In Which Sombra Grapples With an Apparatus as Evil as He

Chapters

In Which Sombra is Unexpectedly Stymied by Modernization
In Which Sombra Once Again Returns
In Which Sombra Glimpses a Fraction of the Vastness of his Torment
In Which Sombra Discovers the Forms That Bloom Like Flowers and Learns the Importance of Specificity
In Which Sombra Experiences Perpetuity
In Which Sombra Takes Unspeakably Drastic Measures
In Which Sombra Like Totally Frigging Loses It

In Which Sombra is Unexpectedly Stymied by Modernization

Sombra kicked open the door to the bureau. His past and future subjects, crammed in like the cattle they were. A premade audience. Excellent. “Ponies!” he roared to the assembled crowd. “Your king has returned!”

And in spite of him being the most important thing in the room, barely anyone looked at him. They slouched in their chairs or in the line, as if the weight of bureaucracy itself was beating down on them. The wind seemed to echo sourcelessly throughout the room, yet it wasn’t strong enough for Sombra’s cape to billow dramatically. There wasn’t even a single cricket.

Sombra convinced himself he certainly wasn’t embarrassed and took in the room. There must’ve been a mile of desks for employees to work at, yet there was a pony at a single one of them, serving a line that seemed too long to fit in the building. Bah. Sombra stormed over, shoving ponies out of the way. He had paperwork to fill out. He reached the bureaucrat, opened his mouth to announce his intent-

“Sir, please move to the back of the line and I’ll be with you shortly.”

The line pierced Sombra’s skull like an arrow. It was so sure of itself, yet at the same time, so utterly bland… He looked down. The pony at the desk, a mare with a red mane and a gray coat that looked even worse in person, was staring up at him so expressionlessly that a blank white sheet of paper looked positively hysterical in comparison. “Please do not disrupt the line,” the mare said. “Others have been waiting for longer than you. I’ll be with you shortly.”

Sombra almost crushed her right then and there. But he had promised Cadance, and he would play nice, just this once. This one mare was all that was standing between him and total domination. He could handle it. He cleared his throat. “I am in need of a certain form,” he rumbled.

“I understand, sir. Please move to the back of the line and I’ll be with you shortly.”

…That was it? Sombra had come to expect valiant declarations that he would never win (said right before he won, of course) or hate-filled curses of bile and rage. Something he could work with. Not this… nothing. Reality felt unmoored. “I need. A form,” he enunciated.

“I understand, sir. Please move to the back of the line and I’ll be with you shortly.”

What manner of iron-willed warrior was this? The bureaucracy had never been like this when he was in charge. He knew because he never interacted with it. But he had Things that needed Doing, so he could bend his word, just a little. Sombra glanced at her ID plate, the better to know who would soon experience a near-smiting. The bureaucrat’s name was Red Tape, a perfectly innocuous name. (At least, that was what Sombra thought, because he was before the term “red tape”. In fact, some scholars argue that the term was named for her after the Empire vanished. Had he been aware of it, this would have been the first hint that this whole thing was all going to go catastrophically boringly.) “Ms. Red Tape,” he said. “I am in the middle of negotiations with Princess Cadance.” (He managed to say the name without spitting it out like a derisive insult! He had self-control.) “I am in urgent need of a certain form as part of due process.”

“I understand, sir. Please move to the back of the line and I’ll be with you shortly.”

…Her lack of expression hadn’t changed. Not one iota.

Well. He’d made a deal, and it wasn’t his fault the deal was being delayed. Cadance wouldn’t be allowed to mind if he expedited the process (and didn’t let her know).

Sombra stared into her eyes, unloading the bulk of his hypnotic magic. Her will would be subjugated, her desires subverted, her very mind would be his, and he could do with her as he pleased. His might was indomitable, and a pitiful bureaucrat from a pitiful nation such as this couldn’t hope to stand in his way.

Red Tape blinked, her sclerae slowly turning green. “Sir. Please move to the back of the line.”

Sombra focused all his power. Red Tape’s thoughts were hemmed in on all sides and the only way she could escape was by doing exactly what he wanted. She was helpless before him, a mere minnow in rushing rapids. Where her power was a mere drop, his was an ocean, boundless, infinite, wild, untamed. If its wrath was turned on you, the most you could hope for was to survive and come out the other side ragged and broken. Soon, very soon, this puny pony would be broken beyond all recognition.

Sanguine began staining Red Tape’s irises. “Sir, are you planning on doing anything?”

Any second now…

“Sir, are you attempting mind control? You need to fill out form FTR/7 if you want to hypnotize me.”

Sombra’s focus shattered and his power was gone. He stared at Red Tape, clearly not mind-controlled, clearly superbly disdainful of the very notion that she might be mind-controlled. She stared blankly back at him. Sombra dropped his voice to a growl. “Fill… out… a form?”

“Sir, I can’t do anything unless you fill out the relevant form, including letting you subjugate my thoughts.”

“NO!” Sombra redoubled his efforts, smothering every single facet of Red Tape’s identity beneath his magic. “You are mine!” His power was a force of nature and he no longer cared about collateral; around his horn, space twisted and little lightning bolts of arcane energy lanced out. His voice boomed as he snarled, “You! Are! MINE!”

After a few long moments, Red Tape said, “Obviously not.” She bopped him on the horn and the gathering storm dispersed after the bad touch reminded a critical member of it that it had an appointment somewhere else. “Sir, please return to the back of the line and I’ll be with you shortly.”

You could hear the ping as another strand of Sombra’s temper snapped. “I am Sombra, your once and future king! You cannot keep me waiting! Would you make Discord wait?”

“They do!” said Discord from behind Sombra. “And would you mind cutting it with the whinging? You really are holding up the line.”

Sombra jumped and whirled around. “Where did you come from?!” he bellowed. “Why didn’t I see you before?”

“I was filling these out-” Discord held up a few forms. “-just offpage, so the description never mentioned me. Listen, Sombra, as one bad guy to another…” He stooped down to Sombra’s level. “You do not want to skimp on the forms. Mess with the bureaucrats, and they will mess with you. I tried avoiding filling out a form once.” He paused and held up a single eagle talon. “Once.” He shuddered and looked away. “I still get nightmares. So much queuing…” He curled up into a ball and started rocking back and forth. “S-so m-much queuing…”

“But what can they possibly do?” asked Sombra, pushing Discord away. “I am-”

A warhammer twice the size of the average pony slammed into the ground next to Sombra, shattering the tiles beneath it and blasting ponies away with the force of the shockwave. Wisps of pale green magic trailed from the intricate runes carved over every surface of its head, each one audibly thrumming with energy and glowing with divine hellfire. It was molded from a pale gray metal mottled with black whorls, and any corner sharper than forty degrees bristled with spikes. And at the other end of it, her front hooves in the handles, was Red Tape.

“Mr. Queue Jumper,” said Red Tape, looking no more interested than if Sombra was a painted polka dot on the other side of the room, “meet the Pen. It is mightier than any weapon or magic you can name. Yes, that includes swords.”

Sombra stared up the haft and tried to not be envious at the artifice. (He was before some of the more complicated parts.) “Where were you hiding this?”

“Bureaucraspace.” Red Tape withdrew the Pen, and it was gone. “It’s one of the magical bureaucrat superpowers.”

Perhaps her sudden display of strength had shaken something in Sombra. Not certainly, oh no, for the great and powerful King Sombra was never shaken. But Sombra suddenly found it a most agreeable concept to obey her. He did his best to straighten his regalia with dignity and, with the force of an avalanche, growled, “If you insist, I deign to move to the back of the line. But do not think you can keep me waiting.”

“Yes, sir,” Red Tape said blandly. “I do insist. And you shall wait as long as there are people ahead of you.”

Sombra attempted to glare at her, but the look of dispassion he received back was so unnerving that he had to look away almost immediately. Nothing in the world could be that monstrously dull. Something was not right about that pony.

He somehow managed to convince himself that he wasn’t scared as he reluctantly stalked to the back of the line.

