//------------------------------//
// Through the Looking Glass 
// Story: Fall of Empire 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

Sweetie’s eyes fluttered open. The first thing she saw was blue. The second thing she saw was also blue. So were things three through eight. Just for a change, the ninth thing she saw was a door. Apart from that, though, an endless expanse of light blue crystal surrounded her.
She grinned goofily, giddiness filling her like helium. “Heh. Heheheheeheeha, so this is it!” she crowed. “I did it! I got through! Doctor, Doctor, I made it! I’m in! I’m… Doctor?”
The young mare glanced around the empty room. “Doctor?”




Sombra allowed himself a small smile as Sweetie let out a prolonged sigh and untensed her muscles, the yellow-green leaching out of the crystal around her. She had made it through the nightmare and out the other side. Wherever that might be. The smile faded as he looked over at the Doctor, who had rolled onto his side and curled up into a ball. Every so often, he whimpered. The large unicorn padded over to the stallion. It had worked for Sweetie. Why not try it again?
“Doctor,” he whispered. “You are our last hope. Please, save us. Help us!”
There was a crash from below, and the dark stallion paled. “Please,” he repeated quietly. “Please.”
Then he rose and trotted towards the trapdoor so that he could lock it. However, the cover was already gone, retreated into the crystal, leaving only a hole in the floor. “Typical.”




“Doctor, you are our last hope,” the radio said. “Please, save us. Help us. Please! Please.”
The Time Lord stood, hands grasping tightly at the console, or at least what passed for it. There were no dials, no switches, no instruments of any kind. All he had was the receiving end of the comms system and a series of speakers on every panel. He closed his eyes as more familiar voices flowed through. “I was gonna be with you forever.”
“It’s stopped being fun. I’m sick of it.”
“Kamelion No Good.”
“Now I’ll never know if I was right…”
He opened his eyes again. Closing them only made the voices harder to ignore. His old friends. How many had there once been? How many had he lost?
“Grandfather!”
The Doctor winced and backed away from the console. It didn’t help. Nothing did.




Sweetie nosed the door open gingerly, peering into the unknown. The hall felt very… slapdash, as though somepony had just hurled together all the detail at the last minute. Indeed, it seemed that only the things she was looking at directly even existed. Out of the corners of her eyes, all that she could see was a fine mist of no particular color.
The carpet felt real, but only if she was actually thinking about it. As she walked down, she occasionally felt it turning into something slick and sticky, like honey, but whenever she looked down, it was plain old carpeting again.
There were no other doors in the hallway.  There were, however, sections of smooth, polished crystal at regular intervals in the walls. Through them, Sweetie could just barely make out images of rooms beyond, each one featuring its own particular nightmare. She saw crushed flowers and crying foals, fire and ice, hate and love, death and worse things, things that she had to turn away from for fear that they might look out and see her. But she had to check each one if she was going to find what she was looking for.
She wasn’t sure how long she walked, either in terms of time or distance. She wasn’t sure if either of those had any meaning here. She wasn’t sure if it even mattered. But after some amount of time and distance which didn’t necessarily correlate, she found it. The Doctor's nightmare.




