I don't own Moon Base Alpha or the related information/characters/equipment etc. I don't own My Little Pony and the characters, or merchandise, etc. I don't own anything related to Star Wars. I don't own anything related to Star Trek. I don't own anything related to Left 4 Dead. I don't own the chair that I'm sitting in at home, or the computer I'm using to type all this up. I also own nothing to do with football, other than a flat football that I've had for years and haven't used except on birthdays with family. I think the only thing in all this that I do own is my weird imagination and the two OC Humans Robert and Sally. Anyway, read, please leave a comment, and a like or dislike, and if a dislike, let me know what's wrong with it so I can improve. Used WITHOUT permission blah blah blah, names related to real persons are coincidence, blah blah blah. Now that's been said, let's get this show on the road.

Nightmare moon yawned and sat up. It had been nine hundred ninety-nine years since her banishment, and in two days, it would have been one thousand. She would have been lonely, but her resentment, and anger towards her sister and those ungrateful creatures they called their 'subjects' kept her plenty of company, and as for things to do, she kept herself busy by practicing her magic, and training her body for the eventual time that she figured out a way off this rock. Just thee wait, sister, dear! She though for the six-thousand and thirty-second time. One day I shalt find a way off this prison, and then thou wilst pay!

She had, of course, considered more than once just using her power to drop the moon onto the planet, but she did not really wish to kill off her subjects (or perhaps shatter the planet entirely). After all, what point was there in being a princess (or queen, once Celestia had been dealt with) if you had no one to rule beneath you? Still, at this point it might be mine only way back. Celestia made sure to disable most of mine magics before she banished me, and it hath only been mine constant prying at her barriers than has allowed me what little magics I hath got! If only there were some other way, some non-magical way for me to conduct mine escape...

This thought had also crossed her mind several times, but other than once trying to build a tower out of moon rocks, which had toppled over and given what the planet-side dwellers saw as the “Mare in the Moons' horn”, she could not come up with any ideas. That is, until the next day when three objects she'd never seen before landed...

– – – – –

“Alright, safe landing for everybody!” Robert Higgins declared proudly as his craft settled safely down in the moon dust. ...And then his viewing screen showed one of the craft tumbling like a bouncing die from a Liar's Dice cup that had slipped between a player's fingers. It slammed into the ground and erupted into a fireball.

“I am burnING! I am burnING! Some body help me!” Higgins face-palmed.

Although they were using robots for this mission, not everyone that was on the project should have been. Some of them were little more than idiots who played video games too often. Unfortunately, this repair mission was too important to put off, so HQ had grabbed everybody who was even the least bit familiar with operating the equipment they'd be using, and then gave them all a crash-course in the tech on the moon base and shipped them off to White Moon Base 04, in the Equine solar system, which had named for the inhabitants on the planet below and to the right of them.

Their mission was simple enough: repair the damaged equipment at the observation site, get inside the facility, and then contact HQ to inform them that the mission had been completed and to, of course, refill their oxygen tanks in their ship up in orbit from where they controlled the robots they were now using. So not only did the success of the observation project hinge on their ability to get the job done, but so did their own survival.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. I did not know that row-bots could burn!” Laughed another of the crew from the crashed lander. This computerized voice thing is starting to get on my nerves! Higgins thought as he started feel a headache coming on.

Their task, even with the morons on two of the four ships goofing off entirely too much, was going well so far: solar panels had been dusted off and repaired or replaced, damaged wiring was removed and replaced, and new filters were installed in the oxygen ventilation system. At least they have been in me and Sally Chang's areas. I wonder how things are going with the 'newbs'.

Both his and Sally's teams had changed radio frequencies almost immediately after exiting the lander because the two other teams began typing in random stuff just to see what it would sound like on the speakers. Unfortunately (again) the control of the robots involved hooking up your nervous system to a computer, which meant your mind was in the machine, which meant also that you could not physically talk to one another from the ship, which could have prevented some of the stupidity they were doing now.

There was, of course, a remote-control way to control them, but it was often a clumsy system, which made direct control much simpler. They better at least get something done! If I have to repair both my teams' stuff and theirs I just might toss them out the air lock after this mission is done with and say it was an accident!

– – – – –

Nightmare moon watched the new arrivals with curiosity. She had seen such things before, but only as they had been leaving. This had been because she'd been napping after an intense session of trying to break through Celestia's barriers on her magic. It had been these efforts that won her back her Royal Canterlot Voice, not that it helped her much here.

Approaching them cautiously, as she had no idea what their intentions were or how dangerous they might be to her in her still-weakened state, Nightmare observed that they seemed to be working on several structures that she'd been ignoring for the most part as they seemed to do nothing. One of the creatures pulled off a thin object that was blue on one side and silver on the other and began swinging it at another of the creatures, who waved a white hose around like a whip as a counter.

Wondering if they were communicating in some way, Luna strained against her sister's shield and managed to chip away at it enough to gain a mind-reading spell. She cast it, and then tilted her head in confusion. For the most part, they were spewing out nonsense or kept repeating what she assumed to be a name. All except for one of their group with white lines on it.

“John Madden! John Madden! John Madden!” On of them with a purple stripe repeated over and over.

“Chuck Norris is John Madden's father, and this moon is his soccer ball!” the green one declared.

“Soccer balls are white AND black, you id-ee-it!” the blue one said.

“Your mother is white and black!” Green shot back.

