//------------------------------//
// Battlefield 
// Story: Ruler of Everything 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

“I have a proposal for you,” the Valeyard said. “I know that Dinky is still holding a fragment of the TARDIS’s heart within her -- a small one, but vital nonetheless. I need that piece. Understand this; I will get that fragment one way or the other, but I would prefer it be given willingly. It would be much easier to reintegrate into the whole that way. Who knows, you might even survive the removal process if you cooperate.”
“Not fucking likely,” Dinky growled.
“Language,” the Valeyard said shortly. “Here is the situation. Ponyville is on fire, and trapped in a bubble of time which I did not erect and cannot remove. It is likely to burn down totally, and all its residents will asphyxiate. Additionally, you can see that I have recaptured every last one of my former prisoners in separate bubbles of time -- I believe that at this point, you are familiar with the concept?”
The Crusaders all nodded grudgingly.
“Good. Surrender the last piece of the TARDIS’s power, and I’ll release them. I’ll even be generous enough to extinguish the fires in your pathetic little town, and then I’ll leave you all to your temporal prison for the rest of your lives. I imagine they won’t be long lives, but considering the plans I have for the rest of the universe, you may consider that a mercy.”
“And if we don’t surrender?” Button asked warily.
“Then Ponyville burns and I force you to watch your loved ones die in agony before killing you all. Once I’ve done that, I’ll do it again, and again, and again, trapping you in a loop for all eternity. Each new loop will feel like the first, and your minds and souls will never know rest.”
This announcement was met with stunned silence. The Valeyard smiled at them, and a trickle of blood ran through his teeth and down his lip. “You have fifteen minutes to make your decision.”
The connection cut out, leaving the room silent but for the echoing ring of the dial tone.





