Fall of Empire

by Sixes_And_Sevens

Prison in the Mind

The green mare didn’t resist, per se. She mostly sulked, more than anything else. Defying Sombra had long been a fear of hers, but the aftermath seemed to be something of a letdown as far as actual danger was concerned. “So,” she said flatly. “Would either of you know what he’s going to do? I hate going in with my eyes closed.”

“Yes,” said the maroon stallion on her left side. “We know.”

“You know what he’s going to do, or you know that I like to be kept informed?”

“Both,” said the grey mare on her right.

Jade waited. “So, are you going to tell me, or…”

The silence was her only answer. She exhaled, a long, low sigh. “Right. Hey, don’t I recognize you from somewhere?” She gave the stallion a long, searching stare which he didn’t in any way return. “Hold on. Did you used to be a plumber?”

“No.”

“Garbageman?”

“No.”

“Solicitor?”

“No.”

“Tinker?”

“No.”

“Tailor?”

“No.”

“Soldier?”

“I am now.”

“Spy?”

“...”

“You were a spy? Okay, that’s interesting.”

“I was not a spy.”

“That’s exactly what a spy would say.”

“I was NOT a spy!” the guard spat, turning to face her, the first hint of emotion that he’d shown the entire time. The white crystal that adorned his helmet seemed to glow red before flashing through the spectrum and then returning to white. His eyes went blank. “I was not a spy,” he repeated, turning to face front once more.

Out of the corner of his eye, on the side where Jade couldn’t see, a single tear leaked out and slid off his perfect crystal face.

---

Sweetie gnawed at her lower lip. She had been walking in this tunnel for hours, it seemed, with no more light than her horn could provide. The walls, once comforting in the dullness, now seemed oppressive and overbearing. It was a maze down here, all twisting natural caverns interspersed with sporadic sections that seemed to have been carved by hoof. There were occasional pieces of crystal sprouting out of the walls, but those had been shattered by some unknown hoof.

Her hooves were cold and wet and filthy from the damp caverns, and beneath the sweater-vest that the Doctor had lent her, she was shivering. She splashed through another puddle of snowmelt, which only served to make her hooves and legs dirtier. “Whenever I feel afraid,” she sang softly, “I hold my head up tall, and sing a happy song to keep from feeling small…”

She cut herself off with a small sneeze that broke her concentration and plunged the cavern into darkness. Quickly, she illuminated her horn once more, but not before a glimpse of yellow light broke through the darkness for a brief moment. She froze and quickly shut off the light spell. Already she could see that the deep yellow light was fading away, but she hurried toward it regardless. A figure stood in the light, a massive form and rough manestyle silhouetted in the illumination. The door closed, and all that was left was the faint red glow of a curved object shining through the darkness. The horn of Sombra.

Sweetie stopped in mid-step, too alarmed even to breathe. She watched as the dark king’s horn slid down, his head dropping, red glow fading. A short, strangled sob echoed through the tunnel. As the young mare watched in befuddlement, lighting her own horn in an effort to see better, the massive stallion slowly turned and trotted down the rocky corridor away from her. She hesitated for only a moment before scurrying after him. If nothing else, he would be able to reveal how the tunnels opened. And then her hoof connected with a pebble.

The dark king froze and turned around. Quick as a whip, Sweetie extinguished her horn, stepped behind a stalactite, and held her breath. After a moment, the stallion let out a grunt, and Sweetie heard hoofsteps moving away from her once more. After half a minute more had elapsed, she let out the breath she had been holding and stepped out from behind her hiding place to follow after Sombra, aura glowing faintly green in the dismal cavern.

---

The green crystal mare stared up at the doors to the great hall, unimpressed. “Seriously? He’s actually keeping me in here? Why not the dungeons, or a locked bedroom or something? A tower, maybe?”

Neither guard said anything. Jade let out a huff of breath. “You two are lousy conversationalists, you know that?”

Silence, as heavy and cloying as a mildewy quilt. “I don’t even know your names,” Jade continued as the grey mare swung open a door. The other guard pushed her inside roughly. She turned around. “I know I recognize you from somewhere. Both of you. Go on, give us a name.”

Slowly, almost mechanically, the guards lifted off their helmets in unison.

“I am Corundum.”

“I am Sparkle Shine.”

The green mare’s heart skipped a beat. “No.” she said. “No, no, that’s not right. You disappeared. You both disappeared, arrested as…”

“Spies,” said Corundum, coldly.

