Algebra, Nightmare Moon and Me

by M1Garand8

*1* Cat Nap

Foreword: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It belongs to Hasbro and Lauren Faust.

“Ah, so we meet again, Garand!”

I looked on coolly, my eyebrow raised, at the man dressed in form fitting yellow spandex suit and red boots, trunks and eye concealing cowl which left the eyes as two pointed white blanks.

“Dr. Dastardly Algebra!” My hand shot out, a finger pointed sharply at the Cartoon Supervillain™. “Your dastardly plans of ruining my Computer Graphics grades will not succeed, for I have the ultimate weapon – study and hard work!”

Dr. Dastardly Algebra gave me a brief look before he broke out in uproarious laughter. “I have seen you so-called hard work!” I’d like to think he rolled his eyes at this point but when his eyes weren’t visible, I couldn’t tell. “Yes, hard work my flank!”

I shot the evil doctor a dirty look.

“Yes, you would know that term well, wouldn’t you?” He gave another uproarious laughter. “What with your incessant surfing of pony fiction websites and writing stories for colorful, talking little horses!”

I gritted my teeth. “No matter! Your dastardly plans will still fail, for I only need to defeat you now!” My hand clutched on the Pokeball that hung on my belt. “Luna, I choose you!” I plucked it off my belt and flung it in the direction of the supervillain.

The ball flew lazily in the air until it cracked opened with that sound effect I have never able to pin down in writing and Princess Luna coalesced from the white energy that erupted from it.

“Huzzah! The fight has been doubled—” Luna tapped a hoof on her chin. “Wait, when did I agreed to do this!?”

Dr. Dastardly Algebra laughed yet again. “And even now you prove my point!” He spread his arms wide open. “Now, remember yesterday’s lesson? How you have failed to solve a high school level simultaneous equation of finding the equations for depth? Now I present it to you live and awesomely enormous!”

My eyes widened. “Luna, blast him now!”

Luna turned and stared at me with a confused look. “But I have not agreed to do this!”

Presently, a bright yellow glow suffused Dr. Dastardly Algebra. “Behold the great linear equation of ‘(-nA + B) / n = -1’ and ‘(-fA + B) / f = 1!’” The two aforementioned equations appeared in a bright flash as two lines of huge blocky letters.

My eyes widened even further at the sight. “Luna! Blast. Him. Now!”

A frown scrunched the moon alicorn’s brows. “But I did not agree to this!” Luna sounded like a broken record now.

I facepalmed. “Luna, now is not the time to pull a Pikachu!”

Luna huffed and averted my gaze, her eyes closed and hooves crossed in front of her barrel. “I have no idea what a ‘Pikachu’ is and I no longer wish to stay here any longer. Good day, Garand.” She disappeared in a flash of pale blue magic.

“Hahahahahahaha! Even your pony pet refuses your beck and call! Now you shall meet your doom!” Dr. Dastardly Algebra laughed yet another time.

No! I will not give up! I can solve them! The letters have drifted closer while Luna and I talked and with a frantic five minutes of scribbling and plentiful application of the elimination method, I managed to turn one of the equation into “B = (-2nf) / (f – n)”.

Okay, now just substitute B into the first equation! Then I stared in despair. No… No! Why does B has a division by f!? I was stumped as the large block letters of equation one drifted closer and closer, its wholesome flaring with great visible heat from the friction of the air.

“Ahahhahahaha! I knew you will never defeat the great Dr. Dastardly Algebra!”

The letters collided.

I screamed—

My eyes shot opened to the view of the ceiling of my apartment. Whew… it was just a nightmare… Something felt wrong immediately. Where are the snores from the ceiling? I could always hear my roommates snoring through the wooden construction of the apartment. Maybe they were still awake?

I peeled my left sleeve and stared at my watch, then pressed the light button of the watch in frustration. The watch face lit in a soft neon blue glow, showing five in the morning. Weird, they should be asleep… Maybe they are pulling an all-nighter—

“Are you alright, dear?”

I froze at the sound of the low, sultry voice. A pair of pitch black hooves wrapped around my torso and Nightmare Moon rested her head on my right shoulder, nuzzling me. I could feel every fiber of her coat brushing my face.

I nearly impaled my face on her horn when I darted myself away from the dark alicorn and faced her. “… W-what!?”

“They don’t speak English in What, my dearest Garand.” Nightmare Moon favored me with a toothy smile which gave me a shivered down my spine. “What’s ailing you, dear?”

“Why are you in my bed!?” I pointed a finger at her.

Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow. “In our bed, you mean. We have been married for five years, my dear husband.”

What!? Since when did I get married, to an alicorn that was defeated in the pilot of the series no less!?

“W-what’s going on!?” My gaze darted from the stoned walls and ceiling to the ornate wooden chests, dressers and vanity table to the large round, deep purple opulent bed and the dark alicorn in its center. I wasn’t in my Redmond apartment. “This is just a dream, right!?”

A look of worry crossed Nightmare Moon’s visage. “Dear, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

As if an alicorn of the embodiment of the anger, envy, jealousy and loneliness of Luna would be scared, but I digress. Presently, Nightmare Moon scooted closer in attempt to give me a hug. She was about a foot away when the ceiling exploded.

“Ahahahahahahaha! We meet again, Garand! It is I, the evil Dr. Dastardly Algebra!”

I turned the sight of the supervillain riding on top of Queen Chrysalis as pieces of stone and mortar fell amongst Nightmare Moon and me. My eyes narrowed slightly of their own accord. … Really? I immediately gave myself a few smacks in the face. WAKE ME UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE!

“Oh, you will never awake, Garand.” Chrysalis said, a sneer on her face. “You shall be trapped forever here in the lovely embrace of an alicorn who would love you eternally, just like her nights!” She gave her trademark evil laugh.

A pair of midnight black hooves folded me into a hug. “Oh… I wouldn’t mind as long as I get to spend my eternal nights with my dearest…” Her ethereal mist-like mane stroked my stiff back, sending another chill down my spine.

“Yes! You would definitely like this arrangement! You get to spend an eternity with your colorful little horses and no worries for anything else! Your friends, your family, your studies! Isn’t this wonderful? Chrysalis gets her unlimited source of love and I get to watch my archnemesis in eternal torment! Ahahahahahaha!”

My jaws dropped as Nightmare Moon gave me a tight little squeeze.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—”

I jolted awake from the keyboard of my laptop to the fading song of Lullaby for a Princess. What the hell was all that? I removed my glasses and rubbed my tired face. I swear, this is the last time I am falling asleep doing my Computer Graphics assignment while listening to music from ponyphonic.

I got up from my swivel chair and made a beeline for the bathroom. The cool water refreshed me somewhat as I stared at my reflection. It was three in the morning now and even my roommate was asleep.

I guess I should I just call it a night and catch some Zs. So I settled for brushing my teeth and gargling my mouth and made straight to my bed, pausing only to lock up my laptop and switch off the standing light.

I’ll work on my assignment again in five hours… It was late anyway and it doesn’t matter whether I hand it right now or tomorrow since it’s fifteen percent off of my grade for the week now. Drifting off to sleep, there were only thoughts for my scenes of my upcoming chapter of my story.

Unbeknownst to me, the login screen of my laptop refreshed into a screen of black, as though it was the days of MS-DOS again. A line typed itself into existence:

You think this is over, did you?