The Doctor pushed himself up from the ground, his head spinning. “What do we do?” he asked, looking at the others. “What can we do? He’s already regenerated. He’s already taken over!”
He slumped against a wall. “He’s won already,” he said gloomily.
“Nonsense,” River said brusquely. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
“Only because the Matrix hasn’t caught up to reality yet,” the Doctor snapped back. “Once it has, we’ll all be gone, retroactively erased from time starting from my regeneration.”
River shrugged. “Well, then what have you got to lose by trying? If the alternative is certain death, followed by the Valeyard and the Nightmare gaining unfettered control over time and space…”
“I’m not saying I don’t want to do anything,” the Doctor said. “I’m just saying I don’t know what I can do!”
“Well,” said Rainbows, arching an eyebrow. “Let’s take stock. No TARDIS.”
“No screwdriver,” Eyebrows continued.
“No place to run, no place to hide,” Bow Tie agreed, giving a giddy spin in place.
“No hope,” River said. “Not even a body to call your own. It’s your darkest hour, Doctor, one juvenile delinquent from a dead world against insurmountable odds.”
“In short,” Rainbows said. “It’s where we thrive.”
A hint of a grin traced the Doctor’s face, and he looked up at the sky. “But I’ve never won when I’ve been alone like this,” he whispered.
“Alone?” Bow Tie asked, affronted. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t count,” the Doctor retorted. “You know what they say about talking to yourself.”
River cleared her throat.
The Doctor glanced at her. “I hardly even know you,” he protested. He paused. “Although…”
“Although…” River prompted.
He shook his head. “No, it’d never work properly. My mind and yours would overpower his, but not by nearly enough to seriously inconvenience him in a psychic battle, not if he’s allied his mind with the Nightmare.”
“So we need more minds,” River said.
“That shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” she continued as Benny.
The Doctor shook his head. “No, switching through bodies like that wouldn’t do it, though it might help to confuse it somewhat.”
“That’s not really what we meant,” Daring said.
“Look down,” River suggested.
The Doctor did, frowning. His eyes went wide as he registered all three mares standing before him. “You can -- how long -- why --” he gabbled, before pausing and smacking himself in the forehead. “Of course. If there were multiple companions in the ruins…”
“Then why shouldn’t there be more than one of us?” Benny concluded. “Well, exactly. We just didn’t want to overwhelm you right at the start.”
“You seemed a little, uh… fragile,” Daring said. “And you didn’t get better. So we just didn’t mention it.”
“But this seemed like the opportune moment,” River said.
The Doctor nodded slowly. “Alright. Okay. Me and the about… twenty-some companions I’ve had whose fates don’t still haunt me, against the Valeyard-Nightmare hybrid --”
“Hybrid?” Eyebrows snapped, glancing around. Rainbows patted them on the shoulder and shook her head sadly.
“-- I still don’t think that’s going to be enough.”
“True,” River said.
“On the other hand, you do have more than twenty-odd companions,” Benny added. “Hint, hint.”
“Yes, but apparently they all want to kill me,” the Doctor pointed out.
“Doctor,” Daring said, exasperated. “All of this is just --”
“Just a reflection of my mind, I know! I know. You’re going to say that I’ve got to forgive myself and heal and they’ll all rally ‘round me and help save the day.”
“Good. That saves some time,” Daring said, satisfied.
“But I can’t!” the Doctor said, turning away. “It's not that simple! I can’t just flip a switch and forgive myself, not even after all this time. I’ve lost so much, so many friends.” He bowed his head. “Maybe it would have been better if they’d never met me.”
“Oh for the love of --” Benny turned to the other Doctors. “I don’t suppose you can get through to him?”
She was met with three blank stares.
Daring ran a hoof down her face. “Perfect,” she said. “Four of them, and not one who hasn’t been repressing their emotions since the day they regenerated.”
“Alright, alright,” Eyebrows said gruffly, stepping forward. “I may as well try. At least we understand what he’s going through. We all have a duty of care, you see. When someone’s traveling with us, they’re our responsibility. There have been times… many times… when we haven’t fulfilled that responsibility. Times when we’ve let our friends down.”
“They’re brave and clever and kind and so, so wonderful,” Rainbows picked up. “They always wander off and try to do the right thing. Sometimes that means they get hurt.”
“But,” said Bowtie, “if you think about people like that -- loyal and generous and brilliant -- do they strike you as the kind of people to hold a grudge?”
There was a long pause. “No,” said Rainbows, sounding rather surprised. “They don’t, actually. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t really know where we were goin’ with this, but that was a good point.”
Bowtie beamed.
“They wouldn’t want you to destroy yourself like this,” Eyebrows said gently. “Just… do it for them, if no one else.”
The silence stretched on for several painful moments.
“... Alright,” said the Doctor. “I can… I can try to make things better.”
“Well, it’s about bloody time, too!” Donna Noble said.
The Doctor looked around, startled, as his best friend stormed up to him and looked him square in the eye. “One day, Doctor. One day, we’re gonna find each other again, an’ there’s gonna be a reckoning for what you did to my brain.”
The Doctor shrunk back, and Donna softened. “But not today, spaceman.” She sat down and hugged him, and over her shoulder the Doctor could see a sea of his very best friends spread out across an open plain. “Not today.”
And slowly, not quite sure of himself at first, the Doctor hugged Donna back.





“There’s no way he’s gonna keep his word if we do what he says,” Scootaloo said, pacing the console room. “He’ll take what he wants and kill us all.”
“But he’s definitely gonna keep his word if we don’t surrender,” Apple Bloom argued. “Even if we put aside th’ ‘eternal torture’ part, do we want that on our consciences?”
“The outcome’s the same whether we give up or not,” Scootaloo said. “This way, we get to live a little longer.”
“Sure, an’ watch every creature we care about burn,” Bloom retorted. “Call that livin’? Anyway, at least if we surrender, we’ll have a moral victory.”
“Yeah, sure, that’ll be a comfort when we’re trapped in an endless loop of death,” Scootaloo snapped. "We're suffering forever, but at least we weren't sore losers."
“I’m with Bloom,” Rumble said. “It’s the honorable way out, if nothing else.”
“I don’t know,” Button said. “It’s weird that he’d make this offer if he wasn’t desperate to get that last bit of Artron energy. I think we might have more of a bargaining chip that we realize.”
“Maybe,” Bloom countered. “But how much better of a deal are ya hopin’ t’ get? He’s got all of Ponyville on offer.”
“And if we give in, he’ll get the rest of the universe!” Sweetie Belle countered. “Think about all your family that lives outside of Ponyville, Bloom -- even if the Valeyard keeps his word, all of them are dead.”
“You think Ah don’t know that?” Bloom snapped. “They’ll be dead anyhow! One way or another, that thing’s gonna drink up all the TARDIS’s power again and break out. They’re dead either way. Ponyville’s probably still doomed if we surrender now, but it’s definitely doomed if we don’t!”
Dinky was cradling her head in her hooves. She didn’t know what to do. Worse, she was starting to worry that the Zero Room hadn’t done its job properly. Every time she blinked, brilliant colors flashed behind her eyes, dazzling and dizzying her as the argument raged on.





