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// Fear Itself 
// Story: Fall of Empire 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
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Let us talk for a moment about understatement. To understate something, one reduces an event to its barest and least complex component, like making a mountain into a molehill. This is almost worse than its opposite, exaggeration, where an inch can become a mile as easily as blinking. At least with exaggeration the worst that is likely to happen is mild disappointment. Understatement is far more insidious, often with far worse consequences. For instance, when Sombra said that “it’s gotten in,” the Doctor and Sweetie Belle might have assumed that he meant, perhaps, a large vein of crystal was seeping in through a crack in the rock, or possibly that a glowing chartreuse stalagmite had sprung up.
It is likely that they were not expecting an entire wall to be covered in a shimmering coat of solid crystal, with one particularly thick archway denoting the doorway. The trio stared at it for a long moment. “How…” the Doctor began.
Sombra shook his massive, shaggy head. “It always could spread quickly,” he murmured. “Either it’s grown desperate, or it simply doesn’t care about staying away from the Crystal Heart any longer. Perhaps it’s finally finished corrupting the heart.”
Sweetie Belle let out a short puff of air, then nodded firmly. “Right. We’ll just have to push on through together. What kind of emotion is that?”
“By the color, I would say it appears to be fear and dread,” Sombra said quietly.
“How long do you think it’ll go on for?”
The dark unicorn shrugged helplessly. “I have no doubt that it will reach the top of the tower before you do.”
The Doctor grunted and glared at the shining minerals. “Well, in that case, we had better hurry before it gets to wherever you hid the heart. A tower, you say? Is it at the top?”
“Why did you say ‘you’ just then?” Sweetie asked suddenly. “Aren’t you coming, too?”
She stared at the king. He would not meet her gaze. “As soon as I touch that crystal, I will be ensorcelled once again,” he said quietly. “No more than a puppet. I cannot— I will not—” He stopped.
Sweetie nodded once. “Okay,” she said. “I understand.”
The dark unicorn opened his mouth, then closed it again. “You… what?”
“I get it. I mean, I barely even spent half a day under the influence of the crystals, and I don’t wanna go back either. I can hardly even imagine how it would be to have that in your brain for eleven years! You can stay here if you need to. Wait for us. We’ll need you to get us to that Heartshaven place, anyway. It’s the big snowflake thing in the city center, right?”
“I… yes. It is.”
“Okay. We’ll try to scope that out from the top. Be back soon. Come on, Doctor.”
Silence. Sweetie turned. “Doctor?”
“Hm?” he blinked, turning around from where he had been sitting, staring at the wall. “Sorry, lost in thought, there. What’re we doing?”
The mare sighed. “Come on,” she said, tugging the Time Lord to his hooves. “Let’s get going.”
“Isn’t Sombra coming?”
“No,” Sweetie replied flatly. “Come on, move your hourglass.”
The dark unicorn watched the duo trot toward the arched door, which opened at their approach. He continued staring as the last flicker of the Doctor’s shaggy brown tail vanished into shadows that should have been impossible to cast under the bright green glow of the stairwell. He only looked away when the door slid shut once more, leaving him alone in the half-light and sorrow that engulfed him.




The Doctor blinked sluggishly. His brain seemed to be thinking rather more… not fast… than usual. It felt as though he’d drunk too much ginger beer. But he hadn’t even had Gaea-normal alcohol, let alone any ginger. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. “Sweetie.”
“Yeah?”
“Why did we leave Sombra behind?”
“He didn’t want to come, or he’d get turned into a puppet. Weren’t you listening earlier?”
That was a good question. He didn’t know the answer. “Of course you don’t,” the olive green stallion next to him snorted. “Since when do you know anything?”
The Doctor paused and squinted at the other stallion. He had a short-cropped mane and wore a leather jacket. “Are you meant to be here?”
“Are you?” the other returned, his deep Northern accent accusing and harsh. “Cos, not to be pushy or nothing, but I reckon that you’re meant to be dead.”
“And gone!” a chipper voice came from down the stairs. The Doctor spun around, only to see a tropical blue pegasus in a fez gazing up at him. “I mean, ‘dead’ is a bit relative as far as we’re concerned, isn’t it? But it really is about time you popped off, I’ve got to say. Give the rest of us a go.”
The Doctor scowled. “Now, I know that you aren’t meant to be here.”
“Doctor, who are you talking to?” Sweetie asked.
“Me, myself, and I,” the Doctor said, glancing at the scowling face of his past and the manic grin of his future. Turned as he was away from Sweetie, she couldn’t see the faint green glow that had begun to suffuse the whites of his eyes.
Sweetie could, however, see that there was exactly one pony in the stairwell other than herself. “Doctor, there’s nopony there,” she said with a slight bit of concern in her voice. “Nopony at all.” Unbeknownst to her, her eyes had also begun to glow green.
“Oh, really?” a voice echoed from behind her.
Sweetie’s heart skipped a beat, and she turned around. “W-wha? What are you doing here?”
An unpleasant sneer on a light pink face was her only answer. Diamond trotted gracefully down the steps, like a predatory cat. Sweetie, recovering quickly from the shock, glared at her old enemy. “I asked you a question!”
“Oh, I’m afraid I’m drawing a blank on that one,” Diamond drawled. “Riddle me this, though; what are you doing here?”
