“Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last FOREVER!”
Nightmare Moon cackled as a lightning strike illuminated the interior of town hall. The ponies of Ponyville shook in terror as one of their own stepped forward and spoke.
“All right. So…what about the crops?”
Everypony stopped as Nightmare Moon stared down at the earth pony. Her face was a mixture of anger and confusion. “What?”
The pony sighed. “If you’re going to take over the world, you should at least have a viable economic plan to support the new regime. I mean…we need food and almost all crops only grow during the day. So…without the sun, you’re pretty much destroying your entire kingdom.”
Nightmare Moon stood silent. Then, “Who do you think you are, questioning Nightmare Moon?”
“Greg is my name. I know it’s not very pony. Please don’t make fun of it. Anyway, you need to consider what will happen to places like Sweet Apple Acres without any sunlight to help the plants grow.”
Applejack spoke up. “Smart pony is right!”
“That’s not my name.”
“...We need ta come up with ah solution to this here situation!” Applejack continued.
Twilight Sparkle moved close to the orange earth pony. “Um, Applejack? Princess Celestia is gone and we kinda need to focus on that right now…”
Greg responded. “Well it doesn’t hurt to come up with a contingency plan. So Nightmare Moon…what do you plan to do about our sleep cycles? Your workers will need to adjust to days with no visible indicator to sleep, like sunrise and sunset.”
The celestial mare stomped her hooves. “A ruler does not need to think about such trivialities!”
“Actually, you kinda do,” Greg said. “It’s pretty important, or else you’ll have a very inefficient workforce.”
Rarity jumped up. “I’ve got it!” She rubbed her hooves together in glee. “Instead of sunrise and sunset, we shall have night and darker night! One with moon and one with no moon.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Yer a genius!” Applejack said.
“How does that even make sense?” Dash continued.
“Thank you, my dear Applejack,” Rarity said as she flipped back her hair.
Nightmare Moon landed right next to Greg and sneered menacingly down at him. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t exile you to the moon!”
“You can disagree with your labor all you want, but if you start sending away potential employees without due cause, your talent pool will diminish and other places, like the Griffon Kingdom, will have the edge when it comes to skilled job applicants.”
Twilight Sparkle looked around. “Doesn’t anypony care about Princess Celestia?” She continued her questions in the middle of Nightmare Moon’s tirade.
“THAT IS IT! (What about Celestia? Anypony?) I’VE HAD IT WITH YOUR INSOLENCE! (She might be stuck somewhere,) I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE CROPS! (like the sun, maybe.) I DON’T CARE ABOUT WORKERS! (She’s probably lonely.) I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH YOU PONIES! (I’m kinda lonely, actually.) THE NEXT TIME YOU ASK A QUESTION…(Anypony wanna read with me?)” Nightmare Moon spun around to face Twilight Sparkle. “Twilight Sparkle, you are the NEEDIEST pony I’ve ever seen!”
The purple unicorn shrunk down, looked away for a moment, scratched the ground and then peered back up at Nightmare Moon. “I just want some friends.”
Pinkie Pie bounced forward. “Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh! Nightmare Moon can be your friend!”
“NO,” the night ruler said.
Greg sighed once more. “You’ve been ruler for about three minutes and already you’ve vetoed somepony’s friendship. Good job. Anything else?”
There was a flash, a puff of smoke and suddenly Greg was gone.
Then there was a ringing sound. Everypony looked around the room until Fluttershy walked up to Pinkie Pie with a small device in her hoof. “Um…I think Greg left this…”
Pinkie Pie popped open the device. “Hello?”
A beam of light projected onto the wall and displayed Greg, with an inflated breathing helmet, standing on the moon. “A couple of us guys got together and made these inflata-helmets in case, ya know, Celestia was in a bad mood one day…”
“OH MY GOSH, GREG!” Nightmare Moon shouted. “YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE!”
