped out of the top half and fell to the bottom.
The second this happened, five-thousand miles underground, across a dimensional rift, in the prison of monsters and demons, even deeper, in the seventh pit of Tartarus, four pairs of eyes opened.