There were worse evils in existence.
Horrid, eldritch things who could crush entire planes of reality with a breath come to mind; along with literal incarnations of the devil himself, dark hands that hold entire universes in their grasp, races who destroy life by the galaxy, and many so-called gods who create and destroy on whims for no purpose other than a quick joke.
This evil did not aspire to such heights. It knew that rearing its head in an attempt to gain unfathomable power of that kind would only draw attention from the really big fish, both evil and otherwise. It was content, in that regard.
Contentment made it more dangerous. It may never have had the opportunity to spread as far or as wide as the other great darknesses of existence. It may not have been able to crush entire civilizations with nothing but a thought. But it most certainly brought death, destruction, and horror – and since it had no desire for power as mortal minds could understand it, it could go undetected.
Like a virus. A virus that lays dormant until the right moment to strike. A virus that enters the body, twisting it against the biological nature, forcing it to become something… else.
And it never tried the same thing twice.
This time, the incomprehensible being decided to go with something that was a bit outlandish even by its standards…
Somewhere in an expanse between other realities, there was a rock – an asteroid – tumbling. Deep within, the current form of the evil ‘slept’ – if it could be considered to sleep. At the moment, the being felt more as if this were a vacation than a nap. To imagine it used to think drifting alone in a rock was boring!
Vacations couldn’t last forever, though. Patient though it was, the being felt that it was time for a change. It took itself, reached into its own soul, and cut.
The rock it was within split into three chunks in a violent explosion, the divisions seeming to bleed as they did so. Each chunk held a portion of the evil – each unique, but yet, the same. Three but one, ready for a little experiment on division within the self.
Why did it do this? For fun? For a challenge? Just because it could?
Its reasons at the time of division mattered not, for they no longer meant anything to the new form of the evil. They had their own reasons. They checked to see if they were in agreement about the necessities and then carried out the next action.
Each third shifted out of the in-between emptiness they occupied, entering three locations – separated by unfathomable barriers, but interconnected all the same.
It was, in essence, a three-for-one deal.
One of them found itself tumbling toward a world where a 'star' orbited a planet rather than the way things normally went…
~~~
Princess Twilight Sparkle stood at the top of her castle, the bright light of the moon refracting within the crystal structure of her home. It was a beautiful night, as always. She was currently gazing through a telescope at the Hall Comet as it completed its final day in the Equestrian sky. She’d been up here every night, watching it, and would be sad when it went away. Objects other than the moon and stars were so rarely visible even with her telescope, and she just hadn’t gotten around to giving Ponyville a full observatory yet.
She should probably move that up the checklist, come to think of it.
“Ugh… Twilight…” Spike grunted, pulling his scaly dragon body up the stairs to her location. “Have you slept at all?”
Twilight waved a dismissive hoof. “I took a nap yesterday.”
“In your dinner.”
“See? You were there.” She adjusted the telescope toward the tail end of the comet. “I’m fine. It’s not like I have anything important to do in the morning anyway. I can catch the end of this spectacular event, Spike.”
Spike yawned and shrugged. “If you say so. What’s so cool about a ball of ice anyway?”
“Spike, beside the sun and moon, almost nothing orbits Equis! This is one of the few objects that we ever get to see!”
Spike shrugged, looking at the night sky. “I guess it does make everything pretty pretty.”
“Spike, you just repeated yourself.”
“I know.”
The two stared into the sky, mesmerized by the patterns of stars around the moon and the comet.
“Hey, look!” Spike said, pointing. “A shooting star!”
“Woah!” Twilight said, tearing the telescope’s gaze off the comet and onto the falling star. “That’s a big one!”
“It’s still going! And getting brighter!”
Twilight was giddy – meteors this size were even rarer than a glimpse of a comet – significantly rarer. She’d never seen one this bright. It was still getting brighter!
…It was still getting brighter.
“…I think it’s going to impact.” Twilight said, mouth hanging open.
“Is it going to hit us!?” Spike asked, wonder vanishing from his features.
Twilight lit her horn and cast a quick spell that arranged lines of magic in a grid in front of her and drew several geometric lines, calculating the trajectory in a couple of seconds. “No. It’s headed for the other side of the Everfree Forest, I think. But still, that’s going to leave a crater…”
The two of them heard shouting from Ponyvile – shouting that was clearly being yelled through a megaphone. “EVERYPONY UP! TWITCHA TWITCH! TWITCHA TWITCH! EVERPONY UP AND AT EM! SOMETHING REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY SUPER DUPER-UBER MEGA DOOZY BAD IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!”
