//------------------------------//
// The Edge of Destruction 
// Story: Ruler of Everything 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

Scootaloo blinked. It didn't help her to see in any way, but hey.
She could blink.
Could she do anything else? Well, that was the million-bit question, wasn't it? She coughed. Good start, but not quite what she was going for. She wiggled her neck. Good, going in the right direction. She grunted and shifted her forelegs, pushing away some of the rubble. Distinct pain, but not broken. She tried to move her wings. “SWEET MOTHERBUCK!” she shrieked, lashing out with her forelegs, sending rubble flying.
Light sliced her eyes, making them water. She looked down, squeezing her eyes tight, her head spinning with the pain. “—taloo, Scootaloo!”
The orange mare let out a faint wheeze of acknowledgement. One eye inched barely open. Deep amber eyes stared back. “Can you move?” Dinky asked urgently.
“Thanks for asking if I’m alright,” the pegasus snapped.
“You just fell off the top of a tower, of course you aren’t alright,” Dinky shot back. “The only reason any of us are still alive was because Sweetie managed to cast a shield to break our fall.”
“You’re welcome,” Sweetie added with a grin that quickly turned into a wince as she rubbed a hoof across her horn. “Ow, by the way. I think I overdid it, this isn’t gonna do more than light up for awhile.”
Scootaloo glanced around. “Where are we?”
The chamber was dimly lit by a ragged hole in the ceiling. There wasn’t much to see, honestly, just rock and dust and rubble. The five other Crusaders, from what she could see, all looked pretty beat up to varying degrees, with cuts and scrapes and sore spots to rival even the worst excesses of the Crusade at its height. “Ah think we hit a weak patch,” Apple Bloom supplied. “Broke through into th’ tunnels again.” She glanced at Dinky. “Your doin’?”
Dinky looked up at the hole. “Could be," she said absently. "Fear seemed to work just as well as anger for manipulating the Matrix.” She kept staring up, apparently lost in thought.
Scootaloo struggled to rise from the rubble, but a shot of pain made her flinch and let loose with another torrent of profanity. Button flinched, and he and Apple Bloom stared up skittishly at the hole above. Rumble took a step forward. “Are you alright?”
Scootaloo stared at him, blinked slowly, like a lizard. “Fine,” she enunciated drily. “Can't move my back legs, probably broke a wing, but yeah, I’m great.”
Rumble rolled his eyes and trotted forward. Slowly, he started to shift the rubble off the other pegasus. “Can you feel your legs?”
“I can feel that they hurt like a gelding.”
Rumble nodded. “Well, okay. That's a step in the right direction.” He paused in his excavation as a little bit of orange was suddenly revealed under the dirt. “Dinky, I think this calls for a more careful removal.”
The lilac unicorn snorted, snapping to attention. “Yeah, fine,” she replied, her eyes still a little glazed. However, she did start to slowly levitate away the debris from Scootaloo’s legs.
Rumble winced as more of the mare came into view. “Legs aren't meant to look like that.”
“Oh sweet Sisters,” Scootaloo whispered. “Rut me sideways with a storm front.”
Everypony stared. It was like watching a train wreck, or a burning building; so utterly horrific that it wraps back around into being fascinating. Button started to say something, but his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell over, unconscious. Sweetie Belle caught him before he hit ground and cradled his head in her hooves. Her eyes, however, never left Scootaloo.
“Okay,” Rumble said carefully. “I'll be honest—”
“Thought we established that you weren't,” Scootaloo joked. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
“—I don't know much about medicine,” Rumble continued. “But I think we need to get the bones in your legs realigned, and then wrapped up tight so they can heal.”
“Wrapped with what?” Scootaloo asked, desperate. “Aligned how?”
Rumble sighed. “Dinky?”
The unicorn frowned. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh. Okay. Um. Scootaloo, this is gonna hurt a little.”
“What are you doing?” the mare asked, voice rising in pitch as Dinky’s horn lit. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Rumble sat down next to the other pegasus and proffered a hoof. “Squeeze,” he ordered. “Actually, have we got anything for her to bite down on?”
