World Domination and What Comes Next

by Strawberry Sunrise

Failure

It was Thursday afternoon. Over the last two days, Martin had experienced more failure than he had ever experienced in his entire life up to that point. Potential customer after potential customer after potential customer and every single one of them had turned him down. He’d gone to one pony in the street after another, trying over and over again to sell somepony car insurance, and when that had continued to fail, he’d eventually started to go door-to-door. Some ponies had listened to him for a little while, and others had just slammed the door in his face.

The latter had became even more common as Thursday afternoon had approached, Martin becoming simultaneously more dejected and more obsessed with getting at least one more pony, just one more pony, to sign a contract before he went home. But he was quickly becoming a pariah in Ponyville. He’d slept under a bench on Tuesday and Wednesday night, not having any money for a stay at an inn, and by Thursday most ponies in the street were avoiding him, word having spread of the irritating gecko who kept trying to get everypony to sign up for useless insurance policies.

He had started out with such high hopes, genuinely thinking he could show up at the meeting on Friday with a thousand new customers, or even just a few hundred, and now it looked like he’d only have one. Well, two if you counted Celestia, but still… It seemed that he had grossly overestimated the demand for car insurance in this world.

He was finally close to giving up and going home when he decided to try just one more thing first. Upon running into Lyra and Bon Bon on Wednesday, he had discovered that this world seemingly had pony counterparts to all of the humans back in his own world. That meeting had been rather awkward - he’d heard the names “Lyra” and “Bon Bon” spoken, and naturally he'd assumed that they had come for a visit to the pony world after all. But when he went over to ask if they might have any advice for him, having had a bit more experience here than he had, he discovered that they had no idea who he even was. Nevertheless, after that, he’d asked another pony on the street if they happened to know anyone named Celestia and learned that she was, in fact, the ruler of the entire country.

That knowledge in mind, he now guessed that Twilight’s respect wasn’t necessarily for Principal Celestia directly, but rather for Princess Celestia. Twilight may have simply assumed that Princess Celestia’s human counterpart would have similarly good judgment. And maybe, just maybe, Princess Celestia herself would feel the same way if he went to her and showed her Principal Celestia’s contract. Signing the pony version of the last holdout from the human world to a policy commitment, and having her as one of the first policyholders of the pony world, would surely be an accomplishment. And not only that, but if she signed up for a policy, her approval would surely have weight for everypony in the country. (Though admittedly nopony other than Twilight had seemed to care about Principal Celestia’s signature, so that wasn’t entirely clear.)

Upon seeing a few unicorns teleporting around town, Martin had learned that teleportation existed in this world, so he returned to Twilight in the hope that she could send him directly to Canterlot Castle. She had already done a lot for him, but he hoped she wouldn’t mind doing just one more thing.

“Any luck?” Twilight asked as he entered the castle library. He was a little surprised that she had seen him without him having to draw any attention to himself, but he continued walking in.

“Unfortunately, no,” Martin said, his tone weary.

“Well, I did warn you,” Twilight said. “I don’t think anypony here has any need for car insurance.”

“Even Princess Celestia?” Martin asked, not remembering any warning but deciding not to question it.

“What? No, I don’t really see why she would need it…” Twilight said.

Martin hesitated a moment, then asked sadly, “Could you send me to her castle, anyway? I need this.”

“Send you there? Oh, you mean you want me to teleport you there? I guess…” Twilight said, starting to think helping this gecko so much might have been a mistake but not wanting to turn down a creature as seemingly depressed as he was becoming. “If you’re sure. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“Alright,” Martin said. “And could you bring me back afterward, too?”

“I suppose,” Twilight said, and she teleported him away with no further discussion or warning.