To Boldly Hoof It

by HeatherIsBestPlayer

Ch 5. The Plot Hole

“So, the little ponies want my help now, do they?” laughed Nightmare Moon.

Blueblood, Trixie, Lightning Dust, Gilda, Flim, Flam, Dumbbell, Hoops, Score, Jet Set, Upper Crust, Surprise, and Sunset Shimmer, stood before the mistress of darkness herself in her cave in the Everfree Forest, after having taken a train from Canterlot to Ponyville, and then Blueblood showing them where the cave was. The only light in the cave came from a few torches hanging from the walls, and the tiny sounds of bats squeaking and flapping their wings could be heard echoing throughout the cave.

In the dim light, they could see that Nightmare Moon was not her usual self. Her body was semi-transparent, like a ghost. They guessed this was because of how weak she was now. She had gained enough power to form a body for herself, but not completely.

Nightmare Moon continued. “But what makes you think I’ll help any of you?”

“Nightmare Moon, you must have heard about the crazy stuff that’s going on,” said Blueblood. “If we don’t do something, then… well… we don’t know WHAT will happen! But cracks appearing in thin air, and random, crazy things happening all around us, it definitely can’t be good! ”

“Precisely,” said Nightmare. “Which will make it all the easier for me to finally bring about an eternal night!”

“You know, I’ve always wanted to ask you about that,” said Blueblood suddenly, causing everyone to look at him. “How exactly would you bring about an eternal night anyway?”

“Wha… What do you mean?” said Nightmare Moon in confusion. “I would simply never let the sun rise.”

“But the Earth is round,” said Blueblood. “So one side of the Earth is always facing the sun at all times, no mater what. So its always daytime somewhere.”

Nightmare thought for a moment. “Um…”

“You’re right!” Trixie said to Blueblood. “And I suppose you could just make it eternal night here in Equestria only, but that would mean on the other side of the planet it would be eternal day.”

“And that also means that everything on one side of the planet will soon freeze to death, while the other side of the planet will be burned to a crisp,” said Sunset. “Or, I suppose to make it night time everywhere, you could, somehow, get rid of the sun all together, but that will still leave you with the problem of everything on the planet freezing to death.”

“Plus, if there’s no sunlight, all the plants will die, and then there will be no oxygen, and everyone will suffocate to death,” added Trixie.

Sunset nodded.

Nightmare Moon stood there, wide-eyed, and frozen in a daze. “Huh,” she said after several moments. “I guess I never really thought my plan through all the way.”

“Wow. So all somepony had to do was just explain that to you?” said Trixie. “Why didn’t anypony think of that when you first returned?”

“Can you imagine if somepony had?” said Flim. “Things would have turned out SO differently. For one thing, there would have been no reason for the mane six to go find the Elements of Harmony, so they never would have become the Element Bearers, and… WOW!”

“If only. Am I right?” said Sunset, with a light chuckle.

Everybody looked at her. “Huh?” asked Blueblood.

“Nothing,” she said dismissively.

“Uh, guys, I think we’re getting a little off topic here,” said Score as he pointed over at Nightmare Moon, who was looking at them all, impatiently.

“You know, you’re all lucky I’m not as powerful as I once was,” said Nightmare Moon. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be alive.”

“Oh! Right!” said Blueblood, turning back to face Nightmare Moon. “So will you help us?” he asked her.

Nightmare thought for a second. “I still don’t see why I should,” she said. “What do I gain from it?”

“Well, you’re in just as much danger to whatever’s going on as the rest of us!" said Blueblood. "Who knows? You could spontaneously turn into a… zebra for all you know! Or worse, a mule!”

Nightmare Moon thought to herself again. “Well, I certainly don’t want to be a zebra, or a mule,” she said thoughtfully. Then she sighed. “Very well. Fortunately for you, I do know something about what is going on.”

The group felt their spirits lift.

“Awesome!” said Dumbbell. “So what’s with all the weird stuff that’s going on?”