In Which Sombra Once Again Returns

Sombra didn’t know how, exactly, he’d come back this time, not after being flat-out vaporized. It seemed the universe was too scared to let him die. As it should be. His deeds were great and his power vast. It was only natural that the natural order itself twist to permit his rule. (The fact that the last time he’d gone up against the natural order had been the time he’d been vaporized was utterly irrelevant. Utterly.) But he had never lacked focus, nor commitment. The moment his mind had reformed enough to convince him he hadn’t been wailing like a pansy when he’d died, he set it back on his target: the Crystal Empire. He would get it eventually. Definitely. Absolutely. He had to.

He recollected himself outside the border and began flowing in like smoke. Why fix what wasn’t broken? But before he could reach the first houses, a shield went up around the Crystal Empire. A shield that was a very familiar shade of cornflower blue. Sombra drove at it from all sides, but it was a well-crafted shield and managed to withstand even his assaults. Well, his first assaults, perhaps; it would certainly fall if he simply kept battering it.

But Sombra had empires to conquer, and time was of the essence. Combat by champion it was, then. He settled on the main boulevard leading in and roared out, “Princess Cadance! I would have a word!” And he sat on his haunches to wait.

As is common among the powerful and self-important, Sombra became irritated within moments. How dare she make him wait! How could she not cross the entirety of the Empire in seconds? She was an alicorn, the strongest of all the tribes. (Sombra was a power unto himself, therefore not a tribe, therefore not included in that.) She ought to know how to teleport! Surely she must be like him and learning all the relevant fields of magic rather than any actual rulership. Smiting his problems always worked perfectly fine, thankyouverymuch. At least the screams of the crystal ponies that had noticed him were nice.

After an interminable minute, Cadance swooped over the houses and alighted before him on the other side of the shield. Sombra convinced himself he wasn’t envious of her wings as he composed his speech. What would be the fastest way to convince her? Perhaps a reminder of how quickly the Empire had fallen last time? Or maybe a threat against her family. Friendship was among Equestria’s greatest diseases, allowing for easily-exploitable-

“I’d like to talk about surrender,” Cadance said calmly.

Sombra sneered. “Surrender?” he scoffed. (Sombra knew what surrender was. In spite of being a thousand years displaced, he was after surrender.) “You think I, of all ponies, would speak of surrender?”

“You’re not surrendering. I am.”

Suddenly, Sombra felt all tingly inside. Was this glee?

“You- are… persistent,” said Cadance. She flexed her wings. “And- with your- unstoppable drive-”

“You probably say that to all the villains,” Sombra sneered. For, really, she looked like cotton candy. (Sombra was after cotton candy.) How could she hope to understand real strength?

Cadance’s eye twitched and she flexed her wings again. “It is. Quite. Clear,” she admitted through gritted teeth. “That you will not be dissuaded, and- it’s best if we… cut our losses.” Was she sounding… stilted? Bah, no matter. She was a new princess, still unsure of herself.

But why would she be? For she had finally gotten something right! Oh, if only everypony was as smart as her. It would almost be worth missing the thrill of conquest. (He disregarded the fact that, as of late, he’d utterly failed at keeping his conquests.) The tingly feeling grew stronger. Yes, it surely must be glee-

“But I have one condition.”

A- A condition?

The idea passed through Sombra’s mind as if it’d been lubed: swiftly and in a way he desperately wanted to forget. He was Sombra. He didn’t bow to conditions! He set the conditions! This- pasty pink pastel pony princess surely couldn’t think he would agree to the conditions, could she? And she was doing so well. She’d properly surrendered-

“Ahem. Equus to evil overlord.” Tap tap. “Are you there?”

Sombra pulled his mind back to himself and glared at Cadance. Somehow, she remained unmoved. “Obviously you must be delusional if you think I’ll listen to your condition,” he scoffed.

“Obviously Delusional’s the court record-keeper and is much more lucid than her name implies,” Cadance said. “I just need you to fill out a few forms.”

Sombra’s lip curled. “Ah. The bureaucracy.” (Sombra was after bureaucracy. But then, pretty much everything is after bureaucracy. The only thing that isn’t after bureaucracy is taxes.)

“The bureaucracy,” Cadance confirmed. “If you don’t cause any trouble and go through the process of formally acquiring control over the Crystal Empire from its ruler, no one in Equestria will have a legal leg to stand on if they object. You’ll be King of the Empire, fair and square. …King of an empire. How does that happen?”

“The Empire was named as such before I arrived,” Sombra said airily. “I merely preferred the title of ‘King’. A better question would be why a mere city-state thought it deserved the title of ‘Empire’.”

“You tell me. You burned all the histories that came before you.”

“…Yes.” Sombra almost smiled at the fond memory, but he had Business to attend to. “Very well. Unbelievable as it may seem, I accept your condition. Pledge on your life that the deal shall be honored.”

The idiot princess very nearly smiled. She put a hoof to her heart and said in a faux-dramatic voice that Sombra was horrified to realize actually worked pretty well, “Should you properly follow the procedure, rulership of the Crystal Empire will be surrendered to you as soon as it is possible. Provided, of course, that you honor your end. No trouble.”

Holding his head high, Sombra said, “It shall be as you requested. I shall make no moves against you nor the Empire’s ponies until these forms have been completed.”

Cadance nodded and, to Sombra’s surprise, the shield fell. “Then let’s get to it,” she said. She turned around and marched for the Empire, shaking in a way that certainly couldn’t have been suppressed laughter. For a moment, Sombra considered pouncing on her right then and there, taking out his immediate opposition. But he was nothing if not a stallion of his word, which was why he kept attempting to take the Empire in spite of his setbacks; he had always said he would, and he didn’t want to be a liar. He followed in Cadance’s wake, his mind already conjuring plans for his upcoming reign. Success would be sweet.

Although… surely that couldn’t be all, could it? Filling out a few forms, writing a few words on paper… There had to be a catch. Even somepony with a name like Mi Amore Cadenza wouldn’t go down so easily.

But Sombra turned the idea over, picked it apart, dissected it, did other various scientific crimes against it to see what made it tick, and came up with nothing out of the ordinary. There were no clever phrasings to trick him into making a mistake or wasting his time. It really was that simple. The only thing he needed to do was navigate the bureaucracy. And how hard could that possibly be?

(Sombra was before the phrase, “What could possibly go wrong?”)

In Which Sombra Glimpses a Fraction of the Vastness of his Torment

Sombra was waiting.

That had never happened before.

He was standing in line. And he was waiting. And it was voluntaryish.

When the line moved forward, he followed it with a sort of dazed automaticity. He had become unmoored, and following the line somehow seemed the best route. He was Sombra! He didn’t wait! …he told himself as he continued waiting and making no attempt to break out. What was this place doing to him? …Perhaps he ought to study it. Something that could so thoroughly, so sinisterly, so quietly break even him was something to be treasured, the most beautiful of black gems to hold a pony’s soul in perpetual torment.

So. Where to start? Obviously, this place was part of the bureaucracy. It handled necessary matters. It was, most unfortunately for everyone else, indispensable. And if ponies needed to use it-

“Sombra?”

The addressee flinched as someone tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around; one of his subjects-to-be was gawking at him. Sombra nearly bit his face off out of reflex.

“Sombra?” the pony repeated. “King Sombra?” He started grinning. “Holy Celestia, dude, it feels like it’s been a thousand years! I almost didn’t recognize you!” His face immediately darkened, with narrowed eyes, clenched teeth, and flattened ears. “You owe me money.”

“I beg your pardon?” Sombra asked. (He was after owing ponies money; the concept was merely alien to him.)

“Remember the last tribute you extracted from us before you clapped us all in irons?” the pony said. “Well, I ran the numbers-” His expression twisted into a snarl normally reserved for the unspeakably vile. “-and you overcharged me.” So it was in the right place.

“Give it a rest,” somepony else said. “It’s just a tiny tax refund.”

“Hey!” said the first. “Three bits and twenty-two pieces is three bits and twenty-two pieces!”

“That won’t even buy you a jar of applesauce in this day and age,” mumbled Sombra. (He was after jars and applesauce.)

“And yet you owe me it!” the pony proclaimed. “I shall not rest until I am given what I-! Hey, can you move forward? It’s your turn.”

