In Which Sombra Grapples With an Apparatus as Evil as He

“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.