The Ultimate Evil

by Strawberry Sunrise

A History Lesson

A few moments later, Twilight reappeared in a second burst, seeming much less composed than before. “Maybe? Just maybe? What if everything isn’t fine? What if we can’t stop this at all?” She was nearly hyperventilating.

“Deep breaths,” Rainbow Dash said, and Twilight complied. Dash checked Squidward’s progress out of the corner of her eye. He was just a few streets away.

As Twilight’s breaths slowed back toward normal, she quickly explained herself. “This morning, I got a visit from myself from the future. She woke me up, told me everything was fine, and then went to the library. It was 3 in the morning! I thought it was a dream!”

“But it wasn’t?” Rainbow Dash asked, beginning to understand.

“No! I went back in time just now. I woke myself up, told myself everything was fine, and then went to the library. I took the journal, wrote a message to Sunset, and then put it away where I just found it. There would have been no time for her to respond with Squidward so close, so I had to make time,” Twilight said.

“Why didn’t you check the journal yourself?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Getting new information by using a time loop can be problematic,” Twilight said. “Time tries to avoid a paradox in the simplest way possible. If I knew what was on the page, it was plausible that I’d have ended up just writing it down myself while in the past rather than asking Sunset, and if I did that, the information would have had no source. It might have been useless! Or the page might have just been blank. Asking you the way I did worked both to confirm that I did in fact wake myself up this morning and to ensure that I’d have to ask Sunset for the information.” She had fully calmed down by now. Even in a dire situation like the one they were in now, explaining magical theory still did the trick.

A moment passed. “Alright, let me see it,” Twilight said. Rainbow Dash hoofed the journal to her. Paraphrasing what Sunset had written, she muttered, “Dabbing…pastime for kids…memes…haters…originated in Equestria…” She turned the page. Rainbow Dash leaned in, having not seen that page yet. In large letters above the rest of the message was written, “DAB = BAD,” and the equation was circled with red ink.

To make a long story short, Sunset’s letter explained across both pages that dabbing was a relatively recent phenomenon in the human world, having become a meme just weeks before the last time Twilight had visited. During Twilight’s last visit, the two of them had witnessed someone dabbing, and Sunset had confided in her that she recognized it from a vague memory of a history lesson she had attended as Celestia’s student. She had promised to do more research and get back to Twilight once it was done. After multiple trips back to Equestria to visit the Canterlot archives, she had still not figured out how it had made its way to the human world, but she had confirmed that it originated in Equestria…albeit in a much different form.

A thousand years earlier, there had been a sorcerer known only by the name of Jake who wanted to overthrow the Princesses and take control of Equestria. He researched tirelessly in pursuit of the ultimate evil and after several long years, he found it. It was shockingly simple. Evil was bad. Reversing words so the letters went toward the left was sinister. And thus “dab” – “bad” in reverse – was the most evil and sinister word of all. Combined with a particular ancient salute to the Sun, it sapped power from Celestia and rerouted it for destructive purposes. Even one use was often enough to corrupt its user, rendering them a complete and utter psychopath.

In the human world, Principal Celestia had no magic to sap and thus there was no danger. Dabbing could be done free of destruction and free of corruption. But in Equestria…

DAB.

Squidward had arrived.