Sweetie Belle is the last Crusader without a mark. Feeling abandoned and lonely, she asks the Doctor to take her to the Crystal Empire, where her parents are vacationing. However, a glitch in the TARDIS means they arrive a little early; specifically, right at the end of Sombra's reign. However, there may be more to this empire than meets the eye. The king is a puppet, and the walls themselves are full of negative energy. The travelers find themselves in a fight for their very minds against the empire itself.
Violence tag for armed guards, references to torture, and open rebellion. Also warning for mind control, detailed descriptions of despair, unsettling metaphors, and taking a chisel to the fourth wall once or twice.
Shrieks of joy echoed through the crystal halls, the clatter of hooves filling the air. The youngest princess, nine-year-old Flurry Heart, was escaping from the ferocious, dangerous, Bathtime Beast, better known as her daddy, Shining Armor, the Commander of the Guard. “Graargh!” the white unicorn snarled through his chuckles. “You can’t run forever, princess!”
Flurry flew into another fit of giggles and put on more speed, positively galloping down the corridor, her oversize wings trailing behind her like a pair of kites. “No! You can’t catch meee!”
She rounded a corner at a frantic pace, hooves skittering and sliding on the smooth crystal floor. There was a percussive crash, followed by a shriek of pain. Shining pulled up short, then rushed around the corner to his daughter’s aid. Had something crushed a wing? Snapped her horn? Would she ever walk again? A pair of sad blue eyes looked up at him. “Daddy, I stubbed my hoof on this statue.”
Inwardly, Shining was simultaneously panicking over the injury and rejoicing that it wasn’t any worse. Outwardly, he was the very model of calm and collected. “Oh, no! Here, Princess. Let daddy kiss it better for you.”
Flurry held out a leg, and her father gently pecked it. “Better?”
She pulled her leg back. “No. I hate this statue! I hate it, daddy! I want it gone!” Before Shining could say or do anything more, his daughter’s horn was glowing. A moment later, she blasted the statue, a bust of a guardsmare. Shining winced. One more precious antique destroyed in a fit of pique. Oh, well.
But when the bright blast died down, the statue was still there, though it now glowed a faint blackish hue. Flurry’s mouth fell open. “Daddy, it’s still there! I want it gone, daddy. I want it to go!”
Shining frowned, and lit his own horn. He tried to gently pull up on the bust. No luck. The pillar that it was on didn’t move, either. It didn’t move side to side, it wouldn’t shake loose. Was it attached to the floor? He dispelled the aura and moved closer, rising up on his hind hooves to get a better look. He pushed down on the pillar, and suddenly, it gave way, descending into the crystal beneath it. A rumble shook the hall and Flurry screamed. Shining did too, as he pushed back from the pedestal and fell unceremoniously on his flanks. The light seemed to fade, the walls turning black in the process.
The bust kept grinding downwards into the ground until all that was left was a hole in the floor. Father and daughter sat frozen, waiting for the other horseshoe to drop. After several moments, Shining realized that he hadn’t been breathing. “Flurry, are you alright?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Thank goodness.” He turned around to embrace his daughter, but then he caught sight of something and froze. “Flurry, go and get mom. Tell her to get Aunt Twilight here. Maybe Luna and Celestia, too.”
The filly tilted her head. “What? Why?”
“Not important right now. Run, go, hurry! I’ll be here.”
Flurry looked at him doubtfully, but trotted off to do as she was told. Shining watched her go, and then turned to the object of his fear. A rectangular section of crystal, about the size of a large door, had recessed into the wall. The join had been so smooth that it might have remained undetected for another thousand years.
Into the threshold, one word was carved.
SOMBRA.
A few hours later, Celestia stood over that name, gazing down dispassionately at the threshold between the two crystal guards standing sentry over it. “Like a fungal rot,” she muttered. “He always keeps coming back.”
A long, noodly body settled itself on her back. “Well, it’s only his name after all. I thought Princess Sparkplug and Shining Amore dealt with him pretty firmly, what with all the wife-tossing and stair-climbing. Blowing up is usually pretty final for anything that isn’t, well, me.” Discord grinned, but Celestia could see that it was forced. “Not to mention, we have his horn, don’t we?” They pulled a sharp red crystal out of the aether and casually wrapped their tongue around it like it was a lollipop.
“Mm-mm, tastes like evil in a can!”
“Why do we continue to wait?” Luna asked, her voice chilly with suppressed anger. “Every moment of delay is another moment that depraved despot’s plans further themselves.”
“We’re waiting on Twilight and Sunset,” Celestia replied mildly. “As I told you the last seven times you suggested we attack. Their train will be another twenty minutes.”
“Oh, piffle,” Discord sniffed. “Here, let me.” They reached out an arm and twisted and suddenly held a top hat.
Celestia groaned and rolled her eyes. “Not this trick again,” Luna sighed.
Cadence, who had just arrived, looked around in bewilderment. “What’s going on?”
“Nothin’ up my sleeve,” Discord said, reaching their talon into the top hat. They pulled back, and were suddenly face-to-face with a manticore. The beast roared loud enough to shake the walls.
“Hm. Wrong hat,” they said, shoving the beast back in. Then, Discord flipped the hat upside down and shook it firmly. A startled Sunset fell out, followed by Twilight, who landed on top of her with a grunt of surprise.
“Behold! The Grrreat and Powerful Discord!” the draconequus crowed, throwing their arms wide.
“Charming,” Celestia sighed. “Well, I suppose we're all here, now. Let’s head down.”
She made to step through the door, but startled back when a pair of spears crossed in front of her. Discord chuckled. “Oh, this should be good.”
Cadence stepped forward, her face grave. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked. “We are thy rulers and we are desirous of access to these chambers!”
“Ooh, nice use of the Royal Intonation,” Luna murmured, nodding appreciatively. “Eight out of ten.”
“Apologies, ma’am,” said the guard on the right, staring straight ahead. “We were left with orders not to allow entry until his highness had returned.”
Cadence frowned. “Shiny? Why?”
Twilight’s hoof met her face. “You know why,” she muttered.
“He… wished to accompany the expedition,” said the other guard carefully.
“I see,” said the Princess of Love, coolly. “Names and ranks, please.”
“Cadence,” Celestia frowned.
“Privates Olivine and Topaz, ma’am,” said the guard on the right.
Cadence nodded. “Promotion to corporal. Both of you. Effective immediately, for following orders in the face of four alicorns and two dracconocci. Shiny, on the other hoof, will be sleeping on the sofa tonight for being a proud, vengeful idiot.”
“Hm. I may have to revise my opinion of the fellow, since you speak of him so highly,” Discord said idly. “Speak of the devil, here he comes now.”
The assembled turned to look up the hallway, where a white unicorn had just cantered into view, a green crystal mare at his side, furiously scribbling notes. “So, Jade, I would like to push the Reindeerdam delegation back by, say, five hours to give us some time to deal with this crisis.”
The mare nodded. “And the delegation from Yakyakistan in three hours?”
“Leave that as it is,” Shining decided. “We should have this wrapped up by then, and the Yak diplomats tend to be considerably less patient than—”
“Hey, Shiny!” Twilight called, raising a hoof in greeting.
His face lit up. “Twiley! I wasn’t expecting you to get here so soon.” He nodded to the mare at his side. “This is Jade Corona, our diplomatic advisor.”
Cadence stepped forward, and the commander of the guard faltered. Jade glanced at the pink mare and quickly stepped away from the prince-consort, hurrying away from the brewing marital tempest. “Shining Armor, what do you think you’re doing?”
The prince consort stepped back, pinking. “Uh, what do you mean, darling?”
“Don’t you ‘darling’ me, Shiny,” Cadence snapped. “We’re all immortal, you aren’t. You’re staying right here, and that’s final.”
“I…” Shining muttered. “In case things went sour…”
Cadence raised a brow. “I wanted to be with you,” he muttered.
The pink princess’s face melted into a smile. “Oh, Shiny. You’re so sweet. You still aren’t coming, and you are still in deep trouble, but you’re sweet. But I’ll be fine, my love. We all will.”
Slowly, the two moved towards each other, eyes drooping, lips puckering...
Suddenly Twilight frowned.“Um, guys?”
Everyone glanced at her. She pointed to a piece of paper, almost perfectly preserved, attached to the wall. “I think there’s a note over there…” She trotted over.
“Twily,” Shining groaned, slumping back in exasperation as the mood dissipated, “there is a time and a place for—”
“It’s written in modern Equish!” she gasped.
Sunset frowned. “I thought the Crystal Empire vanished at least three hundred years before that became commonplace.” she said, trotting over.
“It did,” Cadance agreed with a short nod.
“What does it say?” Celestia inquired, peering over her former students’ heads.
“Just ‘Wait for us’.” Twilight replied. “And there’s some kind of wind instrument over here on the floor, made of plastic and some kind of ribbon, neither of which were exactly common in the Empire when it disappeared.”
Cadence frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would either of—”
She was cut off by the sound of galloping hooves echoing from down the stone corridor. A tan stallion came into view first, followed by an off-white unicorn. The two guards blinked, unsure of what to do, but quickly crossed their spears across the pair’s path. “Right, hi,” the Doctor said, “Guards, dismiss! This is where it gets complicated.”
There was a long, awkward pause. Shining nodded. “Go.”
There was a longer, more awkward pause. “What he said,” Cadence said.
The guards went. Their commander scowled. “What in Tartarus is going on here?” he snapped.
“You’ll wanna sit down,” said Sweetie Belle. “This is going to be a long story…”’
Much earlier… Rarity hummed faintly as she levitated first one bolt of cloth and then another, eying them critically. Teal or violet? Teal or violet? Which would work better for the base of the dress? Bonk. On the one hand, Fleur’s white coat went well with practically anything, and with her grace and poise she could make a dress made out of paper bags look good. Bonk. But she refused to rely solely on her client’s own innate talent for beauty. This dress had to make the mare look even better than she already did. Bonk. Which, considering that this was the most famous model on the face of the planet, was no easy feat. Crash!
Rarity’s ears perked up. “Sweetie?” she called. “Sweetie Belle, what was that?”
No reply. Rarity sighed, setting down the strips of cloth and trotting toward where she had last seen her little sister.
The sewing room was neat and tidy. That alone was enough to arouse Rarity’s suspicions. “Sweetie Belle?” she called, stepping into the room. “What was that crash I just heard?”
She glanced around. No signs of destruction. No sign of a guilty little sister, either. Her eyes narrowed, and she pulled open the door to her gem store. Nothing unusual there, apart from a slight depletion of rubies. More likely to be Spike than Sweetie.
Next, she tried the fabric stores. Still noth— Wait. That red cloth was gone, as was the blue trim. “Oh, Sweetie,” she groaned, glancing at the row of sewing machines. As she’d feared, one had fallen to the ground, still chattering, cloth wrapped around it in a mummifying tangle. Rarity inhaled sharply and let out her breath in a long sigh. “Sweetie Belle, get out here this instant,” she said sternly.
A cupboard swung to with a creak. A red rubber ball bounced out gently, and a very sheepish-looking mare looked out. “I think I might be stuck,” she admitted.
Rarity sighed, but there was a smile behind it. “Hold on, darling, I’ll have you out in a jiffy.” She grabbed her sister’s hoof and pulled. Sweetie squeezed out of the claustrophobic space.
In the open, it was unsurprising how the younger mare had managed to squeeze into the tiny space. Sweetie Belle had a model’s body. Her barrel was slight, her legs were thin and limber, and she could contort impossibly. Rarity could only attribute this to all the exercise her little sister had gotten as a filly. Unfortunately, modelling did not seem to be Sweetie’s destiny. Nor, indeed, did anything else. The now twenty-year-old still had yet to get her cutie mark; the last of her friends to do so. It wore on her like friction on fine silk, though she did try her best to hide it. Rarity smiled slightly. “Trying for a sewing cutie mark?” she jibed playfully.
Sweetie blushed. “Well… not exactly. I just kinda… outgrew my old Crusader’s cape.”
Rarity’s face fell. Ah, yes. The cruelest twist of fate against her sister. The poor dear was almost the last of her friends left in Ponyville, apart from Apple Bloom. The rest? Scattered across Equestria, studying whatever their various destinies had led them to. But there weren’t many colleges willing to take an unmarked pony at this age, no matter their social connections. Even Twilight hadn’t been able to budge them. And now, the poor dear really was more alone than ever she had been, adrift and lost on a—
“Rarity?”
The elder unicorn blinked. Her younger sister was staring at her oddly. “You kinda drifted off, there.”
“Did I? So sorry. You were saying?”
“I was just asking when mom and dad would be back from their holiday,” Sweetie said. “I mean, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen them— not that I don’t like staying with you,” she added hurriedly. “You and Spike…”
Rarity chewed her lip. Their parents had been touring the globe for a rather… lengthy period, and while Sweetie was quite old enough to stay in their house while they were away, it had been decided that that would result in either three daily meals of takeout or a pile of ashes with an address. “They’re in the Crystal Empire, currently— or so I am inclined to believe,” she said after a moment. “Likely, they’ll not be back for quite some days yet.”
“Oh.” Sweetie’s face fell and Rarity’s heart sank.
Then, something occurred to her. “Sweetie.”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever is stopping you from visiting them?”
Sweetie paused. “Huh?”
“Well, we have a mutual friend with a time machine, after all,” Rarity said. “If you want to see our parents, you might as well ask him to take you. It would, I think, be a lovely day trip. When’s the last time you saw the Crystal Empire, hm?”
“Not since Spike—” she cut herself off, suddenly remembering that the dragon had bought the Crusaders’ collective silence after that event. “No, wait, that’s something else. Never.”
Rarity raised a brow, but chose not to press her sister further. That would be reserved for her fiance. “Well, that settles it. The empire is far too lovely not to see at least once. Go along to see the Doctor—” she glanced down at the tangled mess on the floor. “After you clear all this away.”
“Alright…”
The autumn wind had a bit of a bite to it today as Sweetie trotted up the high street toward the Doctor’s repair shop, currently run out of the back of the Doo-Turner household. Eventually, perhaps, he could move to grander quarters, but with a TARDIS in tow, he scarcely needed more than a broom closet. Normally, the shop was quiet, though some days hammering and the noise of power tools could be heard. Today, however, there was a Sound. Sweetie could hear it clearly from three houses down, a faint humming noise. Suddenly, there was a screech like bending metal, and the unicorn’s ears flattened back in fright and pain. She hurried on to the house, where Ditzy sat reading the paper and eating a muffin. “Hi, Ditzy!” Sweetie called. “What’s with all the racket?”
The pegasus made no reply. Sweetie tried again, a little bit louder. “Hi, Ditzy! What’s that noise?”
Again, no response, aside from the flipping of a page. Concerned— had the mare gone deaf?— Sweetie Belle poked her in the wing. “Gah!” The pegasus shot bolt upright, dropping her paper and her muffin. The latter, she caught before it hit the ground. “Oh, hi, Sweetie Belle. What’s up?”
“What’s that sound?” Sweetie asked again.
Ditzy frowned briefly. Then her mouth fell open in an ‘o’, and she hurriedly dug the cotton balls out of her ears. “Sorry,” she said. “He’s just found an old hobby of his, and he’s trying to pick it back up.” There was another hideous screeching, and both mares winced. “He’s a little rusty.”
“What’s he doing, grinding metal?”
“No, no. Playing the recorder,” Ditzy said, rubbing at her ear. “Anyway, what’s brought you here, other than the completely justified noise complaint?”
“Um… I was wondering if the Doctor would take me to the Crystal Empire for the afternoon.”
The grey mare’s face lit up like a Hearthswarming candle. “Oh, that sounds like a great idea,” she said. “Please, go and ask him. Fast, before somepony riles up an angry mob or something. If you can, try to make sure he loses the thing before you come back.”
There was a series of sharp, short honks, and both mares winced. “I will,” Sweetie promised.
Ditzy rolled her eyes back in her head. “Princess Celestia tells me he used to play the spoons, too. At least percussion wouldn’t have been so… so…”
“Out of key?”
“That, yeah,” Ditzy agreed. “Have a nice trip!”
It was an obvious dismissal, but Sweetie couldn’t fault her for it. The dreadful screeching was already wearing on her last nerve, and she’d only been hearing it for five minutes. What it could do to somepony over the course of hours was not something Sweetie wished to contemplate. So, she smiled as honestly and kindly as she could, and scarpered off to the backyard.
Ditzy smiled faintly after her, and with a sigh of deepest relief, shoved the cotton back into her ear.
The door of the TARDIS hung open in the warmth of the afternoon. Sweetie smiled up at the big blue box and gave it a gentle rub. “Hello, you.”
It might have been her imagination, but just for a second, the light on top of the old police box flashed a bright sky blue. Sweetie grinned, and then trotted over the threshold. Immediately, she winced. However loud the music was outside of the box, it was even more amplified inside. She opened her mouth to complain, but then she saw the Doctor. He sat, cross-legged, atop one of the console panels. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling broadly as he blew into the plastic instrument. He was, in a word, happy.
Sweetie smiled, enamored. Gently, she closed the TARDIS door behind her. The Doctor’s eyes flew open, and the music stopped abruptly.
“Oops,” Sweetie said, pinking slightly.
The Doctor set down his recorder, still smiling. “Well, hello there, Sweetie Belle! What brings you out this way? Not here to complain about the noise, I hope?”
“Well… wait. What?”
The Doctor snorted. “I’m fully aware that my musical skills aren’t exactly at their peak, thanks much.”
Sweetie Belle cocked her head. “So why…”
“Why bother? Well, I enjoy it! Brings back good memories. Anyway, I’ll never get better if I don’t practice.”
“That’s true,” Sweetie concurred. “What were you remembering?”
The Doctor’s face drooped slightly. “Old friends,” he said simply. “And some… old faces. So, what’s new with you?”
“Oh, uh, not much,” Sweetie replied, her voice jumping a few intervals. “Er, I was just wondering if you were up for a little trip?”
The Doctor brightened. “Oh, I’m always up for that. Whither shall we wend? The Asteroid Archipelago of Abraxos Alpha? Somnia, the central silver city of Sillivant? Perhaps the massive misty mountains of Minerva Minor?”
Sweetie Belle giggled slightly, warmth spreading over her features. “Those all sound good,” she agreed. “I only really want to visit the Crystal Empire, though. Surprise my parents.”
The brightness and sparkle in the Doctor’s eyes faded. “Are you sure? I could show you the, the… Oh! Orion Amusements, home to the largest and fastest virtual roller coaster in its galaxy! Plus, it has great fried pizza.”
“I bet Button would enjoy that,” Sweetie said, reflecting. “Or Scootaloo.”
The Doctor’s smile faded. “Right. Yeah. You want to wait for them, then.”
“Of course! I wouldn’t want to leave any of them out.”
The smile was back as quickly and abruptly as it had left. “Right! Crystal Empire, eh? Brilliant place, isn’t it? So SHINY.”
It would take a finely trained eye to notice the change in the Doctor’s smile. It seemed, on the surface, to be as real as any other. There was deep, legitimate emotion in his eyes. A closer examination, however, showed not a happy sparkle, but a faint, tearful glimmer. “Allons-y.”
He pulled down on the demat lever. All Tartarus promptly broke loose.
Sweetie Belle let out a piercing shriek as she was flung off her feet by the swiftly tilting ground, smashing into the railings on the sides of the platform. The Doctor said something that was probably a Gallifreyan swear word, grabbing on tightly to the console. Red lights flashed, and in the distance, vast bells tolled out a warning. “Doctor, what’s going on?” Sweetie yelled.
“Cloister bells!” the Doctor shouted. “They only sound in the direst sort of emergency!”
“Like what?”
“Like the end of the world, or at least the end of the TARDIS!”
“...Is there anything I can do?”
“No — Yes, actually. Hold on tight!” The Doctor jerked down on a series of levers and pulled the demat switch again.
The entire ship shuddered and then flipped like a shirt in the laundry. Sweetie screamed again as the TARDIS, for a brief moment, turned upside-down, leaving her dangling toward the high ceiling below. The room actually seemed for a moment to twist and warp like a funhouse mirror, and Sweetie Belle could feel the impossible sensation of having her limbs drift away in the nonexistent breeze. And then, as soon as it had started, the turbulence was over.
Sweetie Belle clung to the railing, her breathing shallow and her eyes wide. The whole affair couldn’t have lasted more than a minute, but at the time it had felt like hours had passed. “Spatiotemporal distortion,” the Doctor said, apparently reading her mind. “Dreadful business all ‘round. At least it was a uniform stretch. Trust me, you don’t want to see what happens on the border of two timestreams. Very nasty.”
The tall unicorn hoisted herself to her hooves. “What just happened?” she whispered.
The Doctor chewed at his tongue. “Good question,” he replied slowly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that there was some entity deliberately sabotaging us…”
Sweetie swallowed hard.
“However, in this case, I’d say that it was just normal equipment failure,” the Doctor said, his tone much lighter. He reached out a hoof and tapped a series of three lights on a brass plaque. With a hiss of steam, the panel rose into the air, revealing a complex system of wires and lights below, along with what looked very much like a deformed stick of chalk.
“Whoa. What’s that?” Sweetie asked, staring.
The Doctor exhaled through his nose. “The drift compensator,” he replied unhappily. “Keeps the time winds from buffering us too much.”
“Time… winds? Do you always do that? Just take normal things and tack on ‘time’ in front of them?”
The Doctor’s mouth curled up slightly at the side. “I have no idea what you mean. Anyway, the Time Lords designed this to keep the time winds from buffering their time ships. All the energy is refocused through this carefully time-shaped timestone. Unfortunately, all the time-stress has ruined it. Last time this happened was in Times Square. New York nearly had twenty New Year's Eve celebrations at once.”
Sweetie rolled her eyes, smiling. “Alright, so get a new ‘timestone,’ then. You’ve got a backup right?”
The Doctor bit his lower lip and suddenly became very interested in the machinery. Sweetie Belle stared at him sharply. “You don’t have a spare?”
“I didn’t think I’d need to worry about it for another few hundred years!”
“Well, that’s why you think ahead!”
“I —” the Doctor took a deep breath. “Alright. There is a bit of good news. As it happens, ‘timestone’ really was just a joke, what I need is actually basically just quartz crystal, extremely common on Gaea. The tricky part lies in shaping it, but guess where we’ve just landed?”
Sweetie Belle lit up. “The Crystal Empire! Oh, Doctor, that’s perfect!”
“Isn’t it just,” the Doctor agreed, raising an eyebrow. “Now, I expect it’ll be a tad chilly out. You’ll want to fetch out a nice jacket or something from the wardrobe, I expect.”
“Alright! I’ll be right back,” the unicorn said, trotting off.
The Doctor watched her go, and the smile slid from his face. “It is perfect,” he muttered. “Why is it so perfect?” He rubbed the TARDIS console absently. “What are you playing at, old girl?”
