In Which Sombra Grapples With an Apparatus as Evil as He

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.