Jade gaped. “I thought you were dead!”

Neither guard said a word. In a jerky, synchronized motion, they both returned their helmets to their heads, the milky crystal that matched the great hall almost exactly flickering as they did so. Sparkle Shine raised a hood and slammed the door shut.

Jade’s eyes went wide as the percussive crash of closing doors echoed through the room. “Wait, what? No! Let me out of here! Let me out!”

She slammed her whole body against the double doors, screaming her head off, but they didn’t so much as shake on their hinges. Again and again, she smashed headlong into the door, to no avail. At last, bruised and tired, she sat back on her haunches, waiting for the door to open again. When somepony came through, when the door opened even the tiniest fraction, she would be through it like an arctic hare. She would wait, yes, biding her time. Nothing else to be done. When the time was right, she would act.

Yes, she thought as the bright white walls of the room seemed to glow behind her, I will wait…

It was in this state that she remained for hours on end, her mind fading out like a radio station in bad weather, her muscles growing lax and her jaw hanging slack. A thin stream of drool hung from her lower lip as she stared, half-lidded, at nothing.

She didn’t react when the doors at the opposite end of the room opened, and a group of blank-faced soldiers marched in. She didn’t so much as twitch as they dressed her in the armor of the Crystal Guard, complete with a helmet containing a pure white crystal inlaid on the front. She continued to stare directly forward as she marched out of the room in the company of her fellow soldiers.

---

The dungeon walls exuded despair. The Doctor wasn’t quite sure how much of that was due to the emotional resonance that he’d come to know and get thoroughly sick of, and how much was down to the actual situation. He rattled his chains experimentally. Nothing gave whatsoever. “Didn’t think so,” he murmured.

He reached for the sonic next, only to realize that he’d never replaced it after the incident with the Brachyura. A small frown flitted over his face as he checked over what exactly he still had with him.

-Psychic paper

-Recorder

-Yo-yo

-Bag of sweets

-Spool of copper wire

-TARDIS key

-Pen

-Interesting feather

All of which was terribly interesting, but not of any particular use in this situation. Thoughtfully, he pulled out one of the sweets and popped it into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, staring around. “Alright,” he said with a nod. “I’ve faced worse odds than this, you know. And frankly, even if this is the end, I think I’ve had a pretty decent run of it. More than I could reasonably expect, probably. And if I am to—”

“Stuff it.”

The Doctor blinked. A large, blue alicorn glared at him. “Oh, hello, Luna. This is a dream, then, is it? Much more pleasant than the ones I’ve normally been having.”

The princess snorted. “If this is pleasant, Doctor, then we need to have a very long talk about what’s inside your head. I imagine mostly fluff. Possibly some earwax.”

The Doctor’s mouth fell open. “Oi!”

Luna glared at him. “Take those chains off right this minute,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

The Doctor blinked as reality shifted, and he fell to the floor with a heavy thump. When he pulled himself up, he was in the TARDIS again, the gothic version that he had enjoyed in his eighth and late seventh regenerations. Luna stood at the console, stoic and staring. “I remember this,” she said softly. “Being here, with you and Celestia. How long has it been, Doctor?”

“Centuries. Maybe millennia. Time got complicated for awhile.”

Luna hummed. “I don’t know if either of us ever told you how much we appreciated your teaching, Doctor. You were a mentor to us both. You taught us to be brave, to be kind. To protect. To never give up.”

The Doctor smiled faintly. Luna stared at the console for a long moment, her ethereal mane drifting out behind her. “So what happened?” she asked.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Never give up, Doctor, that’s what you taught us. How does that old saw go? ‘First, do no harm.’ That includes thee, Doctor, and we shall not be tolerant of thy acceptance of death! What has left thee altered in such—”

“There was a war!” the Doctor snapped, eyes red. Luna met his gaze and didn’t even flinch. The color receded slightly from the Time Lord’s face. “There was a war, and I had to fight in it. I held out for… oh, ages. But the universe was dying, Luna. Billions, trillions of innocents dead every day, and back again for more tomorrow. Or yesterday. We fought using time itself as a weapon, soldiers didn’t just die, they never existed. There was an entire army of living paradoxes, and that’s far from the worst of it. Sentient amalgamations of aborted timelines, like tentacled monsters. Evolution taken down a thousand paths all at once, hyperadvanced civilizations turned back into primordial ooze and vice-versa. We took TARDISes, Luna, and we turned them into soldiers. Not weapons. Soldiers. And then…”

“Then?”

