Ruler of Everything

by Sixes_And_Sevens

Turn Left

Applejack stared down the barrel of the strange little device. “What’s that meant to be, then?”

“It’s called a staser,” the Doctor said as Luna set him down. “It shoots bolts of energy which, depending on the level, could stun, paralyze, or even kill you.”

“Huh,” Applejack said. “Well, that doesn’t sound particularly pleasant. What d’you want, Valeyard?”

“All I need is the key,” the Valeyard said. “Give it to me or suffer the consequences.”

Applejack glared at him. “If you kill me, Celestia will zap th’ Doc and paradox you right to Tartarus. Same with anypony else here.”

“Oh, this isn’t set to kill,” the Valeyard said. “Only to cause agonizing pain and paralysis.”

Applejack snorted. “Pain? Ah can handle pain fine.”

“Perhaps you can,” the Valeyard said. “But can they?”

He gestured with his staser, encapsulating everypony else in the room with one broad sweep. Applejack’s mouth tightened.

“Don’t tell him, AJ,” Rainbow Dash said.

“How quickly Loyalty turns on her friends,” the Valeyard said, staring at her.

Dash snorted. “Uh, yeah. Like you aren’t gonna kill us the second you get what you want? Eat shit, law boy.”

The Valeyard snarled and fired at Dash’s chest. She keeled over, her jaw clenched with agony. He stepped closer to her. “How brash are you now?” he asked softly.

Slowly, Rainbow looked up at him. Through gritted teeth, she snarled, “Buck. You.” Then, quick as a whip, she spat in his face.

The Valeyard’s jaw tightened, and he raised the staser again, only to be knocked over by a pair of powerful hooves. The staser skittered out of his grasp to fall at Shining Armor’s hooves. He grabbed it off the floor and fired on the prone Valeyard.

The shot passed right through his body, scarring the floor between Applejack’s hooves as she stood over the Valeyard, glowering down at him. “Don’t reckon yer so tough without yer lil’ toy,” she said.

“Applejack,” the Doctor said, a note of warning in his voice. “The Valeyard controls this realm, it isn’t wise to anger him.”

“Too late,” the Valeyard said. “You know, I’m rather going to enjoy this.”

“What are you talkin' abAAAAAAAAAHHH!” Applejack cut herself off with a scream of utter agony and fell to the ground, convulsing.

“Applejack!” Dash ran to her side. “What happened?”

The farmer’s eyes were dilated, her heart pounding like a woodpecker. She tried to find words, but couldn’t.

“She remembered dying,” the Valeyard said, standing up. “When the Nightmare recruited her to repair the connections between the TARDIS and the interface, we flipped through a large swathe of the Applejacks in surrounding timelines.”

“When the Nightmare recruited who to what?” the Doctor asked, eyes wide.

“Well, several were unsuitable for the job, and some discovered our little ploy too soon. We had to kill a large selection of them. Of course, your Applejack couldn’t remember any of that. Not until now, that is.”

Applejack swallowed. “Ah -- Ah got hit by lightnin’. Fried alive. Ah could feel mah heart stop an’ -- an’ --”

“And you’ll remember more if you don’t tell me what I want to know,” the Valeyard said flatly. “Captain Armor, put down that staser. Your farm friend only harmed me because I wasn’t expecting an attack. You won’t be so fortunate.”

“I think I’ll keep my hooves on it all the same,” Shining said coldly.

“Very well. Hold on to it -- as long as you can.”

Shining frowned. “Huh?” Then he realized that the weapon was starting to heat up rapidly. He dropped it quickly. By the time it hit the floor, it was glowing a dull red.

“Now,” said the Valeyard. “Either tell me where the key is, or I’ll have to start getting creative.”

Applejack tried to punch him in the nose. It passed right through, but the sentiment felt good.

The Valeyard sighed, erecting another bubble of time over himself, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash as the others tried to rush to intervene. “I’d say that you drove me to this,” he said, as Applejack started screaming again, “but honestly, I’d probably have done this sooner or later, anyway. It’s so… cathartic.”

---

Starlight stood in the East Courtyard of Canterlot Castle, awkwardly clutching her maps and papers to her chest. She had only realized when she was halfway back to the castle that she had no idea of where to find Blueblood again, but thankfully, the guards seemed to have been apprised of the situation and directed her to… to…

To what she was now realizing was an empty courtyard. She scowled. If this was all just a trick to get her out of Blueblood’s ridiculously gelled mane, she’d throw him out of the nearest window, royal lineage be damned. After what she’d heard of him from Rarity, it was hardly less than he deserved.

