In Which Sombra Grapples With an Apparatus as Evil as He

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.