“I’m saving this Empire, fixing the TARDIS, and righting a wrong that even the princesses didn’t know about,” the Doctor said coolly. “You know, business as usual. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, you know, just checking in, making sure our timeline is in the right hooves,” the pegasus replied airily. He paused. “You are making a right hash of it,” he added disapprovingly.
“What are you talking about?”
Diamond Tiara scoffed, tossing her mane. “Well, I suppose you did your best,” she said condescendingly. “After all, I can’t say that I expected much from a mare who doesn’t even have a cutie mark at all, let alone a cutie mark for empire saving. But really, you should have just called in a professional. Like me.”
“You don’t have a mark for empire saving either,” Sweetie pointed out. “What does that even look like?”
Diamond leaned in close. “Leadership,” she spat. “Something that you’ll never have. You couldn’t even hack it in that pathetic group of friends you had. You’ll always end up alone.”
The Doctor grimaced as his previous self finished with his barrage of abuse. “That’s not true,” he said. “I always have someone with me—”
“And how long do they stay around?” the green earth pony retorted.
“Lady Christina, Jackson Lake, Astrid,” the fez-wearing stallion began to list. As he continued, their mutual past locked eyes with the dun earth pony.
“You lost Rose,” he whispered.
Sweetie stepped down a stair as though she had been slapped. “No… no, I—”
“You lost them all,” Diamond continued, unflinchingly. “Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, Rumble and Dinky… Button Mash…”
The unicorn pressed herself against the wall as Diamond advanced. The filly seemed larger now, or maybe Sweetie had shrunk. Her eyes glowed with lilac flame, and her mane had collapsed into waves that washed back and forth hypnotically. “What good are you, if you can’t even hang on to the ones you love?” she whispered.
“Martha Jones!”
“Babs Seed!”
“Jack Harkness!”
“Button’s mom!”
“Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble!”
“Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbs!”
“Ditzy Doo!”
“Rarity!”
Sweetie’s eyes, glowing a sickly, radioactive green, fluttered shut. The Doctor’s body smacked against the stairs. Sweetie’s head bounced off the wall. The Doctor lay still, an expression of deepest remorse and horror on his face.




Jade didn’t know how long she had been running for. The ground seemed to slip from under her like a moving beast, and the buildings seemed to extend into eternity, warping and shifting like something in a dream. But no matter how fast or far she ran, he was always right behind her, his hot breath on her neck, membranous wings beating back the air at frantic speed. Would he have drawn a weapon, she wondered, or just devour her alive?
A wave of exhaustion hit her suddenly, and she stumbled. Maybe she should just give in. However she died, it would surely be quicker than this. Then she caught a glimpse of the cobbles beneath her hooves. Dark grey-blue. Weariness. She put on a burst of speed, and heard her pursuer cursing behind her.
Or, no. He hadn’t said anything. The noise had come from all around her. Was the Empire cursing?
The thought appealed to her, rather. The dark green mare smirked. “Yeah, yeah, cuss all you like,” she jibed. “I spent my life in service to you, I’ll take my pound of flesh and go!”
Then, something occurred to her. She was on Yellowbrick road. What was a patch of dark blue doing here? She glanced around and gasped, almost stumbling for a second time. Patched, ugly colors were breaking out against the piss-yellow buildings around her. Internal-bleeding red, dusty-rust orange, poison-ivy green, plague pink, a whole rainbow of misery, a patchwork quilt of pain, a technicolor yawn from the maw of a pustule-ridden giant with a penchant for unhealthy eating…
Then she exited the splatter of purple-prose crystal (surprisingly, it was ivory, like particularly poorly-cared-for old books) and her thoughts came back under the control of a decent editor. Unfortunately, she had stumbled into a section that actually was purple. The color of pride. A swell of hubris overcame her.
“Hah! Play with me all you like, city! I’ll not bow to the like of you, manipulating and meddling. Spider in your web, come and dance your eight-legged waltz with me. Work away the fat you’ve gained off the back of the empi— urk!”
The purple suddenly boiled away from beneath her, shifting rapidly into a bright, brilliant red that hurt to look at. It hurt even to stand on it. Her legs would not support her weight, and she fell, gasping and gagging, to the ground, every one of her nerves on fire. Vaguely, she could see a shape out of the corner of her eye. Amber eyes flashed with red slit-pupils. The bat pony had caught up with her. She struggled to rise, to scream, to breathe, but she could not. Her tongue lolled from her mouth, and she stared with fixed eyes straight ahead of her. The mad soldier raised his sword in his mouth, rearing back on his hind legs. She wouldn’t even be able to look away for the killing stroke.
However, this was a mixed curse, for it also meant that she got to see the soldier being smacked out of the way like a fly by a glowing golden aura. A figure rose into her field of vision. Her eyes were teary, and the pony was backlit by the patchwork city, but she could see that it was tall and very pale.
Jade swallowed roughly as the figure hauled her onto its back, releasing her from the thrall of the red crystal. “...You… death?” she gasped.
The figure nodded once. “Today I am,” she replied, spreading her wings and taking off into the stinging wind. “But not yours, my little pony.” Celestia looked up at the swirling miasma overhead and grit her teeth. “No. Not yours.”