But no. She could hear the approaching sound of hooves clattering on marble floors and low, muttered voices. She turned to see where they were coming from. Prince Blueblood trotted out from a nearby archway, accompanied by a pair of faces familiar to anyone who kept up with Canterlot’s high society -- Fleur de Lis and her husband, Fancy Pants. Fleur noticed Starlight’s presence first, and nudged Blueblood. He glanced over.

“Ah. Good evening again, Starlight,” he said, nodding to her. “Before we go any further, I must ask, are you familiar with the Official Secrets Act?”

“I signed it a couple years ago, yeah.”

“Oh. Marvelous, that saves time,” Blueblood said.

Fancy tilted his head. “A couple years ago… would that be at all related to a certain… occurrence at the university?”

Starlight chewed her lip. “Mmmm… possibly.”

“What?” Blueblood said, choking back a laugh. “The Valdemar Incident? That was you?”

“Only partially!” Starlight said defensively. “I helped clean up afterwards, it was fine.”

Fleur cleared her throat, and the two stallions quickly fell silent. “Mademoiselle Glimmer,” she began. “Per ze Official Secrets Act, nothing you see or hear zis evening may be recounted to any creature until such a time as ze crown elects to lift ze ban. You comprehend?”

Starlight nodded.

“Good. Ze three of us are all members of an elite platoon of guards and spies dedicated to the defense of zis planet, from threats both native and… qu’elle est le mot… Fancy, what is ze Equestrian word for extra-terrestre?”

“Er… extraterrestrial, my dear.”

Fleur’s face went blank for a long second. “...Ah yes. So it is. Thank you.”

Fancy merely nodded as Fleur returned her attention to Starlight Glimmer. “We are ze Gaean Unified Agency of Intelligence, Defense, and Espionage, or ‘GUIDE’.”

“Essentially, we’re the ones that deal with aliens,” Blueblood said.

“Huh.” Starlight absorbed this information. “Okay.”

Blueblood blinked. “What, just like that, you’re okay with this?”

“I mean, I know aliens exist. I still write to my friends in Ponyville, you know.”

“Ah.”

“So, uh…” Starlight looked the three of them up and down. “Just the four of us, then?”

“For now,” Fancy assured her. “There are already guards in Ponyville, of course, monitoring the situation -- though they lack the expertise that we can bring to the table. We need time to determine whether Ponyville is under active threat or not. Then, we can call in reinforcements as needed.”

The sound of wings echoed overhead. Fleur glanced up. “Ah. Ze chariots, just in time.”

Indeed, a pair of chariots landed on the other side of the courtyard. Fleur led the way toward them at a brisk walk. She called over her shoulder, “Mademoiselle, ride with me. I wish to see your observations of Ponyville.”

Starlight glanced back at Blueblood. He nodded grimly. “Behave yourself around her. She knows seven ways to kill or disable a pony with only a quill pen and her bare hooves.”

“Oh,” said Starlight. “Well. I’m glad to know there’s an expert on the team.”

She trotted toward the chariots. Blueblood squinted after her. “Was I just insulted, or…”

Fancy patted him on the back. “In your case, old boy, ‘just insulted’ is usually the safest bet.”

Blueblood sighed. “So long as we’re clear, I suppose.”

---

Sunset paced around the bubble of time, glaring at the blurred figures within. She could see them moving, but couldn’t hear a word. Of course, she didn’t really need to. She could see how limp Applejack looked, and the way Rainbow’s entire body was shaking with fury as she held the farmer in her lap. “There has to be a way in,” she said.

The Doctor shook his head. “For the fifth time, Sunset, there isn’t. Look, don’t you think that if there was a way to get to them, I’d have done it by now?”

Sunset growled, flames licking the corners of her eyes for a moment. “I honestly don’t know anymore, Doctor.”

The Time Lord took a step back, hurt. Fluttershy rubbed the surface of the golden bubble. “What is this, anyway?”

“A barrier,” the Doctor said. “The Valeyard’s set the area inside the bubble a few milliseconds out of sync with us. With the TARDIS functioning, we could get in. Even a vortex manipulator would do the job. Without a functioning time machine, though, we’re just stranded.”

Rarity rubbed her chin. “What if we teleported in?” she asked.

