Ruler of Everything

by Sixes_And_Sevens


The Doctor's Daughter

After all the hugging and laughing and tears of joy had subsided, a few explanations were in order. Talking quickly, and interrupting each other often, the Crusaders told their tale. Their audience was a good one— gasping at the scary parts, chuckling at the funny ones. Rarity actually fainted when she heard that Sweetie and Button had faced the beast in the tunnels all on their own. Upon her recovery, the Doctor explained that there had likely been no real danger, just a warning to keep away. “Ol’ Aggedor, he’s just a big ol’ softie,” he said, smiling warmly. “Loves a good lullabye, he does.”
“Nevertheless,” Rarity said, pulling Sweetie Belle over to her side. “I don’t believe I’ll be letting you out of my sight anytime soon, darling. You were very brave, and I’m very proud. Please never do anything like that again.”
Sweetie just smiled knowingly and hugged her sister back. Then, realizing that Button had nopony around to hold at the moment, she beckoned him over and pulled him into the embrace, and then Spike wrapped his long body around all three of them, and there he held them safe and tight.


When Apple Bloom told of the temptations offered to her by the phantasms, Applejack rose to her hooves, her face grave. Macintosh stood behind her. They both trotted slowly over to their little sister, expressions unreadable. Orange hoof fell on yellow shoulder. “Never in my life,” Applejack began quietly.
Bloom squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the tirade. Could have fixed Granny’s hip got the perfect harvest saved ma an’ pa perfect Apple Family forever and ever no more worries ‘bout anything oh Applejack I’m so sorry… 
“Never in my life,” Applejack repeated, her voice deep with emotion, “have Ah been so proud of anypony.” She pulled the unresisting mare into a bear hug. Mac sniffled and threw herself into the fray, pulling her little sisters into a monumental bear hug. Apple Bloom blinked, but after a moment, she returned the embrace, tears pooling in her eyes. “Ah’ve never bin anything but proud of you,” Applejack murmured. “Ah hope y’all know that.”
“...Yeah,” Bloom said. “Yeah, Ah think Ah get it now.”


Rainbow kept one wing wrapped around Scootaloo the whole time, grinning proudly. When Rumble recounted how he’d had to set Scootaloo’s legs, Dash’s wings had tightened around her sister-in-all-but-blood. When Dinky started telling the story of the Weeping Pegasi, Dash’s grip had slackened.
Scootaloo looked up to see Rainbow looking down at her, trepidation in the older mare’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Scootaloo whispered.
Dash arched an eyebrow. “You really gotta ask, Scoot? I nearly killed you down there. If you hadn’t talked me out of it…” she trailed off, sickened even to think it. After a moment, she forced a smile. “It’s just lucky you’re that good, huh?”
Scootaloo looked down for a moment. Then she met Rainbow Dash square in the eye. “I learned from the best,” she said.
Rainbow’s eyes went wide. Then she sniffled. “Scootaloo, if you make me cry right now in front of my friends and the princesses and everypony --”
Scootaloo tilted her head.
“Aw, fuck it,” Rainbow said, pulling Scootaloo up against her barrel like a stuffed toy and holding her tight, burying her face in Scootaloo's mane. This had the added benefit of hiding her tears.


Rumble sat surrounded by his family. Thunderlane held him tight, tucked under one wing, and Flitter sat on the other side of him. Cloudchaser leaned in and muttered, “Hey. Your parents don’t mean shit, you know. You’re part of our family, whether you like it or not.”
Rumble nodded. “I know. It’s a process, healing. Thanks for being there for me while I do it.”
“... Dork.”
Rumble gave a half-chuckle. “In the future, though? Please try not to come after me as ghosts. That would have been the most traumatic shit.”
“If I die again trying to rescue your flank, I will literally hold off on going to Las Pegasus so I can haunt you until your dying day.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Cloudchaser’s face grew stern. “But if you die before me, I swear I’ll kill you.”
Rumble actually laughed at that, and Cloudchaser’s expression melted into a cockeyed grin.