The Doctor had a number of senses beyond the usual five. The temporal sense, of course, was among the most easily recognized. However, over the years, he’d also managed to develop a sense of present danger, a sense of deja vu, and, among others, a sense of humor. Just for a moment, the old ‘sense of being watched’ tickled at the back of his brain and he spun around. Just for a moment, he thought he saw a brilliant blood-red light flash behind him, but there was nothing there. The warm, welcoming, and woody interior of the TARDIS suddenly seemed subtly menacing, like a gingerbread house in the deep dark forest.
A cold shiver ran down the Time Lord’s back, like the bitter, biting winter wind, but he shook it off. No. This was his TARDIS, his home. If he wasn’t safe here, where would he be safe?
He looked long and hard at the central console. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was staring back.
Deep inside the innermost workings of the TARDIS, which no being could access, let alone survive, a deep crimson light illuminated the wires and gears and sundry gizmos which ran the timeship. Occasionally, the air was rent by lightning, snapping and crackling like breakfast cereal in a circuit breaker. Nothing could possibly survive in this environment. And yet.
“Doctor? I didn’t find a jacket, but I did find this old sweater.”
The Time Lord glanced up from the console at last, surprised. After a moment, a smile split his face. He snorted, biting at his lower lip. “What?” asked Sweetie Belle, decked out in red question marks and jagged blue lines.
“Nothing, nothing,” the Doctor chuckled. “Bit big for you, isn’t it?”
Sweetie shrugged. “I guess. Cozy, though.”
The Doctor smiled slightly. “Well, alright then. Shall we away?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Sweetie shouted, bouncing in place. “Ooh, I can’t wait to see the Crystal Empire! It’s so bright and shiny and lovely and — ”
The doors swung open, bringing along a rush of icy wind and dirty snow and slush. Sweetie fell silent. She looked at the Doctor. The Doctor looked back. They both stared outside. Far from being in a bustling city, they had landed in a desolate snowy tundra at twilight. The wind howled cruelly over the plains. The Time Lord coughed and rubbed at the back of his head. “I… suppose I might have overshot in the confusion?” He sniffed at the air. “Let’s see. Mm… Well, we’re certainly in the Frozen North… Yes, we’re in the right place…”
“There, over by those mountains,” Sweetie said, waving a hoof to the west. “That must be it.”
The two surveyed the Crystal Empire silently. It was oddly dark and very, very quiet. “...Maybe everypony’s asleep?” Sweetie suggested.
“Might be,” the Doctor said, rubbing his jaw with a hoof. “Could very well… Well, whatever’s going on, we need to get in there in order to get our crystal. We’ll deal with whatever problems arise as they come.”
“...Alright,” Sweetie replied dubiously, following the Doctor out the door. “Won’t you be cold?”
“What, me? Nah, I’ll be right. Time Lords have a few genetic advantages over ponies, and earth pony magic just makes me that much hardier. Still, we’d best hurry.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Sweetie agreed, closing the TARDIS door tight behind her. “Brrr.”
The duo set off at a brisk trot over the frozen ground. Nevertheless, the deep drifts and frequent flurries made for slow going. “So!” the Doctor said brightly. “Ever been out to the Empire before?”
Sweetie smiled slightly. “Once,” she replied. “With the other Crusaders and Spike. We didn’t get to see much, though, we were… a little busy at the time. It didn’t look anything like this, though.” She paused. “Have you ever been here?”
“Once or twice. Apparently a few more times in my personal future, if you want to believe — Well, never mind that now.”
They trudged onward in silence for a few more minutes before Sweetie spoke again. “Doctor, what exactly happened in the TARDIS? Exactly.”
“Like I said, drift compensator burned out,” the Doctor replied, staring straight ahead. “Essentially, it’s what keeps the ship on course in time. What we experienced was literally the collapsing of time and its relative dimensions.”
There was a long silence. “So, like, if that was what was keeping us on course for the right time, how do we know we arrived when we think we did?”
“I checked the TARDIS readouts,” the Doctor replied lightly. “Never led me wrong. Well, right, maybe once. A few times. Okay, several times, but only under very special circumstances.”
Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “I just… you’ve got to trust the TARDIS,” the Doctor continued. “She’s the one who’s really in charge. If you don’t trust her, you can’t do anything or travel anywhere.”
“I guess that’s true…” Sweetie conceded. “It just really doesn’t seem like the whole place could’ve just changed this much without anypony hearing about it.”
The Doctor merely shrugged. “Well, we’ve certainly faced stranger things, haven’t we? Is this more or less believable than a living cloud, or an army of mind-stealing robot crabs?”
Sweetie gnawed at her lower lip. “More, I guess…”
“Well, there you go,” the Doctor said with satisfaction. “There’s probably some kind of explanation for this. We’ll find out when — ”
The Time Lord was suddenly cut off as a massive explosion shook the earth. He and Sweetie both fell heavily to the ground. “What the heck?” Sweetie asked, looking toward the horizon. Before her eyes, she saw a brilliant light illuminate the snowy ground, followed by an enormous snowball hurtling toward the crystal structures. At the last possible moment, the projectile was struck by another light and promptly exploded.
The two travelers stared, astonished, at the scene as more snowballs and arcane projectiles met in the sky over the empire. “I’m sure that there’s… some sort of explanation,” the Doctor repeated.
“Well, that makes one of us,” Sweetie said, shaking the snow out of her curls. “How sure are you that the TARDIS got the right date?”
“I tuned her instruments myself!”
“That neither answers my question nor makes me feel any better about this situation,” Sweetie Belle said flatly.
“Oi!”
Another explosion shook the ground, and the two promptly found themselves tail over head once more. The Doctor lifted up his head just in time to see another snowball fly at the empire. There was something unusual about that one, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see what it was.
Another snowball crashed to the ground not twenty meters away. Oh, that was it. These snowballs were coming from directly behind them. Wait. That was a problem. “Sweetie Belle! Run!”
The young unicorn was leaving hoofprints before he’d stopped talking, and the Time Lord quickly decided that it was in his best interests to follow her. Snow and bolts of magic lightning battled overhead, showering the travelers with ice and freezing slush. The eastern gate was drawing closer, but not quickly enough. The snowballs were also flying increasingly near the time travelers. One particularly close call sent snow and ice flying up in a fine mist that stung their eyes and skin. Fifty meters away, now.
“Open up!” Sweetie screamed. “Sanctuary!” A bolt of magic rocked the frozen ground, sending the mare tripping over her own long legs. Thirty-five meters now.
The Doctor hauled his companion back to her hooves, and together they stumbled towards the massive gates like some kind of demented crab. Twenty meters now.
Another explosion, closer this time, it seemed. Clouds of frost and ice shook off from the crystal archway ahead of them. Ten meters.
A whistling noise cut through the air, followed by a muffled hiss and crunch. The Doctor glanced up. His eyes went wide and he shoved Sweetie toward the safety of the archway. Five meters left.
For the Doctor, everything went white for a moment, a light that was bright and mercilessly cold. Then everything faded to a comforting, warm black.
The Time Lord took a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes flew open. Like a restless insect his gaze zipped around the room, taking in every aspect of it. Pure white. Familiar, but not. Comforting, but not. Home, but not.
The Doctor sat up, rubbing absently at the side of his head where the snowball — snow cannonball, more like — had smacked him. The walls were an austere white, inlaid with uniform circular holes. The floor and ceiling were even less decorative. In the center of the room sat a large console of buttons and switches. As he had originally thought, he was in the TARDIS. But it wasn’t his TARDIS.
Not anymore, a cold voice said.
The Doctor spun around, eyes blazing. “Who’s there? Who said that?”
Who, if it comes to it, are you?
“I am the Doctor. This is my ship. I say again, who are you?”
Tsk. Don’t you know that talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity?
The Doctor spun around again. “You again. Who are you, then? All these years, you’ve been popping up in my dreams, but you’ve never introduced yourself. Very rude, I must say…”
“Haven’t I? Oh my, you are slow, aren’t you? Have I not left enough clues? Do you not recall a potential future amalgamation of all of your darkest qualities? One called — “
The Doctor paused and turned around. A paper-white stallion with a cropped black mane and red eyes grinned back at him. “The Valeyard?”
“...Seriously? That’s… that’s the best I could do?”
The Valeyard’s wicked grin melted. “The best — the best you could do?”
“Mm, yes,” the Doctor agreed, trotting around the interloper to look at him from all sides. “I mean, this is obviously a dream. I couldn’t imagine up the Master, or Davros, or maybe even Rassilon? I got you?”
“Me! Your worst enemy of all, yourself!”
The Doctor paused for a moment and shrugged. “Well, perhaps. I mean, you’re obviously just a bit of moldy cheese anyway. Some fermented vinegar. A few crumbs of baked bads, interacting with whatever concussion I’ve gotten myself,” he said cavalierly. “Nothing more than a fever dream without a temperature, a drunken hallucination without the hangover.”
The Valeyard glared, rendered impotent by shock and affront. “Very well, Doctor. Believe what you will, but know this. Someday, this dream will come true, and I will be the one to make it happen!” He exploded with a bright red light that left the Doctor blinking.
“Funny,” he murmured. “Doesn’t seem such a bad dream to me. Where are we, I wonder? Post-apocalyptic Ponyville? Celestia’s deathbed? The end of the universe?” He glanced over the displays. Slowly, his brow wrinkled. Every instrument was off. Every readout was blank.
His eyes crept up toward the wall at a glacial pace. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no…”
The TARDIS had no door.
The Doctor sat up with a choked gasp, his eyes flying open. He blinked, adjusting to the dim light of the room. It was small and somewhat cramped, scarcely more spacious than a walk-in closet. It was sparsely furnished with the cot which he had been resting on and a small table. “Sweetie Belle?” he called, glancing around.
Beside him, a furry lump in a question-mark jumper grunted indistinctly and rolled over, muttering in her sleep. He stared for a moment in surprise, then poked her in the tummy.
“Ackpth!” Sweetie jerked up. “I don’t even like bananas!”
The Doctor frowned. “Oh, c’mon, bananas are good.”
Sweetie blinked in the light, or lack thereof. “Doctor?”
“Morning.”
“Evening, I think. Or, maybe really early morning. You’re okay?”
“Mph. Feels like I lost a fight with a snowpony. What happened?”
The unicorn fidgeted, pushing herself up from the cot that the two ponies had apparently been sharing. “Well, um, after you got hit by the snowball, I sort of hauled you under the archway and yelled for help.You were as cold as ice, so I tried to stay as close as I could to share body heat. That’s a survival thing, right? Not just something from a video game. Button told me, so I really don’t know. Anyway, nopony came out. So, I just sort of stood there, because what else am I gonna do, right?”
“...Right…”
“And then, um, I guess I got a little… overwhelmed…” Sweetie trailed off. “It was like I didn’t know what I was doing! I just felt so… so…” She inhaled. “It was like everything I ever did wrong was pushing down on me, and every time I ever got even a little annoyed was pushing back out, and I just, I just…”
“Exploded?” the Doctor guessed, his expression guarded.
“Exactly! All my magic just sort of surged up, and the next thing I knew, a bunch of guards were hauling us in through the gates. I don’t know how it happened, or why, or… Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“We aren’t when we thought we were, are we?” Her open face was anxious, her eyes wide and her voice pleading to be corrected.
The Doctor let out a prolonged, slow breath. “What gave it away?”
Sweetie glanced down. “What happened to me?” she asked quietly.
The Time Lord frowned, but decided to let his question go in face of the more pressing issue. “Crystal is a sort of emotional sponge and amplifier. It takes in strong emotions and captures them, plays ‘em back like a CD.”
“A what?”
“Sorry, a cassette.” She still looked blank. The Doctor sighed. “A record.”
“Oh, right.”
“You were feeling stressed, probably a bit angry, right? The presence of so much crystal just amplified that into a massive explosion. But that doesn’t make sense!”
Sweetie stared, head cocked to one side at the exact angle to maximize endearment. She probably didn’t consciously realize it, the Doctor thought absently, picking up his recorder and spinning it around idly. “The crystals need more time, more emotion than that to work so dramatically. Think about the Alicorn Amulet, right? Crystal. It took Trixie’s desire for revenge, her anger, her inferiority complex, and channeled it all through crystal, blotting out all of her positive emotions. That was only because the crystals were already infused with massive negative energy.”
“It was full of bad vibes?”
“If you like, sure. If it had been around more positive sources, Trixie wouldn’t’ve ended up so megalomaniacal. Crystal is naturally neutral. It just reflects what it’s already been around. For the gate to have such an impact on you, the sorrow and fury in the empire must be massive, and that’s impossible because of the Crystal Heart putting out, well, good vibrations! It doesn’t make…” He trailed off, staring at Sweetie.
The unicorn bit her lip and became very interested in the crystal structure of the ground. “Sweetie Belle, what aren’t you telling me? Why won’t you tell me when we’ve landed?”
The unicorn continued to stare down at the ground. The Doctor’s jaw set. “Sweetie Belle,” he growled.
“I didn’t want you to feel guilty!” the mare shouted, tears in her eyes.
The Doctor stopped. He felt the tension he’d been holding, hadn’t realized he’d been holding, suddenly release. Oh, that was bad. That was very very not good. The negative resonance of the empire was affecting him as well, and if his rage broke loose… he knew all too well what would happen. “Why would I feel guilty?” he asked levelly.
Why wouldn’t you feel guilty? A devilish voice murmured at the back of his head. It sounded terribly familiar. Think of all the lives you’ve ruined. Donna, Astrid, Jack —
Shut up, he thought back. Working.
Adric! the little voice shouted. Katarina! Kamelion! Charley! Fitz! Evelyn!
“I said SHUT UP!” the Doctor shouted, breathing heavily.
Sweetie Belle blinked, rearing back, ears flat. The Doctor caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective wall; his mane was wild and frazzled, his eyes bloodshot, and he was all but frothing at the mouth. Just for an instant, he thought he saw a lime green pony with a frizzy blond mane and a clown-vomit coat staring back at him from the reflection, but then it was gone. Only his current face remained, as crazed and distressing as it had been before.“Sorry! Not you, talking to myself,” the Doctor said quickly. “Keep talking, why am I feeling guilty?”
“Because of when we ended up,” Sweetie Belle said, wretchedly. “Doctor, we’re over one thousand years in the past, before the Crystal Empire disappeared.”
The Doctor’s breath caught in his throat, his pulses quickening. “Please tell me that that doesn’t mean what I think it means…”
The door to the dimly-lit room swung open, revealing the imposing figure of a guard clad in stygian armor, her coat a dull shade of gunmetal blue. “His Highness King Sombra will see you now,” she said.
The Doctor let out a hollow moan and let his head fall against the crystal wall. Sweetie winced and pulled away. The guard, hollow-eyed and motionless, stood stiffly at attention like a good soldier.
They were spared shackles, at least, as the unnamed guard marched down the hall ahead of them. There wasn’t even a rear guard to watch them from behind. The back of the Doctor’s mane prickled under unseen and likely nonexistent eyes, and he internally rankled at the apparent underestimation of his capabilities. He could run, escape without so much as a second thought. But then what? Run forever in a maze of shining surfaces and bottled feelings? You’d end up lost or insane, probably both.
He shook himself out of the stupor. Beside him, Sweetie Belle blinked herself out of her own reverie, her eyes wide and vague. “So,” she said quietly. “You’ve never been here before?”
“Not at this time, no,” the Doctor murmured. “I mainly visited after its return. It was… not like this.”
Sweetie stared around the corridor. The only adjective for it was ‘gloomy.’ The crystal walls had faded from bright and shined surfaces to dull, cloudy greys which filtered out much of the natural light. Torches were intermittent and smoky, giving off barely enough light to see five meters ahead. Their hoofsteps echoed throughout the halls, a hollow, shadowy mockery that soon faded into muffled silence.
“It feels… so sad…” she whispered.
“Not surprising,” the Doctor replied. “We’ve arrived in the middle of the Equestrian war with Sombra’s empire. He’s been in power for at least six years by now, but it might be as many as eleven. The Crystal Empire’s been brought pretty low, all told.”
“You can say that again,” Sweetie said, glancing around. “This place would depress even Pinkie.”
The Doctor hesitated a moment before nodding. “Try to remember that,” he said. “Whatever you’re feeling, remember that it’s being influenced by the crystal structure. Remember who you really are, that’s very important.”
“Um,” said Sweetie, biting at her lower lip. “But what if —”
She cut herself off as they turned the corner and found themselves blinded by a dazzling white light.
Sweetie blinked several times to clear her eyes of the brilliant afterimages that the dramatic change in lighting brought. After the dim, almost nonexistent lighting of the corridor, the room was like a halogen flare. As her eyes adjusted, she began to see blurry shapes swirling into view. The ones lining the walls were guards, of course, or suits of armor. The dim, geometric shapes higher up were probably windows or tapestries. The large blob in the center? Sweetie squinted. A table?
She sniffed lightly, and her nose was filled with the scent of roasted potatoes and sweet jellies, fresh bread and cut hay. “At last,” a gravelly voice rumbled. “My guests. Please, take a seat.”
As Sweetie’s eyes adjusted to the brilliant light, the speaker slowly faded into view. The first thing she noticed was his sheer size. He was easily ten centimeters taller than Big Macintosh, and though he was less obviously muscular, Sweetie had no doubt that this stallion could pick her up and throw her around like a rag doll. His coat was a grey a few shades lighter than charcoal, his mane as black and smooth as tar lying slicked back. His eyes were a deep violet, and they sparkled with sharp intelligence and cruel wit. He wore a cape of dark red velvet, lined with a fur trim that was as brilliant white as the room itself, and hung around with the deepest blood-red gemstone that she had ever seen. What really drew the mare’s attention, however, was his horn. It was as red as a hot iron. It looked as though it would charcoalize anything which touched it, and the color of his coat only added to that effect.
Sombra smiled genially, or as genially as anything with that many sharp teeth could, and waved a hoof. Two figures peeled away from the walls and trotted to the table to pull out a pair of chairs. So they were guards, Sweetie thought distantly. It was the only way she could think. It felt like her mind and body were connected only by kite string, leaving the two separated by dozens of meters. She didn’t even notice that she was moving forwards until she felt the guard push her chair in toward the table. Across from her, she saw that the Doctor looked equally befuddled and not slightly alarmed. “You are his highness, I presume?” the Time Lord asked, but there was little drive behind it.
“Mm, quite,” the dark horse said mildly, picking up a slice of bread and slathering it liberally with jelly. “I am Sombra, and it is my pleasure to host you both. But I fear that the two of you have the advantage of me! Please, tell me, who is it that I have the fortune of entertaining this evening?”
“I’m… Sweetie Belle,” the mare said, blinking herself awake. “This is the Doctor.”
Sombra’s brow rose. “A physician! Truly, a rarity in this day and age. At least, around here.”
“Oh, no, I’m not that kind of Doctor…”
Sombra chuckled. “Oh no? Perhaps that’s for the best. You see, I had them all killed about eight months ago.”
The Doctor froze, and Sweetie choked on the grapes that she had grabbed from the fruit bowl. Sombra glanced over the table before levitating a bottle of wine over to his goblet. “I do beg your pardon, would either of you care for a drink?”
“Wh-why would you kill the doctors?” Sweetie asked, voice shaking. For just a moment, she had forgotten that she was speaking to the scourge of the Crystal Empire, the ghastly ghoulish nemesis of Equestria. He was too charming, too polite, too… calm.
Sombra swirled a mouthful of wine around in his mouth thoughtfully. He swallowed and let out a satisfied breath. “In Topaz Square, there was an outbreak of violet fever. The medicos all rushed to the area in an attempt to cure it, but they failed. The fever only grew worse. From there, the city drew the only logical conclusion.”
The Doctor stared in horrified fascination. “Which was what?”
“That doctors cause violet fever.” Sombra smiled faintly and lifted his goblet to his lips, taking a long swig. “Mm. Are you sure that neither of you would care for a drink? It is actually wine, I promise, not blood.”
“I don’t drink, and she’s underage,” the Doctor said flatly.
“Pity. A fine vintage, really. Ah, well, more for me.” He topped off his glass as though the conversation they were having was of no more import than talking about the weather.
“Now,” said Sombra, setting down his glass. “I suspect that you likely are wondering why I brought you here. The vicious King Sombra, saving tired travellers? Not very probable. But then, neither is the idea of tired travelers seeking refuge in this city. I admit to being rather curious about your presence here, and even moreso about your aid in our defense against the Equestrian forces. Tell me how you came to be here.”
“We came in the TARDIS,” Sweetie began, before she could clamp her mouth shut.
Sombra furrowed his brow. “TARDIS?”
“The name of our conveyance,” the Doctor said smoothly. “A travelling box. It broke down just a few miles outside of the city. It requires a small quartz crystal to repair.”
The dark grey stallion nodded, eyes sharp and thoughtful. “And of course, as this is the Crystal Empire… Yes, quite logical, quite rational. I see no reason not to allow you a small piece of quartz.”
The Doctor blinked, surprised. “Really? I mean, it must be a very particular shape and fine quality…”
The king shrugged. “I shall have my chief jeweler come to speak with you in an hour or so.”
“Well, that’s… that’s very good of you,” the Doctor said cautiously.
“Well, in the Crystal Empire, we pride ourselves on our hospitality,” Sombra said mildly. “Of course, if you would be willing to do a small favor in return…”
“Sure,” said Sweetie, before she could stop herself. She promptly snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide. The Doctor stared at her, incredulous, and Sombra smiled in a way that could only be described as serpentine.
“I have always wished to travel,” he said calmly. “However, the head that wears the crown is often too heavy to move. Tell me of your home, Equestrians, and you will have your quartz.”
Sweetie breathed out. “Oh, okay, sure. Um, we come from Ponyville. It's a small town in the country, near the Everfree Forest—”
“Not far from your capital, correct?” Sombra asked, his eyes as sharp and clear as any crystal in his city had ever been.
“Um… not very far, I guess. It’s only about forty miles.”
“Interesting, interesting,” Sombra murmured, repeating something which was not even worth saying even once, in the tried and true habit of politicians everywhere. “And what—”
He broke off suddenly as the doors swung open and a guard trotted in. “Yes?”
Silently, the guard removed a note from his saddlebags and hoofed it over to the tyrant. Sombra’s eyes darkened as he skimmed the page. “I see. Please excuse me, there is an urgent matter which I must attend to immediately. Eat anything that you wish. Once you have finished, one of the guards will escort you to your rooms. I must apologize for the cramped conditions of your previous quarters, but none of the spare rooms had been made up.”
“Of course,” the Doctor said, nodding. “Quite alright.”
Sombra smiled, flashing a set of teeth that were just a little too sharp to be equine, and rose from the table. “I look forward to hearing of your travels on the morrow. For now, good night, and I wish you pleasant dreams.” He turned abruptly and trotted out through the doors on the opposite side of the room.
The Doctor and Sweetie Belle stared after him. “Well,” said Sweetie, after a long few moments had passed. “He’s not what I was expecting.”
“No,” the Doctor agreed. “Less of the ‘Bleh-blehbleh, Crysssstalsss…. Slavesss….’ An unexpected twist in history, wouldn’t you agree?”
“...Yeah. Everypony always said that the crystal ponies hated Sombra, or he treated them like slaves. Doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” the Doctor said grimly. “Remember what I said about crystals manipulating emotion? How are you feeling right now? How have you been feeling ever since you came into this room?”