Indeed it was. Finally. Sombra stepped forward and found himself face-to-face with Red Tape once again. She was still observing him with the same vacant disregard. He found it in himself to ignore it, held his head high, and proclaimed, “I need a form.”

“Most ponies here do, sir,” said Red Tape.

Sombra bristled, caught himself, and continued, “Specifically, Cadance is turning over control of the Crystal Empire to me. How can this proceed?”

“You need form 9941-M,” Red Tape said immediately. “You can find it right in there.” She pointed at a door off the main room that looked oddly out of place. Sombra couldn’t put a hoof on it, but it seemed innocuous enough. Perfect. (He was before “innocuous enough” had come to mean “hiding something terrible”.)

“I’ll be back momentarily,” he said, and stalked through the door.

Beyond was a large room filled with nothing but filing cabinets. A very large room. The walls on either side of him seemed to stretch for further than the building could allow, while the aisles of cabinets reached into the distance. He shrugged it off. Form 9941-M was the only thing he needed. Now, where to find it?

There was a sign on the ends of the aisles. Sombra took a look at it. Just numbers. He selected the one that seemed like it would take him to 9941-M and started walking.

On a whim, he pulled open one of the filing cabinets. Inside was a pile of blank forms, all of the same kind. “1290,” he muttered. “Authorization for a… block party?” (Sombra was before block parties.) “Pfeh.” He dropped a sheet of paper on the floor and slammed the drawer shut harder than was strictly necessary. “Pointless minutiae,” he muttered. “Why do they need forms for that?” Authoritarianism was such a wonderful thing, particularly when he was the authority.

He kept walking. The aisle didn’t seem to grow any shorter. He occasionally passed cross aisles, but he never got any closer to form 9941-M. He took a closer look at the forms he was passing. 1290-8RT-J, expedited authorization for block parties on rooftops. 1290-BW4, authorization of extended block parties. All forms of similar types, similar numbers, somehow unchanged across… how long? It had to be changing sooner or later. He persisted.

He persisted on and on and on. Surely, this couldn’t all fit within the same building, could it? Not within the same city. He was still in the 1290 forms, but the identifiers were somehow still getting longer and longer, the names more inane and specific. His legs aching, he came to a rest at an intersection of aisles and looked up as he rolled his shoulders. Drawers towered above him like cavern walls and he couldn’t see the ceiling. The void was swallowing up the drawers, and had decided displaced kings were on the menu as well.

Discord came slithering out of one of the other aisles, a sheaf of papers in claw; when he saw Sombra, his face lit up with a smile (which was fortunate, given the dim lighting). “Well, hello! I was wondering if you’d ever make it back here!” he said cheerfully. His words echoed sonorously in the vast hall.

“Where…” Sombra looked down all the aisles. They extended off towards infinity, and he was getting a sneaking suspicion that they probably extended beyond it. “Where are we?”

“We’re where the forms are kept.”

“…I can see that.”

“Then why’d you ask?” Discord started thumbing through his papers. “I believe that’s all of them… Red Tape did say-”

“Why is this place so… vast?”

“Oh, you know.” Discord waved a claw dismissively. “Thoroughness. They wanted to capture every conceivable possibility, no matter how specific. Whatever you’re looking for, you can find-”

“Hello?” a hoarse voice croaked through the air. “Anyone? Is some-” A sharp, hacking breath. “Is someone there?”

A stallion, emaciated and clad in rags yet clutching a stack of papers close to his chest, stumbled out from one of the aisles. He surveyed Sombra and Discord with eyes wilder than a party pony in a bakery. “Live ones!” he wheezed in an oddly high-pitched voice. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve seen your type around…” He collapsed onto the floor, cackling madly.

To Sombra’s surprise, Discord was at the stallion’s side immediately, delicately picking him up and cradling him in his arms. “Oh, you poor thing,” Discord said softly. “How long have you been in here?”

“Longer than you think! Longer than you think!” the stallion screamed. “But that’s the nature of the bureaucracy, isn’t it? You’re always almost out, no matter how long you’ve been running. Almost! Almost! Almost!”

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now.” Discord scratched his back, almost affectionately. “Have you found everything?”

“Everything except a reason to live!”

“Then let’s get you out of here.” With a pop, Discord was gone. Half a second later, he’d returned with a corn, except without the stallion. “They really should put up maps in here,” he mused. “Ponies keep getting lost.”

“You… saved him?” was all Sombra found it in himself to say. The idea was as alien to him as aesthetic originality.

“Of course I did,” Discord said with a huff. “Being stuck in this place isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy. Not least because, depending on who my worst enemy is this moon, she might actually enjoy it…”

“You plunged the entire world into a maelstrom of chaos and panic,” Sombra observed. Oh, to have witnessed it himself…

“Yes, and I’d love to do it again, but I never allowed anyone to get lost in the bureaucracy,” Discord snapped. “What sort of boring, heinous creature do you think I am?”

“Then tell me,” snapped Sombra. “I’m looking for form 9941-M. Where is it?”

Immediately, Discord pointed. “Thirteen aisles down, take a left, and just keep following the aisle until you find it.”

Sombra blinked. One of his ears drooped. He quickly righted it out of a fear of looking silly. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling that this is a trick?” he asked. You could never trust anything Discord said. Except when you could. Figuring out which was which was… tricky.

“I’m not quite sure,” Discord said. “Presumably because you’re an idiot with an incredible losing streak. You might as well check it out; it’s not like that hollow head of yours has any other ideas. Ta-ta!” And he was gone.

Silence fell so completely that it echoed; Sombra tried saying something, but sheer quiet swallowed it up. Or perhaps there was something else in here…

Sombra swallowed his pride and the nervous spit in his mouth as he followed Discord’s directions. Sure enough, there it was: form 9941-M. Surprisingly comprehensive, it was.

Something, perhaps metal, groaned in the hungry void, its baleful howl bouncing up the aisles. Sombra, most certainly not disturbed by the uncanny space of this organized labyrinth, immediately set about retracing his steps. Perhaps by luck, perhaps by rigidity of rule disallowing any unauthorized changes in space, he eventually found his way back to the main room. He shut the door behind him and, through sheer strength of will, managed to convince himself that he wasn’t unnerved in a way he’d never been before, not even when staring death in the face because of- (But he wasn’t like that, so why was he going into so much detail about it?)

Whatever. He was out. Sombra looked at the form he’d retrieved.

Yes. This would do quite nicely. Nice and neat and surprisingly thorough. Sombra bared his fangs in that aggressive way of predators everywhere. In other words, he smiled. All he had to do was fill out one form.

(Sombra was before fate started frequently succumbing to temptation.)

In Which Sombra Discovers the Forms That Bloom Like Flowers and Learns the Importance of Specificity

Once his form was filled out, Sombra attempted to rush the line again. Red Tape remained distressingly impassive, and Sombra spent the entire time he went through the line again wishing he could gnaw someone’s head off. Not anyone specific, mind, he wasn’t picky. Anyone would do. But he had promised Cadance…

The line moved more slowly and painfully than a kidney stone through certain areas. Sombra frequently found himself barely able to hold in his anger, with his shadow form nearly spilling out and engulfing the building. The other ponies around merely gave him strange looks and commenced with ignoring him. The bureaucratic aura was smothering them.

After a compressed eternity, Sombra found himself facing Red Tape once again. Had she moved? At all? Sombra forked over his paper. “Your 9941-M, as requested,” he said. “Now, allow me to-”

“Where’s your approved 17βD?”

Sombra nearly shadowed up right then and there. “…Excuse me.”

“Your approved 17βD,” said Red Tape. “Preparation for Authority Handover.”

Sombra’s blood pressure spiked so high scientists still speculate his blood might have started literally boiling. “You. Never mentioned. A 17βD,” he enunciated.

Perturbed, Red Tape was not. “Sir, I can’t imagine you submitting a 9941-M without knowing you also needed a 17βD.”

“…Approve this. Now!” Sombra yelled. “Or I’ll remember you when I reattain my rightful place!”