The Doctor was hunched in a corner, now. The voices were unceasing, unyielding, a constant reminder of all the ways in which he had failed them. Now and again, he heard his own voice. “Rose Tyler, I—” was common among them. “I can’t be bothered ‘cause of some idiot called Ricky—” wasn’t far behind.
Worse still were the curses that he hadn’t heard yet. Ditzy’s voice, choked with sobs, or Dinky’s condemning words. Rarity, Thunderlane, Rainbow Dash, Summer Breeze, Love Tap, the Apple family, Luna, Celestia, the voices all of his friends in Equestria came loud and clear over the intercom, all filled with anger and hurt and contempt. Unseen by the Time Lord, a presence hovered over him, wiry black hair falling over glowing red eyes. White teeth in a leering smile looked almost yellow in comparison to the pristine alabaster skin. In short, it looked like a creature out of a horror film. But that was far from the worst thing about it.
It had fingers that were long and grasping, crooked inwards as if dreaming about choking something. Its arms were gangly and scarecrow-like, hanging like a marionette. But that was not the worst thing about it.
It lacked legs completely. At a point around the navel, it began to flatten out. Around the crotch, it was little more than vague patterns of light that melted into the Doctor’s shadow. That was almost the worst part about it, but it wasn’t quite it.
The worst thing about it was that it looked almost exactly like the Doctor, and Sweetie knew it was the Doctor, even if he looked like some weird ape. Their facial features were perfectly alike. The suit it wore was a white-on-black pinstripe, paired with a black jacket and black tie. Even the hair was precisely the same as the Doctor’s unruly do, so much so that Sweetie thought that if you ran a hoof across one head, the other would muss of its own accord to match it. A preposterous thought, and yet…
She drew closer to the door. If she was being honest, she had expected a lot more. The terrifying doppelganger wasn’t even doing anything. Dinky had passed along some of the fairy tales that her father had told her, and even the Three Little Sontarans seemed scarier than this. Of course, she told herself, an outside observer wouldn’t find much terror in a rocking chair, a photograph, and an empty room, either. All she could see other than the Doctor and his strange shadow was something that looked like the TARDIS console. But there was something wrong with it.
She leaned in closer, pressing her nose to the crystal. Closer, closer, closer still. And then, with a sensation like walking into a spiderweb, she found herself on the other side of the wall.




The square was eerily quiet once more. The lightning climbing up and down the spire was the only motion. Not one pony moved, and even the titanic cloud-monster was as still as could be. Celestia was silent. She still remembered the ‘secret word’ that menaced her little ponies, and so had elected to remain silent. As though reading her mind, the pony puppet spoke once more. “Well done, by the way, resisting my influence. I was sure that it’d be you in the crowd and Luna in the box. You been taking anger management classes or something?”
“Or something,” Celestia said, tone clipped.
“Mm. Almost a pity, y’know. Cleansing fire… nothing like it for getting rid of extra chaos. A massive inferno… towering flames… mmm… all life, scorched away. Oceans turned to steam… Air turned to choking, scratchy smog… It’d make for a hell of a sunset. Smoke usually does.”
Celestia wrinkled her nose. “Disgusting.”
The thestral shrugged. “Ah, well. I guess I could do the whole ‘devouring darkness’ again, right? None of you remember that?”
“No one alive, excepting myself, my sister, and the Doctor.”
“Well, I’ll wait a few hours, then,” the nightmarish entity smirked. “Hate repeating myself.”
Celestia glowered. “Luna will live on.”
“Moony will live on long enough to get me what I want.”
“She will stop you. She is stronger than you credit her.”
“Strong? Maybe. But strength has nothing to do with it. She’s stifled, Daybreak. A life lived in the shadows… you’d be amazed at the resentment that festers in there.”
“You lie.” If one wasn’t looking for it, they’d never have noticed the tremble in her voice. The creature was looking for it.
A smile split its features, though there was naught but rage in its borrowed eyes. “Oh, but she was an easy one,” it purred. “One look, and she was mine, all mine. Such fury, it’s really quite impressive.”
“Silence yourself.” This time the tremor was obvious. The smile grew wider.




The steps were growing louder. Sombra could scarcely credit the speed at which the climbers must have been traveling, given the tremendous height of the spire. There was no way out, apart from simply jumping. He had waffled on that notion for some several seconds. However, though he was certain that even death was preferable to whatever his former master had in store for him, he was equally certain that Sweetie and the Doctor still needed him. At present, they were utterly helpless. He was their only defense. Tragic, really. Nevertheless, he stood over the stairs, watching. Waiting. For the briefest of moments, he glanced up at his horn…
No. He would not see his aura tainted by darkness again. He could not allow it. There was too much at stake. He would find another way.