“Uh… kinda tired?” Sweetie tried. “Um, listless, I guess. Everything just seems kind of… bleh.”
“And we’ve both started to more or less follow his every command,” the Doctor said quietly. “The crystal in here in resonating some kind of… submissiveness, some feeling of powerlessness and weariness.”
Sweetie glanced around. The guards lining the walls stared ahead with dead eyes, void of emotion, void of thought, void of energy. The unicorn shuddered.
The Doctor apparently was thinking along the same lines, and a grimace crossed his face. “Now that we know it’s happening, though, we can at least do our best to fight it. Question everything, Sweetie, even your own feelings. Especially your own feelings.”
“But how can I change them?” Sweetie asked, panic beginning to rise. “You can’t control feelings, can you?”
The Doctor took in a long breath. “Not entirely. But you can combat them. If you start feeling sad, remember something that makes you happy. If you start feeling listless, remember something that energizes you. If you start feeling worthless, tell yourself that you have worth. And if you feel scared, be brave and carry on.”
“Does that work?”
“Always has for me!” The Doctor winked, and Sweetie grinned. Almost immediately, though, the smile faded once more.
“Why do you think he really wanted to know about Ponyville?”
The Doctor’s smile faded, too, his forehead wrinkling. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. And I couldn’t even pick him up. There’s something very wrong here, Sweetie. I don’t know what it is yet, but I intend to find out.”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “Okay. You want some peas, or potatoes, or what?”
“Just a bit of bread, I think,” the Doctor said, grabbing some off of the platter. “‘M not that hungry.”
Sweetie shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, scooping a portion of peas and carrots onto her own plate.
The two slipped into silence after that, lost in their own thoughts, quietly eating their way through the dinner. Eventually, the Doctor sat back. “Finished.”
“Mhm,” Sweetie replied, abstractedly.
The Doctor’s face hardened. “Sweetie.”
“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, I’m done.” She shook her head to clear it. “Ugh. It feels like my whole head is full of stuffing. I’d hate to be in here all day like, well…” she nodded at the guards.
The Doctor nodded, rubbing at his chin. “Can’t imagine it’s a scintillating position, no. Actually, I wonder…” He trotted over to one of the guards and waved a hoof in front of her face. No response. “Hello? We’d like to be taken to our rooms, now.”
Still, the mare didn’t so much as blink. The Doctor let out a mild huff of indignation. “Buckingham Palace all over again,” he muttered. “Well, if this lot won’t help us, how are we to find our rooms?”
“Dunno, but we definitely won’t get anywhere staying in here. Let’s go outside. Even sadness is better than all this… emptiness.”
“Agreed,” the Doctor said with a sharp nod. “Anyway, at least outside somepony might be sapient enough to help us.”
Sweetie cast a last look back at the bright white room as the two trotted out into the dingy blue corridor. “I’m glad the princesses got rid of that,” she said. Then, a thought struck her. “How did they get rid of it? The empire, I mean. How did they vanish it?”
The Doctor stopped in his tracks. “Good question, actually. I never thought to ask. It does seem pretty tricky to pull off, doesn’t it? Some sort of… temporal displacement? But then how was the crystal refreshed? It certainly wasn’t any sort of shade like this when I visited it.”
He frowned meditatively as they continued down the corridor. “And another thing, where is everypony? Only folks we’ve seen are the guards and the king.”
“That’s about all there is to see,” a voice said from behind the travelers. Sweetie and the Doctor spun round. A deep green crystal pony grinned weakly at them. “Hello. I’m Jade Corona, about the last pony in the castle who isn’t a soldier. I’ll be your guide this evening.”
The Doctor broke into a smile and shook the mare firmly by the hoof. “A pleasure, Miss Corona. I’m the Doctor, this is my associate, Sweetie Belle.”
“Please, it’s Jade,” the mare said, cracking a faint smile. “And the pleasure is all mine, I promise. It’s just about impossible to have any kind of decent conversation around here these days, and it’s been driving me crazy.”
The Doctor grinned broadly. “Ah, well, nothing like a good chinwag, I always say. So if you aren’t a guard, what are you, then?”
“Me? I’m Sombra’s chief political advisor. Not been much call for me these days, of course. He tends to find the war advisor a much more agreeable conversationalist.”
The Doctor frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
Jade shrugged. “It is what it is,” she said. “I’m not crazy about the culture of war that’s sprung up, myself. If he’d even tried diplomacy…”
Sweetie Belle’s nose crinkled up. “Tried diplomacy about what?”
The crystal mare blinked, taking a half-step backwards. “About… what? Do you really not know?”
“We’ve been travelling,” Sweetie said.
At the same moment, the Doctor said, “We’re hermits.”
There was a long pause. “Travelling hermits,” Sweetie Belle concluded.
“Uh… huh,” said Jade, nodding slowly. “Okay, sure. Why not. Travelling hermits, what will they think of next…”
“So, you were saying about diplomacy?” Sweetie asked.
“Oh! Well, that’s something of a long story…”
“I think we’ve got time,” the Doctor assured her. “Just give us the Cliff’s notes, eh?”
“The what?”
“The outline.”
“Oh, well, alright,” Jade agreed. “Well, it all started about… it must be a little over ten years ago. The Crystal Empire was at the height of prosperity…”
The newly-coronated king, the crown barely glinting out from beneath his tousled locks, gazed out over the throng of crystal ponies gathered in the atrium below, the pale rubies at the collar of his robes glittering in the cold sunlight. “My subjects,” he said in a measured tone that did not seem to match his still-maturing voice or gangly form. “As you all know, yesterday evening marked the demise of a great stallion; my father, the noble King Photus. He went peacefully, in the end, after many months of battle with the strange illness which gripped him. His final words to me were, ‘I shall always be a part of this noble empire.’”
Here, Sombra had to pause and collect himself. “You all know that my father’s devotion to this land was deeper and more urgent than any other love. You all know the lengths he took to improve the quality of life, the prosperity, the overall happiness of our fair empire.”
This was met with murmurs of agreement from the crowd. The new king held up a hoof for silence. “I assure you all, I am my father’s son. I will continue from where his hoofsteps left off, continually striving to make the Crystal Empire the greatest that it may possibly be. Our pride and fame will shine across all of Gaea!”
A roar of agreement rose from the crowd below, and a small smile crossed Sombra’s face at the unbridled joy that rose up from below. He nodded down at the crowd once more, then retreated back into the castle once more.
“That… doesn’t sound so bad,” Sweetie said doubtfully. “Doesn’t look like he kept his promises, though.”
Jade glanced around at the cloudy crystal walls and sighed. “No, it doesn’t, does it? It certainly worked for a little while. The ‘pride and fame’ part certainly did. For a good few years, the Empire’s power and influence rose dramatically through trade deals and diplomacy. You saw for yourself how charming he could be, and in that room back there, trained negotiators were putty in his hooves.”
“Not surprising,” the Doctor muttered. “So what happened?”
Jade chewed at her lower lip. “He wanted to… expand. He felt that the Crystal Empire was being stifled, isolated even, as far away from other communities as it was. He started to purchase cheap, unused land from other nations. Around that same time, he started building the army up.”
“Ahh,” said the Doctor, his brow rising. “And then he started testing it out.”
“Yes,” Jade agreed. “It started out innocuously enough…”
The diplomat from Reindeerdam trotted into the room, his face grave. The large, dark stallion rose from his chair to greet him, the light reflecting greasily off of the cherry-red gems that dangled from his collar. “Mr. Donner, I presume?” he asked, running a hoof absently through his frizzy mane. “A pleasure to have you here. I do hope that between the two of us, we can smooth over this little incident between our two nations.”
“Your highness,” Donner began, but the king cut him off.
“Please, his highness was my father. Call me Sombra.”
Donner blinked slowly. “Very well, Sombra it shall be. Sombra, the fact of the matter is that your army built a fort on my country’s territory. That is, I think you will agree, somewhat more than a ‘little incident.’ It is, indeed, tantamount to invasion.”
“Yes, I imagine your national pride is rather wounded,” Sombra said mildly. “Though you must admit, it can be rather difficult to tell one patch of tundra from another… I beg your pardon, I’m being a bad host. May I offer you some wine?”
“Somehow, the diplomat went home satisfied. The rest of the world? Not so much.”
“Let me guess. Anypony he hadn’t spoken to directly really didn’t trust him?” Sweetie asked.
“Exactly. His political ethos was such that most of the world was willing to accept it had been an honest mistake. At least, they did at first. But then, when Sombra didn’t take down the fort… when he started building more forts on land that wasn’t the empire’s…”
“Then things got a little heated?” the Doctor guessed.
“You might say that,” Jade said drily. “That was when the army started inflating disproportionately to the rest of the empire.”
“My ponies!” Sombra bellowed, standing at the balcony like an avenging god, robes flapping like curtains in a storm, scarlet gems encircling his neck like a choker. His mane was flat and slick and oily.“The nations of the world, our former friends and neighbors, have allied to bring about my downfall, your downfall, our downfall.”
A slow roar of jeers and boos echoed up from the crowd below. Sombra held up an authoritative hoof, clad in iron, as a call for silence. “They wish to take from us our lands and power,” he roared. “They wish to use our resources for their own selfish gain, and have resorted to trickery and warfare to obtain them. Well, if they desire war, they shall have it!”
A booming cheer rang up from the masses, and Sombra smiled, revealing sharp, carnivore incisors. “Remember, the army is open to all ponies over the age of thirteen,” he said smoothly, his earlier rage converted into calculated charm as quickly and easily as a flick of the tail. “Draft offices are to be found in every sector of the city. Sign up today!”
The Doctor looked like he had aged fifty years. “And sign up they did…” he murmured.
“Indeed,” Jade sighed. “That was the beginning of the end for my role in court, not to mention the golden age of the Empire…”
“Hm,” said the Doctor quietly. “Interesting. And all this,” he waved around at the cloudy walls, “just turned up overnight?”
Jade glanced around. “Well, no. As I say, it was only the beginning of the end.”
“But was it?” the Doctor pressed. “Was it really where it all began?”
Jafe flushed. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”
The Doctor gazed at her for a long moment. “Huh. You really don’t, do you?”
Jade’s face suddenly went flinty and cold. “So explain it to me,” she growled. “You think you’re so clever, mucking around with your traveling hermitage and you wanna come here and insult me? Is that it? Is that—”
The Doctor cut her off, eyes flashing with fury. “Insulting you? I needn’t even bother when you’ve done such a good job of insulting yourself. How blind do you have to be, not to see your own city decaying around you? How—”
“Hey!” Sweetie Belle shouted, cutting both of them off. “Both of you, calm down. Doctor, this isn’t like you. Jade, I don’t think this is like you, either. Calm down.”
Jade’s face slackened and she took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said. “Excuse me. I keep having these mood swings, and they keep getting worse.”
The Doctor had also calmed down. Now, he looked more worried than angry. “How long have they been happening?” he asked, his forehead drawn.
“The mood swings? Um, a few years, I suppose. Why?”
The Doctor shook his head. “Just curious. So, our rooms?”
“Yes, of course,” said Jade, her expression still slightly troubled. “Follow me.”
She led them up a tight spiral staircase that seemed more like a tunnel, given the claustrophobic walls and low ceiling overhead. Sweetie shuddered as an undefined shape scuttled across her path. “Has this castle got a rat problem?”
“Oh, no,” Jade replied. “No rats. They were all eaten by the roaches.”
The unicorn paused, then shuddered again. “Are we almost there?”
Jade swung a door open. “Yes,” she said, stepping out into the marginally brighter lighting of the hall.
The Doctor and Sweetie glanced out. This corridor was a gloomy, ugly shade of sludgy orange. “I’m glad it didn’t look like this when Rarity visited,” Sweetie muttered. “She would have had a coronary.”
“It’s not exactly setting me at ease, either,” the Doctor replied, stepping out into the hall. “Which rooms are ours, then?”
“First and second doors on the left,” Jade replied, gesturing. “Or will you be sharing?”
The Doctor blinked. “Two rooms will be great.”
“Ah. Do you want somepony else to snuggle up with?” Jade winked lecherously. “I can help with that…”
“Really, really, no,” the Doctor said, shaking his head.
Sweetie crinkled up her snout. “He’s kind of married.”
Jade blinked. She glanced at the younger mare, then reddened. “Oh. I see,” she said flushing. “Is there anything else you’ll need?”
“No,” the other two said in tandem, shaking their heads fervently. “No, no, we’ll be fine, just…”
Pink-faced, Jade galloped back to the stairwell, slamming the door behind her. Sweetie Belle, just as pink, turned to the Doctor. “Wait. Did she think we were married? I mean, even if you weren’t, like, a thousand years older than me, I'm still twenty and you look about thirty-five. That's pretty gross. Also, did she just proposition you?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Ponies, especially mares, married younger during this time period,” he replied. “I mean, not as young as you might think, but usually by age eighteen.”
“Still.”
“Well, you're right, still a bit..." he pulled a face. "Eugh. Perhaps the hallway had something to do with it.” The Doctor glanced around. “Color does tend to have some emotional symbolism. The blue areas made us sad, the white room made us feel empty…”
“So what’s orange?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Dunno. What d’you feel like doing?”
Sweetie considered. “Kinda like chasing down Jade and yelling about how she shouldn’t assume stuff like that. And also some stuff about Button Mash...” she trailed off, blushing fiercely. “Not important, never mind. You?”
“I’m getting... the overwhelming urge to find the Crystal Heart and use it to destroy Sombra once and for all,” the Doctor replied. “Also, the urge to eat a whole bunch of bananas. Of course! Orange must symbolize some kind of loss of inhibition, some sort of… impulsiveness. Desire, be it sexual or intellectual or anything else”
“Do you think the rooms are the same?” Sweetie asked.
“I almost hope so,” the Doctor returned. “It’s hard to really ‘want’ much of anything while you’re asleep.”
Sweetie gnawed on her lower lip, but pushed open the first door. A lurid shade of bright, painful chartreuse shone out. The Doctor pushed open the second door, revealing a deep, gloomy shade of grey. “Hm,” he said. “Not promising.”
“I’ll take yellow-green,” Sweetie said.
“Right,” the Doctor replied, not taking his eyes off the grey room. “How tired are you, exactly?”
Sweetie shrugged. “Not very, I guess.”
“Right, in that case, let’s go exploring,” the Doctor said firmly. “Better, I think, to keep moving through different rooms than to spend too much time soaking in any one of them.”
Sweetie stared longingly at the nice, fluffy-looking bed. She hadn’t really realized just how tired she was until the Doctor had mentioned it. “Just a little nap? We can take it in shifts.”
The Doctor glanced down the hallway. “But Sweetie! Exploring!”
“Sleep!”
The Doctor glanced over his shoulder once more, then sighed. “Alright. You have a go first. I don’t need much sleep anyway.”
Sweetie let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks. Wake me in an hour or so, alright?”
The Time Lord chewed on his lower lip. “Take this,” he said, hoofing his recorder to the mare. “If anything happens, blow into it as hard as you can.”
Sweetie took the instrument with a grin. “Thanks,” she said. “Night, Doctor.”
The Doctor nodded. “Pleasant dreams,” he said with a faint smile as the mare trotted into the yellow room, shutting the door behind her. With a somewhat less-than-satisfied grumble, he sat down on the cold, hard crystal floor to begin his vigil.
After a little while, he got up and began pacing.
After a little while, he sat down again and started reciting his multiplication tables through 700.
After a little while, he tried to do a headstand.
Then he turned out his pockets and built a camcorder, which he then turned into a voice recorder, which he then turned into a wind-up penguin.
“Ugh! This has been the worst seven minutes ever,” he groaned, sitting back against the wall. He glanced toward the door of the yellow-green room. “Mm… maybe I could just sneak off and do a little exploring while she sleeps… I’d be back before the end of the hour… Just down to the end of the hallway. She’ll never even need to know!”
Grinning broadly, the Time Lord set out to find the other end of the orange hallway and satisfy his suddenly ravenous curiosity, trotting farther and farther from the dangers that awaited Sweetie Belle…
Jade galloped down the stairs, catching a few unlucky super-roaches under her hooves. She didn’t slow until she had come back into the relative light of a gangrene-green hall, and she didn’t stop until she had rounded a corner into a little niche carved into the rock. She let out a shuddering sigh and all but collapsed on the wall. Her face was burning with boiling blood, though she couldn’t say how much of that was due to her run and how much could be attributed to sheer embarrassment. Why in the world had she propositioned a complete stranger?
“Because he looked like me…”
Jade stopped. Shook her head. “No. No, you aren’t here, Corundum.”
The walls distorted more than reflected, these days. Try to study yourself in a shining surface, and you’d look like a completely different pony. That, at least, was what Jade had to tell herself; what they’d all had to tell themselves, back when there was anypony else around. There were only a few left, now, who hadn’t vanished into thin air. Corundum had gone only a few months ago, looking for his cousin, Sparkle Shine.
“He did, though. It’s the eyes.”
Real or not, Corundum had a point. The Doctor had a peculiar sparkle to him, something Jade had never dreamed possible for an outsider. They had all had that sparkle, once, back in the bad old days when Sombra had really started getting tyrannical. The bad old days. Hah. Better than the nightmarish new ones. Better by far to betray a memory than to betray the crown, but she couldn’t countenance the consequences for either. “He’s not you, though.”
She couldn’t stop herself. She looked up to see her reflection, and there he was. Just for a moment, she saw his smile again, and then he was gone. “Miss you…”
“Miss you too,” she murmured. She took a moment, no more, to choke back a sob. Then she rose shakily to her hooves and trotted out of the alcove. She still had a report to make, after all.
The king of the Crystal Empire stormed down the hallway, almost radiating energy as he trotted along. Guards stood more stiffly as he passed by. The crystal beneath his hooves turned faintly redder for a few seconds after he had trodden past, like a streak of blood-dyed carpet. “Excuse me, your majesty?”
“What?” Sombra snapped. “Oh. It’s you. Report.”
Jade nodded sharply. “Succinctly put, they appear to know absolutely nothing about the current socioeconomic climate, nor even about the war. Either they’re the best liars I’ve ever seen, or they’ve been living under a rock for the last decade. Or, well, two rocks.”
Sombra stared off into the middle distance. “And?”
Jade furrowed her brow. “Not much. The Doctor seemed to know more than he let on.”
“Obviously,” Sombra growled. “No pony could know so little and still live.”
“As you say,” Jade nodded. “However, I do not believe that they would mean the Empire harm, nor yourself.”
The dark unicorn paused in midstride and stared at the green mare. “Do you stand by that?”
Jade cantered backwards, but her expression did not shift. “I do. They were kind, not as you warned Equestrian spies would be. They were open, honest.”
Sombra glanced at the subtle deepening blush of pinkish-orange beneath the mare’s hooves. He nodded. “On your head be it,” he said, and walked away without another word.
He could feel Jade’s eyes on him as he opened the door to his quarters just far enough to accommodate his frame, and then slipped inside, slamming the door closed behind him.
As soon as the door closed, his shoulders sagged, legs buckling as he unceremoniously collapsed to the floor. Sombra lay there, heaving with misery and pain for several long minutes before he hauled himself back to his hooves, his green eyes red and wet with anger. This would have surprised most anypony in the castle for two reasons; firstly, that the charismatic and vicious tyrant of the Crystal Empire, the greatest and purest of all the crystal in the kingdom, was crying, and secondly, they all would have sworn that his eyes had been violet mere moments before.
He whipped off the cloak with a hoof, not magic (it had corrupted his aura, corrupted his soul), and a scream of wordless rage (not that any could hear him in this soundproof prison) and flung it against the flat grey rock of the wall opposite him (one of the few rooms in this nightmarish palace that he could be himself).
He glared at the gems that collared his robe, collared him. Colorless. Their power had been sapped the moment the door had shut behind him, and it would return as the door cracked open. Once, he hadn’t put them on when he left. That was a mistake he never made again. He shuddered and ran a hoof over the scarred burns on his back where the monster had struck him over and over again for days on end.
Sombra glanced at his bed, then away. Sleep never came easily to him these days, and the torment of dreams was far from worth it. At any rate, he had work to do. This was the one concession that he had been granted, the one respite from its control. The travelers might or might not be enemies of the empire, but they were the only ones whom he could even think to trust. With a grunt, he turned to his bureau, picked up a quill, and began to compose a message.
Luna glared at the spires and geometry of the city on the horizon. Somewhere in there, she knew Sombra waited, like a spider in the center of his web. She didn’t know how he was able to blot out her influence over dreams within the walls of his kingdom; only the most powerful of mental magics could keep out a dreamwalker as skilled as she was, and Sombra certainly did not have the necessary skill or training to perform such a web of cantrips.
Someday soon, she would have the answers she sought, and the justice clamored for by so many nations of the world. Sombra would be—
“Your majesty? Are you listening?”
Luna didn’t even blink. “Of course, Captain Aegis. Pray, do continue with your account of today’s no-score battle.”
The thestral frowned. “Highness, our troops have discovered a strange artifact in Nopony’s Land and recovered it at extreme risk to their own safety.”
“Oh?” Luna asked. “And what, pray tell, is this artifact?”
“A box, highness, made of blue-painted wood. A distinct rarity in this part of the world, I think you will agree?”
There was now no question that the princess was paying attention. “Captain. Pray tell me, did this box have lettering upon it? Was it accompanied by a peculiar pony? Was it taller than I stand?”
Captain Aegis stepped back, unnerved. “Er, yes, highness. It bore the legend ‘Police Public Call Box’, and it was indeed greater in stature than are you. But there was no pony accompanying it.”
Luna groaned and sat back. “Then we are too late to stop them,” she murmured. “Captain, send a missive to mine sister at once.”
“To be sure, highness,” the thestral said. “But what shall it say?”
Luna cogitated. “Say only that, ‘they have returned',” she declared. “She will understand the rest.”
“It shall be done,” the captain said with a nod, flying out of the command tent.
Luna turned to the Crystal Empire’s skyline once more, this time with a far greater intensity. “Doctor, what are you doing this time?” she asked quietly.
Sweetie Belle hadn’t realized how tired she actually was until the Doctor mentioned it. Almost as soon as he suggested the idea of going to sleep, though, she’d felt as though her long, wobbling legs wouldn’t support her weight and her eyes would come crashing down with or without her permission. In retrospect, she thought, perhaps she had been a little short with him. I hope I didn’t upset him too much, she worried as she crawled into bed, sinking beneath the deep cushions and covers like a rock splashing into a pond.
Almost immediately, her concern about the Doctor melted away as she let her muscles relax utterly into the plush spread. “Mmm…” she sighed, bliss overwhelming her. The pillows were soft, they were warm, they were firm… if there was a more perfect bed, she didn’t know where it might be, and she didn’t much care. To be honest, right now she didn’t care about much more than letting the covers and pillows overwhelm her, dragging her down as she let herself melt into the bed. Her eyelids flickered for but a moment, and she was asleep.