The Doctor’s eyes bulged and he shook his head wildly. “Absolutely not! If you try it, you’ll never arrive. You won’t be able to reconcile the where and when of your arrival, and you’ll bounce off into the vortex. Your component atoms will be scattered across time and space.”

“Ah,” Rarity said. “Not good.”

“Extraordinarily bad.”

“As long as we’re clear. Well, what can we do, Doctor?”

“Er.” He scratched his head. “Well, sit and wait, mainly. Or, we could try and make a break for it again while the Valeyard is distracted.”

“But that would mean abandoning Applejack and Rainbow Dash,” Ditzy pointed out.

“Exactly, which is why I don’t intend to do it,” the Doctor said. “On the other hoof, if just a couple of us were to sneak out, and try to conduct some reconnaissance, the Valeyard might not notice right away.” He glanced around. “Er, any volunteers?”

There was a long silence. Then Sombra raised a hoof. “I am good at keeping to the shadows,” he said.

Sunset nodded. “I’ll go, too.”

The Doctor nodded. “Right. Any more than two is pushing it, I think. You’d better go now, before he comes back out.”

Sunset nodded, already hurrying for the door. Sombra was close on her hooves. She pulled the door open for him, and he slipped through. She made to follow, but looked back. She met Celestia’s gaze. The princess closed her eyes and bowed her head for a moment before looking back up. “Be safe,” she implored.

Sunset gave her a tight, sad smile before ducking through the doors and into the halls beyond.

---

The Chumbley was deceptively quick for its appearance. For all its rotundity and heavy metal shell, it zipped along on its castors so quickly, the Crusaders had to break into a canter to keep up with it. The sudden appearance of their savior had electrified the party, snapping them out of their doldrums. Button’s tote bag bounced along at his side as he jogged. At his side, Sweetie Belle practically skipped across the floor. Scootaloo occasionally zipped ahead of their new robot friend and lapped back, or occasionally jogged on the spot waiting for them to catch up. Rumble moved along quickly and purposefully, carefully keeping his eyes on the Chumbley and off the claustrophobic walls. Dinky trotted along, her face set in a determined grin.

At the rear of the pack, walking along like a queen, Apple Bloom strode with a proud grin on her face. And why wouldn’t she? She had saved the day, the mission, her friends -- she basked in the glow of a job well done, and of her fellow Crusaders’ appreciation. This was what she wanted from life. This was the thing she sought after, what she hadn’t felt in Ponyville for what felt like years. Respect. Admiration. Esteem.

---

Click. Applejack’s intestines were filled with acid, and she dissolved from the inside out.

She tightened her mouth. Refused to scream. She would not give this monster the satisfaction of watching her break.

She lay in the temporal bubble, half-delirious with the pain and confusion each new set of memories brought with it. Rainbow Dash cradled Applejack’s head in her hooves, weeping openly. This was torture for her too, Applejack knew.

Click. A timber of the barn was rotten. It fell on her, snapping her back and crushing the air from her lungs. She spent long, agonizing minutes of wheezing pain before finally succumbing.

But neither of them could give in. Applejack knew that both she and Rainbow could easily have swapped elements -- the brash pegasus was never one to hold her tongue, and Applejack would lay down her life for her kith and kin.

Click. Applejack rested on just the wrong part of the console. A panel opened and the Eye of Harmony shone through, vaporizing her in an instant that lasted for eternity.

Applejack turned to look out through the bubble and met Big Mac’s terrified stare. She and Twilight were clinging to one another, each of them the other’s life preserver in this sea of madness.

Click. Applejack was impaled by a falling rake and bled out on the ground, alone.

Honesty and Loyalty. The two were often seen as going hand in hand -- frankness was seen as a loyal trait in a friend, and a dear, true friend could always be depended on. But sometimes, the most loyal thing one could do was to lie, and the truth could cost as many friends as it made.

Click. Applejack suffered a freak heart attack and keeled over trying to run from the barn. She died alone. She always died alone.

Apple Bloom. It all came down to her. She was free from this torment, free from this monster. Her little sister, so strong, so skilled, so beautiful -- the best and shiniest apple of them all. Applejack would gladly die if it meant that Apple Bloom would never see hide nor hair of this Knacker’s Yard in her life.

There was no click. Applejack’s head cleared slightly. Rainbow was leaning over her. “AJ,” she muttered. “He asked if you were ready to tell him what he wants to know.” She hesitated. “...Do you?”