The console room was not as Sweetie remembered it. It was, for one thing, a solid off-white, with none of the homey wooden touches or mad science-y paraphernalia that she had come to know and love. For another thing, the console was devoid of any instruments when viewed straight on. If she tilted her head, though, she could see the familiar array of switches and levers. And then there were the voices. Some she recognized, some she didn’t. All of them sounded hurt or scared or angry. She thought that she could hear Rarity in there, and the other Elements. She was sure that she could hear the voices of her friends crying for help.
“And he can’t do anything to fix it,” she murmured. “He’s stuck.”
“An astute observation,” an unexpected voice replied. “What do you propose to do about it?”
Sweetie spun around, surprised. Another ape-creature stood before her, this one dressed in a patchwork outfit that would have given Rarity conniptions. She had never seen him before, and the fright of blonde curls, the blue eyes, the round face were all unfamiliar, but there was something about his manner, the way he gripped his lapels… “Doctor?”
He gave her a tight smile and nodded. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I am the Doctor, but not as you know him.”
“Oh.” Sweetie considered this. “So… you’re like Button Mash was in my dream?”
“Very likely,” the colorful Doctor agreed, tapping his chin. “I suppose I must be some manner of psychic construct, possibly serving as a voice of conscience." He scowled suddenly. "And yet, I appear unable to get through to that cloth-eared, pigheaded halfwit. Really, is this what the future is coming to?”
“I don’t think it’s that he’s not listening,” Sweetie said slowly. “I think maybe he can’t hear you over all the noise.”
The clownish Time Lord frowned. “Noise? What noise? I can’t hear anything, and I’ll have you know that Time Lords have very good hearing.”
Sweetie stared up at him. “The voices! You mean you can’t hear them?”
“That is precisely what I mean.” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “Hm. Peculiar… When there are voices in one’s head, one at least expects to hear them.”
“I don’t understand anything that’s happening here,” Sweetie sighed, sitting down.
“Well, it’s not your dream, is it?” the Doctor said pointedly. “Look, you see that figure floating above his— my— his head?" He gestured to it sharply. "That’s how he sees himself. A monster. And unless we do something about it, that may very well be what he becomes!”
Sweetie frowned thoughtfully. “Okay. So what do we need to do?”
“Talk some sense into him!” the Doctor snapped. “It’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since these dreams started! But the Valeyard seems to have sealed me out.”
“Valeyard?”
The Doctor pointed again at the menacing pseudo-Doctor. “A potential future, comprised of all of his— my— our wickedness and negativity. Not altogether dissimilar to this entire city you seem to have found yourself in, actually. He was meant to exist somewhere between my twelfth and final regenerations, whatever that means. Personally, I thought that I’d dealt with him rather permanently...”
Sweetie frowned. “So… this Valeyard is the one keeping you out?”
“Indeed.”
“Is he the one playing the noise, too?”
The Doctor considered. “...The idea seems likely,” he conceded. “What of it?”
Sweetie frowned. “In a dream I had earlier, Luna started speaking to me through a radio…”
“I don’t like the look on your face, young lady. Nor,” he sniffed, looking her over, “your sodden sweater vest. That being said…”




