Army of the Eleventh Hour
"It's taking all my strength just to keep this magic dream together, you will have to stop it! I truly wish I did not have to ask this of you!"
Uttering a dreadful cry for help, Equestria's night princess sent another wave of energy up to the very essence of the dream they were all a part of, now. Hoping it would last long enough, she watched the town's residents split up in all directions, doing the best they could to keep the worst of disasters from happening.
All things considered, one could hardly blame them for not being imaginative enough. What their sleeping minds came up with proved to be far beyond anything a single pony could ever have thought of in such a short time. Including Luna herself, that was. Whatever it took to stop the monster of her dreams from escaping, the brave citizens of Ponyville seemed to have an answer for it. And whenever it tried escaping from the dream she kept holding upright, they found some way of driving it back.
Their homemade solutions ranged from all sorts of strange fantasies. Be it a transformed dragon-knight riding a giant, although terribly wall-eyed pegasus, sliding through the sky on a trail of cash money, transforming into some strange kind of bat pony, or momentarily developing giant wings just to form a distraction. The ponies of this town had thought of everything. With the last solution coming only from a filly, no less. Luna would have been more than impressed, wouldn't it for the hard time keeping this entire, imaginary world together already gave her.
And despite all their best hopes and efforts, it wasn't enough. It was never enough, and Luna knew that already. The same lack of strength that once drove her to turn into a nightmarish creature herself had proven the very same point. Luna wasn't strong enough to win this fight, and still refused to accept it. Pure stubbornness and hope, the two emotions she continued to cling to no matter what were the only things keeping her from falling into a pitch-black abyss of uncertainty and doubt.
She didn't even think of that metaphor in a figurative sense, anymore. Because whatever would happen to those brave ponies' minds if she failed; if their shared dream would suddenly collapse into nothingness, caused by her own nightmare's escape...she didn't even want to think of it that way.
But no matter if she wanted this to happen or not, the moment of truth was constantly drawing nearer, no matter the cost. And throughout everything the ponies around her tried or had tried, this unforgiving monster still found a way to push past them, trying to cut itself a way out of its prison. And even the dream's outer layers had been penetrated a good few times, as it was. Luna felt the sweat continually forming on her brow. In order to keep up her concentration, she could hardly even rub it off.
After another hour or so of fighting, Luna opened her eyes, just to see what it was she feared the most. Another, giant crack ran through the sky above this dream version of Ponyville, produced by her nightmare just moments ago. And for once, there wasn't anypony in its vicinity. She could see numerous of ponies already rushing towards the Tantabus. Lead by Rainbow Dash, though none of them would arrive there in time. She prepared for the worst, ready to scream out in terror, knowing how she had doomed those ponies to the worst of fates. And just as she did, the night princess got interrupted from quite another, unexpected source, instead.
Behind her, she heard an oaken door being slammed open. This was the one leading into the newly repaired structure of the Golden Oak Library. Only rebuilt in this dream, but still standing tall. Embraced by the light shed around through the inside's illuminating sources, there stood a single pony. A brown earth pony stallion to be exact. He wore nothing but a white collar, distracting from his terribly disheveled, dark-brownish mane. A number of colorful ties were loosely dangling from his neck. Luna wouldn't have thought very much of this stallion, hadn't it been for the strange sense of confidence radiating from him. Especially in this troubled moment, she felt more than surprised to recognize anything of the sort.
"Excuse me," he told her in a Trottingham accent. "I might have taken a minute just to consider my fashion choices."
As soon as he said so, the stallion came galloping out of the library building, calling out at the top of his lungs: "Oi, who told you that you could leave? I didn't say you could leave!" And for some reason, his strategy worked. Just as it was about to slip away from the dream, the Tantabus suddenly hesitated. Being the only pony around who wasn't taken fully by surprise, the stallion added, "this is a fully established, civilized planet. And you're gonna put it to it's doom...what? Did you think nopony was watching? Tee-hee. Back here, now!"
Despite all rationality and reason, the shadow didn't proceed its way to the outside world any further. Instead, it turned around, and slowly came hovering down to this strange pony. Without thinking, Luna produced an elicit gasp, staring at both contestants in disbelief, as only one question shot through her head: Who in the world was this pony?
The stallion with the hourglass cutie mark never showed any sign of nervousness or uncertainty. All the way through its descent, he kept watching the shadow sternly, patiently waiting for the moment at which it hovered less than a few inches in front of his muzzle.
"Alright, you lot. Now tell me: Why did you plan on doing to this world?" he asked, no less threatening than his face already was. "And before you answer, consider this: Is this world even a threat to your people? Or how about this: Are the residents of this world guilty of any crimes defined by your people?"
A moment of silence endured, through which Luna's nightmare didn't audibly respond. Which, for once, didn't surprise her. If the Tantabus was able to talk, she would probably know that by now. And yet, the stallion seemed to carefully listen to it, as communicating in some sort of language that no-one else was able to comprehend.
"Important," the brown pony suddenly burst out. "What's that mean, important? There's millions above millions of innocent, yet intelligent lives here on this planet, stretching across all kinds of different species. Is that important? I think we both know the answer to that. But let me ask you another question: Would you consider this world that easy to annihilate in the first place? What do you think, is it protected?"