And once again she is a filly, flank as blank as the piece of notebook paper that lies in front of her, asking her what she wants to do when she grows up and she does not know she is confused Cheerilee says you must have some idea but she is drawing a blank flank, blank flank, blank flank, shouts Diamond Tiara Silver Spoon Babs Seed Apple Bloom Scootaloo Rumble Button Mash Dinky Doo Snips Snails Pip Twist Truffle as he walks out of the schoolhouse cutie mark flaunted in the air leaving her alone in her detention alone in the school alone until she can write down an answer to the question and
it is dark it is night it is so very very cold and she is so alone on the streets of a city she does not know with a sign which says please help me I am alone I need money a job food please have compassion and a passing stallion snorts contemptuously and says get a cutie mark and it is Button Mash and she is red from the embarrassment and the shame recognition loneliness the cold dark night and
it is late in the nursing home where she waits to die and she fears and longs for that end in equal measure because they say that there is no place lonelier than the grave but this place this time this mare are giving the cemetery a run for its money because in the cemetery you at least have the dead for company and she wants to scream but no sound comes out silent and blank forever alone forever lost forever blank flank blank flank blank flank….
Luna’s ear flickered. Something was tickling at her dream-sense. She pursed her lips tightly and made an effort to ignore it. Ardently as she might have wished to help, she was needed far more in the land of the waking. Slowly, she trotted around the old blue box, examining it from all sides. A faint smile twitched at her lips for the first time in days. “‘Tis exactly as We remembered…” she murmured, rubbing a hoof affectionately against the paneled wood.
“Isn’t it?” a voice agreed from behind her.
Luna turned her smile on her sister. “We were not anticipating thy arrival so soon.”
Celestia trotted over and nuzzled her younger sister. “Thou speaketh as though We would ignore such a vital missive. Pray, sister, where is our dear Doctor?”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Whither dost thou imagine? Where danger lurks, the Doctor soon will crash in.”
Celestia’s eyes widened. “Thou supposeth…”
“Verily. He is in the den of the dragon, sister.”
There was a long silence. “How long do you give it?” Celestia asked, her voice suddenly much lighter.
Luna waved a hoof. “A few hours? Say, six.”
“Very well. Spread the word among the troops. We will charge at three in the morn.”
The moon princess smiled. “Remember thy power? Thy Solar Surge may yet come in useful, may it not?”
Celestia shook her head. “Certainly not. Such weapons are no more fitting of a princess than the baseball bat which you certainly no longer possess.”
Luna’s smile grew into a broad grin, but then faltered, her ears twitching violently. “Pardon, sister, but I am needed elsewhere. Urgently, it seems.”
“A nightmare?” Celestia asked, raising a brow. “Merry! Surely there are more important affairs—”
“A nightmare within the Empire,” Luna corrected. “The first psychic note out of its walls in years. This could be exactly the breach we need to gather information!”
Celestia’s eyes widened. “Then godspeed to thee, sister. Away!”
Luna’s eyes flickered for a brief instant, then faded away into a brilliant white glow as she stared straight ahead at nothing. Celestia followed her blind gaze toward the unnatural spires of the Crystal Empire. “What villainy and schemes hast thou fallen into this time, Professor?” she murmured, sidling closer to her sister. She accidentally unfurled her wings, knocking Luna to the ground. “Oh! Plums,” Celestia cursed, picking up her unmoving sister in her aura and setting her down into a chair. Her eyes were still blank and glowing.
“That is so creepy,” Celestia muttered, tearing her eyes away and trotting back toward her side of the siege encampment.
Sombra lifted the parchment on his desk closer to his face, carefully scanning it for any typos or errors. Finding none, he nodded sharply to himself. Now came the difficult part. He rose from his desk and stared for a long moment at the pile of velvet and fur that lay crumpled in the corner. With a long, drawn-out sigh, he picked it up and tossed it over his shoulder with an ease that suggested the mechanical practice of uncountable hours. The crystals settled about his neck, and not for the first time did the word ‘collar’ strike the unicorn as being remarkably well-suited.
Outside the doors, he would no longer be himself. He would no longer have autonomy, self-possession, or any modicum of control. He would be a prisoner in his own mind, a passive voice at best in his body’s actions. Dare he leave again?
He had no choice. He never did. Screwing his eyes closed, he threw open the door to his chambers and stepped out into the corridor.
His eyes opened. Across the way, a greenish-grey guard stared straight ahead. Sombra’s mouth twitched upwards in the parody of a smile. He thrust out a hoof. “Take this paper, and see that the Doctor gets it,” he said. “Be discreet. He must suspect nothing.”
An icy shiver ran down Sombra’s spine. Inwardly, the last free part of his mind cringed and rolled into a submissive position. It’s a trick, it’s a trap, promise, promise, read it.
The soldier hesitated as the tyrant’s face screwed up in thought. Then, the charcoal unicorn snarled, “What, are you deaf or simply disobedient? Take this letter and go!”
The violet guard snapped even more upright than before, bowed once, and took the parchment. Sombra watched him go, a smug and sinister smile on his face for two very different reasons.
In the cold dark room there was a wooden spoon
And a bed and a chair and a bowlful of mush
And a stifling, ashen hush
And cobwebs from the attic
And dull crackles of static
The little old mare she sat in the chair anxiety undisturbed by repose
And just as the day began to break away she found that everything froze
Sweetie Belle blinked as the muggy, stifling atmosphere turned cool and crisp and refreshing. “Hello?” she asked, then gasped in surprise. Her voice was no longer a wretched croak. It was sweet and light and just a tad squeaky, but it was beautiful. She was young once more.
There was a murmur of static from over in one corner, and Sweetie turned to see a large radio that she was quite certain hadn’t been there a moment earlier. Frowning, she turned up the volume, and through the static she began to hear voices. Well, just one. ~~~``~``~ Prithee ~`~`~~``~ Doctor ~``~````~ dreaming`~~``~~`are``~
Quickly, Sweetie cranked the tuning knob. There was a strange humming whistle, and then the noise settled down. “—thou hearest me?”
“Yes! Yes, I can hear you!” Sweetie shouted.
“Ack! Such volume is not necessary!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
There was a crackle of static across the broadcast. “Doctor, thou hast changed again. Thy voice is youthful and melodic and -- hast thou regenerated into a mare at last?”
“Um, I’m not the Doctor. I just travel with him. Princess Luna, is that you?”
“Ah. Indeed, well met, fellow traveler.”
“Um, hi. Look, not to be rude, but what’s going on here? I mean, this is a dream, right?”
“A nightmare, aye,” the radio crackled. “The first one, the first dream, which I have seen in the Empire for some time. Even now, the wards are such that I cannot truly enter your mind, or change much of anything in there.”
“Um, actually, you changed a lot. I was old, and now…”
“You are the age you are meant to be,” Luna replied. “Yes, well, I said I couldn’t change much. Perception of events is something else altogether.”
“Hey, you aren’t talking old-timey anymore!”
“Oop!” There was a crackle of static that sounded oddly like muffled cursing. “Apologies. Is this improved?”
“No, I wasn’t complaining,” Sweetie said hastily. “I understood you way better the other way. It’s just… where did you learn to talk like that?”
“As I said, you are a fellow traveler,” Luna chuckled. “But that is not the issue right now. Describe to me this nightmare, for I cannot manifest into anything which I may see through.”
Sweetie hummed. “Um, it’s dark. I was old, really old. And this room is… really sparsely decorated. Rarity would have a fit.”
“Who?”
“Oh, right. Uh, not important. There’s… not a lot of stuff. And it’s really old.”
“Hm. And… how did that make you feel?”
Sweetie giggled suddenly. “Hey, this is my dream, right? I can change stuff?”
There was radio silence. “I… suppose?”
Sweetie’s horn glowed and a psychiatrist’s couch floated out of the darkness. She lay down on it. “Well, I suppose it all stems from my relationship with mother,” she said, mock-sober. “She and father were always off traveling, and they left me to be watched by my rather vain older sister.”
“...I see? This made you feel… alone?”
Sweetie thought about this, swinging her hind legs over the side of the couch. “Huh. I guess it did. I mean... I know they all loved me, but... they could all be pretty distant.”
“Have you many friends, child?”
“Less of the child, please. I had a lot of friends, yeah. A whole big group of us, all looking for our cutie marks. They all found theirs. I didn’t. They all went on to bigger and better things. I… didn’t.”
“And in your dream, were you always alone?”
“No, there were other ponies. Um. Sorta. They were there, but they were… not connected to me. They were just sort of a backdrop. Like I was the only real thing, or something. Does that make me vain? It sounds vain.”
There was no response from Luna. Sweetie’s brow furrowed. “Princess?”
The radio crackled sadly. Suddenly the room seemed much larger than it had before, and considerably more menacing. When she glanced at the radio again, it had disappeared. So had the couch, the chair, the bed, the entire room had been replaced with a vast expanse of toxic-looking yellow-green that seemed to reach out to infinity in the center was one young mare utterly alone a strangled sob rose in her throat choking stifling killing her without even enough breath to
screaming and screaming, tears rolling down her face, and she was blowing the recorder frantically, summoning forth discordant shrieks and squeaks that mirrored the barest fragment of the overwhelming fear that threatened to subsume her utterly.
But nopony came.
In her tent, Luna’s head snapped up so fast she might well have gotten whiplash. She gasped, desperate for breath, for several long moments, before finally wheezing out, “Celestia!”
There was no reply. The tent was empty. Slowly, the blue alicorn sat back against the wall, a faint frown on her face. For the briefest of moments, her irises flickered red, but it was gone in an instant.
The Doctor peered intently down yet another branching corridor. This one slowly metamorphosed from the orange of the hallway he was currently following to a deep, rich violet. The effect was like a particularly violent sunset. He took a few steps out into the side hall, curiosity overwhelming him, but it quickly faded once he was under the violet crystal. The Time Lord blinked in confusion, as if clearing his head, then turned to make his way back to the orange corridor. And promptly collided with a royal guard. “Oh, dreadfully—” the Doctor cut off abruptly as he found a blade pointed directly at his neck.
“Hold your tongue, curfew-breaker,” the blue crystal mare snarled. “You will be taken to the cells.”
“Ah, well, I, you see,” the Doctor stammered.
“I ordered thee to hold thy tongue,” the blue mare repeated, more fiercely. The tip of the blade just broke the Doctor’s skin. The Time Lord quickly buttoned his lip. “Tomorrow, the king shall decide thy fate,” she said with satisfaction. “Tonight, you sleep in the dungeon. Come with me.”
She withdrew her sword slightly, taking the Doctor to be sufficiently cowed. If he was being honest with himself, he was. For now. The guard trotted off at a mild pace, obviously expecting the stallion to keep up. He trotted along. “Lovely decor,” he commented lightly.
“Hold thy tongue, lest it be removed.”
“You realize my companion and I are honored guests of the king.”
The mare snorted. “Believable, considering that his highness has outlawed all outsiders from these walls. Only the purity of crystal can remain.”
Oh, where have I heard that one before, the Doctor thought grimly.
“But he isn’t crystal, surely?”
In a flash, the blade was at his throat once more. “He is crystal through and through,” she snarled. “He is the purest of us all.”
The Doctor stepped back in alarm and promptly bumped into another guard. “Oh, Tartarus.”
The greenish-grey stallion glared at him. “The Doctor?” he demanded.
“...Yes, that’s me.”
“We’ve been looking to escort you back to your rooms,” the stallion rumbled. “It is important to obey curfew laws.”
The blue mare grinned grimly. “Which is why I’m taking him to the cells.”
“Which is why the King has ordered that his guest be returned to his assigned quarters,” the stallion returned.
The mare’s eyes went glassy. “E-eh?” she gasped.
The Time Lord grinned at the newcomer. “Brilliant! Sorry, I did get a bit distracted. I hope that I wasn’t too much trouble to find?”
“It only took us an hour to locate you, if that’s what you mean,” the stallion said drily.
“Oh, really? Well— hold on, an hour? That’s not— Oh, bollocks!” The tan stallion suddenly turned very pale. “Sweetie Belle!” He took off at a gallop back toward his chambers.
The mare glared after him, but the stallion’s expression was tranquil. “Foreigners,” he said, shaking his head. “Who can understand them?”
“Sweetie Belle!” the Doctor shouted. “Wake up! Wake up, quick!”
Silence from the other side of the door. The Time Lord pounded more fiercely. “Sweetie Belle, wake up!” he repeated. “Your conscious mind has a better chance of fighting back than your unconscious mind in the long term! Sweetie—” the door swung open, sending the Doctor sprawling onto his face.
The green-yellow room was silent, the bedsheets left in a tangle on the floor. The Time Lord stepped in, and his hoof connected with something cylindrical and plastic. His recorder. The Doctor’s guts twisted. She was gone.
The corridors were a technicolor blur, like rainbow vomit or a circus in a tornado. Sweetie stumbled along, half-blind with tears and half-drunk on emotion. He hadn’t been there. The Doctor had left her, just like Luna had, like her friends had, like her parents had. Nopony ever stayed.
The deep, murky blue faded to a greyer shade, and the unicorn’s stomach lurched. Tar seemed to coat her insides. None of them cared about her, not really. Why would they? She was just a blank-flanked loser, a useless, pitiable, magic-less unicorn, always in the shadow of her sister.
She turned down a red hallway, and suddenly the tar began to smolder. Always in the shadow of her famous sister, the element of generosity. Generosity? Yeah, right. Generosity meant you had to actually care about others. It meant that you had to look after more than just your stupid ambitions of being nobility, or famous in Canterlot.
She stormed into a green atrium. I could be the element of generosity. I’d be way better at it than Rarity ever was. She stopped and stared blankly at the fountain in the middle of the room, whose water glowed with a faint greyish-yellow hue. Waves of guilt swept her. What had she been thinking? She didn’t know the first thing about being an element. And lashing out at her poor sister, who’d been forced to take her in time and again…
Sweetie shook her head, dazed after the emotional roller coaster, and stumbled out into a pale grey hall. Almost immediately, it was as though everything had been washed out, a powerful relief after the onslaught of strong emotions. The young mare let out a breath of profound satisfaction, and she let herself relax, focusing on the dull passage before her. It was profoundly uninteresting. Anything she tried to look at redirected her attention away, like raindrops sliding off an umbrella. It was practically designed to be as tedious as possible, and Sweetie, perhaps paradoxically, found that rather curious. Boredom didn’t really come naturally to her. There was always something to think about, no matter the circumstances. She peered closely at the walls. If you looked closely at them, you could see veins running through the clouded grey crystal, faint jagged lines like lightning shooting through clouds. It was actually quite pretty. Sweetie’s lips curled up into a faint smile.
Unnoticed by her, a small section of crystal beneath her hooves discolored to a clear, bright blue.
“I’m telling you, you have to let me go look for my friend!” the Doctor said, his brow creased with fury. “I always tell them, don’t wander off, but do they ever listen? No! Next thing you know, she’ll be falling through the Howling or causing the extinction of the dinosaurs or getting mind-controlled by a computer in a post office. Seriously, how rubbish was that as a way to go? She never even said goodbye.”
The two guards stared at him vacantly. It was quite uncanny. The Doctor was used to people thinking that he was talking nonsense, but not to people that didn’t register that he was talking at all. If a tree falls in the forest, and these two were around, would it even bother making a sound? Well, obviously, conservation of energy, but still. He became aware that he was rambling to himself and cut off.
The green one opened his mouth. “Your friend will be located, Doctor. There is nothing for you to do.”
“Obey curfew,” the blue one growled. “The rules must be maintained.”
The Doctor exhaled, long and slow, through his nostrils. “That’s the fifth time you’ve said that,” he said. “Word perfect, sans emotion. You should be in pictures. Applewood is calling.”
“Your friend will be located, Doctor. There is nothing for you to do.”
“Obey curfew. The rules must be maintained.”
The Time Lord gave a sigh of frustration and scowled at the duo. For once, he was at a loss for words. Most of the time, guards could be spoken to, if not reasoned with. In certain circumstances, they could even be a source of accidental information. If nothing else, it could be rewarding to watch them struggle to remain composed. This lot, though… it was like they were brainwashed, all capability of independent thought scrubbed from their minds.
As he continued to consider this, he failed to notice the third guard coming up the hall until he was right behind him. “Pardon,” the new guard — violet, this one — said to the Doctor before turning to his fellow soldiers. “His highness has requested excess patrols on the ramparts. All guards not currently in a post are to report there immediately.”
“This succeeds other postings?” green asked. “Dungeon shift is due in half an hour.”
“All other assignments are overruled.”
“Understood,” said blue. She and green turned swiftly and trotted away. Purple followed suit a moment later. As he did so, a loose paper fell from his saddlebags, falling near the Doctor’s forehooves.
The Time Lord watched them go. He was suspicious. He was conflicted. Most of all, though, he was worried. Worse still, he didn’t know which ones he was actually experiencing and which ones were induced artificially. He picked up the paper and scanned it causally. Then he read it again, his eyes wide. Then he took off like a shot down the hall, leaving the paper on the floor, writing-up. Let us peer over and see what it said.
Doctor,
Only just today have we met, but I feel that you are trustworthy. Plain to say, there is more happening in this kingdom than meets the eye. Stone Circle in Emerald Gardens at midnight. Will you hear what I have to say? Keep to the shadows. You must not be seen. Safe travels.
—Jade Corona.
PS, Don’t touch the art.
It was written in hoofwriting which was not Jade’s own, though the Doctor had no way of knowing this at the time. In fact, at this time, Jade had no idea that the letter which has caused the Time Lord such alarm even existed. Before the night was over, however, it would seal her fate.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Sombra pondered as he trotted down the deep blue-grey corridor. It was a good color for introspection. Well, it was a good color for terrible, nagging doubts and crushing guilt, the grist mills of angst and regret working overtime. On the other hoof, what did he have to regret? Everything was precisely as he desired. He had complete and total command of this body, this empire, and soon this world.
Blue crystal glowed red under his hooves, giving the impression that his iron regalia was hot as a forge, that the king himself was lit with a fierce inner fire. Well. If the impression was almost accurate, then so much the better. Blue cooled the furious inner fires of rage and conquest, pride and supremacy, but it did not extinguish them.
In his mind, the red, red needles had faded, allowing him a moment of clarity that was, well, crystal. He chuckled at that for a moment before sobering. The Doctor was here. Many years had passed for him since their paths had last crossed. More for the Doctor. Even in this new form, recognition was to be expected. Yet, there was scarcely a blink from his enemy. So much the better. How much sweeter the reveal would be when it finally came.
The plan was falling into place. The trap would soon be ready. Those puny, pathetic princesses had never even realized that they had fallen into his trap. They constantly mewled about ‘friendship’ and ‘love’ and what those magics could achieve, yet never considered that the darker emotions could be spread just as easily, perhaps more easily. The Empire was a mirror of the citizens. With a city full of soldiers… well. The crystal in Heartshaven Square had turned from clear blue to a hideous, opaque red shade, the light of the Empire turning sickly and grim. Honestly, Sombra didn’t really know what that meant, but he could only imagine that it would be nothing good for his enemies.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. He turned that thought over in his head, vaguely wondering where it had sprung from. A remnant of free will, possibly. Still, it was worth considering. His head didn’t feel particularly heavy. Nor, for that matter, did his heart. He felt better than he ever had before the passing of his father. The two were, of course, connected for more than one reason.
His father had never found the crown to be particularly weighty either, as Sombra recalled.
There was only one reasonable explanation. It was not the crown that weighed heavily upon the head, not the power, but the responsibility. Over three thousand lives pressing down on one hapless ruler. Sombra grinned, baring shark-like teeth. When one looked at it from that angle, he was almost doing those alicorns a favor in taking the weight away from them.
He turned abruptly to face a statue that sat atop a plinth set into the wall and shoved its head backward. The hall illuminated, if illuminated is the word for it. The shadows seemed to stretch over the light, becoming more of a presence than an absence. There was a gentle click as the bust slid into place, and a section of the wall spun around, opening into a dark tunnel. Sombra slipped inside, seeming almost to disappear in the dark shadows of the stone hallway.
His shoulders went slack and his head fell forward, his regalia suddenly feeling as heavy as stone. The crown fell from his head and clattered along the floor, and his cloak dragged him down alongside it. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” he intoned.
With aching, wobbling hooves, he rose up once more to stumble down the corridor, with only the painful red glow of his horn to light the darkness, a dreadful reminder of his constant companion’s power. He paused for a moment to gravely contemplate the crown lying on the floor, half-thinking to kick it, smash it into the wall, dent it into oblivion. But it would accomplish nothing. Another one would already have been made, placed on his head the moment he left the stone corridor. His leash would be tightened for the act of rebellion, his moments of clarity even more limited. The catharsis would hurt more than it helped.
He bowed his head, picking up the crown in his teeth. He would not use magic. He would rebel that much, at least. And slowly, but not too slowly, he made his way down the hall, quietly weeping for the destruction that he had brought to his Empire.
The way to Emerald Gardens was, thankfully, almost completely devoid of guards, which the Doctor supposed was probably related to the audible fighting from outside. The crystal deepened and began to take on more shades of green as the Time Lord trotted on down the streets of the empire. Crystal was virtually everywhere. The buildings were crystal, as were the roads and streetlamps, all glowing with ethereal green light. I wish the TARDIS looked more like this, the Doctor thought, staring at the beautiful walls of unnaturally sculpted crystal.
He blinked and shook himself sharply. Envy. Or perhaps jealousy. Greed? Well, something like that, anyway. It was, he noticed, a very tidy neighborhood, perhaps due to its proximity to the castle. On the other hoof, it might be due to the emotional manipulation of the crystal, keeping up with the Joneses and that. On the third hoof, it might be the cause of the emotional manipulation to begin with. The Time Lord frowned. “There’s a thought,” he muttered, stepping closer to the wall. “Which begat which? The chicken or the egg?” He ran a hoof over the cold, smooth surface, and a ripple of his metacrisis self’s time with Rose his eighth self’s innocence his seventh self’s cunning his third self’s ability to pull off a velvet cape and ruff his sixth’s self’s confidence nondirectional envy swept through him and he quickly retracted the hoof. Thoughtfully, he pulled out the recorder and tootled it quietly, though the sour notes helped him think barely a whit.
The spread of this corruption was fantastic. It wasn’t impossible to believe that the entire empire, massive though it was, could be completely consumed by emotion on this level, but it wasn’t very likely, either. It had to connect to Sombra’s ascension to power somehow, but how? He furrowed his brow at the unnatural green, almost pulsating in its brightness, seeming to fluoresce with its own ethereal light. There were far more questions than answers in this mystery. Hopefully, Jade would be more loose-tongued this time ‘round.
He tucked away his recorder and started off down the street once more. From the shadows, an unnoticed obsidian-colored guard watched him trot along. As he moved into the sharp, cold moonlight, the white crystal on his helmet glistened like a blind eye. Behind him, the green wall pulsed slightly, suffused with a faint red glow, steadily pumping out an unnatural glow that suffused the tableau, the players, the entire empire in a bloody light.