The Doctor was sitting limply against the wall now, eyes blank and face sweaty, his hair matted down. The voices were washing over him like rain, soaking him through. How many had come and gone? How many had died? The number always seemed to change, and the Time War had only ensured that the deaths he had caused could never be counted. Even the ones who hadn't died had been left in dire circumstances. Images danced before him.
Susan, hammering at the blue doors of the TARDIS.
Zoe, sent home without so much as memories. Not to mention Donna.
Peri, her fate still a mystery. Even to him.
Rose. Enough said.
Martha. Ditto.
He felt so tired, now. So old. All of his friends were gone, or would be gone soon enough. He just wanted to lie down and… what was that static sound?
The Doctor frowned slightly. For a moment,  he thought he heard a high-pitched squeal of delight. “It's working!”
The static grew louder, and through it, the Doctor could hear a voice. “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
The Time Lord rose slowly to his feet, fighting the despair that had pinned him. “Is that the eighties calling?” he asked, stumbling toward the console. “You can't have your coat back. I think Rarity had Spike burn it.”
There was a moment of silence. When the voice spoke again, it was with deep horror and affront. “Not the blue one as well?”
The Doctor chuckled in relief. There was only one entity he knew who actually cared about that awful coat. “Hello, ‘Joseph’. Sorry, but I think she took out all of your manic pixie dreamcoats.”
“Hello yourself, you rumple-headed gigolo,” his sixth incarnation snapped. “Would you perchance care to explain precisely what you think you're doing?”
The Doctor drew back. “'Scuse me?”
“I will do no such thing,” the voice on the speaker said hotly. “Not while you insist on lazing about like some particularly pathetic Hamlet!”
("Why did you call him a small town?")
("It's the name of a tragic hero well known for sulking and not making up his mind. Now hush!")
“Takes one to know one,” the brown-coated Doctor shot back, forgetting that he was only meant to be able to receive messages. Behind him, his double was silently shrieking and cursing, melting away. The shadow Doctor clawed with long fingers that melted like wax before they could touch reality.“You're hardly one to talk. You tried to become a hermit!”
“Which is different than this current situation in what way, precisely?”
The Doctor scowled. “Oi! Who said you could come along and start criticizing my life?”
“Well, it is my life as well." The Doctor could almost hear his earlier self putting his hands on his hips. "Anyway, your charming young companion needed a hand in rescuing you from yourself.”
“...companion?” The Doctor blinked, the last mental barrier fracturing. “Sweetie Belle!”
With a final shriek that went completely unheard, the pale copy of the Doctor vanished in a puff of nothing at all, a nonentity going back to nowhere. The oppressive presence in the TARDIS was gone. The Time Lord blinked, fumbling for words. “What?”
“Very erudite,” the sixth Doctor sneered, stepping out from behind the console. Or possibly out from inside it. Sweetie Belle was snuggled tightly in his arms like a friendly cat, and he absent-mindedly tousled her mane, a faint smile crossing his lips.
The tenth Doctor frowned. “Oh, I see. This is a dream, then.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Sweetie said.
"Mmm. Took you long enough,” the earlier incarnation sniffed.
It was a testament to the later Time Lord’s confusion that he didn’t even return the volley. “Right. So, if this is a dream, or a nightmare, then why haven’t I woken up yet? What’s keeping me here?”
The console crackled. “We now return you to your usual broadcast of reasons why you’re a failure!” the Valeyard’s voice snapped. “Reason one! You wear sneakers with a pinstriped suit. Reason two! You broke your own timestream on multiple occasions. Reason three! Everybody you care about is dead!”
Six pointed to the console wordlessly, raising a brow.
Ten frowned at the pseudo-TARDIS. “I take your point. So, I suppose that we need to disable this somehow?”
“It seems likely,” Six agreed, setting Sweetie gently on the ground. “You have your sonic, I trust?”
“No, it got blown up.”
“How very careless of you.”
“Said the one who didn’t make a new sonic for his entire regeneration after watching it start the Great Fire of London.”
“I blame my predecessor entirely for that.”
“Well, you didn’t do anything to fix the situation!”
Sweetie, meanwhile, had turned her attention to the speakers. If she looked almost at them, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the usual control panel… and over that, she could see a shimmering haze of red. She did her best to pretend that she was actually interested in watching the Doctors bicker and absently rested a hoof back against the console. She thought about how glad she was to have escaped her nightmare, and how she hoped that the Doctor would be able to escape his. She thought about how funny it was to meet the old Doctor, and how absurd it was to argue with oneself. She thought about her friends, and the TARDIS, and travelling in the TARDIS with her friends, and slowly the red began to shift to clear, crystalline blue.
“Furthermore,” the sixth Doctor continued, “I can scarcely credit you as a future regeneration, you self-aggrandizing masochist!”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from the rampant ego. You had an outfit just to feel sad in!”
“That has historical precedence! Recall the example of Herbert… Spencer...” Six trailed off. “Oh.”
“What?” And then the later incarnation heard it, too. Laughter, in shrieks and gales, came from the machine, echoes of familiar voices calling out across the room.
A broad smile crossed the blond clown’s face. “As I was trying to explain, consider how much joy you’ve brought,” Six said smoothly. “Mundane existence has been made brighter by our presence in it. Mainly my presence, of course, but you do see what I’m saying.”
“Oh, shove off,” the scruff-headed Doctor replied, but he was grinning as he spoke.
Sweetie smiled and took her hoof off of the console. Without any kind of ceremony, it transmogrified into light blue crystal, as did the rest of the room. Six smiled, tucking his thumbs under his lapels. “There, that’s settled,” he said, satisfied. “Do try not to screw everything up again.”
“If it means I’ll never have to see you again, I’ll do it gladly.”
“Ooh, cheeky,” Six snorted, before turning to crystal himself. Then the entire console room shattered, leaving the still weirdly ape-like Doctor and Sweetie alone in an empty crystal chamber.
There was a long silence as the Doctor recovered himself. “Thanks,” he managed after several moments. “I needed that.”
Sweetie gave a tired grin. “No problem,” she said. “But now that we’re both in here… well, now what?”
“Well,” the Doctor said, considering. “If you’ll pardon a poetic quote, “All that we may see or seem/ is but a dream within a dream.”
“...Which means…”
The Doctor grinned broadly and flung open the door, revealing something that was decidedly not a hallway. He stood, illuminated by a brilliant red glow, trench coat flapping out behind him. “It means, Allons-y!”