“I’d much rather be remembered as somepony who followed proper procedure,” Red Tape said blandly. “And, sir…” Out came the Pen. “You’re holding up the line.”

Sombra engaged in a staring contest with her for a moment, but the sheer breadth of her lack of caring made him flinch and turn away. It was a waste of time, anyway (he kept telling himself). He needed to keep his eyes on the prize.

The stacks were still so cavernous Sombra felt unprepared when he entered (he was before spelunking equipment), but he finally found form 17βD. It was… a bit strange, but if this was what he needed to do, this was what he needed to do. No matter how very much he rued it and was wishing he could simply smite all the fools surrounding him, those who dared to stand in his way and interfere with his ascent to power, those who insisted his rightful place was not-

Even contained to his head, the wrath was quite pleasant, yet Sombra managed to exhaust most of it before he reached Red Tape again. The line was draining everything from him, even core facets of his being. It was a wonder most other ponies could even stand upright, much less stay alert. Bit by bit, the line moved.

After an indeterminate amount of time that might’ve been geologically significant, Sombra was dumped in front of Red Tape. “Here. The form you requested.” He slapped the paper onto the desk.

Yet Red Tape barely even spared it a glance. “Sir, you filled out form 17βd. You need to fill out form 17βD.”

“…How do you pronounce capital and lowercase letters differently?”

“Magical bureaucrat superpower.”

Sombra grunted. This was so typical, he barely found it in himself to get wrathful. “So, tell me, what form did I fill out?”

“Form 17βd is a food distributor’s confirmation of the sale of tropical fruits on the second Thursday after a blue moon.”

“…I was wondering what mangoes had to do with tyranny.”

“You’d be surprised.” Red Tape’s face was as featureless as ever.

Sombra stared at her. It would be easy, so so easy, to bash her head in right then and there, leave her gibbering on the floor. He was Sombra and this was his dominion. They ought to be bowing down to him, paying their respects instinctively out of sheer terror, for he was the greatest-

“Sir, you’re holding up the line.”

Pouting, Sombra snatched up his useless forms and stomped away.

Caves could only be entered so many times before you got used to them, and Sombra wasn’t looking over his shoulder when he found the actual form 17βD (he kept double-checking to be sure it didn’t change into 7teenβD or similar). Yes, this one was much more relevant. He filled it out, even taking the time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. His obedience made him shudder.

He went through the queue again, lethargically chewed up and spat out again and sent to the cud by bureaucratic cogs that were masterful in their inefficiency. After only a few trips, the line was already feeling familiar, like home, if home was filled with monotony, endless drudgery, and little hope for release (which, granted, was true; it was just that he wasn’t the one feeling those things). He thought he’d grow used to the background noise, but it only grew more annoying, a fly aiming for maximum distraction. Maybe the room didn’t like him. The feeling was mutual, and soon, he could do something about it.

Back at Red Tape. Was he wearing a rut in the floor? He slapped the paper on the counter-

“Sir, did you fill out the required F4-J6?”

Sombra stared.

“Approval for Preparation for Authority Handover. Sir, don’t give me that look. This is incredibly basic, and I don’t know why you don’t know-”

Fangs were nice. Fangs were sharp. Fangs were dangerous. Sombra snapped those nice, sharp, dangerous fangs at Red Tape, even though he’d get more of a reaction from wood. Then he yanked himself away from the wonderful image of beating Red Tape’s head in and stomped back to the form room.

On a whim, Sombra whirled on the nearest pony in the line. “You!” he bellowed, jabbing the mare in the chest.

“Me!” chirped the mare. “Oh, thank goodness, it feels so good to be able to speak to somepony again-”

“What are the prerequisites for an approved 9941-M?” Sombra snapped.

The mare pawed at the ground as she looked at him quizzically. “A 17βD,” she responded. “Obviously. Everyone knows that.”

“And what are the prerequisites for a 17βD?”

She stopped being quizzical and started being testy. “An F4-J6. That couldn’t be simpler. Hey, can you-”

Grunting, Sombra turned his back on her, flicking his tail in her face, and stomped away.

“Wait! Don’t go! Please! I’m so lonely…”

In. F4-J6. Out. Scribble, sign, sign, sign, date.

Line. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

“You want to do it today? You’ll need an Expedited Approval of Preparation for Authority Handover. F4-J6-*1.”

In. F4-J6-*1. Out. Scribble, sign, jot, initial, date, sigh.

Line. Wait, wait, wait, seethe, wait, wait.

“You can’t turn in an F4-J6-*1 without a regular F4-J6. You did keep it, didn’t you?”

In. F4-J6. Out. Scribble, sign, sign, rip hair out, sign, date.

Line. Wait, wait, wait, wait, scream frustration into an uncaring void of banality, wait.

“You need to expedite your expedition. 7S-ШL2.”

In. 7S-ШL2. Sob in the fetal position. Out. Scribble, date, stab table with pen, date, initial.

Line. Wait, wail, wait, wait, wait, stomp on nearby line of ants, wait.

“Did you authorize your expedition’s expedition? 2345694138704931552.2b.”

In. Consider summoning demons to lay waste to everything within a mile. 2345694138704931552.2b. Out. Initial.

Line. Wait, wait, achieve enlightenment by realizing the futility of persisting on this constant treadmill of pain and suffering known as existence, reject enlightenment because that would mean giving up on that sweet Empire ruling, wait, wait, wait.

“I’m not seeing a THX-1138-4EB or a U62-Ⴗ-ᛒ.”

Was this what madness felt like? Walking over the same lines, over and over. Every form Sombra filled out required at least one more to be authorized, sometimes more. He was walking a treadmill of perversity, and not the fun kind.

He knew the stacks well by now. Their aches, their secrets, their pains, their wants. A furrow was being trampled down by all the times he’d walked over it, again and again and again. His movement was automatic; he could close his eyes and wake up close to the relevant form. None of that made it any easier.

After extracting his latest form from a drawer that had rusted shut, Sombra was slouching towards the exit, every step taking him closer to Bedlam, when Discord entered, whistling. Whistling. “I must say,” Discord said cheerfully, “you’ve been in and out a lot.”

“Forms,” grunted Sombra. He barely raised his head and continued examining the floor. “Endless, endless forms.” It was a most interesting floor, it was… So utterly featureless except for where ponies had scuffed it… And even those scuffs, the floor bore with a sort of boring dignity like a pony would a battle scar.

“True, but I don’t see why-” Then Discord’s eyes went big in a way that was very theatrical and even more fake. “Oh, Sombra,” he said, putting a claw to his mouth. “Have you been figuring out these forms by trial and error?”

“There’s no way to know which forms require what,” growled Sombra. “Except, I suppose, you know, but you’re not going to-”

The book hit Sombra in the head with an odd weight. “I help those lost in the bureaucracy,” said Discord sagely. “You’re welcome.” He began flipping through a notebook. “I still need a 1026/J, two TTO9s, and a holofoil R793…” And he was gone.

Sombra rubbed his head, grunted something that might be taken as thanks, and looked at the book: Navigating the Crystal Bureaucracy and You. It was about as boring and plain as could be, gray with a simple typeface (it was the sort of book that was allergic to color, a semi-rare bibliailment). Form-induced madness drove Sombra to open it up without considering what a gift from Discord might be like.

Yet he found just what he needed soon enough: a section on the transfer of power within the Empire. It even had a flowchart with a little pullout section to show which forms were and weren’t needed. Following the chart, Sombra pulled that section out and unfolded it.

There were more forms necessary as the chart lazed about the page. He unfolded it.

Still more forms. The chart was growing more tangled than a noble family tree. He unfolded it.

More forms. The chart had been tortured, twisted into knots, yet it only screamed, More. He unfolded it.

And unfolded it and unfolded it and unfolded it and unfolded it and unfolded it and unfolded it and unfolded it…

The flowchart filled the aisle before Sombra had all the results he needed.

Sombra stared at the stack of forms before him. Preparations. Authorizations. Preparations to authorize. Authorizations to prepare. More. How many had he picked up, following that chart? A hundred? Perhaps more. Numbers broke down except in the ways in which they related to the next form to fill out.

