With some thinking, I realized that this world can only be resolved by a bit of Deus ex Machina.
But hey, not everyworld has an Alucard. So I thought about it a bit and set up a little Deus ex Machina in the form of a fanon character who is good for that sort of thing. If you don’t like this, I won’t use him again and I’ll have to think of a new way to avoid this trap with any future worlds like it, but if you do like it perhaps he can show up in a few more worlds.
Let’s see though, shall we. At the very least this may be fun.
…..
Their world had seen many great and horrible disasters in the past.
The Great Flooding that wiped out all mammalian species, allowing the rise of Inklings, Octolings, and every other species that had once lived in the sea.
The First Great Turf War between the Inklings and Octolings over the diminished landmasses.
The brief cancellation of the Squid Sisters program due to Callie losing her voice, which had caused riots.
But this……
Well, the giant advancing wall of doom that had burst out of the Octo Valley was new to everyone, even Capn’ Cuttlefish.
The shriveled old Inkling, hunched over on his green cane, eyed the advancing wall of doom with great frustration. Turning to the octopus tentacle headed figure on his left, he pointed at the wall.
“Are you really out of Great Octoweapon to throw at it?” he questioned. The octopus descendant nodded.
He then turned to his right, where a short little fellow whose shelled head resembled that of his ancestors the Horseshoe Crabs, though they had only gotten to see what a horse was when this barrier arrived “And you can’t think of anyway to destroy that thing with what we have?”
The inventor shook his head “I’ve tried everything I can think of. Everything! From giant Octoweapon mecha….”
…..
A giant metallic Inklingoid colored purple and green, with massive ink blasters on each palm and made up of several distinct types of sphere and cube, was engulfed and destroyed by the advancing barrier, leaving not even ink behind.
….
“….to weaponizing the Zapfish….”
…
A giant laser, outfitted with dozens of glass spheres holding a yellow catfish like creature inside, glowed electric yellow. From the tip of the laser shot out a giant burst of lightning, impacting the barrier to no effect.
Repeated blastings showed that barrages would not fix the problem.
…
“…even calling on every able bodied Inkling and surviving Octoling to attack it still hasn’t yielded results, not that they haven’t stopped trying….”
….
Dozens of the red skinned octopi headed, as well as by those with more squid like hair and colorations, attacked the barrier at will. Blasters, pistols, rifles, buckets, rollers, machine guns, and brushes were all used to fire a seemingly endless rainbow of ink at the barrier.
Even sonic blasts, ink bombs, bazooka attacks, and even ink nukes didn’t phase it.
….
“….They call it, the Last Great Turf War. They refuse to lose it, but even as one giant team…..” the horseshoe crab sighed in depression “At this point, I’m at a loss at what we could possibly do to stop it. Water, Ink, Electricity, it’s immune to everything we’ve got. Octavio gave his life trying to find a way to escape it, but frankly we aren’t from up high. We can’t flee there”
The assembled threesome were then joined by the world’s last remaining natural mammal: a plump black and white cat whose name was Judd. He eyed the barrier with concern, before adding his own two cents in.
“Yes…..the people from back when I was a young Kitten were able to reach the stars with their machines. However, the only places that were purr-fect to launch them are now underwater: trying to launch such a flight would be impossible without demolishing half of Inkopolis. Plus, I don’t recall how they let people breathe in space”.
“Um, is up high underwater then?” the Cap’n asked, not sure what the judge of all non ‘save the world’ turf wars was referring to “is that why the sky is blue?”
Judd looked like he was trying to figure out how to explain that space was a void of nothingness, when a sudden.
Vworp.
The gathered quartet looked around in confusion as to what had just made that sound. Was it from the barrier?
Vworp.
No, it didn’t seem to be.
Vworp
Judd leapt into the air with the startled noise only a cat, to be specific him and him alone these days, could make as a shape began to appear before them, seemingly from nowhere.
A blue shape.
Vworp
It almost resembled……a really primitive phone booth.