Applejack looked up at Rainbow, her own blue angel. She knew that Dash could crack at any second, too. Her loyalties were divided -- save Applejack, or obey her? “You really gotta ask?” she croaked. “Hell, naw.”

Rainbow shut her eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath. “Jes’ sit back,” Applejack murmured. “Sit back, mah darlin’, an’ take what comes as it comes. Fer Equestria. Fer th’ world. Fer Scootaloo.”

Rainbow nodded and looked up. “She says you can go fuck yourself!”

“Well, Ah didn’t say go throw rocks at th’ damned hornet’s nest,” Applejack muttered, shutting her own eyes. Her last painless thought was of Apple Bloom.

Click.

---

All Bloom wanted was her family’s love. Their respect.

She would get it. By Celestia, she would get it.

“How much farther do we have to go?” Rumble asked. The euphoria of the Chumbley was clearly wearing a little thin under the constant reminder that the pegasus was where pegasi were Very Much Not Meant to Be.

Button tilted his head. “Well, I can’t be sure,” he said. “But given the last estimate from the map, we ought to come across the tower base any minute--”

They all turned a corner and stopped. Sweetie skidded to a halt and bumped the backside of the Chumbley. Before them stood a pair of large doors of dark stone, ornately decorated with detailed carvings of ponies in formal Gallifreyan robes and messages in what Dinky was able to recognize as Old High Gallifreyan, though she could hardly even begin to translate what they said.

“Uh, like I was saying,” Button said, gazing in awe at the immense doors. “Now.”

---

Meanwhile, several stories above them, Sombra and Sunset wandered the halls of the Dark Tower for the second time. Sunset nodded to a tapestry. “Does that one look new to you?”

Sombra studied it for a moment, then nodded. “We’re on the right track, then?”

Sunset hemmed and hawed for a moment. “Let’s just stick with ‘nobody is actively screwing with us’.”

Sombra shrugged. “I’ll take it.”

Sunset pursed her lips thoughtfully as she continued to lead the way down the hall. “So, uh… what exactly is the point of this?”

Sombra frowned slightly. “...To escape, surely?”

She bobbed her head. “Well, I mean, yeah. But what are we escaping? The tomb? The tower? We can get outside if we really want, but we’re still living in the Failyard’s cringe world.”

Sombra stared at her. “Your words are… peculiar, but I do grasp your meaning,” he admitted. “Do you propose we simply turn around, then?”

“No, no, no,” Sunset said, vigorously shaking her head. “I’m not saying we should give up. We just need to change tack a little bit.”

Sombra tilted his head, frowning. “Explain.”

“Well… we’re in a place made up of thoughts, right? And my whole thing is reading minds. Well, not my whole thing, but you get the idea.”

“Hmmm…” Sombra scowled thoughtfully. “... And how exactly do you plan to read the mind of an entire world?”

“With great difficulty!” Sunset said brightly. “So, uh, if I start to, y’know, spontaneously combust or something, or speak in tongues… just slap me real hard across the face, alright?”

Sombra looked dubious and mildly horrified. Sunset just grinned at him, shut her eyes tight, and opened her mind.

Everything burned overwhelmingly hot and blindingly bright for a fraction of a second. Sunset felt the flames wash over her, but it did not hurt her, for she was the phoenix, she was the goddess, she was Am--

She opened her eyes.

The first thing that struck Sunset was the size. The second thing was the silence. She was standing in a chamber of indescribably large size. The floor and ceiling curved away well beyond her view, and she could see no walls. In all that space, she could hear no sound, detect no movement. The silence, the stillness, was deafening.

The third thing that Sunset was aware of was the fact that she was not alone here. She could detect another presence in the vast room, and she knew that it detected her in kind. Slowly, she turned around in a full circle, but saw nothing. Whatever was here, it was evidently too far away in this impossibly vast room for her to sense clearly. She hoped the same was true of it. Although she couldn’t tell exactly what or where it was, she felt deep in her bones that it wasn’t something she wanted to meet. It felt inimical -- not merely to Sunset herself, but to every living creature she had ever known. It would be, she was certain, anathema to meet in person.

With that comforting certainty in mind, she set off across the seemingly infinite stone floor so see what she could discover.

---

After what seemed like an age, the temporal bubble flickered, then collapsed. The assembled creatures stood in a circle around the perimeter of where the barrier had once been, their fear warring with their urge to comfort. Applejack was weeping in Dash’s hooves, her powerful hooves trembling with stress and fear and agony. Dash herself looked gaunt and wear. She clung to Applejack so tightly, it seemed that a crowbar might be needed to separate the two. Both had coats and manes matted with sweat.