But he had a goal. A most urgent one. It was still singing its siren song to him, one not even actual sirens could drown out. His life’s work. And once these forms were taken care of, he could take care of everyone else who stood in his way. To accomplish this would require a will of steel, and Sombra’s will was so strong it made steel look pathetic.

He brandished his pen the same way he would a spear. He was going to destroy those forms like they were a crystal pony’s will to live.

In Which Sombra Experiences Perpetuity

Form after form after form, dotted line after dotted line after dotted line. Slowly, the list of papers Sombra had completed filled up. Every eventuality was covered. Every last turn of the pen prepared for. Whenever it looked like the bureaucracy might have cornered him, Sombra fought his way out with a few well-aimed strokes of the pen and a trail of ink. (He would’ve preferred well-aimed strokes of the sword and a trail of blood, but eh. He’d take what he could get.)

When he finally filled out everything, he had a stack as thick as an encyclopedia. Still, he double-checked every last requirement, then triple-checked his double checks. If he had to write down one more thing… But whatever dark god oversaw bureaucracy had apparently deigned to take pity on him, and everything was in order. All of his papers had been filled out and he could get on with it.

After far too long, Sombra stepped up to Red Tape’s counter once again. It was a wonder how she could persist in such a draining environment. Still, Sombra grinned like a vampire as he held up his papers. “As requested,” he said in his most sinister voice, “I have brought-”

Red Tape held up a hoof. “Stop!” She reached under the desk and plonked down a sign that said “Out on Break”. “Lunch time.”

Sombra blinked. His capacity to be sinister was really taking a beating today. Stupid promise. “That is mighty coincidental,” he hissed.

“It is indeed,” said Red Tape blandly. “But look.” She pointed a hoof at a clock. 12:00. “Not my problem.” She pulled out a cold aloeburger and some overly-salty hay fries from beneath her desk and began loudly munching away right there, staring at Sombra with half-lidded eyes.

Sombra glared at Red Tape, pouring all of his hatred, his malice, his will that had sustained him for over a millennium into that stare. It had been known to wilt plants, to send even the most hardened of ponies scurrying for the hills. All those who saw it cringed away from his wrath. It was said that that glare alone could shatter mountains and curdle entire lakes of milk.

Red Tape stared back at him and chewed. Loudly.

“Listen,” Sombra said. He waved the papers. “I have the forms right here.”

“Listen,” Red Tape said. She waved the food. “I have my lunch right here.” She chewed. Loudly.

“I am the King of Shadows,” roared Sombra, “and I will not be ignored! You cannot stand idly by while your King has need of you!”

“Can and will. I am on. Break.” Red Tape chewed. Loudly.

“You shall regret those words.” Sombra’s form dissolved and expanded, billowing forth into the black mass of smoke that had terrorized the Frozen North for a thousand years, completely filling the room. The earth shook and lights flickered. Sombra released a keening, ear-splitting screech that went right down to the bone.

Red Tape stared at him and chewed. Loudly.

After a second, Sombra collapsed back into a pony. “Just where in the blazes did you get that poker face?” (Sombra was before poker, but he’d heard of it.)

“A boundless capacity to ignore ponies is another magical bureaucrat superpower.” Red Tape chewed. Loudly.

Which made far too much sense, Sombra realized. “So are you saying I just need to- wait here until you finish that… food-adjacent material?”

“Indeed.” Red Tape masticated. Resoundingly.

Waiting. More waiting. A vein bulged in Sombra’s head. He was going to lay waste to this place: burn it to the ground, salt the earth, then throw everything into the sun. He was already drawing up plans for it. And as for Red Tape herself, she would-

“Sombra.” Sombra found himself spun around to face Discord. “I know what you’re thinking, and not just because I can read your mind,” Discord said. “You remember what I said, don’t you? Do not mess with the bureaucrats.”

“I can still think it.” Sombra turned back around to glare at Red Tape as she chewed. Loudly. “I know she won’t respond. She has less flexibility than diamond.” He didn’t bother lowering his voice. It wouldn’t change her attitude, one way or another.

“Perhaps,” said Red Tape. “Or maybe I’m just one tough bi-”

“LANGUAGE!” bellowed Discord.

For the first time, Red Tape looked something almost vaguely resembling the general vicinity of kinda-sorta slightly miffed if you tilted your head and squinted and looked through binoculars and were biased. And, okay, lied. “I’m sorry, what?” Her voice was as uninflected as ever. “I can swear if I fu-”

“LANGUAGE!” bellowed Discord again. He cleared his throat and straightened up as much as he could. “You see, this is an E rated fic.”

“A what whatted what?” asked Sombra. (He was before ratings. Or fanfics.)

“And to keep it that way,” Discord continued, “you should refrain from using naughty words, unless you’re willing to fill out form 42-27b/6 and bump it to T.”

Red Tape pondered this. “I think you mean 4-D2-27B/Six: Post-Submission Ratings Update.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what I meant. Which one did I suggest?”

“I can’t say. This is an E rated fic.”

“What are you two talking about?” screamed Sombra.

“Minutiae, the most important thing in the universe.” Red Tape chewed. Thoughtfully.

“Oh, don’t worry!” Discord patted Sombra on the head. “She’ll be done in twenty-eight minutes and nine, eight, seven seconds, and you can go back to being properly pouty.”

Sombra didn’t even brush the claw away.

Red Tape was still eating at 12:29:59. At 12:30:00, her food was gone and her “Out on Break” sign had vanished. Sombra headed her off by dropping the papers on the counter. Everything shook like he’d slammed an anvil. “I’d like to submit a 9941-M and its prerequisites.”

“Sir, you don’t submit those here.”

Sombra sucked in a breath through his nose. He let it out through his mouth. He ignored the way he could slit her throat with his pointy, pointy horn or pointier, pointier crown. “Where. Do I. Submit it?”

“Right over there, sir.” Red Tape pointed at a door off to the side: Mass Form Submission Office. “If you enter the line, a representative will be with you shortly.”

Sombra snatched up his paper pile and stalked away, shadows spilling out from beneath his armor, his cape billowing behind him. Barbarity. Pure barbarity. This was why authoritarianism was so much better. All decisions were handled by one pony: him. He settled them as he saw fit and that was that. None of this running around for approval and permission and preparation and- Oh, sweet him, he just wanted to rule an empire with an iron hoof; was that too much to ask for?

He shoved open the doors to the office with a practiced drama. (Technically, Sombra was before flashy entrances, but only because he’d invented them, he told himself.) “I have a 9941-M I’d like to submit,” he boomed to Red Tape. “I also have its-”

He blinked and stared at the pony sitting on the opposite side of the desk.

“Yes?” Red Tape asked. “Continue, sir.”

“What manner of farce is this?” yelled Sombra. “I was- I was just-” He pointed back outside, spluttering like a ruler on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“An ability to selectively multitask is another magical bureaucrat superpower, sir,” said Red Tape. “How may I help you?”

“You may not.” Sombra’s voice was going so low so often that his throat was beginning to hurt, but he forged on. She needed to know that he meant business. “I will not entertain this- this charade any longer. You have me running around, chasing my own tail-”

“It’s not my fault you’re doing this by trial and error, sir.”

“Do not condescend to me! I will not give you the satisfaction of being your lapdog who heels when you ask, who barks when told to speak-”

“Then can I be a lapdog?” Discord asked from behind him. “Please? I have a nice stack of dead trees that could use some sanguine ink.”

“If you insist.” Sombra couldn’t even be surprised anymore. He waved Discord in. Let the Lord of Chaos do as he was told. Not the King of Shadows, certainly. “Now, hear me, Red Tape. I will not stand for this-”

“Sir, I’m busy, please leave the room.” And Red Tape shoved him back out the door, closing it behind him. Sombra blinked and tried the knob. Locked.

Discord’s eye snaked out from the crack, and when he spoke, it was impossible to miss the smile in his voice. “Oh, no take-backsies!” he said. “You let me go first, and that’s that. You really need to think ahead more. And when I’m the one saying that…” Wink, gone.

