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// Origin Story 
// Story: The Malignant Magnet 
// by derpyland 
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For thousands of years it had remained dormant deep beneath the surface of the world. To the casual eye it was nothing special – just another vein of the rare-earth element neodymium, in a planetary crust that was filled with many veins of many ores. But this one held a sinister secret. Long ago – long before Celestia and Luna were born, and so long ago that the legend itself was entirely forgotten – an evil enchantress cursed that particular vein. This unicorn cursed it with all her might, and poured into it all the hate, malice, and power that she could wield.

It was true that she hadn’t actually meant to curse a rock. This great and powerful enchantress had intended to curse her landlord, who was being very grumpy about the fact that she hadn’t paid her rent in sixteen months. However, this pony (whose name has been lost) tripped and fell into a cave, and then her teleportation spell went wrong, and – well, let’s just say it wasn’t her day. In a fit of blind rage she blasted all of her power at a rock wall. By the time she realized her mistake and made it back to the surface, it was too late – she was arrested for attempted assault, and her life took a different turn after that.

So her malignant curse did not turn out as she had planned. However, that vein of rock had not been cursed in vain. That pony’s wicked spell worked, and filled that rock with a sinister evil. Of course, since it was just an inanimate rock stuck in the wall of a cave, it couldn’t do very much. Instead of terrorizing the world it was forced to wait until its circumstances improved.

As the millennia passed, the ore bided it time. While it slumbered, the surface world changed. Powers rose and powers fell. Two alicorn sisters rose to power and began governing all of Equestria. The sisters froze the Lord of Chaos into stone – and then one of the sisters turned on the other, and was banished to the Moon.

Through it all, the ore waited. It dreamed dark, rocky dreams of overturning the world in fire and ash. It felt pity for the Nightmare that was banished to the Moon (although how it found out about it, I do not know), and vowed to avenge her terrible defeat. It longed for the day when it could unleash its vengeance on an unsuspecting planet. One day, one day, the world would know what an evil vein of neodymium ore could do. One day the ponies of Equestria would feel its rage!

Then, after long ages of waiting, an unsuspecting miner dug up that ore, and another unsuspecting pony fashioned it into a powerful rare earth magnet and put it up for sale. That was when it happened. In an unlucky act that would lead to the greatest disaster in Equestrian history (which had been a land of rainbows and bunnies, I’d like to point out), a certain purple alicorn princess purchased that very magnet and brought it into her laboratory. That was the beginning of the end.

The most formidable foe that Equestria ever faced had entered the world, and would soon begin its reign of terror. It would be unleashed by a simple cup of tea (a fact that would seriously injure tea sales for decades to come).