“Oh! Uh…” Apple Bloom dug into her mane and pulled out a thick wooden dowel. The top of her braid fell apart “Reckon this'll do?” she asked, tossing the piece to Rumble.
He caught it and held it up to the light. “Yeah. Scoots, say ‘ah,’ okay?”
“Ah?” Scootaloo asked, incredulous. Rumble quickly shoved the dowel sideways into her mouth. 
“Okay,” he said, insinuating one of his forehooves into Scootaloo’s. “Dinky, go.”
The lilac unicorn took a deep breath and focused on her friend’s back legs. They lit with a yellow-gold glow. “Mph,” Scootaloo grunted. Then her eyes went wide. “Mmmph! Nnnrf! Nowowow!”
Rumble winced as his friend squeezed his hoof like a vise, but didn't cry out. “‘S alright,” he muttered. “Hold on a little longer, Scootaloo. Just a little more… see, that's one leg done already, halfway there. Just keep it up. You're gonna be okay, I promise.”
After a few more minutes, Dinky stepped back, letting her aura fade. “There,” she muttered, ashen. “That's the best I can do.”
Rumble nodded. Scootaloo made no move to let go of his hoof. He reached up awkwardly with his other hoof and gently prised open her jaws. Her upper teeth came out of the wooden rod with a dry, painful sound. Rumble wiggled the stick, and gingerly pulled it out. The tooth marks nearly met in the middle of the half-inch-thick rod.
“Rumble,” Scootaloo said. “As soon as I'm better, I swear to Celestia I'm going to kick your plot to Bactria and back.”
Rumble smiled sadly. “Oh, Scootaloo. Don't you know none of us are going to live that long?” 
“Ignore him,” Apple Bloom said tersely. “We’ll get outta this, one way or another.” She didn't look up from where she was rifling through the rubble. “We gotta find a way t’ build a good splint. Somethin’ to support the legs, an’ somethin’ to wrap around ‘em, not t' mention th' wing...”
“What, you don't have any duct tape or whatever on you?” Sweetie asked, helping Button sit up again.
Bloom grunted. “No” she admitted. “Used th’ last of it last week, an’ Ah never got ‘round t’ buyin’ more.”
Button, who had roused from his brief faint, sat up slightly. “Um,” he said thoughtfully, reaching for his bag.
“I could hold it in place with magic,” Dinky suggested.
Scootaloo flinched. “Can we think of literally any other option please?”
Button pulled a few controllers and cartridges out of his bag, examining each and setting them aside while the other hemmed and hawed.
“It's fine, guys, I can just sit here…” Scootaloo protested.
“Uh-huh, sitting here alone and hurt in a labyrinth known to contain deadly monsters,” Dinky shot back. “Meanwhile, the rest of us face down that— that thing without you? I think not.”
“Ah!” Button said happily, pulling out a roll of bandages. “Knew they were in here somewhere.”
“Whoa,” Sweetie said, raising her brows. “Nice one, Button.”
He grinned. “Thanks. That lady who patched up my bruise on the train gave ‘em to me. I dunno how they go on, though.”
“Give it,” Rumble said. “Thunderlane taught me first aid pretty quick after I started hanging out with you guys, and I learned a lot more in college.”
Button tossed the roll over. Rumble caught it and paused. “Still gonna need something to keep the legs straight.”
“Um…” Button bit his lip. “Well… I guess there’s one thing.” He pulled out two of his mechanical boots.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Scootaloo said, her eyebrows shooting up. “I thought you said these took years for you to build! Aren’t they basically priceless?”
Button shook his head. “You’re more important than any silly games,” he said firmly. “Put them on.”
When nopony else seemed willing to make a move, Dinky levitated the boots over onto Scootaloo’s hind legs and tightened them up. The others watched in silence as Rumble carefully inspected her wing. "Not broken," he said, sitting back. "The one on the left is definitely in bad shape, but I don't think it's anything too terrible."
Scootaloo let out a breath. “Give it to me straight, Doc. Will I ever play piano again?”
Rumble frowned at her. “I get that you’re trying to relieve the tension, but that joke has literally never been funny.”
