Chapter 2

It took a few minutes of searching for the Doctor to notice two things: One, there are no ponies in Ponyville other than him and Derpy, and Two, the TARDIS definitely isn't there.

"How did I get here?" the Doctor screamed to the sky. Without his TARDIS, he had no way of escape, or even figuring out a way of entrance.

The Dream Lord appeared again, and said, "I can only assumed that after I knocked you out, which was very easy, by the way , that I brought you here myself. Of course, that would mean that my transportation is nearby."

"You brought me here in the TARDIS! That's the only way! You were inside of the TARDIS, I was there with you," the Doctor exclaimed, trying desperately to make sense of this crazy mess.

"Wrong again, Doctor!" the Dream Lord said, before zapping behind him, and saying, "Certainly you've noticed that you feel asleep, and that my name is the DREAM Lord. If you're a Time Pony, that must make me a…Dream Pony, don't you think? Besides, you can't be so daft to forget how much teleporting I've been doing; therefore I couldn't possibly need a ship, even one as precious to you as the TARDIS."

"What do you want, Dream Lord?" Derpy finally asked, amazed that the Doctor had never thought to consider that question.

"Isn't it obvious by now?" the Dream Lord asked, facehooving at the silliness that must be occurring in both of these ponies' brains.

"Honestly, I'd have thought you'd figure it out! Oh, but wait, I forgot, the challenge here hasn't come yet. Besides, you're both too stupid to determine my little game, so I might as well tell you."

The Dream Lord vanished for a brief moment, reappearing in a similar, but noticeably different, interpretation of the Doctor's clothes.

"I'd figured since you've done so much explaining, I might as well dress the part."

The Doctor did not approve. The bow tie wasn't even the same color!

"So, here I am, the master of dreams and sleep, and I hate the Doctor, so what do I do?" the Dream Lord asked himself, then disappeared, and reappeared opposite to where he stood before, dressed as a schoolpony, and answered, "Oh, oh, I know, you put him into two deadly situations, and only one is a dream!"

Back in his twisted version of the Doctor's look, he said, "Very good! Gold star worthy in fact, me! That is what I did! So, Doctor," the Dream Lord said, walking inches away from the Doctor's face, "I'd suggest you'd choose, and choose quickly, because I can promise you, this world's a doozy."

"How will I choose? Do I just tell you, or is it something that's an awful gimmick?"

"You die in the dream, you wake up in reality. Now, Derpy, ask me what happens if you die in reality."

Derpy was about to punch the Dream Lord.

"You die, stupid, that's why it's called reality," she said.

"Very good! You know, Derpy, you're not as dumb as you look," he responded, making the good judgment of vanishing right after he made the statement, because Derpy took a very powerful swing at him, so powerful it threw off her balance completely.

Shaking the dirt off of herself, Derpy said to the Doctor, "Should I even ask how you made an enemy of this guy?"

"I can honestly say that I haven't got the faintest idea."

"That's just great," Derpy said, looking around for the danger that the Dream Lord mentioned.

And then she saw it, and, Celestia, it sure was a doozy.

"Zombie ponies!" she yelled, loud enough to alert them to her location.

The Doctor slammed into Derpy as quickly as he could, carrying her off on his back.

"First rule in the zombie apocalypse, Derpy, never, ever make a loud noise when you see them!" the Doctor said, and took a deep breath, "You should also never run, or be completely defenseless."

Derpy sighed, familiar with this theme of theirs of being entirely unable to fight against even the simplest of enemies. She then wondered if she should even bother to try to figure out why there might be a horde of zombie ponies in abandoned Ponyville, until it hit her.

Nobody left. They all died. They're zombies now.

"Well, this is unexpected," Derpy said.

"What, zombies?" the Doctor asked.

"No, that you know the rules about how to deal with them."

"Why wouldn't I know that?"

"The Dream Lord thought you were pretty dumb."

The Doctor came to a dead stop, and said, "The Dream Lord controls dreams, I control time. He has power over manifestations of ideas, and I can stop you from having those ideas. In comparison, the Dream Lord is nothing."

Derpy did not expect the Doctor being so angered by her comment, and had hoped he would do something silly to lighten the situation.

"I'm nothing now? What, did you think I was just a figment of your imagination, or the result of a weird sort of space pollen? Come on now, Doctor, you're just being silly," the Dream Lord boomed from the sky, invisibly.

"One of these days, someone will get rid of the natural need to sleep, and the Dream Lord will be completely useless," the Doctor said prophetically.

"Really, Doctor? Because that would save me so much time, I'm not even kidding," Derpy said, a little bit excited at the idea of never having to sleep. Then she thought of Luna, who was literally banished from Equestria from ponies sleeping during the night, imagine what would've happened if they didn't have to.

"No, probably not, but we can hope!" the Doctor said, crushing Derpy's dreams, although, it would be better worded as Derpy's hopes in this situation.

The Dream Lord wasn't sure if they would do away with the need to sleep, and was terrified at the idea. King of nightmares, of course he would be afraid of the day.

The Doctor then fully realized the weight of his decision: One world, he gets sucked into a black hole, which even he doesn't know the full effects of, and in the other, he gets eaten alive by zombies.

"This just isn't my dream, I suppose," he said.

The Doctor wondered, for just a moment, exactly how a Dream Pony, a race he'd never heard of, could pilot his TARDIS to a black hole, or enter a void dimension to drop him off here.

Then, he realized, they couldn't.

Unfortunately, he forgot his realization.

The Doctor carried Derpy into a small house, and began looking for something they could use to either escape zombified Ponyville, prove that this was the dream world, or, and he despised this option, help them fight off the zombies. Unfortunately, fighting off the zombies would take far too long, and he wouldn't have enough time to set up a failsafe in the other world, in case this was the dream.

It was only then that he realized that sleeping in one world made him wake up in the other.

"Derpy, I'm going to go to sleep now, okay? Board up the windows and barricade the doors, then go to sleep, too. In the other world, you're going to be in the nightlight room, so you'll need to navigate back to the control room in the dark. It shouldn't be too hard, because you probably memorized my instructions and can go through them backwards, right?"

The Doctor noticed that by the end of his explanation, Derpy had already finished barricading the doors and was asleep, and decided that he should probably take a moment to help her out on the last part.

"Well, at least you're a bit ahead of schedule, Derpy," the Doctor said as he fell asleep.