The stone circle was, more or less, exactly what it sounded like. The Doctor was vaguely disappointed. He’d rather expected a sort of Stonehenge structure. What he got instead was a kind of rock garden, which he supposed was really the only sort of garden you could get in this weather. It was, at the least, fairly pretty, and he began to wonder vaguely about putting one in the TARDIS. Then he shook his head firmly to clear it of the corrupting influence of the green lights and stepped into the large patch of stone. This was promptly followed by… something. It was like a muffled buzzing in his ears, as though a noise that he had been tuning out had just stopped.
He frowned and stepped back into the green. The buzzing stopped again. He stepped onto the rocks and looked at a statue across the way. Very pretty. Wonder who it’s of?
He stepped into the green again and looked at another statue. That would look better in my garden.
“Interesting,” he murmured, stepping off the green once more. “The influence of the crystal is massive, but not in here. Why not, what’s different?”
An issue for later, he decided, turning around to canter toward the center of the circle. Clandestine meetings first. Mysterious energy later. The glowing walls had sat around for the last decade or so. The Doctor doubted that Jade would be willing to wait that long. It was already five ‘til.
The stone circle was a bit of a pain to walk through; not only was the ground lumpy, it was also icy cold and covered in slick snow, still clean and unbroken by hoofprint. Nopony came here, these days, and the Doctor doubted that it could be blamed entirely on the weather. It was actually quite beautiful, in a cold sort of way, with a frozen stream in the center of the rockery, a cute little hoofbridge crossing over it. Well, it might have been cute once, before years of neglect and disuse had left it wizened and crooked. The Doctor trotted over the ice instead. He didn’t trust the bridge to hold his weight.
The wind kicked up slightly, and the Doctor squinted as it kicked snow up into his face. There, was that a silhouette? The figure moved and the Doctor raised a hoof in greeting, cantering towards it. As the two drew closer, the Time Lord saw the dim green sparkle of the other’s coat. “Hello, Jade,” he said cordially.
The crystal mare nodded tersely. “Doctor.” She glanced over her shoulder, as though she expected at any moment that Sombra himself would rise out of the shadows. “I must be crazy. You must be crazy.”
“For some time now,” he agreed cheerfully.
Jade let out a strangled half-snort of laughter, the sort which conveys panic more than any sort of humor. “Well. We’re here. It’s cold and we’re probably going to get thrown in the dungeons for this, so we may as well see this through. You had information for me?”
The Doctor opened his mouth, then promptly snapped it shut, staring at the mare oddly. “I have information for you? You have information for me. You wrote me a letter about it.”
Jade turned her head to brace against the cutting wind. “No, you wrote a letter to me, telling me to… it’s a trap.”
“Split up,” the Doctor said shortly. “Run, fast as you can, I’ll try to head them off. Find Sweetie Belle, if you can.”
“Ah… another rat on the run, I take it?” The voice was silk and steel, snow and susurration. Sombra. Suddenly standing where he had always been standing, just slightly away from the view of the duo, shielded by his coat, almost invisible in the shadows. “Never mind,” he sighed. “We’ll soon catch her out, too.”
“Y-Your highness! This isn’t what it looks like, I swear!” Jade gabbled.
“This isn’t what I’d call pleasant weather for a walk,” Sombra returned.
“Funny,” said the Doctor coldly. “I could say the same thing to you.”
There was a sharp glint in the king’s eye as he rounded on the Doctor. For the first time, the Time Lord noticed something very odd about the king's face. The expressions were… off, somehow, as though the king were an actor trying to replicate emotions as best he could. The eyes, that was it. They didn’t match the rest of the face.
That train of thought was abruptly interrupted when the king made an abrupt motion with his neck. “Take them,” he ordered, and suddenly the circle was awash with guards.
Jade backed away in horror, then spun and galloped away. The Doctor merely sighed and sat down, a small frown on his face as one armored hoof connected with the back of his head. Then, everything went white.
The Doctor winced, clutching at his head. The bright white room was not doing his hoof-induced headache any favors. Where was he?
Console. Round things. White. Ah.
“This dream again?” he wondered aloud. “Is this going to happen every time I get knocked out? That could get tedious.”
He glanced up. There was still no door to the outside world. On the other hoof, this was only a dream.
Only a dream, Doctor?
The Time Lord rolled his eyes. “Oh, get Grandfathered,” he said flatly. “You didn’t get me in my sixth incarnation, and you certainly can’t mold me into your image in the one regeneration you’ve got left. Don’t you get it? You’ve lost. All you can do is meddle in my dreams, and you’re even more hopeless at that than you were at law. You’re lost potential, a cut chapter, regeneration-X.” He felt immensely satisfied with that pun. “I don’t plan to go up in golden flame again anytime soon, but when I do, it won’t be to turn into you, Scrapyard. Leave my mind before I make you leave.”
The white stallion appeared out of nowhere, not quite popping into existence, but rather suddenly allowing himself to be seen where the Doctor realized that he had been standing all along. He was a pegasus, this time. “Dreams, Doctor, are far more than phantasmic imaginings. They are, rather, a window into the psyche, a—”
“Don’t care.”
The Valeyard’s smile faded slightly. “Dreams can open doors to the most unimaginable, unbearable—”
“Still don’t care.’
The white pegasus scowled. “This is not a dream! It is a nightmare, Doctor. Your worst nightmare!”
The Doctor looked decidedly unimpressed. “You know, you haven’t got any less dramatic since the trial?”
The TARDIS suddenly flickered and faded, leaving the two in near-perfect darkness. “Odd coincidence, isn’t it,” the Valeyard murmured. “Your precious box has been misfiring more and more often, lately, leaving you stranded in dreadful situations quite away from where you had intended. At the same time, a certain Time Lord foe turns up to meddle with your mind. I wonder what the connection might be?”
The Doctor stiffened. “What did you do to my ship.”
The Valeyard’s scowl twisted into a smirk. “My ship as well, I think you’ll find. Tricky to get her to do anything, really, but I’ll manage in the end.”
“That turbulence.”
“All me, yes.”
“The burnt out crystal was you as well.”
“Quite.”
“Why? If I die, that’s the end of you as well.”
“If you die, yes. But, oh, Doctor, your weak point has always been so very very obvious. I don’t want to kill you. Your companions, on the other hand… beg pardon, other hoof.”
The Doctor’s face froze. “Don’t you dare.” His voice was the north wind.
The Valeyard’s smirk bloomed. “Or what? You’ll kill me? Destroy me, annihilate my planet? Exterminate? What, Doctor? What will you do to me that you haven’t already done to yourself, and oh so many others? Go on, I’m genuinely curious.”
The tan stallion said nothing, merely glaring at his alter-ego. The Valeyard smiled. “I’ll see you soon, Doctor. You and your friends.” And then he was gone, leaving the Doctor alone in the void.
The darkness in the Doctor’s mind flickered as his eyes fluttered open, revealing the real darkness that actually surrounded him. The Time Lord smacked his lips, doing his best to ignore his aching head. “Oh,” a voice said flatly. “You’re up.”
“Good morning, Jade. Is it morning?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
The Doctor sniffed. “No, not quite. Only a quarter to eleven.”
“If I weren’t chained up, you would be a very, very dead stallion.”
“I believe we’ve rather established that I didn’t actually write you that letter.”
There was a long silence. “No,” she admitted. “I suppose not. And I suppose we both know who did.”
“Yes. A clever trap, wasn’t it?”
“But why would he use me? I’ve always served him well, haven’t I? I’ve never argued with him about anything, never tried to stop anything he ever did…”
“Maybe you should have.”
“And then what? Die? Do you know— No. No, you don’t. Of course you don’t understand, how could you? You’re a foreigner. You’re an Equestrian, with your perfect, pretty, lovely princess-goddesses. You’ve never had to face tyranny.”
The Doctor let out a low, humorless chuckle. “You’d be surprised,” he muttered.
There was silence. “What do you expect?” Jade asked quietly. “Anypony who stands up, who fights back, they don’t die. Corundum… They disappear. I don’t know how, but the dissidents just… vanish.”
The Doctor was silent. He let out a low breath. He felt downright dismal, all over. He paused to review that last thought. That was odd. He was in his element, here! The only explanation was… “Jade,” he said quietly. “It’s not too late. It’s not too late to save the Empire, I promise.”
She snorted. “How would you know?”
“Because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the future. A thousand years into the future, the Crystal Empire will stand tall and strong, shining and glowing in the sunlight. Can you see it, Jade? Can you see the light?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“No,” the Doctor said fiercely. The darkness seemed to shift subtly, and Jade suddenly had the strange idea that the Doctor was much closer now, and that the dungeon was much farther away. “Listen to me. Hear what I’m saying. I promise you, Jade, that the Empire will be restored, to its former glory and beyond. I need you to believe me, down deep in your bones. Can you do that?”
Silence. “I…” she choked. “Yes. I can.”
“Listen to me. I promise you, nopony else is going to die here. Nopony at all, I swear to you.”
“How do you know that?”
In the darkness, you couldn’t see the bright flash of a grin that suffused the Time Lord’s face, but you could certainly feel it. “I’m the Doctor. That’s what I do.”
And behind them, a little bit of the jet-black crystal faded to a more translucent blue.
Sweetie Belle continued down the especially boring corridor, tracing patterns in the crystal with her gaze. Oddly enough, she felt rather safe here. A couple of guards had passed by about an hour ago, which had been terrifying. But neither of them paid the mare any notice, their eyes skimming over her as though she were invisible, their faces distracted and faintly fuzzy-headed. The boredom of the corridor was affecting them far more strongly than it did Sweetie. She supposed that made sense. Guards are generally pretty bored anyway, what with all the routines and standing still and stuff. She, on the other hoof, could find something interesting to do almost anywhere.
And this, she thought to herself, was the most interesting thing she’d found here yet. A bust of a royal guard atop a pillar, staring down at her. She stared back and stuck out her tongue at it, grinning broadly. “What are you doing here?” she asked, cocking her head. “You’re the only statue here in this boring ol’ hallway. You must be lonely.”
The guard, in the manner of statuary everywhere, said nothing whatsoever. Sweetie’s eyes softened. She’d always had a soft spot for inanimate objects that looked like living things. As a foal, she’d not only named all her stuffed animals and dolls, but all of Rarity’s dress dummies as well, and worried if they were neglected. She patted the guard’s helmet. “Don’t you worry, Lieutenant Marble. I’m sure you’ll get a better post soon.”
Lieutenant Marble showed his appreciation for this show of support by beginning suddenly to revolve around and sink into the ground slowly, rumbling loudly. Around him, the air turned dark with a sort of anti-light that seemed to obscure rather than clarify. Sweetie squeaked and fell backwards. “Oh, no, no, no, no, don’t do that, shush, shush, I don’t think I’m supposed to be here…”
But the Lieutenant did not obey her orders. Quietly, a small part of her brain demoted him a rank or two. The rest of her mind was focusing mainly on panicking as the pillar descended further into the floor, glowing black, until all that remained in sight was the head of the recently-demoted Sergeant Marble. The noise and shaking stopped. In the silence, you could almost hear a pin drop, on the off chance that somepony was around who possessed a pin and was willing to drop it solely for dramatic effect. This eventuality did not come to pass, and so Sweetie had a completely unobstructed aural vantage of her doom rushing towards her in the form of armored hooves clattering down the hall. Somehow she doubted that even the protective aura of tedium would allow her to escape notice this time.
She glanced around wildly. The hoofsteps were coming from either side of the hallway, and already she could see shadows flickering against the walls, cast by the faintly glowing walls. Had they always been that blue? And then her eyes fell upon the hole.
Well. Hole was, perhaps, an uncharitable term. It was not ragged and cramped, like a mousehole, and neither was it jagged and unstable like something dug out with a spade. It was, rather, a perfect rectangle cut into the wall, joined up so neatly that it could have gone unnoticed for centuries, were it not for the interference of the statue. Silently, Sweetie promoted him up several ranks to Captain Marble. The sounds of pursuit grew increasingly loud as the mare slipped into the secret passage. There was another grumbling rumble, and the hole closed once more, sealing itself into invisibility. The pillar revolved back to its original height, and a fanciful individual might be tempted to say that it held itself with more purpose, more pride than it ever had before.
However, we are not, by and large, fanciful individuals, so we will merely note here that as the guards burst onto the scene of the Loud Scary Rumble, the bust had turned a shade rather closer to pale blue. This went completely and utterly unnoticed by almost every being present.
Almost.
The guards that had come to grab them from the cells had been rather rough, but they didn’t actually seem enthused to inflict injury on their prisoners. Solid working ponies, the Doctor thought. Nine-to-fivers. Well, mind-controlled nine-to-fivers, but still, fairly decent. As guards go, solid… seven out of ten.
The Doctor and Jade found themselves hauled through various halls, suffering a dizzying array of emotions vying for command. Frankly, the Doctor was beginning to find it rather tedious. For the past several hours, visions of Adric, Kameleon, Katrina, and more had been jostling for his attention in the crystalline patterns. It had been rather effective, at first. The vision of a crying Ditzy Doo particularly twinged at his hearts. After the first hour or so, though, the repetitive images began to lose their sting. It was like a cinema death scene being played over and over again from different angles. New points of view, certainly, but ultimately the same, pointless ending. Overdramatic and overdone, and quite easy to tune out like background noise.
Rather than allow himself to be distracted, the Doctor focused on his temporary companion, Jade. She, it seemed, wasn’t faring quite as well as he was, but she didn’t look to be suffering overmuch. Likely, she was more affected by the idea of being up in court before the king, an idea which, the Doctor had to admit, didn’t appeal to him, either. Sombra was an odd fellow, to be certain. Well, perhaps that was an understatement. Or an overstatement. There was something about him that wasn’t right. To be sure, there were many things about him that weren’t right. The Doctor had met a good few megalomaniacs and egotists over his lives (and then there was his sixth incarnation…), but the King was distinct from them. He thought over what had happened in the stone circle. It was as though Sombra was an actor, playing a part…
But why?
And then a pair of double doors opened and a great wash of dark-yellow light poured into the hall.
Sweetie Belle squeaked in surprise as the door in the wall slid shut behind her, encasing her in darkness. She blinked once or twice, her eyes slowly adjusting to the stygian gloom. When that didn’t help, she lit her horn, and a faint, mint-green glow suffused the walls, slowly strengthening until she could actually see her surroundings.
There wasn’t much to see, honestly. The walls were rock, rather than crystal, dull and dark and rough and altogether rather homely. Sweetie smiled faintly at the dull walls. Suddenly, she felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her mind. The plain stone was a blessed relief from the bright glow of the corridor. Odd how you never noticed it while you were in it.
She took a few hesitant steps forward. How far did these tunnels go? Another important question; how was she to open the doors from the inside?
The enormity of the situation suddenly hit her like a ton of crystals. She lit her horn up further and scanned along the walls, searching for a mechanism, a switch, anything. The wall was devoid of any such device. Slowly, Sweetie took a deep, shuddering breath in and slowly exhaled through her nose. There had to be another way out somewhere, right? What would be the point of these tunnels if they just led you around outside the castle walls?
With that in mind, the unicorn cantered forward quickly, hooves skittering and skipping over the damp stone floor. On the other side of the castle, a dark stallion squeezed his eyes shut, his mind in the painful grip of… something.
He waved an armored hoof of dismissal in the general direction of an honor guard who had made no move to aid him in any case. “Bring them in,” he snarled.
It wasn’t a very pleasant courtroom. The walls radiated prejudice. Literally. The Doctor almost didn’t recognize the emotion at first, until he caught himself daydreaming about the death of Davros, the destruction of the Daleks.
He shook himself. Obviously he was thinking of that because the Daleks were the most terrible and self-centered genocidal xenophobes that the universe had ever seen. Obviously. He would have to take care to avoid thinking of them.
The Doctor was distracted from that train of thought when suddenly, the entire room rose to their hooves in perfect unison, a response to some unheard command. Quickly, Jade rose as well, and the Doctor only hesitated a moment before doing the same.
In the next instant, a door swung open on the other side of the room, and a swirling, dark-grey miasma emerged, dissipating in the air to reveal Sombra, still in his red, red cape and collar, though he had swapped out his crown for an admittedly very fetching grey wig. An actor, the Doctor thought again. It’s all a show. But for whose benefit? For what twisted entertainment? For an unpleasant moment, he thought of the Roman arena, the miniscope, the Psychic Circus. Then he shook himself firmly. No, it was the room, influencing his thoughts. Stay objective.
He turned to the judge’s bench in the center of the chamber, where the dark king had seated himself. Sombra’s eye passed over him, glowing deep violet. Just for a moment, the Doctor thought he saw a glimmer of something in the King’s eye. Pity, perhaps? It was a familiar expression, but one which the Time Lord could not place. In any case, it was gone in the next moment, the gaze turned away. There was a faint rumble, and then the unicorn began to speak. “Assembled of the Crystal Empire,” he purred. “We are assembled here today to adjudge the case of Jade Corona and Doctor… what was it? Time Turner? Time Turner, against the Empire At Large for the crime of conspiracy to treason. Guilty party, how do you plead?”
The Doctor frowned. “Don’t you mean, ‘accused’ rather than ‘guilty?’”
Sombra smiled broadly, showing off his sharp fangs. “Slip of the tongue.”
“Right. Well, we plead not guilty, your dishonor.”
The king’s eyes flashed red. “What was that?”
“Sorry. Slip of the tongue.” The Doctor smirked and Jade stared at him in befuddled panic. The rest of the court did not react. It was as though they were all extras in a film.
Sombra leaned forward, but visibly restrained himself. “Let it be recorded that the… defendants… have entered the verdict ‘not guilty.’”
There was a sudden sound of scratching and scribbling quills throughout the court, as easily two dozen crystal ponies began to take notes. One, the Doctor noticed with a small grin, had no ink. That smile quickly vanished when he watched the pony take the quill and stab himself in the leg, using the blood to record his transcript.
“Will the prosecution call their first witness to the stand?” Sombra asked.
A grey stallion in chains rose slowly and hobbled forward. “Prosecution…” he gasped. “Calls to the stand his highness, King Sombra of the Crystal Empire.”
The stallion rose from behind the podium and removed his wig, then sat down in the shorter stand next to him. The Doctor blinked. He’d expected a kangaroo court, but he hadn’t expected it to be this blatant. “Your highness, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth or whatever?”
The tan stallion’s jaw popped open. “I do,” said the king.
The Doctor scowled. Right, okay, no. You know what, we all know how this is going to end. How about we skip the farce and move right to the grand finale, hm?
No one paid him any mind. The Time Lord frowned, more than a tad affronted. He turned to Jade. They aren’t paying attention to me! I mean, I’m not easy to ignore, and they aren’t paying me any mind!
Jade stared straight ahead and sighed.
Sombra’s eyes flickered over the Time Lord for a brief moment as he spoke. The Doctor wasn’t really listening; it sounded a terribly dull account of their discovery and capture.
Bloody kangaroo court, the Doctor thought. Hope it’ll be over soon.
“AND in conclusion,” Sombra said, raising his voice and glaring at the unruly defendants, “it is my belief that there is no alternative explanation for this party’s presence -- breaking curfew, no less -- in Emerald Gardens.”
There was a brief smattering of applause from the assembled. The elderly grey stallion took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out. “The prosecution… rests. The defense may cross-examine.”
Before the grey crystal pony could even return to his seat, the Doctor was up in front of Sombra. The king stared, taken slightly aback by the intrusion. “Good morning, your highness. It is morning, isn’t it? What, about quarter after one?”
“I… yes, I believe so,” Sombra replied, confused.
“Right, let’s get to it. We all know how this is going to end, don’t we? Like I said before. Go on, no harm in answering.”
Obsidian eyes glittered with menace. “You were quite correct in your assessment, Doctor.”
“Ah, you did hear me, then.” The Doctor nodded. “I thought so. Trouble is, you can’t have done.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You can’t have heard my comments about the trial, for the simple reason that I didn’t say them out loud,” the Doctor. “I only thought them, on a certain telepathic wavelength, one that can’t even be picked up by ponies. So, what are you, then? A Naiad? An umbra? Go on, no secrets in a courtroom.”
Sombra raised an eyebrow. “I assure you, that I was born and raised in the Empire, Doctor. I am crystal, through and through. Anypony here can attest to that, including Jade.”
The Doctor frowned. “Hm. Well, still. Just wanted to say, I’m onto you.”
“Noted. Shall we return to the script?”
“Why not?”
“Very good.” Sombra cleared his throat. “LIES!” roared the king, his eyes blazing with octarine flame. “You are Equestrian spies, sent to spy on my sovereign nation!”
He turned to the crowd. “Well, we all know the fate of Equestrian spies, don’t we?”
A roar went up from the assembled.
“Your highness, please, I beg you,” Jade said, wide-eyed. “I swear to you that the letter did not come from my hoof! I have served you faithful--”
“You lied to me,” Sombra thundered, his brow darkening, eyes flashing. “You say that you did not conspire with these Equestrians, yet you lied about their intentions and were found in their company after curfew.”
“I didn’t know!” Jade shouted. “I didn’t do anything that you didn’t tell me to! I obeyed you, every one of your commands! And now you’re punishing me for carrying out your orders!” Beneath the mare’s hooves, the bitters-yellow floor discolored, a section of translucent blue spreading over it. The Doctor watched it grow, fascinated.
Sombra apparently noticed as well, and his lip curled up in a sneer to see it. His gavel came down with a short, hard bang. “Guilty on all charges,” he thundered. “Doctor, you will be executed come sunrise. As for you, Advisor Corona… Guards! Take her to the main hall. I’ll deal with her later.”
Jade scowled as a pair of heavies grabbed her. “So, what, you’ll make me disappear like all the rest? I remember, you know! Corundum! Ruby Red! Sparkleshine! Gone without a trace.” She laughed bitterly. “Well, I’ll finally know how you did it.”
The king’s lips drew back in the mockery of a smile, like a dog about to attack. “No. You won’t.”
The Doctor watched soberly as his compatriot was carted away. He looked up at Sombra. “I’ll save her, you know,” he said, his voice cold. “And then, I’m going to take you down with everything that you stand for.”
Sombra chuckled. “My good Doctor, I hope you try. Guards, return him to the cell.”
The Doctor stared at Sombra as he was escorted from the room. The king did not look back.
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.
The peculiar miracle, if that word could be applied to the curious transformation of the crystal dungeon, held the guard’s attention for only a few seconds. Then, the crystal on her helmet glimmered and turned a milky white once more, the color of a blind eye. She raised a hoof and touched the wall. The color seemed to shift slightly, and the manacles binding the Time Lord’s limbs relinquished their hold, sending him falling unceremoniously to the ground. “Oof! Bloody ow!” the Doctor grumbled as the guard promptly snapped a metal collar around his neck.
The Doctor glared at the guard with little heat. She wasn’t in control of her own actions, her own mind. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how much of the original mare was in there, if any. She trotted out of the cell. The Doctor paused and decided that he’d much rather stay where he was.
It was quite a surprise, therefore, when he found himself on his hooves, trotting after the guard, matching her pace, each step taken perfectly in time, like the ticking of a watch or the swing of a pendulum. The Doctor tried to stop, to stumble, to change course. His hooves hit the floor in perfect rhythm. In the fractured mirrors of the crystal halls, he could just glimpse the stygian collar around his neck, a glimmer of blind milk-white crystal at the forefront.