As the phone booth opened, the gathered gang of four was not expecting to find a brown one of them looking back at them.
“Pony!” Cap’n shouted the alarm as the now startled Earth Pony found himself having a blaster, a roller, and claws pointed at him thanks to the Octoling, Horseshow Crab, and Cat respectively.
“Whoa whoa whoa….peace!” the horse shouted, though he didn’t seem as worried as one should be when one had a roller pointed at you “Bah Weep Grah Na Weep Ninny Bong!”
They weren’t moved by his strange words.
“Oh, right….wrong world for that one” he muttered to himself, as he smiled at them “Well, I suppose I should try and make this whole thing less……hostile: my name is The Doctor, and I’m here to save your world”.
“We’ve heard that before” Judd hissed at him as the so called Doctor realized his faux pas.
“I probably could have phrased that one better….okay what about I want to help you get rid of the energy barrier that you have no chance of destroying on your own. Is that acceptable?”
The four eyed The Doctor for a few moments, before lowering their weapons and sheathing their claws.
“Excellent!” the Doctor stated with far more enthusiasm than one who was just threatened should “Now, get me 100 Inklings, some Octolings, and the Squid Sisters musical accompaniment. We shall strike the barrier from within!”
“And how do you suppose we’re going to do that?” The Cap’n questioned, gesturing towards the advancing wall of doom “Neither flight nor tunneling can get through it.
The Doctor merely gestured to his transport “Oh, but that’s the simple part my dear Inkling: Time and Space are relative things to my T.A.R.D.I.S”.
….
A strike force with musical accompaniment was procured from the current fighters of the Last Great Turf War, whose name was in fact quite immature as it implied that they were going to lose, in about 10 minutes.
However, by the time this force had been shoved into the T.A.R.D.I.S with as little complaint as possible, they were already in the midst of assaulting the lair of the leader of the attacking Equestrians and winning.
Of course, one could argue that the Unicorn in charge should be much harder to defeat for even a well trained army who fought primarily with paint. After all, one shielding spell and the worst that one could was trip.
But…..
Sparklecoat was a minor Canterlot noble through and through, hence her desire to get more power elsewhere at the expense of those she deemed inferior to herself. She hated mess and stains. A single drop of ink enough would have been enough to make her freak out.
The pure white unicorn getting blasted with half a dozen shots, bombs, and the tail-lend of a ink nuke of various colors to a point her rump could no longer show off her cutie mark beneath the stains and the caked on paint was enough to make her scream and run off in horror.
Her minions, the converted, were just….easily bound by rope and now were going to be a subject of a lot of moral debate of what to do with.
But as the barrier shattered and the Inkling world saved (if forever altered to a point several new Turf War sights would have to be made), the story wasn’t quite done yet.
The crying, terrified Unicorn had ran all the way to the edge of her converted domain, only to find a Earth Pony standing in her way.
A dull, drab, brown Earth Pony.
“Get out of my way! I need water, I need soap!” she shouted.
“No, you need a reality check” the Doctor told her bluntly, before whopping her in the back of the head with his hoof.
….
Coming to, the now bound Unicorn found herself in a strange, mechanical, alien interior….with that horse looking at her with a interrogators gaze.
“Now, tell me this….what is it you were trying to do here? Are you connected to the world I regenerated on, ending up in this four legged form while I was at it, where a similar barrier was being opposed by Avengers instead of Inklings? Who do you work for, and how many worlds are you attacking?”
“Why should I tell some overly independent newfoal of anything?” Sparklecoat demanded in a bratty tone. The Doctor merely rose an equine eyebrow at her defiance, before setting a course to a certain world that should help inspire her to talk…..
….
“EX-TER-MIN-ATE!”
“I’LL TALK, I’ll TALK…JUST SAVE ME FROM THESE THINGS!”
....
At 5 months and 3 weeks, the Inkling were the 32nd world to be freed from the looming threat of the Barriers, with 20 still fighting against it.
But for the Doctor.....well time was hard to really say for him. Who know how many more would follow?