“I finished it.”

“How?”

The Doctor closed his eyes. “Permanently.”

Luna nodded solemnly. “And you cannot forgive yourself for this.”

“Could you?”

“I can scarcely even imagine it,” Luna admitted. “Death on such a scale would erase a thousand years of virtue.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Luna glared at him and her eyes flashed white. “I had not finished,” she said warningly. “It would erase a thousand years of virtue, but consider this. How long have you lived? Longer than that, I know. You say that you have destroyed planets, killed billions, but how many have you saved? Yes, you have performed a great evil, but you have also performed great good. Doctor. You do not deserve to die, no more than anypony else. Think upon this, and consider also that without you, your companion will have no way home.”

The Doctor stared. “Luna. I’m not going to die. I still have one regeneration left.”

“And will you spend it so hedonistically?” Luna shouted, eyes glowing like concentrated moonlight. “Will you live and die so quickly, Doctor? How many lives have been touched by you? How many souls have been made better by thy presence? How many would be bereft to hear of thy death?”

The Doctor winced. “Luna, I think you’re making the artificial despair worse.”

The alicorn frowned. “Artificial… despair?”

“The Crystal Empire has been turned into a maelstrom of negative emotions, bad vibes, and occasional fluctuations in hormone levels. Essentially, it’s like everyone’s acting like Celestia’s emo phase, but worse.”

“Worse than ‘the Midnight Sun?’” Luna asked, distracted in her incredulity. “She wrote poetry, Doctor! Beat poetry!”

The Doctor winced. “In retrospect, that era of Windy City’s history was probably a bad place to stop the TARDIS,” he said.

“Doctor, the Empire?”

The Time Lord puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “Not good. Everypony’s a soldier, the walls literally radiate negative emotions, and I get the feeling that there’s more to Sombra than he lets on.”

“There could scarcely be less,” Luna snipped. “He is a shadow, an enigma.”

“...Yes,” said the Doctor. That was the conclusion that he had reached, wasn’t it? “He’s playing a role. Or…”

Luna’s ears perked up. “Or…” she prompted.

The Time Lord chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Luna, really I don’t. This old body is wearing a little thin, and my mind isn’t as sharp as it was. I—”

Luna glared at him. “Thou shalt not!” she roared. “I grow weary of thy self-depreciations, Doctor. Thou hast saved so many, and so much.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out. “None may live a life free from crime, Doctor, or from regret. And you have lived for so very, very long. The years weigh heavy on you, aye, but they are not without their times of levity. Doctor. You have been many things. A manipulator, a clown, a dandy, a bohemian, a scientist, and far more. But there is only one thing that you have always been.”

“What’s that?”

Luna’s lips curved up. “My friend.”

There was a sudden echoing crash and Luna’s smile dropped. The surroundings began to fade into a dark grey-green. “Doctor! Help is on its way,” Luna called, her voice echoing as though from the bottom of a well. “We shall save you!”

The last of the dream faded, and the Time Lord’s eyes popped open. He winced as a bright light struck his eyes. The guard stared up at him, gobsmacked, the crystal on her helmet turned to a painfully bright tangerine. No, hold on. She wasn’t staring at him. She was staring at the wall behind him.

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder to see what was so surprising about the grim, black wall. The answer was obvious. The wall wasn’t black anymore. The whole room glowed with a pale blue light.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ah. Crystal through and through. It's just that what's wearing who has turned on its head for more than just the king.

He reached for the sonic next, only to realize that he’d never replaced it after the incident with the Brachyura

That was two stories ago! Someone's been preoccupied.

And yeah, a visit from the dream warden is going to eat up a lot of negative charge. That plus Sweetie's investigations should bear some very interesting fruit.

[Shilic]

The Doctor stared. “Luna. I’m not going to die. I still have one regeneration left.”

Does he? The Eleventh Doctor was the end of his cycle, and I was under the impression that Ten V2 did regenerate into Pony Ten. Unless that didn't cost one, but in that case how did he escape from the deadly radiation?

[Sixes_And_Sevens]

10346628
Er... wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... hoof-wavy... stuff.

Idk, I think my vague idea was that all the radiation got shunted into the Smith regeneration and left this half of the timeline free to spin off.