Spike looked at the meteor. “It’s not going to hit us… Pinkie’s crazy, right?”
Twilight looked through the telescope again, trying to follow the meteor. Through the flames, she could make out a normal rock – a rock of a heavily unstable shape.
“Oh Cele-“
The burning meteor exploded. The largest chunk continued heading toward the other side of the forest, but one of the launched chunks flew right at Ponyville.
Twilight leaped into action, teleporting into the sky above the town. She summoned a tremendous magical shield, reinforcing the purple barrier with all the might she could muster. The flaming chunk of rock hit her shield harder than she was expecting. It plowed through the barrier, shattering it, but also slowing considerably. She recovered from the loss of the barrier and resorted to pure telekinetic power, lifting with all her might. She would have failed, but Pinkie’s megaphone had done the trick – the unicorns of Ponyville were awake enough to assist Twilight with their own magic, pushing up on the burning rock. The chunk still hit the ground with considerable force – but no buildings or ponies were crushed in the impact.
“Is everypony oka-“ Twilight began, thinking it was over – but the main part of the meteor touched down in the Everfree Forest, shaking everpony with a powerful tremor. Ponies began to panic, as they were apt to do when the earth shook.
“Everypony calm down!” Twilight called. “The meteor has landed, there is no more danger to any of you! This was nothing more than a normal, natural event out in the cosmos – there is no more danger. Okay?”
Hearing the voice of their princess, the ponies stopped screaming so much. They were clearly nervous, but they were no longer running around screaming. They looked to her for instructions.
“Good. I recommend trying to get some sleep. It’s the middle of the night - just go home. We can look at the meteor in the morning.”
“TWILIGHT!” Pinkie Pie yelled through the megaphone.
“Pinkie, I’m right here, there’s no need to use the megaphone anymore.”
“Oh. Right.” Pinkie stuffed it back into her mane, walking closer to Twilight. “Twilight, that wasn’t it.”
“Wasn’t what?”
“The bad thing. Well, that was a bad thing, and it was probably what was making my tail twitch, but there was something else Twilight. Something really really upper duper ultra-mega I don’t know bad!”
Twilight stared at her pink friend, suddenly wishing she’d gotten more sleep lately.
~~~
A few minutes prior, Zecora the zebra was hosting a mysterious pony in her home.
“I hope this suits you, it’s not easy to guess the perfect brew,” Zecora said, giving the pony a bowl of specialty soup.
“Thanks,” the yellow-coated pony said, taking a sip from the bowl. “This tastes delicious.”
“I try my best to provide, even to those who like to hide.”
The mare nodded, looking at her pack of things sitting on the floor a short distance away. “I guess those things aren’t normal here… Shouldn’t be surprised…”
“You are a mysterious stranger indeed. You come downcast to my home, with many trappings of a strange breed. Not only that, but I see an interesting case. Your cyan eyes, the shape of your ears – I never forget a face.”
The mare smiled. “You’ve never seen me before, I can tell you that.”
“I know you are not her, but of that face I am sure.”
The mare slowly shook her head, glancing at her bizarre bag again – made of a material both soft and tough, covered in more pockets and zippers than any sane pony would ever need. One of them was open, revealing several objects made of a soft, gel-like material lined with metal. Some parts glowed.
Zecora was about to comment, but then one of her charms exploded. The mysterious mare jumped, backing into a wall. “W-what was that?”
Zecora walked up to the charm, examining it. “A charm that detects danger truly, but I’ve never seen one react so badly. Even Discord’s antics were not so inflammatory…”
Zecora looked out a window – and saw the meteor. “Guest of mine, look into the sky. Please tell me this danger is not from whence you fly.”
The mare looked up and shook her head. “No… That’s just a meteor. …Right?”
Zecora frowned. “It is possible we see what is really there, but I have learned to proceed with care…” She put a hoof to the window. “We may have to move, lest it flatten us in its groove.”
The mare shook her head. “It won’t hit us. Wrong trajectory. I’m thinking… a couple miles that direction.”
Then the meteor exploded. The two equines reared back as a smaller chunk of the meteor hurtled toward them. Zecora ducked for cover – but the mare stood her ground. The meteor chunk missed Zecora’s hut by a few meters, hitting the ground a fair distance behind the structure.
The mysterious mare let out a breath of relief.
~~~
That moment, three meteors landed in places impossibly apart.
That moment, three beings that were unimaginably different crawled from the craters.
That moment, a single great evil began anew; ready to do what it had been doing for longer than could be fathomed.
There was just a little spice involved this time.