“Actually,” Twilight Sparkle said, “This transmission is rather impossible, because according to the science behind it, it takes a while for radio transmissions to reach the planet from the moon…”
There was a flash.
“Hey Twilight,” Greg said to the purple pony suddenly next to him.
“Oh hey, Greg…ACK!” Twilight Sparkle started to gasp for air until a second inflata-helmet was inflated around her head. “Ah…thanks…”
“Just don’t catch on fire," Greg said.
“ME NEXT!” A gray pegasus shouted as she ran out from the crowd and jumped at Nightmare Moon. In a flash of instinct, the celestial ruler poofed the pegasus out of the air only to see her appear behind Twilight and Greg.
“Hey, Derpy,” Greg said.
“Quick! Get a helmet!” Twilight shouted.
“Why?” the pegasus asked.
Greg and Twilight stared at the pony, who stood with a big grin.
A stallion walked out of the crowd. “I’ve got an idea!”
Nightmare Moon spun around. “Who are you?”
“I’m the Doctor.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Well, a doctor is a type of specialist who helps diagnose and treat illness, or a Time Lord who travels through time and space to monitor the universe as we know it, but that’s not important right now. What is important is that I know how to solve your economic conundrum,” Doctor Whooves said.
“When do I get to suggest something?” Lyra asked from the crowd.
“When you get your own episode,” the Doctor responded.
“Oh…wait. How…?”
“Time and space. Anyway, Nightmare Moon, please sit down.” A chair appeared from the crowd and Nightmare Moon was now sitting, though she didn’t know why. A slideshow presentation appeared in split-screen next to Twilight and Derpy, though Greg’s image was blocked by the graphics.
“No, it’s fine,” Greg said. “It’s not like I’m here or anything.”
Lyra snorted from the crowd. “All the technology of the Time Lords and you choose a Powerpoint program.”
“Quiet Lyra,” The Doctor said. “You shouldn’t know what that is. You’ll cause a Time Paradox. So, as you can see, Princess Nightmare Moon…”
“Just call me Nightmare Moon.”
“Apologies. As you can see from this graph, there are multiple factors to consider when overthrowing an established monarchy. Your sister did a good job keeping the peace around the outlying regions, but now with your aggressive style of leadership, other countries might consider severing ties with Equestria, which could hurt the prosperity of our nation. You’ll need to make a press conference to ensure them that you’ll be a fair and balanced alternative to Princess Celestia. You might even be able to get the sympathy vote due to your thousand year exile.”
Twilight Sparkle glanced at the image next to her. “Sounds feasible.”
“Indeed!” Derpy concurred 384,400 kilometers away from Equestria on the moon. Greg peeked out from beside the graphic and stared.
“We can make you fabulous!” Rarity said with twinkles in her eyes.
“And teach you how to make friends with all the little critters!” Fluttershy said.
“And throw parties for your constituents!” Pinkie Pie yelled.
“And host contests with the other nations to show them why Equestria is AWESOME,” Rainbow Dash said.
“But we still haven’t dealt with tha plant-growing problem,” Applejack said. “Remember that, guys?”
The ponies all began talking excitedly amongst themselves as Nightmare Moon hunched down in the chair and covered her face with her hooves. “Ow…my head…”
“Don’t worry. The Doctor is here to make it all better.”
Twilight stared at Greg and Derpy next to her on the moon. “We’re kinda stuck here. What do we do?”
“I can fly us back!” Derpy said.
“And how long would that take?” Greg asked.
“Considering that we’re almost 400,000 kilometers away from the planet…about five days.”
“That math doesn’t sound right,” Twilight said.
“Not until you consider that once you accelerate in space, you’ll just keep going faster and faster until something forces you to stop. That happens when there’s no friction. I’ll just fly really really really quickly.”
“Wow. That might be crazy enough to work,” Greg said.
“You’re pretty smart, Derpy,” Twilight said.
“Who said I wasn’t?” Derpy asked and smiled. She grabbed the two ponies and took off towards Equestria.