The Doctor moved through the swarm of his former companions, trying to make eye contact with each of them as he passed. The responses ranged from huge grins to small smiles to slight nods, but none of them seemed particularly unhappy to see him. Or, if he was being totally honest with himself, at all unhappy to see him. In fact, most of them looked practically pleased.
To be honest, he found that a little unnerving. After so many years imagining what a reunion with his old friends would be like, full of regrets and recriminations, this felt altogether uncanny.
He looked around again. Ace grinned back, her eyes sparkling with mischievous delight. Rose smiled broadly at him, her tongue poking out between her teeth in that same old way that had always made him go a little weak at the knees. Liz even gave him a sidelong smile and a slight nod.
He smiled back. Uncanny it might be, but certainly not unwelcome. He continued to the center of the crowd. “Right!” he said, projecting so that everyone could hear him. “This isn’t going to be an easy fight. The Nightmare is an incredibly powerful psychic force, and it stands an inimical force to everything we hold dear.”
He paused to let that sink in. “But as a great man once said, “There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must --””
“Would ye stop quotin’ yerself an’ just get on with it?” Jamie heckled from somewhere off in the distance. 
A ripple of laughter spread through the crowd, and the Doctor had to suppress his grin. “Alright, alright,” he said, waving a hoof. “Be serious. I know you, and all of you know me. We’ve stood together so often in the past, sometimes against foes even greater than this. Now, united by the Matrix, I’m asking all of you to stand and fight at my side once more. If this is my last stand, I aim to make it a good one.”
He looked around the crowd once more. “I certainly can’t imagine one better than this,” he said softly.
There was a little scattered applause at that, a few distant whoops and cheers.
The Doctor turned to the east, where golden light was beginning to shine on the horizon. The regeneration was beginning to catch up with him. “The Nightmare and the Valeyard have coalesced now,” he said, talking faster. “That’s bad, partly because… well, it’s just bad, and partly because they’ll have combined their psychic defenses. But, it’s also good because the Nightmare is a parasite, feeding off the Valeyard, taking on his persona, his traits, his weaknesses. He’s cut himself off from his past entirely, because it all hurt too much.”
The Doctor paused, suddenly realizing how close to the Valeyard he’d become, all without even needing to regenerate. He cleared his throat. “With that in mind… how about giving him a few refreshers, eh? Concentrate on your travels in the TARDIS. Remember the good, the bad, the ugly. Bring it all in, every last drop. C’mon! You’re part of the Matrix, the most advanced computer system the universe has ever seen. Dredge up those memories.”
He looked around. Every face he saw was focused, brows furrowed in concentration. Some were laughing to themselves; others, quietly weeping. The Doctor nodded and looked up. “Alright, Valeyard,” he said with a snarl. “Contact.”