Sombra turned away from the door, snorting. Whatever. It was fine. He’d said so himself, he wasn’t going to do what they said, just because it would return him to his rightful place… with no trouble from the other princesses… physical or legal… even after he’d already done so much work… and suffered through the indignities of this system, one that seemed poised to defeat him more completely than the princesses ever had…

His sigh wouldn’t have sounded out-of-place coming from a deflating balloon.

Very well. A lapdog he would be, if that was what it took to get his empire back. He dropped his stack into one chair, his body into another, and his mouth into a pout.

He could still hear Red Tape’s voice. “Now, then, Mr. Discord-”

“Actually, could you call me Ms.? I’m feeling contrary today and would prefer to be called that instead, please. Thank you.”

“Now, then, Ms. Discord-”

“I meant that literally.”

“Now, then, Ms. I’m Feeling Contrary Today and Would Prefer to be Called That Instead Please Thank You-”

“Much better.”

“-did you have any specific questions regarding your forms? Or were you just looking for a quick checkup to be sure everything is correct before submission?”

“Just a quick checkup. I don’t want to have to go through all those queues again.” Discord shuddered.

“Being careful never hurt anypony.”

“Also, it means I get to waste half an hour doing meaningless busywork to annoy Sombra more.”

“A noble goal.”

Sombra banged on the door. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he yelled, “could you raise your voices a little? I can’t hear you talking behind my back!” (Sombra was after talking behind ponies’ backs, although he never did it himself, considering it cowardly.)

“Apologies!” said Discord from inside the room. He cleared his throat and bellowed, “ALSO, IT MEANS I GET TO WASTE HALF AN HOUR DOING MEANINGLESS BUSYWORK TO ANNOY SOMBRA MORE.”

“A NOBLE GOAL,” bellowed Red Tape.

Sombra moaned, smashed his head against the wall, and pulled his cape over his head.

When Discord finally flounced out of the room an eternity later, Sombra was called in. He staggered in, dropped into a chair, and glared at his nemesis. His nemesis didn’t deign to respond.

“I have a 9941-M and its prerequisites,” he snarled. He dropped the stack of papers on the desk between them with a resounding thud. “I’d like a quick checkup before submission.”

Red Tape wordlessly began taking papers from one stack, scanning them, and moving them to another. If she had any questions, she didn’t ask them. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the In stack grew smaller and the Out stack grew taller. By now, Sombra had trouble even mustering up the energy to be hopeful; hope had decided it was done being kicked around for a while and gone off to get wasted. (Drunk or killed? Either was possible at this point.)

And then, suddenly, the In stack was gone. “Every form is present and accounted for,” she said. “You still need the monarch’s signature, but as you filled out form XR/𐐘3-ת, your 9941-M can be pre-approved.”

“So am I done?” Sombra grunted. “Or should I do flexibility exercises to impress you?” (Sombra was before the term “yoga”.)

“Thanks to form H7L56, that won’t be necessary, sir. You merely need to wait so we can get all of these recorded.” Red Tape passed a small piece of paper his way. “When your ticket number is called out, you can pick up your approved form.”

Sombra muttered something that was a lie in the general vicinity of “thanks”, snatched up the paper, and stomped back to the main room.

There were chairs there, for waiting. Sombra dropped into one of them. This particular chair had found it in itself to be just uncomfortable enough to be annoying, but not so uncomfortable as to merit actually getting up and changing something or moving. The sort of uncomfortable where any adjustment would just change how it was uncomfortable, not how much it was. Already, Sombra knew he was in for a long wait.

A voice rang through the room. “Ticket number 26?”

Sombra idly looked at his paper. 46853. Joy.

“Ticket number 26? Ticket number 26? Ticket number 26?”

Whoever was calling it had their voice turn into a sort of white noise. Sombra settled in, letting that white noise wash over him like the tide, and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Gradually, events blurred together. Ponies came and went. Ticket numbers were hollered out. The queue moved (technically). Sombra was never called. An eternity seemed to pass; every second was the same as the second before and the second after. Time increasingly became meaningless as minutes slipped away, never to be found again. Sombra’s own memory dissolved into a miasmatic haze as he waited and waited and waited. Space itself seemed to congeal, to limit his movements. As time failed to progress, the universe shrank to his chair and shouted ticket numbers.

Suddenly, he twitched. He felt like he was waking up for the first time in his life. He rubbed his chin and was shocked to feel lengthy stubble. “How long have I been sitting here?” he asked himself. He hadn’t moved his lips in so long, they were stiff.

“Ehm…” The pony next to him glanced at the clock. “Ten seconds.”

“Ten-” Sombra hadn’t felt this out of joint since the first time someone had spoken back to him. “Ten seconds?” he growled. “That is- That is impossible. I have grown. I have held mass executions that were carried out more quickly than this! To claim that- that I have been sitting here for nothing more than ten seconds-”

A look of glee painted itself across the pony’s face and he rubbed his hooves together. “Ooo, you fell into a bureaucratic time warp, didn’t you? Maybe my wine’s finally aged!” He was off and returned soon after, rolling a keg. “You know, those time-dilatory effects of bureaucracies are a pain, aren’t they? But they’re really nifty if you know how to exploit them.” He stood the keg up and patted it affectionately. “I’ve aged this wine a hundred years in the past three months.”

“Excuse me, sir!” yelled Red Tape. “Do you have-?”

The pony whipped out a stamped form. “Right here, ma’am!”

“Carry on!”

The pony popped the top of the keg, sniffed, and shuddered. “Ooo, yeah, that’s gooood. I’m getting drunk just smelling this. WHO WANTS WIIIIIINE?”

Every hoof in the room went up. Including Red Tape’s. And Sombra’s. If he was going to wait this long, he’d do well to not remember it.

In Which Sombra Takes Unspeakably Drastic Measures

“Ticket number 46853?”

After his wine binge, Sombra felt like he ought to have had a hangover, but didn’t. Evidently, hangovers hadn’t been authorized.

“Ticket number 46853?”

He was somehow both woozy and fully alert simultaneously. The two mental states weren’t jockeying for position, either; they’d formed a sort of uneasy truce where both claimed the territory but oh-so-graciously allowed the other to stay in the name of avoiding the specter of war that was hanging over them.

“Ticket number 46853?”

So although the line he walked to the front desk was straight, he wasn’t exactly sure how he kept it straight. His vision kept defocusing only to refocus immediately, like the little pony in his head was having a very indecisive day. He didn’t even properly register what his ticket being called meant, although that would change very soon.

He and Red Tape, immortal enemies for the past however-long-he’d-been-in-here, faced off once again. As Sombra hadn’t filled out the proper form for immortal-enemy-dom, Red Tape couldn’t care less. “Your form, sir,” she said, pushing a sheet of paper at him.

Sombra’s heart skipped a beat, went back and found it again, and beat it into line to remind it who was boss. Could this be…? After all this time? He eagerly snatched up the form and read it.

…No.

No.

No, this was inconceivable. He was King Sombra, and he would not be denied by this- by this- …Actually, Red Tape could be somewhat intimidating at times. But he would not be denied by her! He would be approved by her!

“Sir, you’re holding up the line.”

“This is unacceptable,” snapped Sombra.

“That’s why I rejected it, sir,” said Red Tape. “You’re holding up-”

“You cannot turn me away for such a small thing. Me! The King of Shadows!”

“I believe I just did, sir. You’re holding up-”

“Can I speak to your manager?”

Immediately, silence fell with the force of a building collapsing. A dropped needle would hesitate to ring, assuming it dared to touch the floor at all. Every single pony and draconequus in the room backed away from Sombra. Even Red Tape looked a bit shocked. “The… Manager… sir?”

“Yes,” Sombra hissed. “Your manager. The one above you, who is responsible for you. After all I went through, this-” He shook the form. “-is unacceptable.”

Red Tape’s head jerked up and down. It was almost possible to hear the tendons creaking. “I-if you insist, sir.” She reached for a nearby bell-

“Wait!” Discord was suddenly between Sombra and the desk. “You don’t need to do that,” he wheedled. “Sombra’s just upset, surely he doesn’t mean-”

“I do mean.” Sombra roughly shoved Discord aside. “Call. Your. Manager.”