The Doctor stared forlornly at the heap of scrap metal when Dinky told of their final battle against the Valeyard. “Never should’ve built that,” he muttered. “Stupid, stupid Doctor…”
Ditzy lay a hoof around his shoulders lightly. “We all make mistakes,” she said. “Yours just happen to be a little more…”
“Apocalyptic?”
“Yeah.”
The Doctor huffed out a laugh. “Well. S’pose that’s my lesson to be more careful in future. I just wish—”
“No,” Dinky said firmly. “Stop that right now, dad. Blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong is how we got into this mess in the first place. Take it from somepony who learned exactly where her emotional constipation and self-pity was getting her today! So shut up, learn that ponies love you, and be happy.”
The Time Lord blinked, trying to process something. Slowly, he smiled. “You called me dad,” he said happily.
Dinky blinked, nonplussed. “Huh. Yeah, I did. Weird.”
She looked at the Doctor, who was looking suspiciously sappy. “Don’t make a big thing of it, or I’ll stop.”
“Make a big deal of it? Me? Never,” the Doctor said, quickly glancing away.


And then the story was over, and a pall of silence fell over the room. It was Button who eventually broke it. He glanced awkwardly over to Rarity and held out his screwdriver. “I guess you want this back?” he asked sheepishly.
There was a brief moment of shock, and then the room erupted into chaos. The Crusaders all clamored forth, offering the elements back to their original bearers, who were equally adamant that they should stay right where they were. After a few minutes of squabbling, Celestia glanced at Luna and cocked an eyebrow. Her sister nodded her assent. She took a deep breath and roared, “QUIET!”
The Royal Canterlot Voice reverberated off the walls, followed by immediate silence.
Celestia stepped forward. “It would seem,” she said calmly, “the Elements have chosen new bearers. I, for one, would not attempt to argue with them.”
“Indeed not,” Luna said with a snort and a toss of her starry mane. “That’s the sort of thing that gets you thousand-year time-outs.”
The assembled suddenly found themselves casting disturbed looks at the six little devices, as though they might go off at any second.
“Are they even real?” Sweetie asked, holding hers up to the light. It was silver, long and thin, more a baton than a screwdriver. A music note was carefully etched into the metal near the base. “I mean, we’re kind of walking around the Doctor’s brain, right?”
“It’s… well, it’s a little more complex than that,” the Doctor said, scratching the back of his head. “Today’s events are rather unprecedented. I don’t really know how real those screwdrivers of yours are, I’m afraid.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Scootaloo said, examining her screwdriver minutely. It was all brass, and as she pushed on the head, it telescoped in and out. There was a dial at the thickest section for adjusting the frequency, and a wheel-shaped knob for turning the device on.
Everypony looked toward the TARDIS, idling in the corner of the room, still glowing faintly gold. Quietly, without anyone even noticing, the Tomb of Rassilon had faded into darkness, leaving only a few points of illumination like the starry sky.
“Is that how we get back?” Rainbow asked. “Like, I know it goes anywhere and everywhere, but from inside your brain to outside it?”
“Like I said, the Matrix is a little more complicated than that,” the Doctor said. “But yes. The TARDIS represents our ticket back to the real world. All we’ve got to do is step through, most likely.”
“Most likely?” Rarity repeated, raising a brow.
The Doctor hummed. “Yeah, I’d say, eighty, ninety percent on that. Worth a shot, right?”
The TARDIS doors swung open, revealing a bright golden glow. Ditzy put one wing around the Doctor’s withers, and the other around Dinky’s. “Allons-y,” she said, gently guiding them forward. They passed into the light, and