In contrast, the Valeyard looked as well put together and collected as ever, though he regarded the two mares with a mixture of contempt and disgust. “Why do you always have to do things the hard way?” he demanded.

“Because the easy way means you’ll kill us that much faster?” Rainbow growled.

The Valeyard nodded. “Precisely! At long last, an end to your suffering. Don’t tell me that you aren’t tempted by now. Peace in oblivion -- respite from pain -- the freedom from seeing what I’ll do next.”

“Thou may eat our entire royal plot, brigand!” Surprisingly, it wasn’t Luna who yelled this, but Celestia. Her eyes bored through the Valeyard, and her mane had started to suffuse with warmer colors. “Do not dare espouse the glories of death before life incarnate.”

Discord side-eyed Celestia. When she flicked her tail or mane, they could distinctly smell sulfur and brimstone. Very subtly, they scooped Fluttershy up under one arm and slunk back into the shadows.

The Valeyard gazed at Celestia flatly. Then a faint smirk slid over his lips. “Very good indeed, Daybreaker,” he said. "You're coming along very nicely."

Celestia flinched as though he had struck her physically, and her mane regained its usual coloration. She held her hooves up to her horrified face, as though checking they were still there. “Yes, you will be fun later on. But for now, I suppose I must resort to plan B.”

Applejack blinked. “There… there was a plan B?” she asked, quiet horror suffusing her voice. “All this time… all th’ struggle… an’ you didn’t have to do it?”

“Well, if you had simply handed over the key, I wouldn’t have had to, would I?” the Valeyard snapped. “You’re making this incredibly inefficient, you realize.”

“Oh,” Cadance said, her voice dripping with fury. “I’m so sorry, we didn’t realize that we were inconveniencing you.”

The Valeyard sneered at her. “Never fear. In a few moments, I’ll be leaving to return to your world to run an errand. You won’t have to deal with me again for a few hours.” He stalked out of the circle of ponies -- they parted before him like the Red Sea as he made his way toward the TARDIS. “Of course, I simply can’t leave you unattended -- hence plan B.”

He squinted at the air between the TARDIS and the Interface. The air shimmered for a moment, and then a series of long cables stretched between the TARDIS and the Interface, tying them together.

“The intention was to open the doors of the Ship and let my benefactor free, of course,” the Valeyard said as the cables began to spark and glow with an unnatural red energy. “It, along with the last dregs of the TARDIS’s power remain trapped within. However, while the power supply needs to be accessed manually for our purposes, the consciousness of my ally is not. I'm sure your miserable little box wants her out as badly as she does.”

Ditzy leaned over to the Doctor, gripping his foreleg tightly. “Please tell me he isn’t saying what I think he’s saying.”

The Doctor said nothing. He merely stared, dead-eyed, as his invention lifted its head and scanned them with its glowing red eyes. The Nightmare had a body once more.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Hmm. Sneak attacks work. The catch is finding new ways to surprise the Valeyard.

The Valdemar Incident? That was you?

I have several questions, but they can wait.

Even a vortex manipulator would do the job.

So you're saying you need a sheet of paper.

This was what she wanted from life. This was the thing she sought after, what she hadn’t felt in Ponyville for what felt like years. Respect. Admiration. Esteem.

The question is, did she not get it, or did she not let herself feel she'd gotten it?
... Yup. Oh, if only one could plug one Apple's line of thought into the other's head.

“... And how exactly do you plan to read the mind of an entire world?”
“With great difficulty!”

I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it.

Making progress on all fronts, but oh, we are far from out of the woods. There will definitely be some lasting damage from this. The question is how much can be salvaged.

[Shilic]

Turn Left is a personal favorite of mine. What-if scenarios, references to The Sarah Jane Adventures, Wilfred freaking Mott, what more could you ask for? The ramifications of a timeline altering creature that can affect things on multiversal scale are somewhat worrying, but I doubt the Time Beetle is the only thing that can do that.

Stasers! Like phasers, only British!

I'm not sure if Sunset trying to read the Matrix is brilliant or incredibly stupid. Probably both.

And now the Nightmare has officially joined the party. Maybe now it can come up with a more original name.

[jimerjam]

10384762
right turn clyde

[Coyote de La Mancha]

*breaks out pom-poms and cheers for Sunset’s plan*