Sombra stared dully at the exit from the catacombs of stone. When he exited, he would be in Diamond Court. He would be surrounded by crystal once more, back under the control of… it. A living hell, his desires twisted and warped beyond recognition.
And he would be forced to execute an innocent. He had hoped so desperately that the Doctor would escape. But now the desperation had become despair. There was no way out for either of them now. He lifted a hoof to the wall, ready to depart, when he saw it. A faint green glow in the darkness.
His heart seized. Had the entity pierced his inner sanctum? Had the crystals finally dug into the rock? But then, wonder of wonders, the glow moved, furtive, trying to avoid detection. A living thing, trapped in the caverns. It was all that the Sombra could do to suppress his joy. He had to disguise his emotions, lest they be sensed by the King when he exited the caverns. I am hallucinating, he told himself. It is an illusion, and nothing more. I am lighting my horn solely for the benefit of my tired eyes.
A red glow suffused the cavern, turning the stone walls to brick. Sombra’s eyes flickered over to where he had last seen the green glow. It was no longer there. Clever enough to hide, then. Good. Slowly, carefully, he fit the tip of his hoof into the tiny space in the rock that triggered the opening of the door. At the last moment he paused. His face hardened. His other forehoof snaked up to his throat, catching under the edge of his collar. Any advantage was a good advantage, despite the punishment that would come later.
For the first time in over a decade, Sombra broke off the collar of his cloak, sending the gems scattering along the ground. The dark velvet slid off of his shoulders back toward his tail, revealing a scarred form, slim around the barrel but with distinct muscles. It also revealed his flanks, which were covered with plain brown saddlebags. With a fierce expression on his face, he pushed the hidden catch in the rock and turned to face the doorway.
He extinguished the glow of his horn as crystal light slowly suffused the cavern, grey and unwelcoming. He closed his eyes, trying once again to hold on, to keep control, fading away into noth—
King Sombra’s eyes snapped open. A slow smile crawled across his face. Soon, the meddling Doctor would trouble him no more. Soon, the army of Equestria would be under his command, its rulers subservient to his will. It was then that he noticed the broken collar and missing cloak, and a scowl traced his features for a second. His alter-ego would pay for that. But later, after the show was over.
He stepped out of the cavern, metal shoes crashing against the crystal floor, crown gleaming greasily in the false light of crystal, red gems sitting on his head like frozen blood. Behind him, the door slid shut with a low rumble.
Where he could not see, faint green light splayed over rock, mixing with the faintly glowing red stones scattered on the floor, and a small figure stepped forth from behind a stalagmite. Sweetie Belle trotted toward the stone door, her face set.
The night was like a cup of coffee left out too long; dark, bitter, and exceptionally cold. The Doctor commented as much to the guard that was marching alongside him, but she didn’t react. “I suppose you’ve never had coffee,” he continued idly. “Won’t really catch on for another couple centuries. I’m quite fond of coffee, really, at least with enough milk. And creamer. And sugar. My wife won’t let me have any, though, she says I’m hyperactive enough as it is, which I think is nonsense. Don’t you think that’s nonsense— Why, I don’t believe I caught your name, did I?”
“Sergeant Sparkle Shine, number 214-WOL6.”
The Doctor furrowed his brow. “H’m. That name rings a bell.”
“Yes.”
“Have we met?”
“No.”
“Ah.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Are we there yet?”
“No.”
“How ‘bout now?”
“No.”
“Now?”
“No.”
“... S’not fun if you don’t get annoyed.”
“No.”
“Strong silent type, I can respect that.”
The pale grey buildings slipped by, one after the other, each one identical to the last. The Doctor tutted. “Urbanization can be so dreadful, can’t it?” he asked, making one last attempt at conversation.
“I suppose.”
Emboldened by this step forward (three whole syllables!), the Doctor carried on. “I mean, it must’ve been nicer before the gentrification, if gentrification is the word that I want. It lacks… color. Life.”
For a second, he thought the blind-eye crystal flushed a deep sapphire blue, but when he looked again, it had returned to white. “...Yes,” she said quietly. “It… lacks.”
“Mm. You were somebody else, once, weren’t you. Not a soldier.”
“I… yes…” Sparkle murmured. “I was… sold flowers…”
“Nice. Love flowers, me.”
“So… did she…” A faint smile cracked Sparkle Shine’s cold, distant face. “Peri...dot. Peridot. My wife…”
The Doctor watched in quiet pride as a light, translucent blue cut through the blind white of the gemstone and a tear slid down the mare’s smiling face. “That’s the way,” he said. “Tell me about her.”
“She… loved flowers, plants… green hoof. Green coat, yellow mane. Silly smile and sensitive ears… and…”
“Sergeant Shine, snap to!”
The mare’s smile faded. The clear blue faded back to murky white. The Doctor cursed inwardly as a bulky blue stallion stepped out of the darkness. “Fraternization with prisoners is prohibited,” he said stiffly. “You will be on bathroom duty for two weeks.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Turquoise,” Sparkle Shine said, no trace of emotion present in her words. She started off at a trot in a different direction. The Doctor felt his hooves pulling him forward once again to the executioner’s block. Turquoise walked ahead of him. This time, the Time Lord was silent.
King Sombra stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the execution pit, staring down with cold satisfaction. In a few minutes time, he would be rid of an annoyance. In a few hours time, he would be rid of a much larger irritant. In a few days time, he would be the ruler of one of the largest empire in the world, soon to be the largest of all time. And it would all start with this single death. The sharp crystals glimmered, their jet-black surfaces ready to turn red once more.
Suddenly, there was a strange prickling at his nerves, as though all the mane on the back of his neck had suddenly gone goosebumpy. He turned his head, but it suddenly jerked to a halt. What would be the point? There is nothing that could harm you, nothing here that would harm you. Do not look behind you. Do not show weakness.
Sombra blinked once, slow and solemn, like a lizard. His eyes were ever so slightly unfocused. He turned back to the arena below, the raised platform upon which the beginning of the end would fall into place.
Behind the king, Sweetie Belle slipped out of view of the doorway and down the stairs, hidden by grey crystal from inattentive eyes. She had to find the Doctor, she had to get out of here, the sooner the better.
The tan stallion’s legs guided him into a small plaza almost too confined to be deserving of the name. Everything around him was the same dead grey. It reminded him of latter-day Gallifreyan architecture, or a spaceport lounge, insofar as there was any difference between the two. There were virtually no distinguishing features about it. Approximately the only word for the accurate description of it was ‘utilitarian,’ and even that was a bit too flash. The reflection off and refraction through it was negligible and dull, as was the interaction of light with the material as it acted on the light of the moon above. All told, looking at the crystal for too lengthy a length of time was metaphorically akin to reading an oft-repeating sentence full of advanced vocabulary in an unnecessarily wordy and overbearing passage (with references and asides to ultimately trivial things) full of sentences which were filled with lengthy words and frequent repetition and brought forth in the mind images of staring at a cold, hard, chilly, solid, icy, uncomfortable wall made of grey crystal that was so dull as to be indescribable, and furthermore was so distracting in its tedium that it seemed to repeat itself over and over again as your eyes scanned over the same oft-repeating sentence full of advanced vocabulary in an unnecessarily wordy and overbearing passage (with references and asides to ultimately trivial things) full of sentences which were filled with lengthy words and frequent repetition and brought forth in the mind images of staring at a cold, hard, chilly, solid, icy, uncomfortable wall made of grey crystal that was so dull as to be indescribable, and furthermore was so distracting in its tedium that it seemed to repeat itself over and over again as your eyes scanned over the same oft-repeating sentence full of advanced vocabulary in an unnecessarily wordy and overbearing passage (with references and asides to ultimately trivial things) full of sentences which were filled with lengthy words and frequent repetition and brought forth in the mind images of staring at a cold, hard, chilly, solid, icy, uncomfortable wall made of grey crystal that was so dull as to be indescribable.
In other words, the execution square was dull, dull, dull! Colorless, styleless, and totally nondescript. The Doctor could all but feel the uncaring bureaucracy that ran this kingdom radiating from the walls. He glanced around as his hooves finally came to a halt once more. “Seriously? This is where you’re going to kill me?” he asked, incredulous. “It really hasn’t got the atmosphere for it, does it?”
A voice rang out from overhead, full of cold glee. “That is rather the idea. In this place, there is nothing to fixate on but your own folly, and your quickly approaching demise.”
The Time Lord looked up. On a balcony one floor above, a dark face leered out, surrounded by a darker mane. The only spot of color was his horn, glowing bright red. “Sombra. I don’t suppose you’re here to grant me a pardon?”
The king smiled, exposing cruel, sharp incisors. “Shall I tell you how you are to die, Doctor? In a few moments, you will be stood upon that pedestal there, in the center of the square. You notice that there are holes in it? Sharp spires will pierce your body through, just missing your most important organs. Lungs will be spared, as will your heart, your brain, everything that you strictly need to survive will go unhindered. You will then be left out here for… oh, a week. Perhaps two. You may actually start to rot while still alive, though given the temperature, I doubt that you’ll rot at all. Blood will freeze and crust over on your frostbitten flesh. I think that you may live long enough to die of thirst, though I cannot be certain…”
“...You may die of blood loss first.”
Sweetie’s stomach clenched as she fought the rising bile at the thought of such barbarous punishment. How could any mind invent such a torture? How could any mind choose to subject somepony to it? He should taste the spires himself and see how he likes it then!
She was breathing heavily, her mouth twisted into a sneer of pure rage. Her horn, she noticed in a detached sort of way, was glowing faintly. She shook her head. She had to focus on the problem at hoof, and couldn’t afford to be distracted by that sadistic sociopath that was trying to take over the world.
Slowly, Sweetie let out a deep breath. Okay. Clearly something was going on, here. And she had a decent idea about what it might be. With a hoof, she reached into her mane and yanked out a selection of spherical red stones which glowed like hot coals. Spherical red stones that had decidedly not been glowing when she picked them up in the tunnels. As she stared at them, her eyes began to unfocus, green irises fading into bloody red…
Rage
Revenge
Attack
Destroy
The Doctor strained as best he could against the forces that were pulling his hooves forward, but all that he could control was his neck and head. At a steady pace, he trotted up the stairs that would lead to his doom. “W-wait!” Sombra said. “I do not think that he truly understands the pain that he is about to feel! Let us allow him to—”
Whatever the king was going to say was cut off by a shout in the crowd. “What?” Sombra snapped, whipping his head toward the sound. “Who dares to interrupt me?”
A rusty orange stallion rubbed at his head. “Who has attacked me?” he demanded, his eyes showing more emotion than the Doctor had yet encountered in any guard in the empire. “Somepony threw a stone at my head! I demand reparation!”
“Ow!” another pony roared. “Somepony has thrown a stone at my head!”
The first guard spun to glare at his compatriot. “Do you mock me?” he demanded fiercely. “Am I, to your eyes, a source of japery? A jester, to amuse you? Is this the way which you consider me?”
The Doctor stared around in bewilderment. The white crystals on the two guards’ helmets were turning a furious, blazing red, and those around them were slowly joining them. He glanced up at Sombra, but the tyrant looked equally shocked. The Time Lord’s eyes darted to a quick motion in the crowd, a flash of off-white among the grey. Sweetie Belle.
He felt another brief pang of guilt at the idea that she had been left to roam around the city, but that was quickly replaced by pride and relief at the fact that she was alright.
Both of those were quickly overridden by confusion at what exactly she was doing. As he watched, she levitated a red stone in her aura (and had it always been that dark shade?) and threw it, arcing, toward a guard. “Ouch!”
The red of the stone turned brighter, and the white crystal on the mare’s helmet darkened to pink, and then red. As she began to join in the shouting, the Doctor’s face went pale. “Sweetie Belle, don’t!” he shouted.
The young mare glanced up, shocked, and the Doctor could see the gleam of red in her eye. And then a hoof crashed down on one of the glowing rocks and every emotion that the Doctor felt was washed away in a tide of fury.
Luna stared at the Empire as the grey-blue walls suddenly lit up like an exploding star, the fury of a burning world, the color of murderous death. She was transfixed. The fury, the rage, so bright and painful. So… freeing.
“Your highness?” a guard asked. “Are you well?”
Luna realized that her teeth were grinding. Then she realized that she didn’t care. “Charge!” she roared. “Burn them to the ground! Destroy this Tartarus-forsaken landscape and paint it with ruby!”
She set off at a gallop toward the Crystal Empire, summoning to her side her old bat, carried in an aura that burned cold like the vacuum of space. Memories of old campaigns flew back to her; the defeat of the Nightmare, the petrifaction of Discord, the fate of so many against the Doctor and the sisters. She didn’t know how many were following her, this time. She didn’t care. She would smash the Empire like so much fine china, and she would do it alone.
Perhaps it was somewhat ironic that the explosion of concentrated fury was what snapped Sweetie out of her enraged trance. Well, perhaps ‘ironic’ wasn't quite the word. Something more along the lines of ‘a particularly cruel prank played by the universe’ might be apt. As her eyes cleared from the red haze that had blinded them, they went wide in shock at the pandemonium that was unfolding around her.
A placid sea of milky white, unnerving to watch, had been ripped away to reveal the fury that it had always been disguising. For years, now, the citizens of the Empire had been living under the iron hoof of their mad king, forced to obey his commands, forced out of their homes, their lives, their minds…
And now they were free. And they were pissed.
It is one thing to have a city filled with soldiers, but quite another to have one full of armed rebels. Quite apart from anything else, the rebels tend to be much louder.
Sombra was many things, but he was no coward. “Reassemble!” he roared. “Back in formation, or suffer my wrath!”
A boot flew out of the crowd and smacked the dark king in the head. “Graaaagh!” he howled. His eyes lit with octarine and his horn glowed with a ruby-red jet of flame. Spires of dark rock began to split the grey crystal. Then, a second boot smacked him right in the horn, and the rocks fell to smithereens in a way that seemed to be half-crumble, half-explosion.
Sombra wasn’t a fool, either. As soon as he had regained his wits, he hightailed it back off the balcony and into the relative safety of the halls. Sweetie Belle had no such ability. Thus far, nopony had paid her any mind, but at any moment that could change. “Hey! She’s not crystal!”
Damn it. A mare lunged for her throat, but Sweetie pulled back, going into a gallop, heading deeper into the sea of furious crystal ponies. At least not all of them were attempting to attack her, specifically. That wasn’t why she ran, of course. You don’t run because you have a plan. You run because you’re scared.
You ran away because you were scared. The voice is red and coppery and thin and angled, all bloody scratches and cuts.
“Shut up,” the Doctor muttered, not raising his head. He had already seen the room. He didn’t want to look again.
When you looked into the Vortex, what did you see, Doctor? What did you see? The question was punctuated by a shower of sparks. They burned briefly on the Doctor’s coat, just long enough to make him wince before they faded into nothingness.
“You know what I saw,” he replied.
Yes.
The Doctor breathed in slowly, struggling to remain calm. It felt as though he was breathing mustard. Not the gas. The condiment. Thick, yellow, slimy, like pus tainted with sharp spasms of fear. The darkness of the room did absolutely nothing to help. This time, it was his own TARDIS console room, the one he’d had before crash-landing in Ponyville. The coral cast strange shadows on the grimy walls, the metal now oddly resembling the outside casing of a Dalek. The mood lighting was even lower than normal, barely reaching the level of a candelabrum. “Why are you asking me?” he gagged, barely forcing out the words. “You know. You… saw…”
A low, sadistic chuckle rose up from the center of the room. Against his will, the Time Lord’s head was pushed up, his muscles being gently pulled like polymer clay in the hands of a careful crafter. It was a gentle touch, but something about it suggested that at any moment his head could be crushed into a blob just as easily. He stared solemnly at the thing that occupied the center of the room.
The console was ripped asunder, loose wires sparking, buttons and lights hanging off every which way. In the middle of it, where the time rotor should have been, where it ought to have been by all rights, was a monstrous mechanical… thing. Even as the Doctor watched, it seemed to flicker and warp before his very eyes. Now, it was the Master’s paradox machine. Now, the Mind Probe. Now, a Dalek. At length, however, it seemed to settle on being a colossal robotic head shaped roughly like a stallion’s face. Silver and white-painted metal made up the bulk of the monstrosity. A tangle of sparking wires was visible in its mouth, and a cultivated selection of oily cogs made up its mane. A pair of red LED sights burned into the Doctor’s own watering brown eyes. “Yes. I saw what you saw,” it agreed. It’s voice was the rumble of engines and the click of cogs. “I always have, and I always will. Because—”
“Because you are me, and I am you, blah, blah, blah,” the Doctor sneered. “I bet you even chose a white coat to remind me of the Watcher. Ooh, I am the Spirit of Doctors yet to come! This is getting tiresome.me, Railyard! Get to the point, already!”
“That is not my name.”
“I don't care.”
“You know my name.”
“You’re worse than old Chesterfield, you know that?”
The Valeyard sneered. “Perhaps it's about time I reminded you of that day, when you were eight. A child still. How many millennia has it been since that day, Doctor? How long since you gazed into the untempered schism?”
“Don't you dare. Don't you dare!”
The massive mouth shuddered open and distended. Inside it… nothing. An eternity of nothing. And then…
What is it to be? Will you be inspired? Go mad? Or will you just… run away?
The Doctor opened his mouth, but no words came out. A thin string of drool hung from the side of his mouth, and his lips were flecked with froth and spittle. He gagged on nothing, unable to control his own breathing as his eyes were drawn inexorably toward the center of the nothing. All the sound and fury of the universe shone through the rift in reality. The entire vortex streamed through his head.
And in the center of it all, he saw the same thing that he had seen all those years ago, the sight that had driven him for century upon century. His eyes rolled back in his head, revealing milky white shot through with blood vessels like red lightning.
And the Doctor screamed.
Celestia stared in bewilderment at the tableau below. The army of Equestria had broken rank, some attacking the empire while others had fallen to infighting and settling scores among themselves. The Night Guard had fallen into chaos more than her own Solar Guard, but neither side was the elite, disciplined fighting force that they had been even an hour, even ten minutes, even five minutes earlier. That would be dealt with momentarily. For now, she had a far more vital goal in mind.
“Luna!” she called, her voice hollow in the frigid gale that blasted her wings and buffeted her barrel. “Sister, whither art thou?”
There was no reply. “LUNA!” Celestia shrieked desperately. “SISTER! WHERE ARE YOU?”
A familiar scream rose from below, and the already alabaster princess, whiter still in the cold and snow, somehow managed to turn even paler. Had any other ponies been present and staring directly at the princess, they would have gone blind from the light reflecting off of Celestia’s body— it was reflected, surely, not even Celestia could glow like that— as surely as they would have if they had stared right at the sun.
She dropped, like a stone to begin with, but soon she recovered enough from the shock to turn her fall into falcon-like dive. Her mane, all pink and yellow, streamed out behind her like a trail of fire and fury as she screamed downward, precipitation steaming off her coat as her eyes stung with the wind in her face. She had to find Luna. She had to save her sister. That was more important than anything else.
For the very briefest of moments, her vision flashed red. In the next moment, it was gone, and Celestia dismissed the thought instantly. She was too preoccupied even to notice that the cold white crystals striking her face were no longer made of ice…
Sweetie ran, panicked, through the crowd. Occasionally, one of the warriors turned to attack her, but on the whole the majority of attacks were directed toward other members of the mob. Somehow that was, in turns, more comforting and more unsettling. Certainly, the lack of attacks toward her personally was more than welcome, but the directionless rage, undiluted by its lack of purpose, was unnerving. In the corner of her eye, she saw a mare blindly thrusting a bent sword against a crystal wall, swearing and screaming fit to turn the turn the rock around her black and cratered with the heat of her fury.
She turned her head and saw a colt, no more than fourteen, beating his head against the wall. His helmet was cracking down the center, and the stone had been colored red with more than anger.
Fighting back rising bile, Sweetie tucked down her head and hurried forward, hooves clattering rapidly over cold crystal ground, refusing to look around her, dodging blindly the misplaced swings from the rage-mad armored ponies around her and she could feel the hot, angry breaths and painful pants and shrieks of those around her and she could smell the sharp cold smell of snow and taste in the air the copper stench of war.
Cold. Hard. She blinked. Her legs were still kicking feebly, but she wasn’t moving. There was something sitting on her chest and she could smell something all at once unique and mundane. The smell of blood is like the color of water; those who have experienced it all have different descriptions of the sensation, though those who have never observed the phenomena have many, many more. Further, in order to really have a deep view of the experience, one generally requires an unhealthily large amount of the substance.
Slowly, the filly tried to lift her head from the floor, but a green hoof shoved her back down roughly. Flecks of gravel scraped against her cheek and eyelid, and she bit her tongue. With her one good eye, she stared in horror at her attacker. The armor, dark and Stygian, replete with a gem that was the color of a brick being hurled at furious speeds, that was familiar. The face, green and shiny and feminine, that was familiar also. It was the unexpected juxtaposition of the two that brought Sweetie up short. “Jade?”
The former advisor sneered down at her. “You. You and your friend. You cost me everything!” she barked. “I thought I had reached the very bottom, the deepest pit of Tartarus, and you two came along with picks and spades.”
Slowly, her gaze never leaving Sweetie's eyes, she pressed a hoof down onto the young mare’s foreleg. Sweetie whimpered, a thin trickle of blood escaping her mouth, and a sadistic grin spread over the older mare’s face. “I’m going to kill you first,” she crooned. “I don’t hate you as much as the others, see. I’ll be quicker with you. The Doctor next, a little slower. Everypony in the square, one by one. Each time, a little. Bit. Slower. And after that? After his army is gone, I’m gonna take down him. I think that’s poetic, right? More ponies he got to, the more ponies I kill. More ponies I kill, slower I go when I take his head off. But you? You get to go first. Like I said, I’ll be quick.” A hoof caressed Sweetie’s cheek. “Well. Relatively quick.”
She smiled then. It was not a nice smile, but neither was it a wholly cruel one. There was something in it that rung false with Sweetie, a certain vapidness in the older mare’s expression.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t I?” Jade asked, and now the unicorn could hear it, could just detect the faint tremble in her voice. “I think I do. Do you know what I’ve lost? Do you know what I’ve become? I betrayed my friends! They’re all gone. All gone, now.” Her force lessened for a moment, then came back just as firmly. “I want to, I need to do this,” she half-snarled.
“No, you don’t. Jade, think. This isn’t like you. I’ve only known you since earlier tonight, but you said yourself that you were sick of war! You’re not a fighter, Jade, you’re a diplomat!”
The red in the crystal dimmed and flickered a variety of colors. Sweetie could almost swear that she heard it hiss like hot metal in cold water. Before she could be certain, though, Jade was gone. In an instant, green face had been replaced with a tan hoof.