“Please don’t please don’t please don’t-” Discord was quietly shrieking.

“Now.”

Red Tape swallowed and rang the bell.

“Sir, did you fill out form 45-L?”

Sombra twitched at the sudden voice and spun around. An oddly indescribable mare was standing right behind him, scrutinizing him with the look of somepony who has far more power than they ever should have been given. He ignored the chill that ran down his spine, opened his mouth-

“Sir, as I am the Manager-” (The Capital Letter was clearly Audible.) “-you cannot talk to me until you fill out form 45-L, Permission to Speak to the Management.” The Manager shoved a paper from nowhere at Sombra with such force that he stumbled back and lightly bumped against the desk behind him.

Immediately, the Manager said, “Sir, please fill out form 6D, Bureaucratic Damage Report.” Another paper. “Also, you’re standing out of line, so please fill out form B5, Improper Queuing Notice.” Another paper. “You also need to fill out a 2F-N, Approval Procedure Disruption.” Another paper. They were coming so fast that this one slipped from his grasp and fluttered to the floor. He hastily scooped it up-

“That’s a Y-N8L-3EF, Littering Violation, and a Z-N8L-3EF, Improper Correction of a Littering Violation.” Two more papers. The Manager sighed. “Sir, I don’t know why you wanted to speak to me if you weren’t prepared.”

How was this one pony stymieing him more quickly than any other pony had? Including Red Tape, of all ponies. (Why was she even in the running?) Sombra opened his mouth again-

“As I already told you, you need to fill out a 45-L. As such, you must also now fill out a BN8, Acknowledgement of Reminder of Proper Form Etiquette.” Another paper. “Also a BN-8-C, Acknowledgement of Reminder of Proper Form Etiquette Within the Crystal Empire…”

Somehow, the Manager was even more anal than Red Tape. If he so much as twitched his nose, she slapped him with another form. It was impossible to get a word in edgewise (not least because he still hadn’t filled out that 45-L) and his collection of papers to write on grew and grew, destroying a forest in the process. He couldn’t even tell the Manager that he didn’t need her help anymore. Red Tape actually had an expression now: she was looking at Sombra with genuine pity. All around him, the rest of the line was pulling back in dread.

At some point, his ears started rejecting the Manager’s words. He had filled out all previous forms; he could fill out these. For he was King Sombra. He shuffled through the stack, found that stupid 45-L. At least it was small. Red Tape thoughtfully nudged a pen in his direction, which almost made up for all the other torment she’d put him through. Sombra grabbed the pen and put it to paper.

Only for the Manager to snatch the pen right out of his magical grasp. “I’m sorry, sir, if you wish to use a pen, you’ll need to fill out-” The Manager dropped another paper on the ever-growing stack. “-form 456-ND/86b, Authorization for Use of Ink-Based Writing Implements to Fill Out Forms.”

Sombra looked at the pen in the Manager’s grip. He looked at the 45-L. He raised an eyebrow: just how am I supposed to fill out a form if I can’t write?

The Manager smiled sweetly. “You can’t use a pen. Your blood will suffice.”

Sombra blinked.

“Of course, depending on how you go about it…” The Manager somehow pulled out another form. “You may also need to fill out form 456-ND/86k, Authorization for Use of Blood-Based Writing Implements to Fill Out Forms.”

Sombra glanced at Discord, who was standing on the fringes of the crowd. “You. You’re just going to let her do this?”

“Sir, you need to fill out form 3BbH-5*tY-2B&25, Inter-Species Communication Within a Bureaucratic Establishment of the Crystal Empire in the Northern Quarter on a Friday Afternoon in a Semiprime-Numbered Year.”

“Would that I could,” said Discord. He snapped his fingers; he was promptly buried beneath forms pouring from a hole in the air above him.

“If you wish to warp reality,” said the Manager, looking vaguely peeved, “you need authorization for each law of physics you wish to break in the particular region you wish to break them in for the period of time for the particular region you wish to break them in. I have taken the liberty of giving you each form you require, starting with form ЉS-電/4.π-Three-Aitch-!ÉRΔ§, Manipulation of Maraday’s Law on a Subatomic Level Within a Bureaucratic Establishment of the Crystal Empire in the Northern Quarter on a Friday Afternoon in a Semiprime-Numbered Year for a Period of Time Lasting One Hour Beginning at 3:00 PM, as well as-”

As the Manager kept talking, Discord shoved his head out from under his own mountain of forms and glared at Sombra. “See? You’ve really gone and LANGUAGEd it up. She’ll keep throwing forms at us until the world is buried under processed tree corpses, and we can’t do anything against her because we can’t fill out the form. There’s only one way to solve this.” He reached out, yanked Aldebarein until it was above the horizon, and screamed, “Haltur! Haltur! Haltur!”

Red Tape wiped the mortal remains of Him Who is Not to be Named off the Pen. “Summoning sickness,” she muttered. “Gets them every time.”

Sombra gawked at the twisted remains of the building, still reeling from the fact that he had witnessed a Great Old One attempt to force its way into reality. (Sombra was after Great Old Ones, if one can ever be “after” a being that causes time and causality severe hangovers.) An incursion by an Old One was always a sight to behold as the laws of nature broke down and physics was replaced by oughtness as decreed by the Old One. The sight was known to drive ponies mad, destroy objects simply by being, render thought itself absurd. Girders were twisting into impossible geometries merely based on the fact that Haltur had once been here.

And yet Red Tape had put a stop to the summoning merely by citing an ordinance and deploying ordnance.

As Haltur had vanished, the Manager had given chase, screaming something about the madness Haltur had induced being that of alien geometries rather than that of Things Ponies Were Not Meant to Know, and therefore an unauthorized sort. She was gone; Red Tape was still there, standing with the Pen slung over her back and the discipline of an excessively anal warrior. As he took stock of his shaking limbs, his beating heart, his unwelcome desire to see more, Sombra realized that he was awestruck, in the original form of “awe” that implied a heavy dose of fear. (Why, oh why, did it have to be a bureaucrat?)

Red Tape put the pen away and glanced up at the maddening forms that had once been the building’s ceiling. “Excuse me!” she yelled at the spacetime anomalies. “Are you licensed for that?!”

The anomalies decided to be anomalous somewhere and somewhen and somewhy else and departed along impossible axes.

“Alright, ponies!” Red Tape roared with an authority Celestia would be envious of. “We’re still on schedule! Please reform the line!”

She needn’t have bothered. The line was already assembled. Even Discord hadn’t objected. And within moments, Red Tape was overseeing papers again.

Sombra looked at Red Tape — She, the Vanquisher of Unremembered, Wielder of the Pen, the Authorizer. He looked at his unapproved form, the ink still wet.

He meekly crumpled it up and slunk into the stacks to pick up a new one.

In Which Sombra Like Totally Frigging Loses It

It was approved.

It was approved.

IT WAS APPROVED!

He was free. He was free of that nightmare labyrinth of specificity, of waiting, of endless forms upon endless forms, of inane busywork. Sombra nearly danced a jig as he approached the Crystal Palace (he was after jigs), but that was Most Unbecoming someone of His Stature, who deserved Important Capital Letters. Not even his best evil laugh would save it. He settled for holding his head high and striding with a purpose. Almost as cathartic and infinitely more dignified. All he needed was for a very special somepony to hold up her end of the bargain.

And, oh, what luck! Soon-To-Be-Ex-Princess Cadance was standing in the space below the Palace, talking with Discord and (shudder) Red Tape about… oh, what did he care? He’d crush them all the same once his approval was complete.

Just as Discord stepped away from Cadance, Sombra stepped up. “The form, as you requested, Your Highness,” he said, presenting the form. He even found it in himself to bow grandiloquently. It’d be one of the last things she saw, after all. “I ask you to sign it.”

Cadance hardly reacted. Shock, most likely. She glanced at the paper, then said, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Obviously.”

(Sombra was before Ogres & Oubliettes.)

To her credit, Cadance filled out the form with none of the expected nervousness. Even Celestia would shake a little. But Cadance was steady as she passed her death warrant back to Sombra. He gave it a quick glance to be sure she hadn’t snuck in some last-minute inkblot to befoul his perfect work. But she hadn’t, obviously too smart to even think of attempting such a thing. For once.