And this time, a small crowd already gathered around the two, everyone incredulously staring at the scene. Also, they did in fact visualize some kind of weak response from the shadow creature, now. Barely visible, but present nonetheless, a number of scenes started flashing through its dark being. Scenes of things that had happened in this town and its country's past. Emerging from the dark background they could see a brief moment of Nightmare Moon's initial banishment, followed by an excerpt of her reformation over a thousand years later. Then the image of Discord materialized on the Tantabus. Discord, turned to stone solely by the powers of Equestrian harmony twice.
A sequence of King Sombra flashed through the creatures mind, blown to smithereens by the very ponies it was facing right now. Queen Chrysalis, and her entire changeling army, sailing away from the city of Canterlot by an impact that would knock any intruder off their hooves.
Tirek, turned to a small, meaningless version of his former self by said powers; Sunset Shimmer, blasted into a crater than spun more than thirty feet across...the list went on. And even though this nightmare didn't have any facial features, everypony could feel its fear and intimidation grow with every passing moment.
And the same went for the vicious smirk that now appeared on the stallion's face.
"Why, hello. I'm the Doctor" he said, his voice hardly above a whisper, though no less sinister towards his opponent. "Basically...run!"
The mere power of this pony's words was sufficient to frighten this awful creature more than any act of magic or violence could ever have done. As soon as the last syllable crossed the Doctor's mouth, it began to narrow itself, constantly decreasing in size. First slowly, then suddenly beaming with energy, bolts of bright light flashing through its essence. All the while, the townsponies kept looking upon the scene in sheer disbelief, even Luna felt her jaw nearly drop to the floor.
Finally, and with one loud, booming noise, her nightmare imploded, leaving behind nothing but a burnt peace of dirt on the ground. Within a second's passing, it also produced a heavy shockwave hastily rummaging through the town; then, it was gone.
The ponies looked upon the Doctor in a mix of admiration and fear. This certainly wasn't the kind of attitude anyone around here would have expected from one of their own. They quickly recovered from the shock, each of them having found some kind of immovable object to cling to in the right moment, luckily. Through their split-second of distraction, however, none of them ever noticed the one pony that didn't.
Nopony noticed. Nopony but the Doctor. Because at that very moment, when all the town erupted into a united, humongous cheer, his eyes were turned to the sky, widened in horror. They fixated themselves on the spot, where the last cut that connected the dream world to the outside had just vanished from sight. Moments after a white-coated earth pony mare with a red mane had been gripped by the impact, and blown into the vast nothingness that lay beyond.
Her cutie mark had been a rose. As was her name.
"NO!" the stallion yelled at the top of his lungs, as he broke into the fastest gallop anypony of his stature could manage. He ran past all of Ponyville's important landmarks, even those that didn't exist in the real world anymore. None of which he even spared a glance. His hooves quickly carried him on, through cobbled streets and dirt roads, past buildings, libraries, boutiques, even cottages. He didn't mind any of them, and didn't stop until he reached the final border containing this dream world. Here, the dome that projected the night sky's starlight onto the scenery effectively met with the ground, creating an impenetrable wall for anyone who tried to push through.
As soon as the Doctor arrived at that outermost border, he rose up on his hindlegs, slowly raising his forehooves until they touched the dark purple wall in front of him. He then turned his head to one side, and started pressing one ear to the wall, desperately staring along the spherical structure with wet, vacant eyes. He never said a word the entire time.
A few others actually managed to follow him all the way, and now stood looking on from several yards away. Needless to say, this pony's behavior didn't make any sense to them. They easily shrugged him off as some kind of madpony, an assumption that wasn't entirely off after the show he just put on. The group of ponies waited for another minute or two, hoping he would loosen from his fixed upright position. But he didn't. Throughout all those precious minutes, he kept standing there, his head and hooves pushing against a border that would never give in again, no matter how hard he tried. And still, nopony seemed to mind his struggle. They eventually turned their backs, then started moving back towards the town center. Judging from the noises, Pinkie Pie had already started throwing them a survival party.
Only for that single pony, there was nothing to celebrate. He kept his hopeless stance for what felt like an eternity, thinking about nothing but his own, ultimate failure. Sure, he had defeated that horrible nightmare creature. And sure, he did save the planet for the millionth time or so, but at what cost?
Roseluck, or Rose, the one mare he had promised to protect if only she'd come along and travel the world by his side, was gone. Her mind doomed to wander through an everlasting, blank space of emptiness. He didn't even consider the option of her waking up again in the real Equestria because he knew she wouldn't. The very essence of her soul was no longer with her, floating around somewhere in a place he couldn't follow. All he could do was keep standing here, pointlessly hoping to get through to her. And he never did.
Finally, just before the dream itself came to a close due to the approaching daylight of dawn, he turned and walked away. His head hung low, the Doctor admitted his defeat through stinging pain and tears. It would take a long time for himself to recover from the loss he just experienced, and the wound torn open by a nagging sense of guilt may never heal again.
He knew exactly that all of this was true, and yet he still wished it wasn't.