“You want a piece of me, C 3 Pee Oh!?” Blue challenged, brandishing his...whatever the blue thing was.

“You are C 3 Pee Oh! I am I-G eighty-eight!”

“Your mother was a refrigerator, and your father was a toaster!”

They're insulting one another, obviously, but what could they be talking about? What's a toaster? And what's a soccer ball?

“Stop fighting you guys!” a white one said, hopping between the two. “WE HAVE TO SAVE THIS MOON!”

Nightmare moon gasped. My moon is in danger?! From what?

“The moon can suck my dick!” Nightmare Moon blinked. Did he just say what I think he said?

“No it can't, you id-ee-it. It is a rock.”

“I know that you dumb-ass!”

“Quwequwequwequwe!”

“UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH!”

“Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle-”

“Your mom jumped over the mooooon!”

“I am going to rape you with this truck!” Blue threatened, and began waddling at a ridiculously slow pace towards another structure that Nightmare Moon had chosen to ignore and climbed on the back and leaned back against an indentation in the wall. To her astonishment, it suddenly began to roll forward towards the other two-legged thing.

“Oh wow, you are driving at one mile per hour I am SO scared!” He said sarcastically. At least, Nightmare assumed it was said sarcastically. They had very little tone or pitch change to their speech, so it was difficult to tell. In any case, the blue one continued to move forward in his horseless carriage until he smacked into the front of the green one, who only moved back a foot.

“You suck.” Green said, pointing a arm at the 'truck'.

“No, you suck!” Blue declared, climbing down from it and waddling back in front of green.

“No, YOU suck!” Green insisted.

“I saved fifteen percent on my car insurance by getting rid of my car!” Red said randomly. Both blue and green turned to look at him, then nodded thoughtfully.

“Cool story, bro. Tell me another!” Green said, clapping his hands.

“Would you like to hear me sing?” Red asked.

“Yes!” Green agreed.

“No. I want to sing!” Blue objected.

“Let's sing the 'Beer Song' together!” Red suggested. The three creatures locked arms and began singing, if it could be called that.

While this stupidity was going on, White had wandered away from the others and had set to the task of completing their mission. This was not missed by Nightmare Moon and she crept through the work area and jumped up on top of another of the 'trucks' to watch him work. First he knelt down before what seemed to be a small box with two hoses connected to it, and tinkered with a mess of wires that had been exposed by him. Several of them were sparking, and he hesitated a bit, then turned a knob on the side of the box. The sparking stopped, and he began removing the ones that had been sparking. What sort of magic is this? I've not seen anything like it before in all my life.

After a few minutes and several more discarded and replaced wires he placed a thin metal plate over the wires and rose from where he knelt and began heading towards what looked like a group of huge blue flowers on even larger fat stalks. He flipped a lever and the 'head' of the flower lowered. Luna recognized the blue parts as part of was that other had been waving around and focused her magic specifically on this one's mind, which ended the sound of the other group's horrible singing.

“I don't ask for much, do I?” He thought. “I just want to do a good job, be put with a responsible team, and have my job be appreciated. Instead, I get a bunch of morons who don't know the difference between a game and a very real situation. Yes, we get to control robots to do this task, and yes, it's really cool, but we have a job to do!” Nightmare moon sighed. Or would have, if there was any air on the moon. As it was, she expanded and contracted her lungs and didn't sigh. It would seem that even aliens had to deal with their share of neglect and ungrateful beings. In a way it was comforting to know that she wasn't alone in that regard, but in others, disheartening.

Part of her wanted to reveal her presence to this- what did he call it? A robot?- and say she knew the feeling of being taken for granted, but she had no way of knowing how he'd react, nor did she know how strong it was. If it took her to be a threat, she'd only have her physical strength to aid her.

She was startled out of her thoughts when he turned away from the large blue flowers and began walking towards yet another location that looked like several metal boxes with gold cylinders on them. Several of the gold cylinders seemed to be losing their contents, some of which turned to snow and fell to the already-white surface. Perhaps it is holding water? Wait, no...it would be ice if it was water...so then, those cylinders are air tanks?

“Stupid frigging asteroids and stupid 'team' mates and...” He tried pressing his metal claws against a flat surface that had several colors on it forming a picture and what she assumed was a language and got a message that clearly displeased him. “DAMNIT!” He turned back toward his team mates, who had taken several smaller objects and seemed to now be controlling them and driving them around the other structures in a circle.

“YAAAY! I WON!” Green yelled.

“No you did not, it was my row-bot!” Blue corrected.

“No no no, eet wuz mine!” Red argued.

“No, we all lost THE GAME!” Purple declared.

“The Game sucks!” Green declared. “No one plays The Game anymore but you!”

“The Game is greater than John Madden and greater than Chuck Norris!”

Who is this Chuck Norris and John Madden? Nightmare moon wondered.

White waddled up to the arguing 'team' and informed them he needed help repairing the oxygen tanks, and he also needed a robot for himself.

“No! It Is mah row-bot! You can't have mah row-bot!” Green said.

“If we don't work together to fix this problem, not only will the observation station crew suffocate, so will we!” White warned them, his claws clenched into fists.

“We can go into Cryo sleep and the computer can fly us back to base.”

“Yeah? And what happens when NASA 2 finds out that you goofed off and let their employees die in a project that is costing us billions of dollars? I don't think them firing you will be the least of your worries then!”

“....”

“....”

“....”

“Well?”

“Robots, to the oxygen tanks!”