And that was that.

Satisfaction began filling Sombra from head to hoof. It was done. It was over. The great work was complete. Smiling like a vulture, he turned to Red Tape and passed over the paper. “And I believe,” he said triumphantly, “that that restores me to your proper place as king.”

He was in a position he’d never been in before. Previously, his rule had always had some pushback from Equestria, as if slavery was bad or something. It was hard, consolidating your power, when demigods kept insisting on showing up unannounced. But now? Oh, the transfer of power had been entirely legal. Celestia couldn’t object, for it had all been done by the book! At this point, that one student of hers would probably support him. He’d followed the regulations, after all, and she was a stickler for-

Red Tape cleared her throat. “Sir, Cadance isn’t the person whose signature you needed. This form is invalid.”

Sombra hadn’t had his ecstasy drowned this thoroughly since he’d heard his parents had survived the house fire. His joints creaking, he slowly turned to face Red Tape. “I… beg your pardon?” he said in a voice that had no business being anywhere near begging and certainly wouldn’t have spared any alms if it were.

“Cadance isn’t the person whose signature you needed. This form is invalid,” Red Tape repeated.

“She is Princess. Cadance,” snarled Sombra. “I made a deal with her. Or did she stop being princess in the time since then?”

“Yes!” Cadance said, smiling. “As of two minutes ago, I’m not the Crystal Princess anymore.”

“I aaaaaaaaam!” singsonged Discord, which was impressive when he only had two syllables to singsong with. “Behold!” And he whipped out a disturbingly familiar form.

“I never actually said I would hand over control to you,” Cadance said. “I just told you to fill out the form properly.”

“And it’s hardly her fault that your info is out of date.” Discord grabbed Sombra and gave him a noogie. “You silly goose, you!”

“You…” Sombra’s brain chugged to life as it thought about someone other than himself. The effort made it sob, but it forged on valiantly. “You two planned this,” he gasped, staring between Cadance and Discord. He couldn’t even muster up the effort to break free of Discord’s grasp. “All along. You… tricked me into… jumping through all those hoops knowing it would be USELESS!”

“Well, obviously,” said Discord cheerfully. “Did you really presume I was going through all that bureaucratic chicanery for fun? It’s so… orderly.” He shuddered as Cadance giggled like the filly she was and not some princess adept at manipulation that she certainly wasn’t.

Sombra’s eye twitched. -he’d made a promise he’d made a promise he’d made a promise- He forced his way free. Red Tape still had his useless-

Wait. Not useless. He could salvage this. He snatched his forms back and scratched out all of Cadance’s information. He shoved them at Discord. “I made a deal,” he said quickly. “I fill out these forms properly and leadership is passed. You are leader of the Empire. The deal has fallen to you. Fulfill it.”

Cadance and Discord looked at each other. “Are you sure you want to do that?” Discord said, smirking.

But Sombra had nearly reached retail levels of not caring. “Do it!”

And Discord immediately filled out every space necessary. Sombra looked them over with the frenzied anger of one who had the end of their rope wave farewell ages past. Yet everything seemed in order. He shoved the paper, now more wrinkled than the oldest earth pony, at Red Tape. “Here,” he said, nearly giggling. “As request-”

“Sir, I can’t accept this. This form has clearly been illegally modified and I cannot verify its veracity.”

Sombra could feel himself develop a subconjunctival hemorrhage. The blood spreading across his eye would certainly be menacing, but menace was among the last things he needed at the moment. As he advanced on an unmoving Red Tape, Sombra spat out words like an active volcano spat out lava. “Are… you saying… that the form I gave you… is utterly worthless?”

Yet Red Tape didn’t swat an eyelash, much less bat an eye. “Yes.”

The fire of Sombra’s ire could’ve fed a thousand forges. “Are. You. Saying. That. I. Need. To. Go. Through. That. Whole. Process. Again?!”

Red Tape would’ve impressed the Canterhorn with how unmoving she was. “Yes.”

“THEY SHALL NEVER FIND YOUR REMAINS! I WILL REND YOUR BONES FROM YOUR FLESH AND GRIND THEM TO DUST! YOUR MIND ITSELF SHALL BE SPLIT ASUNDER! PONIES AGES HENCE SHALL SHUDDER TO EVEN THINK OF YOUR NAME FOR FEAR OF THE THINGS I WILL DO TO YOU! I WILL WIPE YOUR BLOODLINE FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND THE LIFE OF EVERY LAST RELATION YOU HAVE SHALL BE EXTINGUISHED!”

“Sir, before you do that, you’ll need to fill out form A.”

Sombra waited. Red Tape didn’t continue. “A…?” he prompted.

“Just A,” said Red Tape. “We knew it’d be a popular form, so that was the first one we created.”

“Very. Well.” Sombra’s voice was somewhere in the range of Canterlot Castle being pushed across a field of granite. “Tell me, where can I find this form A?”

“If you’ll follow me, sir, I can show you-”

“Now, wait a moment, Sombra,” Cadance said blithely. “You remember the other half of our agreement, don’t you?”

“I. Do. What. Of. It?”

“Remember how you said you wouldn’t harm any of the crystal ponies?”

“So what?” snapped Sombra. “It was just words, nothing official-”

And suddenly Red Tape changed.

Physically, nothing was different. But now the world was focused on her, much like it focused on Celestia or Luna when they walked into a room. She was indisputably, unignorably there, demanding attention on a metaphysical level nopony could fully identify. She radiated a cold and calculating yet rabid fury as only an expressionless mare could. It seemed the strength of her self-control was the only thing keeping her from pounding Sombra into gravy right that second. “You ought to know, sir,” Red Tape said, spitting out the final word like the world’s most horrific invective, “that verbal contracts are just as binding as written ones. It is unwise that you attempted to use me to break a contract.”

Cadance and even Discord were pulling away from Red Tape; Sombra found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move any part of his body a single inch. Every single one of his bodily functions was going into overdrive; his heartbeat would put a hummingbird’s to shame. He wanted to say he was before verbal contracts, but the lie threatened to commit suicide and take him with it. If ever he had made a mistake in his life, it was this. (As well as not killing the Bearers when he had the chance, or killing Cadance when he had the chance, or not making his mind-control helmets stronger, or-)

“So.” Red Tape pulled out the Pen. For the first time, Sombra could hear that its runes shrieked with the cries of the condemned and the whines of the unaccredited. “Do you know what time it is?”

Sombra gulped, the sensation utterly alien to his body. He put up his strongest shield, one that felt on the same level as the world’s strongest rice paper. “Hammer Time?”

Red Tape pulled the Pen back for the windup. “Bingo.”

The Pen plowed through the shield and slammed into Sombra with a force a fully-loaded freight train traveling at rainboom speeds would find excessive. He was blown through the wall and cartwheeled gracefully through the air, friction leaving behind a magnificent plume of plasma and an awful lot of property damage in his wake. His mind was vaporized before his body was.

Cadance and Discord watched Sombra sail across the horizon. Once the newborn comet had passed out of sight, Cadance said, “When you said you’d brought Sombra back to life as a present, I expected a lot worse than that.”

“And here are the pictures I promised.” Discord smirked. “Happy birthday, Gradient Bubblegum. Now…” He plucked Cadance’s crown from her mane and slipped it on like an armband. “For my first act as Princess of the Crystal Empire, I shall-”

Red Tape cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t let you do that.” She pulled out the paperwork. “You see, you clearly signed several forms ‘Discord’, whereas you stated your name was ‘Ms. I’m Feeling Contrary Today and Would Prefer to be Called That Instead Please Thank You’. As such, while its presence on your 9941-M means that is what your title shall be, every other sheaf of paper bearing the former signature is invalid. You have no legislative authority yet until you fill out the relevant forms properly.”

“Oh, come ooooooooon,” whined Discord, “you know that was just to annoy him. Can’t you bend the rules a little just this once?”

Red Tape hefted the Pen.

Discord gulped. “I’ll get right on it.”