Equestria, 24 hours before crossing.
Discord floated through Equestria, changing this, altering that. He paused, looking at the floating trees; he'd had a lot of things to think about while he'd been trapped in stone. Sometimes, the smallest changes were the most chaotic. He giggled as he threw the hated Elements of Harmony in the purple one's own library. Oh, it had been too long since he'd roamed the world! Squabbling foals were just about the only fun that he'd ever gotten in stone!
But... he sighed. One continent just wasn't enough. He needed more, damnit! He stroked his beard, stroking his beard fondly. "Oh, that was the best prank that I ever pulled." He had to admit, pulling an entire continent from its original planet, making a whole new planet in an alternate dimension and then plopping a new planet there, purely for his own amusement, had taken a lot of energy out of him, but it had been worth it. Although, being blindsided by Luna and Celestia, in his moment of weakness, hadn't been according to plan, he'd found a way to work around it.
Still, humans had been such interesting creatures. He still remembered first looking at them, fascinated with their flat, hairless faces, when he'd been terrorising their castles and towns. Discord chuckled, remembering the rains of arrows that had hailed down on him to no effect, to their prayers to gods that didn't exist. That Spartan king, what'shisname, had been so delightfully filled with rage and war-lust. He remembered the wars that he'd induced on both sides, the Persian wars being chief among them. Mortals were such fun toys; they broke easily, yes, but then again, so did many other toys.
Right, time to do something about this. He had a new plan to set in motion, as a plan was the very last thing dear old Celly expected of him. That was the thing with chaos; there were always patterns, if you looked closely. He felt the Elements of Harmony arrive at his maze. Ah. Work before pleasure, and all that. With a flash, he teleported over to them, intent on tying up every single loose end.
Earth, 10 hours before crossing.
All around the world, people did things, not knowing or suspecting that there was something else out there, something that might appear in their world and destabilise it any further than it already was. Across the world, political leaders didn't know what was about to hit them. A couple of psychics did feel something was off, but shrugged it off as a passing delusion.
Equestria, Ponyville, 2 minutes before crossing over.
Twilight looked Discord right in the eyes.
"Discord!" The draconeques looked at her disinterestedly.
"Oh, it's just you." He drank the glass of chocolate milk that he held in an eagle claw, tossing it behind him.
"What are you going to do about now? The Elements clearly don't work anymore. So, why even bother?"
Twilight smirked.
"You're wrong, Discord. Alright, girls, let's do this!" The five ponies grouped together. Twilight looked over them, then turned around.
"PINKIE!" The eccentric party mare looked up from her prone position underneath a cotton candy cloud, chocolate milk flowing into her mouth.
"Okay, okay, I was coming!" She zipped over to join her friends.
Discord frowned, then lifted a claw, letting his power flow through his hand. If this worked, then he could safely say that he got one over Celestia, and her little students as well! Each of the mares who wielded the Elements were lifted into the air, not noticing that his own chaotic influence was seeping into the Elements. Just a little bit, but enough.
As they charged up, he noticed.
"No. No no no no no no-"
The rainbow light surrounded him, quickly petrifying him. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing at how easily this was working. They'd fallen for it!
As his prison sealed him again, in a terrified posture, he grinned on the inside as Equestria shook. All was according to plan.
Earth, on the crossing over.
Around the world, things plunged into chaos.
A couple of police, riding horses, suddenly found themselves flat on their arses as their horses suddenly, for want of a better word, vanished.
A pair of lions suddenly found themselves short of a meal as the zebra they'd been hunting suddenly disappeared with a pop.
In a horse race, jockeys suddenly found themselves flying forwards as their mounts seemingly vaporised.
All over the world, horses and equine species vanished. People were baffled by it; what kind of explanation could one give to these disappearances, magic?
Then, other things started happening.
New York Police department, 2 minutes after crossing over.
Mark Mallor could be called a number of things. He could be called, 'pushing retirement,' 'overweight,' 'chain-smoking,' sure, he got that a lot. But he was the NYC superintendent for a reason, and it wasn't that he was the best at eating donuts on a stake-out. He'd earned the position through ten years of diligent service.
Right now, he was bellowing into his phone.
"Whaddya mean, ya horses just disappeared? If this is some kinda lousy practical joke, then I swear to God-"
He didn't finish his sentence.
A wave of something purple, bordered with rainbows, chose that moment to flash through his office. It blew papers off of his desk, knocked pictures loose off the walls, and smashed his coffee cup. He stared at that, mind shutting down. Then, the pain flashed through him and he started to scream, screaming as his flesh bubbled and boiled, changing...
Down the hall from him, Private Len King started convulsing as soon as the magic hit him. His fellow comrades immediately called for an ambulance, but by the time the call had ended, he slumped, blood trickling out of his ears. Len had died.
The wave of purple, well, magic, it was later ascertained, had come from a very specific place in the Pacific Ocean. It was just a flat, dull expanse, that had never been of any particular importance. Until now, that is. With that one wave, about a fifth of the world population was dead, but the rest of the world was experiencing strange effects. And also, a new continent had appeared, causing much paranoia and speculation.
News reports came flooding in- a woman, trying to defend herself against a rapist, was washed over with magic and then trapped him in a block of ice that came out of her fingertips. A ten year old boy, confronted with bullies, had suddenly turned into a thirty foot tall dragon, causing one of the bullies there to discover that his urine was now acidic to the point of melting through his clothes. An ordinary man somehow became part phone, his chest developing large lumps that somehow functioned as number pads.
The American government was divided on whether or not to rule the wave of purple energy as a terrorist attack or something else entirely. The death tolls were massive- from that one moment, scientist could infer that over 1 billion people, globally, had died from the wave. News reports around the world talked about the effects, wondering what, exactly, caused this.
Whatever the case, this new continent was something that had never been discussed before, not in any theoretical exercise or anything like that. For all their talk of multiverse theory, no scientist had ever developed any actual way to contact aliens. Eventually, the leaders of the world decided to hold an emergency UN summit, in order to discuss what to do about this continent.
Equestria, 1 hour after crossing over.
Twilight shook her head.
"What the..." She heard a familiar laugh. Her eyes narrowed.
"Discord." She trotted over to his statue.
"What's so funny?"
"Ah, you fell for it! I got the Elements! I got them! Oh, this is so GLORIOUS! I've had so much FUN over these two days, do you know that? So... much... FUN!" Twilight glared at him, horn charging up.
"Explain what you mean by that?"
"Chaos and Harmony... they're conflicting forces, right? Well, what happens, if I add a little chaos into the mix, hmm? Remember when I did that? I had the groundwork laid when I corrupted all of your friends, and then I added a bit of my own influence to those pieces of jewelry."
Twilight shook his statue, veins in eyes faintly bulging.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
"I* didn't do anything. That was all you, my dear. All the Elements have done is reverse EVERYTHING that I've done- including placing your continent here on this world in the first place. Welcome to Earth, Twilight. It's going to be SO FUN!"*