Dinky opened her eyes. “Wha-- is this Ponyville General?” she muttered, sitting up.
“Gee,” said Nurse Redheart. “You put yourself in a coma, fought a nightmare from the dawn of time, and at least one of you broke a couple legs. No, we definitely just left you in the TARDIS.”
“To be fair,” Scootaloo said, rubbing her forehead. “I think my legs are way better now.”
“Same,” Button agreed.
“That’s probably down to the Elements,” Twilight said. “They’re very good at sorting out the minor aches and pains.”
“Indeed,” Rarity agreed. “My tail’s been even more lustrous and rich since the day the Elements regrew it…”
Button looked around suddenly. “My bag,” he said. “Where’s my bag? Is my controller fixed?”
“It was probably never broken,” the Doctor noted. “The Matrix wouldn’t have affected it -- it doesn’t have a mind, after all.”
Button grinned broadly, and Sweetie Belle leaned over from her cot to pat him on the shoulder.
“You know,” Celestia commented, glancing around the room, taking in the way the awakening ponies were sleeping two or more to a bed. “I really don’t think this is standard hospice procedure.”
“Desperate times called for desperate measures,” said Tender Care, shaking out her hooves one by one, getting reaccustomed to the physical realm.
Apple Bloom was looking around frantically, patting down the bedclothes until she found what she was looking for under her pillow. With a whoop of delight, she held aloft her screwdriver, and the red gem on top of it glimmered in the fluorescent lighting of the hospital room.


All of the former coma patients were discharged in short order, after a cursory examination showed that all of their conditions were normal, except for Discord. Their condition came back ‘Weirdo’ every time, despite not being in any way an appropriate medical result, and definitely not having been marked on the thermometer before it went under their tongue.
It took them slightly longer to leave the hospital than it should have, because Pinkie wanted a lollipop for being such a good patient, and then Luna decided that she should have one too. 
In short order, however, all of them were back on the darkened street, most of them with lollipops in their mouths. Granny Smith had joined them, along with Romana, Rarity’s parents, Scootaloo’s aunts, and Berry Punch, all of whom had returned to their normal ages, to Granny’s great disappointment. Dinky looked around. “It seems so… normal,” she said.
Indeed, nopony would ever have guessed that the town had burned down to its foundations last night. Of course, thanks to the Elements, it technically hadn’t. Indeed, because of Luna's incapacitation, it was technically still last night. Some ponies were weeping, others embracing, and some were doing both, but many others only looked confused and disoriented. Several guards seemed to be wandering around aimlessly, shaking their heads at one another and peering down alleyways to look for hidden dangers.
The Doctor nodded, surveying the scene. “I imagine the temporal reversal that the Elements performed to restore Ponyville and destroy the bubble of frozen time resulted in partial memory loss for everypony in town,” he said, shifting his banana-flavored lolly against his cheek. “Since the events of last night were edited out of the time stream, they can’t have happened. The memories are still there, but blurred. Distant. Sort of like the way you remember a story that happened to someone else, there’s a disconnect between everypony here and the events of last night.”
“That seems no bad thing,” Sombra said.
“Rather,” said the Doctor. “I imagine that quite a few ponies in town are going to have some troubled nights for awhile -- sorry, Luna, I’m afraid you’re going to be busy. Hopefully, though, they’ll bounce back quickly and well.”
“And for those of us who are troubled by sharper memories…?” Luna coaxed.
The Doctor sighed. “Yes. You’re quite right.” He looked around. “You’ve all been quite right this entire time, and I haven’t listened. I’m so, so sor--”
He caught Ditzy’s sorrowful eye. He closed his mouth. Reconsidered. After a moment, he tried again, his voice catching slightly as he spoke. “I’m so very grateful indeed to have friends and family as wonderful as all of you.”
Everypony smiled at that. “We’re glad to have you back too, old friend,” Celestia said.
“Though, please, Doctor. For the love of all sanity, get a bucking therapist,” said Cadance, imploring.
“Hear, hear,” Ditzy agreed. “Or at the very least… talk about what’s on your mind? We’re all here for you.”
The Doctor chuckled and nodded. “Yes, I think that would be a good idea. On both counts, actually. But, er, let’s hold off on that until tomorrow.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Dinky said, giving him a mild glare.
“I know you will. For right now, though, there’s one member of our merry crew still up at Sweet Apple Acres. I need to check on the TARDIS. In many ways, she’s been through more than any of the rest of us.”
Ditzy nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll come, too.”
Celestia glanced up at the sky. “We should be heading back to Canterlot,” she said. “Doctor, the time?”
“Oh! Yes, quite. It’s nine-seventeen. AM. Twenty-sixth of May, year 18 of the Harmonic Era.”
Celestia and Luna lit their horns, and night faded quickly into morning.
“Nine-seventeen?” Button asked, alarmed. “My train to Baltimare leaves in less than an hour!”
There was a pause. “Do you want us to wait with you at the station?” Rumble asked.
“... Yeah. Yeah, I’d really like that,” Button said.
The other Crusaders looked around at their respective family members, half-asking permission and half-apologizing for running off now.
Aunt Holiday smiled. “Go,” she said. “We’ll be waiting for you at home.”
And piece by piece, the group divided off, each of them heading for home -- whatever that meant to them.