Nightmare Moon turned away from them to face the wall of the cave. “What we’re dealing with is unlike anything Equestria’s ever faced before,” she said. “Even Discord himself is powerless against a force such as this.”

The group all became filled with dread.

“What is it?” asked Flim nervously.

Nightmare Moon turned back to face them dramatically. “A plot hole!” she said.

The group all looked at each other in confusion.

“A plot hole?” said Blueblood. “What’s that?”

“It is a rip in the space-story arc continuum itself!” said Nightmare Moon. “An unnatural opening that is causing nothing but chaos, and warping our universe. You thought Discord was bad? What he did was NOTHING compared to what this thing is capable of!”

Nightmare Moon’s horn glowed with a dark aura, and then a magical image was projected out of her horn before them all. The image looked like a swirling vortex in space.

Gilda and Lightning Dust immediately recognized it.

“That’s what we saw back when we were with Princess Luna!” said Lightning Dust. “We saw the exact same thing on the computer thing that was… reading her mind… or something like that.”

“Well, this is the plot hole!” said Nightmare Moon. “Because of it, the rules and laws that bind our universe together are no longer applied! Right is wrong, and wrong is right. Up is down, and in is out. Absolutely anything could happen! Anything that was once impossible, is now quite possible, and it’s only going to get worse!”

“How bad is it going to get?” asked Upper Crust.

“The plot hole is getting bigger,” said Nightmare Moon. “The more it grows, the worse the chaos will become, and the more it will consume the universe. It is literally ripping our universe apart. If it isn’t stopped, it will eventually destroy the entire universe!”

They all stared at Nightmare Moon, wide eyed.

“My gosh!” exclaimed Blueblood.

“Those ‘cracks’ that are appearing in thin air,” said Trixie. “Is that being caused by the universe being torn apart by the plot hole?”

Nightmare Moon nodded. “Indeed.”

“But how did this happen?!” exclaimed Blueblood. “What caused this plot hole?! I mean, it couldn’t have just happened all on its own, could it have?”

“You’re quite right, nephew,” said Nightmare Moon. “It didn’t just appear on its own.”

Blueblood cringed at Nightmare Moon calling him ‘nephew’. “Then what caused it?” he asked.

Nightmare Moon smirked. “An egg-headed mare.”

Blueblood and the rest of them blinked. “What?” he asked.

Nightmare continued. “About a year or two ago, Twilight Sparkle used a time travel spell to travel back in time to herself and give herself a warning. However, it was that very warning that caused Twilight Sparkle to travel back in time to herself. This never-ending contradiction caused a time paradox. And this paradox caused such a strain on the space-story arc continuum, that it literally ripped a hole right through it. The plot hole!”

“So what your saying is… the universe is going to be destroyed, and its all Twilight Sparkle’s fault?” said Trixie.

“Well… yes,” said Nightmare Moon.

Trixie and Sunset both facehoofed.

“I don’t know whether to laugh, or to cry,” groaned Trixie.

“I know exactly how you feel,” said Sunset.

Nightmare Moon chuckled. “Yes. She does make you just want to strangle her sometimes, doesn’t she?”

“Nightmare,” asked Blueblood, “why is it that some ponies notice the changes that happen, but other ponies don’t?”

“Is this about your house again?” asked Upper Crust, rolling her eyes.

Nightmare Moon spoke, ignoring Upper Crust. “Those who don’t notice the changes, or ‘anomalies’, created by the plot hole have also been affected by the anomaly themselves, at the same time. The only ones who will notice the anomalies are the ones who aren’t affected along with them. Unfortunately, who’s affected and who isn’t seems to be completely random.”

“So that explains why those two doctors didn’t notice when they had stopped being doctors,” said Lightning Dust.

Nightmare nodded. “Yes. And it also explains why no pony remembered who I was when I returned from the moon back in the first episode, even though there is apparently an entire holiday about me. Heck, there’s a buckin’ statue of me just outside of Ponyville, for crying out loud!”

“But wait a minute!” said Score. “Didn’t that all happen before Twilight time traveled?”