Celestia felt a wave of pride and no small amount of vindictive pleasure wash over her when the aged thestral winced and flinched as a flicker of blue light shot through the spire. “I take it that the last of we ‘rogue elements’ have escaped your control?” she asked lightly.
The puppet’s face contorted in fury, but Celestia met it serenely. “The fury of a Time Lord,” he muttered. “The way he goes on about it, you’d think it would be easier to coax it out.”
The princess shrugged. “One might think many things. That does not make them true.”
Red eyes glowered at her. So close. So close to harnessing her solar energy. The anger that simmered just below boiling point was truly impressive, nearly as impressive as the way she kept it contained. The threat to the Doctor had nearly been enough to push her over, but not quite.
And then the thestral’s face lightened. “And, no, actually,” he said cheerfully. “There is still one final card that I have to play. And I’m sure that she’d quite upset that you’ve forgotten her.”
He was encouraged by Celestia’s sudden silence. “Oh, Luna,” he called. “Why don’t you come see your beloved sister?”
“No. No, don’t you dare.”
The alicorn, coat and eyes rife with discoloring corruption, raised her head, unseeing. For a second, Celestia felt as though she had been filled with stuffing, immobile and unfeeling. And then she saw the red, insane eyes in that enraged face and her heart sunk to her hooves. The possessed guard grinned, his eyes predatory.
His smile faded when Celestia set her jaw and stared him right in the eye. “Understand this,” she said coldly. “I have faith in the Doctor and faith in my sister, far more so than I have in myself. If there is any way to break out, as I believe you have already stated that there is, I know that Luna will find it. And then you will regret that you ever presumed to collar her. If there is a way to defeat you, I am certain that the Doctor will find that way. And then you will regret that you ever challenged him. There is one more thing of which I am certain. I am not the same stroppy teenager I was when first we met. And when I get out, you will rue the day that you tried to hurt my friends.”
“So be it,” the leader of the legion hissed. “You won't live long enough to find out. Luna! Destroy your sister. Now!”
Celestia’s rose eyes went wide with betrayal as her sister strode forwards, her horn blazing bright.