The train station was quiet. Nopony was out today. The Crusaders had the whole terminal to themselves. They shared two benches across from one another.
Button turned his Element over in his hooves, inspecting it. There wasn’t a join, seam, or screw in it, just a perfectly carved piece of white stone and silver metal, embellished with violet accents. “We should’ve pushed harder for them to take the Elements back,” he said.
“Why do you say that?” Dinky asked, studying her own Element, which was composed of dark wood and brass, topped with a magenta crystal. 
“They’re all established here in Ponyville,” Button said. “Makes more sense to keep them together.”
There was a long silence. “...Ah’m stayin,” Bloom said after a long moment.
The others looked up at her. She looked back. “Ah don’t need to go noplace else,” she said. “Ah don’t need t’ run from mahself no more. Ah’m stayin’.”
“I guess I am too,” Dinky said. “I can do my research and write articles from anywhere. I don’t really feel like leaving.”
Rumble exhaled. “Well, when you put it like that, I guess I don’t, either. Guess I can look into openings on the Weather Patrol here in Ponyville. I wanted to move on so bad, just so I wouldn’t live my whole life here. But now… that sounds really good, actually.”
Sweetie rubbed her chin. “I can probably sing anywhere, too. There are some nightclubs and things in Ponyville that’ll pay well enough for a performer, and I can commute to other gigs…”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo agreed. “Commuting seems like a pretty good idea. There are a few aerial stunt shows pretty close by, I can work with one of them.”
Button considered his screwdriver a moment longer, flipping it over a few times. He was conscious of everypony looking at him. He nodded. “Yeah. I’m staying too,” he said. “Maybe I can sell the controller for a cut of the profits at the show. If I can, great, I’ve got a steady income. If I can’t, well, fine. I’d much rather work on it here with my friends.”
“The fact that our ranks include an engineer, an arcanist, and a mathematician probably doesn’t hurt,” Dinky said.
Button grinned and shook his head. “Well, no. But I’d do it even if you weren’t. The ‘friends’ part is the most important thing. I’ve been so lonely these last couple of years. I was chasing a dream of fame and fortune, because that’s what we’re supposed to want from society. But I want friends. Family. Love.”
Sweetie Belle blushed and glanced down.
“So,” Scootaloo said. “I guess… it’s decided, then.”
Dinky glanced around. “It doesn’t have to be,” she said. “I don’t want any of you to give up your dreams just because the TARDIS’s brain gave us some fancy new gadgets. If you want to go, I don’t want to be responsible for holding you back.”
Everypony glanced at one another. “No,” Scootaloo said. “No. I think we’re good.”
Dinky smiled. “Oh,” she said. “Good.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Group hug?” Sweetie Belle suggested.
Oh. Yes, that would have been a good one, Dinky thought as she fell into a pile of grinning, slightly tearful friends. Oh well. This said more than words could express, anyway.