“Oh, you stupid lesser ponies,” said Nightmare. “You’re not thinking fourth dimensionally! The plot hole is making changes in the future, present, AND the past as well. Think of it like… throwing a stone into a pond, and the ripples going out in all directions. The plot hole is like the stone, and its making ripples forwards and backwards throughout time.”

“Holy crap!” said Score.

“Yes,” said Nightmare. “There could be anomalies all around us that we have no idea about. Things that we’ve accepted all our lives could very well be anomalies created by the plot hole. Even my very existence right now could be an anomaly!”

They were all silent for a few moments as they took this all in.

“Nightmare Moon, what is on the other side of the plot hole?” asked Blueblood.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“Well, what does Princess Luna have to do with the plot hole?” asked Lightning Dust.

“I don’t know that either,” she said. “After I split from her body and got my own, I haven’t had anything to do with her.”

“Okay,” said Blueblood. “Then please tell us you know how to stop the plot hole.”

Nightmare Moon shook her head. “Sorry. I haven’t the slightest clue how to stop it. The plot hole isn’t a force of magic. It is a force of science!”

The group hung their heads in despair.

“Now what do we do?” groaned Gilda.

“I don’t know,” sighed Blueblood. He could feel himself loosing hope.

After a few seconds, Hoops suddenly spoke. “Maybe… Maybe Princess Luna knows a way to close the plot hole,” he said. “Maybe that’s what she was trying to tell you that night she was in your house!”

Blueblood and the rest of them all looked at Hoops in shock.

“Hoops, I never thought I’d say this, but you’re a genius!” said Blueblood.

Hoops smiled proudly to himself.

“But we told you before,” Gilda spoke up. “We don’t know where Princess Luna is!”

“Wouldn’t it make sense that she’s at the castle with her sister?” said Upper Crust.

“They didn’t take her to the castle,” said Lightning Dust. “When the guards arrested us, they took us to the castle dungeons, but they didn’t take the Princess to the castle. In fact, they didn’t even take the Princess to Canterlot! When they dragged us out of Ponyville, they carried the Princess off in a different direction. Towards the mountains, I think.”

“The mountains?” said Flim. “Why in Equestria would they take her there?”

“We don’t know,” said Gilda.

They looked at Nightmare Moon, hoping for an answer.

She simply shrugged.

“Why didn’t you mention this before?!” Blueblood said to Gilda and Lightning Dust.

“We didn’t know it was important!” said Lightning Dust.

“Well, the Princess could be anywhere, and we don’t have time to go on a wild goose chaise!” said Blueblood. “What are we going to do?”

The group began to hang their heads again, loosing hope.

After a long moment of silence, Flam spoke. “If the plot hole was created by science,” he said, “could there be a scientific way to close it?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Sunset said with a shrug, uncertain. “Scientific law states that anything that can be created can also be un-created.”

They all looked at Nightmare moon expectantly.

She shrugged too. “It might be possible,” she said.

“But even if we knew a way to close it, we can’t even get to the plot hole!” said Jet Set. “Its in outer space!”

“If only we could build a spaceship,” said Hoops.

They all rolled their eyes at the large orange pegasus.

“Yeah, that would be great, Hoops,” said Dumbbell. “To bad we can’t!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Nightmare Moon thoughtfully. “You could always just steel the stuff you need from Twilight Sparkle’s basement.”

They all looked at each other.

“Could… Could that actually work?” asked Trixie.

……………………

A few hours later, Spike was walking down into Twilight’s basement with a basket of dirty laundry in his claws, going to put it in the wash. When he got halfway down the steps, he saw something that made him drop the laundry basket in shock.

“HOLY GUACAMOLE!” he shouted.

Everything was gone! All of Twilight’s gizmos, gadgets, computers, machines, chemicals, potions, lab equipment, notes, and some books, were all gone, leaving the basement relatively empty. Even the miniature air hockey table was gone.

Spike began to panic. “Oh man! Twilight is really going to kill me this time!”