“Oof. Are we sure you aren’t Honesty?”
“Well, you definitely aren’t Laughter,” Rumble said firmly. “Can you get up?”
Scootaloo’s wings buzzed as she struggled to push off with only her forelegs. Rumble guided her off the ground gently, and soon she was hovering a few inches off the ground. “Dunno how long I can keep this up,” she said.
“Sit on my back,” Button suggested. “I can carry you for awhile.”
“Thanks, man.” She buzzed over, and Button knelt to help her on.
Sweetie Belle let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Okay. So, um… where exactly do we go from here?”
Everypony glanced at Dinky. She took a step back. “I -- no, I mean -- what are you all looking at me for?” She looked down. “My last genius plan nearly got us all killed.”
Rumble licked his lips, which were growing dry from all the rock dust. “That’s… true,” he admitted.
“And don’t get me wrong, I think we’re all pretty pissed off that you didn’t tell us what you were thinking before you went in horn blazing,” Scootaloo said, frowning. 
“But it was almost a good plan,” Sweetie said. “I don’t know why it didn’t work.”
“Oh,” said Dinky. “I do.”
Button tilted his head. “Why, then?”
Dinky looked up. Her eyes were welling with tears. “I’m not good enough,” she said softly.
Nopony knew quite how to respond to that. “Everyone else’s worked fine,” Dinky continued. “Button is cheerful and just being around him makes me happy. Sweetie’s stuck with me like glue even when I was at my worst. Scootaloo gave so much to save the world that one time with the Cyberponies, and I can always count on Rumble to be frank. Apple Bloom, you… you’re always doing so much for other ponies. But Magic? Friendship? Me?” She shook her head. “I must’ve been delusional.”
“Oh… sugarcube…” Apple Bloom said softly. “No. No!”
“What else could it be, then?” Dinky demanded. “All of this is my fault. I brought you here, forced you to come along because I couldn’t bear to let go of you -- any of you. You’re all happy now. At least, you would be if I hadn’t meddled.”
Scootaloo stared at her for a long time. “Wow,” she said. “Looks like controlling the Matrix wasn’t the only thing you inherited from your dad.”
Dinky’s eyes bulged. “Excuse me?”
“Dude. Your self-loathing game is out of control,” Scootaloo said firmly. “Uh, first of all? We chose to come with you to the TARDIS. You didn’t force us to do anything. You took the initiative, we all followed behind. That might’ve been a good choice or a bad one, but it was our choice to make it.”
“Second of all,” Rumble said, “we made that choice for a reason. We don’t want to lose you, either, Dinky. Against all your most self-destructive tendencies, we still choose to count you as our friend, because as it happens, we all think you’re pretty great.”
Dinky blinked. “Uh. Huh.”
“So,” Apple Bloom said. “We’re stuck in this weird fake planet. Our families an’ friends an’ th’ leaders of our nation are still trapped by th’ literal embodiment of evil. They done took th’ TARDIS, which Ah don’t believe we could get into even if we had access to it. So, what Ah reckon we need is a plan. A plan that, yeah, all of us know and agree on ahead of time. Can’t just charge in half-assed like that again. But you got some knowhow and skill in this place, so Ah ain’t gonna let you shut yerself off all over again.”
“We trust you, Dinky,” Button said gently. “Really. And we care about you, too. Did you think that we were lying when we said we’d all still visit each other?”
“...Yeah. Kinda,” Dinky said. “Hard to keep a promise like that.”
“It is,” Button admitted. “But we can make it work. I promise. But first, we need to save the world. What do you say?”
Dinky considered this. After a long pause, she nodded.
Button sagged in relief. “Good. Great. So, team. What do we need to do first?”





The Nightmare stared at the window for a few moments before turning back to its prisoners. Their faces spanned the spectrum of shock, horror, and fury. “Well,” it said. “That was irritating.”
“You… you killed them,” Trixie said, her face pale. “They were hardly more than children, and you killed them.”