Sweetie Belle peeled her face from the grey crystal ground. The Doctor stood over her in the manner of an avenging angel, his face stony and furious. She scrambled to her hooves. “Doctor! We need to go, I think I know—”
She cut off abruptly as the Time Lord turned to face her. He wasn’t staring at her, per se, but rather through her, as though she were as ephemeral as a whistled tune. His face was a grotesque mask of pain and rage, his eyes dilated and bloodshot, his lips twitching and flecked with spittle, like the mouth of a mad dog. Around his neck, the collar that had led him to this place still remained. It glowed like a red sun, like a supernova, like a dying planet. And the Doctor opened his mouth and he roared.
Celestia was half-blind in the darkness of the swirling white snow. Every breath she took in, flakes and crystals lined her lungs and froze her throat, and every exhalation dried out her innards more and more. It was impossible to make any noise above a faint gasp, but she gave it her best shot. “Luuunaaa!” she wheezed. “Sister, where are you?”
Silhouettes flickered in the obscuring shadow of brightness, all too short for any alicorn. Celestia squinted against the stinging snow— and where had this storm rolled in from? It had been as clear and crisp a night as ever she had seen— but still there was no sign of THERE!
“Luna.” Celestia said as loudly as she was able, though due to the inclement weather, her hailing was still, regrettably, entirely appropriate for a library and entirely inappropriate for a battlefield. Nevertheless, the lanky figure that had caught her eye in the howling maelstrom whipped around to stare in her general direction.
The taller mare galloped forward. “Sister, are you well? Thy cry of alarm did cause Us great consternation. You are not injured, I trust?”
The darker alicorn chuckled, low and not a little menacing. “Quite the reverse, sister dearest. Quite the reverse. Never have I felt quite so well as I feel at this moment.”
Celestia’s smile faltered. “In the midst of battle, you are merry? Sister, I do not understand.”
“Verily, sister? Recall to yourself the adventures which we took alongside the Doctor. How good it felt to overcome villainy, to defeat wickedness. And now, at long last, we have a return to such adventures as we take down this iniquitous empire STONE BY STONE!”
Celestia stumbled back a few steps, taken aback by the sudden outburst. “Luna! Recall to yourself the morals which the Doctor did teach us. Kindness, mercy, understanding—”
“Codswallop! Words and phrases, castor-oil which he spoon-fed us without partaking himself, or have you forgotten the sack of Roan? Perhaps you have lost your memory of his actions, yea and even thy own words to him after the defeat of Discord, but I assure you that my mind is as clear as ever. Clearer! Finally, I see what must be done. In the name of sanity! In the name of justice!”
“But not in the name of Celestia. Or Equestria,” the elder alicorn said coldly.
Luna sneered. “So be it. With or without your aid, sister, this city will fall. With or without you.”
So saying, she spun around, her tail smacking Celestia’s face. When the princess of the sun had recovered, Luna had already vanished into the dark and cold, into the land which was as cold and arid as the surface of the Moon.
The Doctor stood silent in the center of the square. All around him, noise, chaos, anarchy. He, Jade, and Sweetie Belle stood, face to face to face, in the eye of the storm. The eye of a storm, in case you were wondering, is not actually the part of a weather system that can see things. Not usually, anyway. There are exceptions. For the most part, however, the eye of a storm is merely the center of the maelstrom, the doldrums around which all the violence revolves.
It is a terrible thing to be caught in a hurricane or a tornado or a nightmarishly large storm made of parsley-flavored cotton candy, but at least you more or less know just how much trouble you are in. In the eye of the storm, you can hear the storm howling, see it tearing apart buildings and uprooting trees, smell the sickly-sweet scent of spun sugar and hideous herbs, and remain yourself completely untouched. The relative silence and stillness, the discolored light, the petrichor, all more terrifying by far than any mere storm could ever hope to accomplish.
The Doctor said nothing, only stared coldly at Jade. Jade said nothing, but glared furiously at the Doctor. Sweetie didn’t say anything, either, though she wished that she could. Her throat was filled with phlegm and her mouth smacked of blood from her bitten tongue.
At length, the Doctor spoke. “Sweetie Belle, get to the TARDIS. I’ll meet you there later.”
The unicorn blinked. She hacked and spat on the ground to clear her throat. “And how do you expect me to do that?”
“I— just get out of the city, go!”
Sweetie raised a brow. “...Yeah, that’s not happening. In case you forgot, we’re in an actual war zone. Not to mention, the last time I left you alone, you got captured.”
“I don’t have time for this!”
Sweetie frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the Doctor I know. You have time for everypony who needs you. That’s your whole shtick.”
“Sometimes I have to go to the place that needs me the most,” the Time Lord snarled, glaring at Jade.
“Okay, let’s go there, then,” Sweetie returned, exuding a calm that stemmed purely from being too tired to be afraid. “I know where you need to be.”
“So do I, and you can’t follow me.”
“Are you going to stop me?”
Jade cleared her throat, annoyed. “I’m still here!”
The Doctor paid her no mind, glaring instead at the unicorn. “I’ll stop you if I have to.”
“And are you going to explain that to Rarity?”
The Doctor suddenly looked much older. “Well. I suppose I won’t be around to.”
“And who’s going to explain that to Ditzy? Or Dinky? Or the princesses, or the other Crusaders? Or anypony who ever met you? Me? No thanks. If we go down, we go down together.” She was smiling slightly, but it was clear that the unicorn wasn’t joking.
“Sweetie Belle—”
“Ah-ah-ah, no arguing. You know I’m right.”
“Sweetie Belle, this is the day. This is the last charge. By the time the sun comes up over the horizon, the Empire will have already vanished. You need to get out!”
Jade blinked. “Wait. What?” The red crystal fell out of her helmet with a faint pop and smashed on the ground, shards scattering in all directions, losing color as they went.
Sweetie rolled her eyes. “So what do I do after it falls, wait for a thousand years for it to come back? The TARDIS is still stuck, remember? I can’t drive it, anyway.”
“But Luna and Celestia can,” the Doctor returned shortly. “They’ll be able to get you home.”
That threw the young mare for a moment. Jade waved a hoof. “Hi! Still here? What was that thing, y’know, about the Empire collapsing before the sun was up?”
The Doctor pressed his advantage. “You can get home, get to safety. I’ll take care of everything here. Get to the TARDIS.”
Sweetie hesitated.
What happened next may have been caused by any number of things. It may have been that she was waspish from lack of peaceful sleep. Perhaps not all of the influence of the red crystal had been exorcised from her after all. Maybe it was due to years and years of being passed over, like a slow torture, that finally did it. But the unicorn’s face hardened. “No. Way. I’m staying, Doctor. We’re in this together, and I am not leaving for anything or anypony until this is over. So stop being stupid and listen to what I have to tell you.”
“Right, okay,” Jade muttered. “I’ll just… show myself out. Of the kingdom. Quickly.” She turned tail and weaved through the still-brawling crowd.
The Doctor stared, open-mouthed as Sweetie continued. “There are secret passages in the castle that Sombra uses. They don’t have any crystal in them. I think he uses them to keep from being as badly affected by them as the citizens are, and I’ll bet anything that the Heart is hidden somewhere in there to keep it out of the way. If we can find that, we can fix this, all of it.”
The Doctor blinked, his eyelids oddly sluggish. “Makes sense…” he muttered. “Like putting a lump of radium in a lead box. Or maybe like putting a lump of lead in a radium box.”
“It would work, right?” Sweetie asked, bouncing on her hooves. She kept one eye on the Doctor’s face, and one on the collar he wore. “Use the Heart, purify the Empire?”
The Doctor blinked again. “Yes…” he said slowly. “I think it might. It did in the future, after all, so why not now?” Unbeknownst to him, the gem in his collar had begun to vibrate and change color at an alarming rate. Now Sweetie was sure that she could see steam coming off of it.
A slow smile split the Doctor’s face, and a fissure appeared in the center of the crystal. “Well done, Sweetie Belle!”
There was a faint pop and the crystal shattered, discoloring and turning into a mound of shards. Sweetie grinned proudly. The Doctor shook his head. “Wait. Hold on a mo’. What was— what— what just happened?”
“No idea!” Sweetie replied merrily. “But it worked, didn’t it?”
“That it did,” the Doctor agreed. “Now—” he cut off, suddenly.
Silence. All around them, all-consuming silence. Even the sound of breathing was muffled by the snow. And all around the former eye of the storm, countless pairs of eyes stared at the two non-crystal ponies. “Ah,” said Sweetie. “I don’t think I can talk them all round. Run?”
“I think so,” the Doctor replied. “Which way were you saying we should go?”
Sweetie pointed, and suddenly several more ponies had stationed themselves in their path.
“Okay, other way,” Sweetie said quickly, turning tail and galloping off, the Doctor hot on her hooves, both of them breaking through a line of rather surprised ponies. As their hooves hammered up the stairs, a loud, carrying roar echoed up from behind them, followed by the sound of a stampede. As soon as they had reached the landing, the Doctor slammed the door closed, and Sweetie dragged a suit of armor in front of it. “Right, hidden corridor, where?”
Sweetie glanced around. “Look for a statue, a bust,” she said authoritatively. “Then push down.”
“Ah!” The Doctor stood up on his hind hooves to get a better look at a pillar. “No, this isn’t it.”
Meanwhile, a series of loud thumps came from the other side of the blockaded door. Sweetie glanced around, panicked. “Okay. Okay. No triggers this time. What else…” She blinked. Oh. The black anti-light. “Right. Um…”
Slowly, she let her breathing grow more ragged and husky, glaring at the wall. She thought about how much she hated it when her friends left to go to school. She thought about her frustration at never being able to get a cutie mark. Her horn started to glow a darker, more menacing shade of green, like misty meadows rather than sunny glades. The air seemed to turn redder, as though the fury was being concentrated. “Sweetie Belle?” the Doctor asked, peering at her in concern.
“Not now,” she growled. “Don’t interrupt, I’m working.” I hate this wall. I really, really hate this wall, she thought to herself. Come on, Twilight had used dark magic to open up a secret passage, why couldn’t she?
“What are you doing?”
“Getting angry!” Sweetie snarled. “And you’re breaking my concentration!” Her aura darkened a little more, and the walls darkened in apparent agreement.
“Well, whatever you’re doing, do it faster, they’re almost through!”
“I know! This hasn’t been a very good day for me either, you know!” Her aura shimmered slowly into a color best described as olive. There was a low rumbling, and the wall behind them began to open slowly.
“Quick, in,” the Doctor said, waving Sweetie through the widening crevasse. She hurried through, and he followed quickly after her. There was a final crash, and the suit of armor fell to the floor. Armored ponies swarmed through the door and toward the still-open passage. However, they all stopped short suddenly and turned away, trotting back the way they had come.
The Doctor blinked as the door began to slide shut. What had so alarmed the Crystal ponies? “Um, Doctor…”
The Time Lord turned to Sweetie, who pointed at a figure farther down the hall. The large, shadowy formed whipped around and smiled with far too many sharp teeth. “GRAAAAAAUUUGH!” Sombra howled, galloping toward the duo, mane flying, eyes glowing. The Doctor shoved Sweetie out of the way and dove in the other direction, the dark king rushing harmlessly between them. He spun around, horn charging, ready to attack again. The Doctor met Sombra’s eyes, full as they were of power and madness, and prepared to die.
Suddenly, as the door leading out slammed closed, Sombra went weak at the knees and collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut. His horn extinguished itself in a brief, squib-like puff of wet smoke. There was a long moment of silence, interrupted only by the occasional sob.
Sweetie stared at the shuddering, scarred lump on the floor. The brilliant, angry red of his horn had faded to the same dark shade as the rest of his body. She had to struggle to remind herself that this was King Sombra, scourge of Equestria and cruel tyrant of the Crystal Empire. His villainy knew no bounds. His name was a fearful curse, never spoken but in daylight. He was… crying?
The Doctor was equally perplexed. He’d faced an awful lot of monsters and villains over the years, and seen just about every trick in the book. But rarely had he ever seen one of his attackers suddenly break down in tears, and never when they had the upper hoof to such a degree. “Er… there, there,” he said awkwardly. He reached out a hoof halfway, but then pulled it back. Then, hesitantly, he patted the dark stallion on the head.
The snivelling tyrant pulled himself up from the floor, his face streaked with tears as snot bubbled from his nose. “Please,” he gasped. “You must help me. Please help me.”
The Doctor moved closer. “Alright,” he said quietly. “First, though, I need some questions answered.”
The king nodded, staring at the ground. “Of course.”
“All this time,” the Doctor said slowly, “You’ve been acting. Why? What’s your game, Sombra? What did you get into?”
“An actor?” Sombra snorted, still not looking up from the ground. “Were that only so. An actor may, at least, have control over his role. I am a puppet, and no more.”
“A puppet?” Sweetie repeated, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“I think I have some idea,” the Doctor replied grimly. “It was the collar, wasn’t it? Controlling your mind, all this time? It worked best when you were around the crystals, or else the plain rock helped to block it out.”
“Not too far off from that,” the dark unicorn agreed quietly. “In the beginning, it was benign, even helpful to me. I wanted the Empire to grow in power, in commerce, in importance. In the Frozen North, even the grandest of cities often goes unnoticed. My desire was to change that. It offered me help. I accepted.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I suppose, in the end, I got my wish. It twisted my mind, took my desires and my emotions, and used them. Used me. Used my— my kingdom.” His voice broke a little at that. “A city of thousands, converted into maniacs by my pride, my wrath, my greed,” he whispered dully.
The Doctor sneered at him. “And thousands more outside the gates, ripe for the conquering,” he said contemptuously. “How far were you going to go, hey? How far to make your mark? Equestria? The continent? The whole world? Would that have satisfied you, Sombra?” He drew closer to the unicorn, his expression contorted into a scowl.
“This is your fault, your doing. Every life lost, every wound inflicted, it all comes back to you and your desire—”
“Doctor!” Sweetie said, laying a hoof over his chest and pushing him away from the other stallion. “Don’t. It wasn’t his fault, was it, your highness?”
“Don’t call him that,” the Doctor said coldly.
“Please, listen to the Doctor,” Sombra begged. “I am worthy of no respect. It was my foolish contract that created this, this Tartarus on Gaea, and even here I have no more power than any other pony. I am no king, child. Merely a plaything of some far greater power, and I am that through my own actions.”
Sweetie turned to the dark stallion, who shrunk away as though expecting to be smacked. “How old were you?” she asked softly. “When it first came to you?”
Green eyes looked up at her, confused. “How... old? I fear I do not understand why --”
“What age were you when that power took you over?” she repeated.
“I… was but a youth still. Fifteen years, on the cusp of stallionhood. It came to me in a vision, more often frequented by the just Luna, and spun me tales of wonder and glory.”
“Fifteen years old,” Sweetie repeated. “I remember me and my friends did some pretty stupid stuff when we were fifteen.”
Sombra snorted. “Didst thou doom a city? Consign three thousand souls to Tartarus?”
“Well, no. But Button Mash had a big fight with his mom, and so did Scootaloo with her aunts. Apple Bloom had her rebel phase. Mostly she sat around listening to punk music and eating pears, even though she hates pears. Rumble tried to patch things up with his parents… which went badly. And Dinky Doo tried to open the Eye of Harmony, which would probably have destroyed at least all of Ponyville! And I tried to help run a diplomatic reception and nearly caused an international incident.” Her pupils dilated for a moment. “So much cake,” she muttered.
The Doctor coughed. “Sweetie Belle?”
She mare blinked. “Right! I had a point! And it is this!” She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “Ponies do stupid stuff when they’re teenagers. Also, when they’re kids and grown-ups, and even super-ancient alicorns or draconocci or even Time Lords that I could name, but, like, especially when they’re teenagers. And everypony can be prideful or greedy or angry sometimes. My sister is pretty much all of those things a lot of the time, and everypony in town still loves her, even if she makes mistakes. ‘Cause, when she does mess up? She feels terrible, and she does her best to make up for it.”
The Doctor opened his mouth, and then closed it again. This repeated a couple of times. He looked a bit like a fish. Sweetie looked at him with large, dewy eyes, watching him expectantly.
“Er,” said the Doctor.
“Yes, well,” said the Doctor.
“Well said, Sweetie Belle,” said the Doctor, lips twitching slightly upwards.
Both time travelers turned to look at Sombra. He stared back, uncertain. And then, slowly, a slight smile graced his lips. It was a nice smile, though tired. And his teeth were hardly sharp at all.
“Alright,” said the Doctor. “We’ve all made nice, which is well and good, but where do we go from here? Right now, we’ve got a whole bloody empire that’s gone completely psycho, and somehow I don’t think they’re going to all sit down for a nice pep-talk.”
“Hey!” Sweetie objected.
“Well, do you think they’re going to let you get a word in edgewise through the screams?” the Doctor retorted.
“I liked that… Pep Talk,” Sombra rumbled quietly.
The Doctor let out a long breath through his nostrils. “Great. Sure. Good job, Sweetie Belle, thanks. But again, GREAT BIG EMPIRE full of angry ex-soldiers? How’s that gonna go over exactly?”
The two unicorns looked at each other awkwardly. “If we could just make it so that everypony could hear us at once…” Sweetie said thoughtfully.
“If I had the sonic, perhaps,” the Doctor allowed. “Crystal does have strong properties of resonance. Could turn the whole empire into… a sounding board…” he trailed off, an expression of horror etched onto his features. “Oh no. Oh no no no no no…”
Sombra looked on, bewildered, as the Doctor began to pace up and down the hall. “All this time, I never thought to ask myself, ‘why here? Why now? Why him, or them, what’s the game? ‘Cause, all along, I thought it was just you, right? But it wasn’t! You were chosen, chosen for the crystal!”
Sweetie stood up on her back legs to whisper in Sombra’s ear, “He does this a lot. Just nod along and poke me if you don’t understand what he’s saying.”
“I think,” the dark unicorn said gravely, “that we are rather beyond that, now.”
“Right. It’ll probably get a bit better soon. He’s almost done raving. In a minute, he’ll turn around, see that we don’t get it, and…”
The Doctor spun around, a massive grin on his face. “It’s brilliant. I mean, it’s horrible, obviously, end of the world, but oh, this one’s a clever bugger.” He looked first at one blank face, and then the other, his grin fading. “You don’t get it? You don’t get it. Right. Crystal, it’s got massive resonance, yeah?”
“As I believe we’ve established,” Sombra murmured.
“Oi. Who made it so that we found that out the hard way?”
Sombra lapsed into solemn silence. Sweetie frowned at the Doctor, but he’d already turned away. “Right, so, crystal preserves emotion well. But its resonance is useful for other stuff, too. Tap the right crystal at the right frequency, a whole building might start humming along. Drop a rock on the floor, it’ll echo for miles. Normally, you don’t notice, ‘cause it’s such a tiny shift when you get too far away. But if you drop a whole mess of big rocks in a bunch of different nearby spots? Cacophony. Humming mayhem. Violent vibrations. And if it’s in a properly situated spot, it’ll go for miles. Farther, maybe.”
Sombra blinked. “Heartshaven. You think they’ll strike Heartshaven?”
The Doctor bit his lower lip. “Well. They might do, of course, it’s a likely target…”
“What’s Heart Shaven?”
“The center of the Empire. The square in which the Crystal Heart usually resides,” Sombra replied. “Emotion flows in and out of there nigh constantly.”
“What, like how a real heart pumps blood?”
“If you like—”
“Not a bad analogy,” the Doctor cut in smoothly. “The emotions of the Empire flow in. They get purified a bit and sent back out as ‘good vibes.’ Heh. Jo would’ve loved this place… Sorry. Yeah, it’s like a heart. So why hasn’t it been doing its job?”
Sombra glanced away. “It was… removed,” he said softly. “Near the start of my reign. A forgery was put in its place, good enough to fool a casual observer, but with purposeful flaws. As time wore on, even that was removed.”
Sweetie caught the Doctor’s stormy eye and glared back at him. “You weren’t in your right mind,” she said softly. “It’s not all your fault.”
“I did it. It was my responsibility, and I failed in it.”
“And now, we need you to make up for it,” the mare urged. “Tell us where the original heart is. Surely that’ll help us!”
Sombra stifled a slight sob. Then, rising to his hooves, he trotted along the corridor. At a junction, he paused and glanced back. “Aren’t you coming?”
The Doctor and Sweetie exchanged glances. Then, together, they trotted after the erstwhile tyrant.
Outside the corridors of stone, Jade dashed through the icy streets of the empire, hooves skidding over the slippery surface. She had kicked off her armor some several blocks back, and now the eastern gate was in sight, only a few streets away. That was safety, protection from whatever calamity was about to befall the empire, assuming the Doctor wasn’t lying. And why would he be? He hadn’t even been speaking to her at the time, and his certainty had been absolute. By sunup, the Empire would be no more. Well. She wasn’t about to join it. Already she could hear the hubbub bubbling up, louder and louder as she galloped onward.
A slight shriek escaped her lips as her hoof met a particularly slick section of road and sent her caroming forward toward the massive doors.
She pulled herself bodily out of the snowbank into which she had crashed, dark blood already dripping from her nose. The noise was even louder now, jangling around in her head, already dazed though it was. She had never before heard the word ‘concussion,’ as it was currently over six centuries before the term was first used, but it didn’t prevent her from having one. She loped toward the gate with a lopsided gait, but froze up when something finally broke through. A figure, dark silhouetted against dark, stood breathless in the portal, the wind howling past him. An Equestrian soldier.
When he looked up, she could see slit-pupil eyes with irises of amber reflecting back the shine on the crystals. One of the Night Guard. She had often seen them back when diplomatic channels with Equestria had still been viable. Those deep, reflective eyes narrowed slightly. Jade quickly stumbled backwards. “I surrender!” she yelped. “Surrendering! I give in!”
The soldier relaxed slightly. Jade let out a deep breath of relief. At that moment, however, another, taller, figure emerged from the shadows. “Give no quarter,” she intoned. “They are all traitors and spies. Take no prisoners.”
For a moment, the soldier’s eyes flashed red. Jade let out a small whimper. “No, no, that’s not fair… I already escaped you once…”
Now both pairs of eyes flashed red. “You shall not escape again,” both figures replied in unison.
Jade promptly spun around and galloped as quickly as she could the other way. The soldier took off after her at a nod from the other. She watched the figures race into the distance, a distant expression on her face. “Soon,” Luna cooed in a voice not her own. “Soooon…”
The wwword ecchchhoed arououounddd thehehe crystastastal wawwaallls and streereereets, vibrrrrrrating and resesesonating wwith strangeange hararmammoninininics. From every surururffurface in the city, the walls humummummummed as though of their own volition, carrying the one word from ear to ear, mind to mind. Sparks of electricity flew from wall to wall, igniting the entire city with red fury. Soldiers both inside and outside the city looked up, smiled mindlessly, madly, in perfect synchronization. Overhead, the dark clouds began to swirl.
Deep underground, incognizant of the madness that the city was slowly sliding into, the Doctor, Sweetie Belle, and Sombra made their way through the stone catacombs. The dark unicorn, naturally, led the way through the darkness, his horn glowing just bright enough to see by. Sweetie Belle trotted along behind him, her long, thin legs easily matching the large stallion’s ponderous stride. The Doctor, on the other hoof, was lagging behind, his eyes cold and almost unblinking. He trusted Sombra not at all; he would have been a fool to do so. Yet, as he watched Sweetie Belle bounce merrily alongside the grim figure, saw her gabble on about Ponyville and the Crusaders, saw the faint uptick at the corners of the stallion’s lips, he couldn’t help but feel a little less coiled up inside.