The Doctor pored over the TARDIS console. Romana had elected to tag along to provide any second opinions that were necessary. Ditzy lingered at the edge of the console’s platform, just watching.
Romana sighed, wiping some grease from her forehead. “Really, Doctor,” she said. “Not all of this can just be the fault of the Nightmare.”
“How do you mean?” the Doctor asked, glancing up.
“I sincerely doubt that the embodiment of corruption and darkness, no matter how desperate it was, would tell you to use a crazy straw and a rubber duck to replace the coolant tubing,” Romana said, holding up the offending parts.
“Ah,” said the Doctor. “You know, I kept meaning to replace that.”
“For how long?” Romana asked, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Well, you know…”
“Before or after I stopped traveling with you?”
“After.”
Romana sighed. “Well, it’s something. Honestly, you could have at least used a turkey baster…”
She set the parts aside. “Right. I’m going to scrounge for parts. Try not to blow anything up while I’m gone.”
“Who, me?” the Doctor asked.
Romana looked at Ditzy despairingly. “Try to keep him in line, won’t you?”
“I do my best,” Ditzy said.
“I know you do.”
And then it was just the Doctor and Ditzy. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. After awhile, though, the Doctor said, “You know, there’s an Earth film that said, ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry.’”
“Is there?” Ditzy asked, confused.
“Yeah. I think that’s rubbish.” The Doctor frowned at the console and pulled out something that looked like a class ring. “Huh. I was wondering where that had got to.”
“Why do you think that?” Ditzy prompted, coming to stand next to him.
“If you never apologize -- if you never see what you’ve done wrong -- what kind of person does that? To me, love is empathy. Love is always having to say that you’re sorry, when you’ve caused somepony pain.”
Ditzy considered this. “Yes,” she agreed. “There’s something to that. But it’s empathy, not self-flagellation. It’s understanding what you’ve done wrong, not punishing yourself for it forever. Love is forgiveness.”
“I’ve done so much wrong in my life,” the Doctor said.
“And you always try to make up for it,” Ditzy said. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m so very sorry that I wasn’t there for you all those years you needed me.”
The Doctor looked flummoxed. “What -- in the Time War? Ditzy, I would never have -- I abandoned you, not -- I -- but --” He looked back down at the console.
Ditzy said nothing. She just looked at him evenly and steadily with those lovely golden eyes. At last, the Doctor, met her eyes again. “Thank you for being here for me now,” he said, blinking back tears.
“That’s the spirit,” Ditzy said, patting him on the back.


Celestia and Luna reconvened at Twilight’s castle, where a few platoons of royal guards were already milling about. “Aunt Celestia! Aunt Luna!” Blueblood called, pushing his way through the throng. “I’m so glad to see you up and about again!”
Celestia smiled at him. “Your concern is appreciated.”
“Yes, yes, lovely, now can we please go back to Canterlot so I can stop being the ruler of all Equestria?” Blueblood asked. “One more minute holding court, and I swear I’ll just disband the nobility and be done with it.”
Luna simply arched an eyebrow at him.
“Well…” Blueblood hedged. “Alright, no more than half of the noble houses.”
“What young revolutionaries the Night Court makes,” Luna said, shaking her head in amusement. “Where are Fleur and Fancy? I doubt you came here alone.”
Blueblood glanced around. “I believe Fleur’s dragged her husband off to some dark room of the castle, either to snog him senseless or lecture him about being foolish enough to get killed by a burning building. Possibly both. Starlight Glimmer and the Griffonstani Ambassador are being debriefed at the moment, so I believe that you’re simply stuck with me.”
He paused. “Now, can we please go back to Canterlot? I wasn’t joking about the not wanting to be crown prince thing.”
Celestia put a hoof to her chin. “Well,” she said. “We could. On the other hoof, it’s been so very long since Luna and I have had a vacation…”
Blueblood looked singularly unimpressed. “I’m not going to stop you from taking a holiday, but if you don’t remove me from the seat of power posthaste, I can and will start disestablishing the noble houses of petitioners who annoy me.”
“Don't threaten us with a good time, nephew,” Luna said.
“We have a list of ones to start with,” Celestia added.
Blueblood pursed his lips. “On the other hoof, if you do take back control of the nation, I promise that my last act as prince will be declaring a holiday of hedonistic dessert consumption on which neither Day nor Night Court will be held.”
Celestia and Luna exchanged glances. “Deal,” they agreed.
“Excellent. Now for the love of sanity, let’s get out of here before I run into somepony who recognizes me.”