Ditzy lunged for the interface, her eyes burning with tears and vengeance. There was a frisson of magic, and she slammed into a wall of golden energy. She slid to the ground, but gazed up at the machine in fury. “I’ll kill you,” she said, her voice shaking as she pushed herself upright. “I’ll take you apart bolt by bolt if I have to, and listen to your screams. Maybe I’ll melt you down and turn you into plumbing, or maybe I’ll just break every part of you that can move and sell you to a museum.” She slammed her hooves into the barrier.
The Doctor, sitting on the steps, shut his eyes in sheerest agony. The Nightmare smiled wickedly. “Roses. Lilies, carnations -- you scatter flowers in my wake, dear Ditzy.”
As the mailmare frowned, confusion briefly overriding fury, the machine looked at the Doctor. “What was it Davros told you, Doctor? “Your children of time, transformed into weapons and murderers,” wasn’t it?”
The Doctor hunched over further.
“Well, never fear, Doctor. You want them to begone from your side, where you can corrupt them no more? So it shall be.”
There was a flash. Ditzy felt the change first, a slow and creeping coldness that spread from her hooves to her head. Cries from behind told her that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were undergoing a similar transformation. That was soon wiped from her mind with the advent of the hunger -- cold and gnawing and all-consuming. Ditzy stood, slowly forced up onto her hind hooves by rebellious joints and twisting, petrifying flesh. Through the same process, her forehooves reached up and covered her eyes.
“You wish to mourn?” the Nightmare asked. “Weep, then, as long as you like.”
The three pegasus statues made no reply. A flick of the Nightmare’s horn, and they were gone. “What was that?” Rarity demanded. “Where did you send them?”
“Merely to stand sentinel. I will brook no further interruptions, and Weeping Angels make for marvelous deterrents. Unicorns next, I think.”
Rarity stuffed her hooves over her mouth. Her horn lit of its own accord, magic drawn out of her by an alien force. Around her, the other unicorns seemed to be faring no better. She felt a tingling in her stomach and began to dissipate.
“Hardly enough power in you to bother with,” the Nightmare said with a sneer. “But I’ll milk you for all you’re worth.”
Rarity felt Spike try to grab her around the barrel, to hold her here, but his claw swept right through her. Then she was gone.
“Then the immortals…”
“Eenope!” Big Macintosh threw herself in front of Twilight as dazzling bolts of gold lashed out at the alicorns and draconocci. All of them vanished, Mac included.
The Nightmare scowled, then shrugged. “So be it.”
Another bolt of golden light struck the sarcophagus. When their eyes had cleared enough to see it, the remaining prisoners saw that the faces of their friends carved bas-relief into the panels, all of them twisted in expressions of terror, fury, pain, or some combination of the above. Twilight and Big Macintosh shared a panel on the righthoof side of the box.
“And the rest.”
Applejack felt sick as she began to fizz away in golden light, and saw Pinkie and Spike in much the same boat. “Hey, hang on! Where’s that leave th’ Doc?” she demanded, looking at the despairing Time Lord, sitting alone on the steps.
The Nightmare grinned grimly. “In Tartarus,” it said simply. And then the world was gone, and Applejack and her remaining friends were floating in a dark void.





The Valeyard groaned. His cheek hurt. It felt as though the bones beneath had been fractured. What in the world had happened?
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
Suddenly everything came back to him -- Romana, the ruined plan, the bone-breaking slap across the face -- and he groaned again, peeking one eye open. “I suppose you think you’re rather clever,” he said.
“Think? Hardly. I know precisely how clever I am, which is rather more clever than you could ever hope to be -- Doctor.”
The Valeyard snarled. “Don’t confuse me with that smug, dancing weakling.”
Romana shrugged lightly. “As you like it. Now tell me, Valeyard -- what precisely are you doing here?”
The Valeyard snorted, incredulous. “You think I would just tell you that?”
Romana shrugged. “I’m not leaving until you do.”
“Then you’ll be waiting for quite some time.”
Romana nodded thoughtfully. “I could, of course, resort to more unpleasant methods of getting the information out of you.”
The Valeyard barely hid a grin. “Psychological torture?”
