//------------------------------//
// II – Uninvited 
// Story: From the West They Came 
// by Not That Anon 
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I woke up in a cozy room inside what seemed to be a normal log cabin. Its only distinguishing feature was a round oak table with three chairs spaced evenly around it. However, the room wasn’t normal in any capacity; for one, everything here was upside down, held to the fake floor by some unknown force. At least, that was my initial impression. I looked down and immediately realized my error. In this place I wasn’t a pony anymore, just a regular bat. Below my claws and in place of the roof stretched an endless vista of stars and galaxies that I’ve never seen before. I had to look away, for simply observing the sheer scale of it made my head spin worse than the blood loss that I’ve just experienced.

An even more troubling matter was the room’s size. At first the furniture seemed normal – if atypically shaped – but no matter how far I flew to reach it, I couldn’t seem to get even an inch closer. I suspected that some kind of a perception spell must’ve been cast on me or the room, otherwise the chair in front of me would have to be at least as large as the tallest of the mountain ranges.

Then I saw them, the giants who lived in this realm so similar and yet so unlike anything in Equestria. The one in front of me was a shifting and twisting mass of innumerable appendages, each coming from another creature and angled differently from the rest. I didn’t recognize almost any of the parts and the longer I looked, the less I understood. It had no discernible central part, its multitude of tails, fins, wings, heads, tentacles, legs, pincers and even more exotic limbs was arranged not just randomly; it gave the overwhelming impression of being wrong, a deliberate design to defy all Order. It wasn’t exactly “sitting” on the chair but the piece of furniture was marking roughly the point where the mass was the most volatile, sprouting and deforming new shapes faster than they could be observed.

The chair to its right hosted the Light.

I squinted, the sheer intensity of radiance singing my fur, burning through my eyelids and imprinting its mark on my eyes. Wherever I looked, a blazing web of runes and lines was overlaying my vision. There was Truth to these markings, a message of Law and Order, but it was not for my mind to comprehend. The luminous being was the same way; I could not tell if it had any substance beneath its powerful glow, and if it did, it didn’t need to show it. What little I did understand amounted to a simple realization that I originally underestimated its power. No, it didn’t simply tell the Truth, its words – wherever they shined – became the Truth. Despite its strength, it did not seek to dominate. Wherever it clashed with the ever-expanding filth violently expulsed by the other being, its rays would reestablish the Law, forcing it to retreat. They were evenly matched.

The third chair was empty, or so I thought until a splinter of a stray stream of thoughts struck me like a lightning bolt. The chair was empty – as it always has been – but at the same time I knew that it will be the throne of the third force, and that this, too, has always been true. Where the Two reside, so will the Third. Or perhaps the First, which it will become as soon as it exists. Not a passive observer, but a faction equally involved in all their proceedings since the beginning of time. It will hold power in its subtlety, like a wind over a mountain lake seen by no one, or a pleasant dream forgotten before sunrise; it will have equal power nonetheless.

“A fitting comparison,” it will whisper to me, for it will be the first of the Three to notice my presence in the halls of the divines, “Welcome, visitor. We will be seeing each other a few more times,” it will add.

I shook my head and looked at the empty chair. Sure enough, nothing about it has changed. But I have heard the words that were spoken (will be spoken, I corrected myself) and no longer doubted the invisible presence atop it.

A sickening feeling washed over my body. Thousands of mismatched eyes turned in my direction and a branching limb dragged me to the table in seconds.

The repulsive creature opened some of its mouths and a cacophony of noises filled my ears. “A bat, here?” Its attention shifted to the empty chair. “It’s your work, isn’t it? Or, excuse me, it will be your work.”

The proximity of the defiler made my inner organs shift, twist and churn. I did not know how much longer I could survive this ordeal.

“Whoever he is, leave him be.” A beam of light forced my captor to release me from his corrupting grasp.

“Eh, always so boring, aren’t you? Look,” – another mass of claws and tendrils sprouted upwards, reaching into the starlit ceiling and bringing one unlucky planet down – “I can do this however long I want to,” he said, smashing the planet in two. I could see squid-like creatures all over the destroyed world panicking at the sudden apocalypse that had struck them.

“Pointless. All will be restored.” Another beam of light illuminated the table and I could feel my insides drift back to their designated spots, completely undamaged.

Before my eyes, the globe was made whole again. On its surface everything from shattered buildings to the creatures torn asunder by the recent catastrophe was healed to its previous state, shocked gazes of the briefly dead squid-people the only proof of what transpired moments ago.

“How about another round of our favorite game, then? It’s been a good while since the last time and I’m getting bored,” the noise resumed its obscene melody. “But first, let me get rid of the pests.”

I heard a snapping noise and I was gone, banished from the room in the universe’s least normal log cabin.