The Valeyard was draining the energy from the TARDIS bit by bit. He was really building up steam now -- the TARDIS’s strength was sapped, and she was devoting all of her remaining power to keeping her occupants alive. Stupid, sentimental box. It had spent far too much time around the lesser species. The Valeyard could almost call this a mercy killing.
Then his head jerked back and he fell to the ground, his body spasming as electricity shot from his joints. Information was pouring into his brain -- memories long repressed now boiling to the surface, emotions that had been buried rising from the grave. He began to foam at the mouth, bloody spittle staining his coat. At long last, he began to scream as the feelings started to overwhelm his brain. The TARDIS long forgotten in the face of this onslaught, the Valeyard dragged his biomechanical nightmare of a body away, not to or from anywhere in particular, only away from the sudden overwhelming sentiment that burned his brain.
Somehow, another mind had latched onto his. No, many minds, connecting through a single channel. Through the growing haze, the Valeyard could pick out flashes of identity, perspectives in the message that identified their originators. Prince Blueblood, Fenella Wibbsey, Jack Harkness, Sharon Davies, Jo Grant, Applejack, the list went on and on. Companions, one and all.
The Valeyard sneered, his lip twisting unpleasantly around one of the metal poles that had stabbed through it. “Damn him,” he snarled. “Very well, Doctor; two can play at this game. Contact.”





The Doctor stumbled a little as the Valeyard connected with his mind, but he recovered quickly. “Get out of my head,” he said flatly. “Get out of my body, get out of my life. This isn’t your time, Valeyard, and I swear it never will be again!”
“Hello to you too,” the Valeyard retorted. The Doctor was pleased to note how strained it sounded. “You’ll have to pardon me if I’m not up to banter at the moment. Some fool’s just started addling my brain.”
“I’ll do worse than that if you don’t give me back my body. Now.”
“Believe me -- you wouldn’t want it in the state it’s in,” the Valeyard returned. “I didn’t call to negotiate, Doctor.”
“Good. I’m not asking you to negotiate, I’m demanding your surrender,” the Doctor snarled.
“This is a simple courtesy call,” the Valeyard continued. The Doctor got a brief sense of vertigo as the Valeyard looked up at his prisoners in their golden bubbles of time. “I’m giving you the opportunity to say goodbye, Doctor.”
The Doctor’s hearts sank like lead. “What? No. No!”
“No?” the Valeyard asked innocently. “No parting words, then? Probably for the best -- let’s make this a clean break for you.”
The bubbles started to glow. Inside, time began to speed up. The Valeyard laughed. “And here I thought that accelerated aging wouldn’t come in handy!”





It was difficult to understand, in the first few seconds -- a few sudden new aches and pains, a swift and steady decline in vision and hearing. “Oh no,” said Flitter. “No, not the other way now. No!”
Flesh wrinkled like raisins in the sun. Manes and coats greyed, spines bent, bones weakened. Spike howled in agony as he kept growing inside his unyielding bubble, until he came to a merciful stop. Rarity wailed in horror at the sight, pounding the sides of her prison until she could no longer stand upright. The alicorns and the draconocci simply expanded, glowing with heat and light and pure energy as the years whistled past.
“Twilight,” Mac said, pushing her rapidly aging face up against the bubble. “If this is mah last chance to say it…” She coughed, her skin sagging and wrinkling on flabby flesh and bent bones. “Twi… Ah…”
And then she was gone. Twilight stared into empty eye sockets as Big Macintosh’s body crumbled to nothing. She choked back a sob as her body convulsed. It convulsed again. She was growing, legs gangling, horn pushing against the inner shell of the time bubble, her mane lighting up with brilliant constellations and cosmic radiation. She was as big as Cadance, Luna, Celestia, bigger, bigger, bigger, until she, like Spike before her, was suffocating inside the little golden sphere.
“I love you too,” she whispered at last, before exploding into a nebula.





The Doctor’s jaw flapped in the wind. The Matrix had fallen silent. All that remained was the ringing in his ears. Slowly, he turned around. The joyful, festive crowd had been transmuted into ash, dust, and bone. There was nothing left of any of them.
Slowly, the Doctor toppled, sinking down to the ground and settling into the dust himself.





Inside the TARDIS all argument had stopped. All six Crusaders stared in mute horror at the dozens of golden bubbles, now empty but for piles of dust, bones, and cosmic matter.
In the long, horrified silence, the phone began to ring once more.
Nopony picked up. The Valeyard appeared on the screens nonetheless. He looked even worse for wear than before, and his eyes glimmered with mad fury. “New deal,” he hissed. “Surrender, and I’ll make it quick.”
And then there was only the dial tone.