“What, and risk you getting inside my head? I rather think not.”
The Valeyard was rather less successful at disguising his scowl. Romana arched an eyebrow. “I’m not as overconfident as you appear to think I am. As a matter of fact, I was going to propose this.”
She gestured to an array of shining metal instruments on a tray. “It’s been awhile since I last practiced dentistry, you know. I’m curious to see if I still have the knack.” She selected a long pick with a twist at the end.
The Valeyard barely blinked. “You wouldn’t. You haven’t the stomach for it.”
Romana tilted her head. “Haven’t I? You’re far enough along in the Doctor’s timeline to remember the War. I did far worse in that conflict.”
“You aren’t the same Romana.”
“I have the potential to be.”
The Valeyard snorted and turned away. “Prove it, then.”
Romana regarded him for a long moment, considering. Then she rose and poked her head out of the door. “Starlight? Be a dear and go get a truth potion from Zecora, won’t you?”
The Valeyard chuckled. “Weakness.”
“Strength,” Romana corrected. “I have my moral compass. It would take far more than a pathetic shadow of a Doctor to break it.”
“Your friends are on the edge of death,” the Valeyard said. “Perhaps I left instructions to have them killed if I wasn’t back at a certain time. Perhaps the Nightmare will simply grow bored --”
“The Nightmare, is it?” Romana asked innocently.
The Valeyard froze. “I -- you --”
“And here I thought you were meant to be some kind of lawyer,” Romana said, derision dripping from her voice.
The Valeyard regained his composure and stared at her. “When I gain control of the timeline, you’ll be the first thing I delete.”
Romana arched an eyebrow. “You aren’t in a position to gain control of much of anything at the moment. Have you even noticed where you’re lying?”
The Valeyard glanced at the hoofcuffs chaining him to the bed. “These hadn’t escaped my attention, no.”
Romana sighed. “Look down.”
The Valeyard did so and frowned briefly. “Magic-absorbing stones. Do you honestly think these could hold me? I have the power of a TARDIS on my side, converted to raw magical energy.”
“If you have the TARDIS, why would you need the key to it?”
“Because it’s keeping the last dregs of its reserves from us, locked away inside its heart.”
“So… not the full power of a TARDIS, then?”
“Ninety-five percent, more than enough to raze this building to the ground!”
Romana nodded. “Interesting. Of course, you’d have to burn your way through a not-inconsiderable amount to get through these absorbers. How does your partner feel about you spending your hard-earned power so carelessly? If you have ninety-five percent of a TARDIS’s raw output and still need more, you really must be hoarding it…”
There was a knock at the door. Romana turned, surprised, as Granny poked her head in, her mouth a line. “Things jes’ got a helluva lot more difficult,” she said. “You’d better come back to th’ coma ward.”
“Granny, I’m in the middle of something.”
The Apple matriarch’s eyes narrowed. “Scootaloo’s got two broke legs an’ a wing, all them unicorns are losin’ magic faster’n a scalded cat, an’ half th’ ward got heartrates like they oughta be dead, includin’ all th’ princesses, chaos gods, an’ mah eldest grandbaby. You wanna tell me tradin’ banter with ol’ Junkyard over here is more important than that?”
“...Lead the way.”
The Valeyard’s mouth hung agape as the two mares raced from the room. Slowly, it twisted into a scowl. “I told him to leave them all unharmed!” he growled. “That cretin. When I get out of here…” 
He yanked at his manacled hooves and internally swore at how tight they were. Much as he hated to admit it, Romana had been right. He could hardly countenance burning up a sizable portion of their stolen power for something as trivial as escaping a pair of iron cuffs and a pile of rocks. There had to be another way out.
His eyes fell on the tray of dental instruments Romana had attempted to threaten him with, still lying on his bedside table. They were slim and tough, and the lock was incredibly basic. His lockpicking days were well behind him -- he cursed his previous selves for depending so heavily on that silly little screwdriver -- but perhaps he could manage it, given time.
He just had to reach the tray...
He yanked the chain again. Two-thirds of a meter away. It might as well have been on the moon.