But that didn’t mean that he trusted Sombra. He couldn’t even trust himself at present. Couldn’t trust the TARDIS either, if the Valeyard had been telling the truth. It made an awful kind of twisted sense. From the near-fatal incident with the Yeti in the Vortex to the dread spectre of the Watcher attempting some sort of paradoxical murder-suicide, it could all be explained by a malevolent force in the ship. That idea was by far more terrifying than the idea of the evil presence in his head. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to recall the Zagreus incident, the anti-time infection and the madness that had nearly consumed him, the TARDIS, and the whole Web of Time.
Then he shook himself from his malaise. The problem of the TARDIS and the Valeyard could wait for later, much though it pained him. Right now, he had to worry about getting out of the Crystal Empire. And in order to do that…
The Time Lord sighed. He would trust Sombra. For now.
Sweetie, on the other hoof, had no such qualms. Sombra had been manipulated and he felt horrible. Nothing more, nothing less. And given that information, there was only one course of action. She would just have to cheer the ex-tyrant up. How hard could that be?
Very hard, it turned out. In retrospect, Sweetie thought, perhaps it had been a tad optimistic to suppose that she could singlehoofedly undo the literal decade of misery that Sombra had gone through. Still, progress was occurring, she felt sure of it. At least she had gotten him talking, even if he was less chatty even than Big Macintosh. Before today, she had never thought that was even possible, but Sombra didn’t even speak in ‘Eeyup’ and ‘Nnope.’ He grumbled thoughtfully in a variety of different manners most of the time.
“So! Are we close to the Crystal Heart yet?”
“A’hm.”
“Nice. You ready to do this?”
“A’hm!”
A brief pause. “Do… you have any idea what we’re doing?”
“...N’hn.”
“Oh.” There was a longer period of silence. “Um, do you like cheese?”
“A’hm.”
“Me, too. Sometimes I eat it with chocolate. That’s pretty tasty. Have you ever tried that?”
“N’hn.”
“You should try it sometime. I bet you’d like it.”
“A’hm.”
The pause was very extended indeed this time. Sweetie Belle chewed at her lower lip. Small talk was all well and good in its place, but how could anypony be expected to carry on a conversation like this? It was like playing badminton with somepony who put the shuttlecock in their pocket every time it was served to them. It was simply impossible. Perhaps some more open ended questions? She opened her mouth to try again, but Sombra got there first.
“What is it like, where you live?” he asked. “Ponyville?”
Sweetie paused, readjusting to the sudden change in conversational gambit. “It’s… just like any other place, I guess. Um. Well, it isn’t like here. But, uh, why do you ask?”
“Earlier, I told you, I wished to travel. That was true.”
“But you said that you couldn’t. Why?”
The stallion’s green eyes never once flicked away from following the path that he had mapped out in his mind. “A king, even one as weak as I, has responsibilities to fulfill. The hoofsteps of my father were particularly large ones. I wished for nothing more than to live up to him. Always, there were meetings, parliaments to preside over, paperwork to fill out… and then, well.”
Sweetie nodded. “Let me see. Well, Ponyville is pretty close to Canterlot, but you’d have to go through the Everfree Forest if you wanted to get there directly. Um. That’s a big forest we have. Almost nopony lives there except Zecora. She’s a zebra and kind of a professional alchemist, or a witch doctor, or…”
“A sangoma,” Sombra said.
Sweetie cut off suddenly. “A what?”
“A sangoma is the term used by most zebra tribes, as well as certain groups of giraffes in southern Acacia,” Sombra replied.
“Wow. How did you just know that off the top of your head?”
Sombra’s cheeks pinked. “As I said. I always did wish to travel. Books were as close as ever I got. Perhaps I journeyed no further than the castle library, but…” he trailed off, eyes distant. “What else is in Ponyville?”
Sweetie thought. “Um, there’s Sweet Apple Acres. They make great cider, and one of my best friends lives there, Apple Bloom. She does a lot of repair work and stuff on the farm. It’s a great place. We used to have a little club there, the Cutie Mark Crusaders! Me and her and Scootaloo and Button Mash, and Dinky, and Rumble, all trying to find our destinies!” Her smile faded, and she glanced back at her flank. “It worked better for some of us than others.”
“Hrmm,” Sombra said, his eyes distant.
The duo lapsed into silence once again.
The tunnels seemed to wind in upon themselves forever. Sombra knew that even he had never explored them all, and he had spent more time in them than anypony else. They had been a sort of concession to him by his mysterious master, a temporary respite from the emotional hijacking. Undoubtedly this was in order to keep his wits from being too addled for use as a political puppet. Much of the empire could scarcely remember anything of their previous lives while wearing their guard helmets, unless a sufficiently large reminder was presented to them.
Still, regardless of ulterior motives, Sombra was grateful for the sanctuary, no matter how brief it might have been. The dark corridors were more welcoming by far than the garish crystal halls, and no matter how grim his thoughts were, they were at least his own in here. It was oddly fitting, in a way. In the last decade, he had grown to be as dark and gloomy as the chasms that he inhabited. These two ponies were the first that he had truly spoken to as himself since the puppeteer had taken his mind, and already they were succumbing to the dreadful enchantment of the empire. The stallion was, to say the least, behaving in a very sullen manner. And though Sweetie Belle was as merry and as charming as any young mare he had met, he knew that in order to get through that particular door, dark magic had to be used. The Doctor, though Sombra could sense much darkness in him, was not exactly a candidate as far as the ‘magic’ side of things went, which left only one option. He cast a brief glance at the mare trotting along to his right. She had ceased speaking some several meters back, and was now staring absently down the corridor, as lost in thought as he was.
Sombra breathed out. “Just a little further,” he said as he rounded the corner. Suddenly, he stopped.
“Ah,” he said.
The Doctor frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Sombra paused for a long moment, then stepped back. In the darkness, his face glowed ghoulishly, lit by a phantasmic yellow-green light. “It’s gotten in.”
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.”
The target of the princess’s misguided wrath was, at present, in no state to fight her. As a matter of fact, had Celestia appeared before Sombra at that moment, he might have simply rolled over, spread his limbs, and let her destroy him. He wouldn’t even have needed to take the extra step of laying down. He was flat on his belly against cold, hard, rock-bottom, literally and metaphorically, his head resting on a crossed pair of still-armored forehooves. To summate, he was sulking. Not, it must be said, without good reason, given that his entire kingdom was falling to pieces around him.
Sombra growled irritably and let his head slip from their resting place onto the cold stone. His crown fell from his head, the colorless stones glowing with a faint reddish hue as they drew closer to the green section of wall. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Once more, he ran his tongue along his teeth, as he had done almost constantly for the last seven years, when the fangs had come in. Starswirl’s sweet cinnamon nuts, he was never going to get used to them. Intellectually, he knew that he could now eat meat. He also knew that he had, in the past, eaten meat. He further knew that he really, really liked the taste of meat.
...Starswirl’s sweet cinnamon nuts, he was screwed up inside.
“Grrraghh…”
Eating meat? Fangs? Flaming eyes? It was like he wasn’t even a pony anymore!
“Ssslavesssss….”
What was next? Would his tongue become forked? His hide armored? Perhaps he would turn crystal after all, like the so-called purity that he had always preached when under the influence of the
“Cryssstalsss…”
Sombra blinked and looked up. “Oh, bucking buck me,” he groaned.
For there, out of the crown that had fallen to the ground, had sprung a specter. Its eyes were glowing, its mouth fanged. The bridge of its snout looked like it had been constructed out of iron. And yes, that was a forked tongue slipping out from between its lips. He hadn’t supposed that he would turn into some kind of ghost, though.
“CRYSSSTAL SSSLAVESSS….”
Nor had he supposed that he would turn into such a nincompoop. The crown levitated up and landed on the phantom’s head, fusing with the mass of shaggy-styled mane into a sort of terrible spiky helmet, centered on the bright red horn in the middle of his forehead. From nowhere sprung a flowing dramatic, blood red cloak trimmed with— was that PONY fur trimming the edges?
Sombra stood up abruptly as he felt his remaining armor unlatch. It positively flew off him, zipping towards his doppelganger where each and every piece latched perfectly into place. The coal dust spectre reared back and laughed maniacally. Sombra cringed, leaning in on himself. Was this, then, his future? Was this his fate? Was he to be destroyed, at long last, by himself?
He waited with bated breath, ready at any moment to feel jaws around his neck or hooves battering his head. He waited some more.
He waited a little bit impatiently.
He opened an eye.
The spirit hovered there before him, a hole in space, glowing menacingly. But that’s all that it was doing. Sombra frowned. Hesitantly, he reached out a hoof and poked the spirit in the chest. It growled, baring its teeth, and a wave of despair washed over the ex-king.
He pulled back the hoof, staring down at it. Then, he stared up at the ghost. Then back at his hoof. Then, he let out a small wheeze of laughter.
The phantom stared at its double. “Graghhh?”
The wheeze grew into a giggle grew into a chuckle. “Really?” he gasped. “That’s it? You make ponies feel bad? And, and you thought that would stop me?”
The specter snarled and began to glow with a negative light. The sense of depression grew greater and greater. Sombra laughed harder. “I have been dealing with this for the last ten rutting years. Do you think that you’re actually going to do worse than what’s already been done?”
The phantasm shrunk away from Sombra’s slightly mad laughter. Literally. Its misty form began to dissipate around the edges, evaporating. The dwindling figure gaped at its shrinking body. “GGRRRRAAAAGGHHH! CRYSSSTALSSS! SSSLAVES!! SSSTAIRSSS!!!” His aura of negative energy now took up more space than the entity itself, and Sombra— the real and present Sombra, he now recognized— was laughing harder than he had in his entire life.
Peals of laughter faded to faint giggles. Sombra’s sides hurt from laughing so hard, but he couldn’t have cared less. He felt good. The illusion was now slightly larger than a mouse, still screaming at the top of its tiny little lungs. “GRRRAAAAAAAAAAGHHH! CRYSSSTALSSS! SSSLA— URK!”
That last was uttered when, with a single, fluid motion, Sombra scooped up his diminutive double, still grinning broadly. “You know,” he said almost conversationally, “I could just leave you for the roaches.”
The tiny illusion quieted, but its eyes glinted with violet in a way that was almost too small to be seen. Almost. Sombra shook his head. “But I think not.”
The little being flew into a fury once more, screaming and shaking fit to explode. Sombra studied it minutely. The face, the form, the color… all almost right, but in no part of it could he see himself. “Ha, ha,” he whispered.
The figure froze, then exploded in a shower of colorless crystal, falling down around a hunk of twisted metal that had once comprised a crown and ceremonial armor. Sombra set down his hoof and breathed out, his face settling back into its normal solemn grimace. Then he glanced at the melded slagheap on the floor, and his lips twitched up into a faint grin. He bent back a hoof, and smacked it into the wall, cracking the crystal and sending shards flying in all directions. He nodded. Good riddance.
He turned back to the plain rock behind him, aiming to sit down once again, but paused in midstride. He glanced at the doorway in the crystal. They certainly had been a long time up there. The tower wasn’t that tall, was it?
A pit of dread opened up in his stomach. In an instant, he was charging the door, his horn glowing bright. It slid smoothly out of his way as he passed through, and slammed shut behind him as his hooves pounded up the stairs.
For a long moment, the hall was still. Then, with a sudden, fierce motion, the crystal wall reformed where the armor had cracked it, shaping itself around the slag metal, absorbing it completely.
Celestia glanced back at her passenger. “What does yellow signify?”
“Fear, your highness.”
“Hm. And orange?”
“Lust and desire.”
“Doable, doable… How about puce?”
“Mild nausea.”
“We’ll go with that one,” Celestia decided, circling down toward the large spatter of brownish-violet below. Before her hooves had even touched down, she felt an unpleasant, muddy burble in her stomach. She did her best to ignore it.
Gold-covered hooves touched putrefying puce crystal, and a green body tumbled off of white swan wings. “Bleah,” Jade groaned, trying to recover herself. “Ugh. Um, thanks for the save, your majesty.”
“Please, Majesty is a villainously insane reality-warper who tried to conquer the universe in the name of joy and fluff,” the alicorn said briskly. “Call me Celestia.”
Jade blinked. “Er. Right. Jade Corona, political advisor.”
“Yes, I know who you are,” Celestia replied. “We’ve met before. At the coronation ceremony for… well. You know.”
“I remember everypony I think might be important,” Celestia said absently, staring at the boundaries of the colored crystals.
“Oh. And I was one of them?”
“Most beings are.”
“...Oh.”
Celestia turned to look at Jade once more. “How are you freed?”
“Sorry?”
“From the spell of the empire. My soldiers, my sister, my sister’s soldiers, they almost all fell into a fury at the sight of the red explosion. How is it that you are spared?”
“I… well, I wasn’t, at first,” Jade said. “I was affected, too. I nearly… nearly…” she cut off, suddenly overcome. “I would have killed her,” she whispered.
Celestia watched impassively as the mare broke down in front of her. “And was it some moment of clarity that brought you back?” she asked.
“I-in a way,” Jade muttered. “She… talked me down. Told me that I didn’t have to be angry. And then her friend knocked me away. I think he was under the influence, too, but she talked him down as well. A-and, he said that the Empire would be, would be, g-gone by sunrise.”
Celestia paused. “This… friend, what was his name?”
“I don’t know. He calls himself the Doctor.”
Celestia looked toward the east, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Gone by sunrise,” she mused.
Jade’s eyes went wide. “B-but, your maj— Celestia,” she hastily corrected. “You can’t — you mustn’t!”
“Mustn’t I?” Celestia asked. “Why not?”
“Well, because we’re still inside the Empire, for one thing,” Jade said hotly. “And so is everypony else.”
The princess of the sun hesitated. “True,” she conceded, lowering her head. “Very well, good Corona, what other plans have you?”
Jade’s jaw fell open. “Y-you’re asking me?”
“Well, yes. You know this landscape better than I, do you not?”
The green mare opened her mouth. Then, she closed it again, thoughtful. “Heartshaven,” she said. “The Crystal Heart was removed some time ago. It’s gotten… really, really disgusting. Emotion is at the center of this mess, and I’ll bet that’s where the core of the problem lies.”
Celestia nodded. “Well thought. Climb back on.”
Jade grimaced. “Can we walk?”
Celestia raised a brow and glanced at the ground around them. The puce was quickly being consumed by deep, sickly red. “Not unless you want something far worse than a stomachache.”
Jade followed her line of sight and swallowed hard. “Right. Okay, up we get…”
Celestia spread her wings and took off. Moments later, the puce was completely swallowed up by red. It wasn’t the red of blood or rubies. It was the raw, screaming shade of muscle and skin, ripped asunder, nerves exposed to the air, flesh bitten raw in the cold and burnt crispy in the sun— Oh.
Pardon your humble narrator. I appear to have stumbled into a patch of ivory. But, yeah, that red crystal is bad news, and it looks disgusting. Seriously. Yuck.
Sweetie Belle sat in a darkened room, alone save for a radio whose dials glowed like radium.
The Doctor sat in the TARDIS, white walls and a mint green console, illuminated by a faint green glow..
She gazed at a photograph of younger ponies, huddled together and laughing.
He buried his face in a stuffed panda that he had found on the chair he was currently sitting on.
Both of those absolute idiots would have realized that this was all an illusion if they had even once looked up and seen the other sitting across from them in the shared dreamscape. But they didn’t. Absolute walnuts.
The Doctor sniffled and buried his head deeper in the panda’s fur.
Sweetie blinked back tears as she stared at the young faces in the picture.
There was a great deal of angst in the air.
And between them, relaxing on a dreamed-up lawn chair in an equally nonexistent garden, lounged a white alicorn stallion, red eyes flickering with wicked amusement under black bangs.
They all sat perfectly still, lost in their own emotions.
And then a big black charger came roaring in.
…
The Valeyard adjusted his sunglasses and yawned, peering at the bewildered king. A flicker of disgust crossed his muzzle. “Hmph. No, I don’t think I can have you in here, your lowness. Can’t have you ruining my fun just yet, little antibody-resistant germ.”
Sombra glanced around in astonishment. “What—”
Before he could finish that thought, a wall of glowing yellow-green rose up before him, sending the king skittering backwards out of the pocket reality. A moment later, the wall faded away to empty blackness. The Valeyard tutted once again, glancing between the other two inhabitants of the shared consciousness. “Well, that’s this ruined. Ah, well, it was a pleasant diversion while it lasted. Good-bye, Sweetie! Ta-ta for now, Doctor! I’ll be seeing you soon.”
He gave a Cheshire Cat grin, and faded into aether, along with his garden and lawn chair.
The Doctor sighed.
Sweetie sniffled.
Sombra stumbled several steps backwards. He shook his head violently as though to clear his ears of a ringing. To be honest, he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. One second, crystal stairwell. Next second, mysterious set of… rooms? Or something?
Hesitantly, he looked at the prone forms lying on either side of the stairs. He prodded at the stallion. The Doctor rolled over, muttering something that sounded like “Cameca,” or possibly “Katarina.”
The unicorn frowned and poked him again, harder this time. The Doctor growled something that sounded like, “You can stay with me forever, but I can’t do the same for you. It’s the curse of the Time Lords.” On the other hoof, it might have been, “Mmmwaffles.”
Sombra sighed. Then he drew back a hoof and kicked the Doctor rather hard in the flank. The dun stallion’s eyes shot open. “Ow! What? Who?”
He blinked. “Oh. S’you.”
Sweetie’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment, she just stared at the other ponies. “Oh, good. It was just a dream,” she sighed, relieved.
“Yes, quite,” the Doctor agreed quickly. “Must be some kind of soporific at work here. Good job you came and woke us up, eh, Sombry?”
“It was more than a dream,” Sombra said somberly.
Silence rung in much the same manner that a bell didn’t. “What,” said the Doctor, “do you mean by that, exactly?”
“It was a nightmare,” Sombra replied. “It showed what it thought you would most fear.” A pause. “It came for me as well.”
Nopony spoke. It is a difficult thing, even in the light of day, to face up to your nightmares. Here, it was all but impossible. “Right,” said the Doctor firmly. “Well, we can’t turn back now. Come on, both of you, let’s go save the world.”
He marched up the stairs, not turning around to see if the others were following. His hoofsteps echoed in the empty space, scaring away the silence.
Celestia scanned the ground, searching for any kind of safe harbor. It wasn’t easy. Raw-nerve red and mind-numbing white were all spiraled across the ground, like some sort of disastrous peppermint. “There,” said Jade, at length, “A spot of— no, never mind, just got swallowed.”
“Hm,” Celestia frowned. She could see mobs of ponies down below, flooding toward city center. From up here, they looked like ants. But they were not. They were ponies, some of whom she had met, some she had known well, and one of whom was her sister. They were all converging towards a massive spire, scraping the sky with a long talon. Jade had been right. It did look disgusting. It looked organically disgusting, no less, like a massive clogged artery, or a shard of bloodied bone sticking through the flesh of the—
I really should get out of this patch of ivory.
The alicorn let out a huff of breath, the air stinging at her lungs. “Right. We’re going to land on a patch of white. It’s the lesser of two evils.”
Jade opened her mouth to object, then shut it again. “Alright. I’m more susceptible to it, now, so if I start acting odd…”
“I’ll take you and fly,” Celestia said with a nod. “Yes. Now, where can we land without being seen?”
They ended up on a balcony overlooking the square, sufficiently walled to keep from being seen. With a fizzle of magic, Celestia pulled back her mane and tucked it up into a bun at the back of her head. Then, carefully, she peered over the edge.
A great crowd, eyes all glowing red, had come up apparently out of nowhere. Each of them had fallen absolutely silent, but from this vantage, Celestia could see that each and every one of them wore the same expression. Etched into their faces was silent fury, hatred, fear, loathing, emotions that Celestia had seen many times before. She had never once hoped that she wouldn’t see them again. That would have been insane. Ponies, and all other creatures, had anger in them, and fear, and thousands of other negative emotions. To get rid of those would be as bad as removing every ounce of joy from their hearts.
And that seemed to be exactly what had been done here. Nothing but rage spewed up from the square below. “I’ve seen enough,” Celestia said quietly. “Jade, we’re going.”
“Are— we— Maj—est—y?” The voice was dry and forced, like silk rubbing amber.
Celestia closed her eyes. “Geld absolutely everything,” she muttered. She didn’t even have to turn around to know what she would see, but morbid curiosity compelled her to. The green mare’s eyes were glowing red. Her expression was a furious, insane grin. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Celestia made to take to the skies, but found that she couldn’t move. She looked down. A small whimper escaped her mouth. Her legs had been consumed, transfixed by climbing towers of crystal beneath her. Jade trotted over and leaned in close. Her breath stank of ozone, and her red-lit eyes flickered, desperate for release. “Just watch,” she breathed. “It’s gonna be a show…”
The dark unicorn trotted alongside his much smaller compatriot. They were silent. “So…” Sweetie began. “What did you see?”
Sombra stared straight ahead for a long moment. “Overcompensation,” he said at last. “A poorly made picture which I failed to mistake for a mirror.”
“...” Sweetie stared at him.
“...” Sombra did not meet her face.”
“.....,...?” Sweetie raised a brow.
Sombra chewed on his lower lip. “..., . . . .”
“...Well, anyway, how did you, like, defeat it?” Sweetie asked.
“I decided that it wasn’t worth my time,” Sombra replied. There was a long pause. “And I laughed at it.”
Sweetie’s entire demeanor changed, her face lighting up. “You mean you giggled at the ghostie?”
The massive unicorn looked at her askance. “Er, yes. I suppose that I did. Is that…”
“Never mind. Inside joke.”
Sombra nodded slowly. “Well. What did you see?”
Sweetie looked down. “You’ll think it’s dumb.”
Sombra let out a hoarse choke that might have been a gentle scoff. “I assure you, it cannot possibly be any more so than was mine.”
Sweetie smiled shyly. “Well… I was alone.”
Sombra cocked his head. “... and?”
She sighed. “I knew you would think that it was dumb.”
“I think no such thing,” the dark unicorn assured hurriedly. “Isolation… it is a cross that I have borne for some time.”
Sweetie winced. “Right. Sorry.”
The former king stared at her, bemused. “Sorry? Wherefore are you sorry?”
“You’ve got way bigger problems than I do,” she said dejectedly, “and here I am making it all about me.”
Sombra sighed. “Problems… are relative, I suppose. You know mine, and you have done your best to aid me. I am grateful for this, and wish to perform the same service for you.”
“But… you don’t even know me.”
“You did not know me, either.”
Sweetie mused on this as they continued to climb up and up and round and round. “How tall is this tower, anyway?”
Sombra scowled at the stairs. “Taller than it ought be,” he muttered. “The entity must have moved beyond mere color-changing.”
“To… shape-shifting?” Sweetie asked.
“Growing, if nothing else.”
“Oh.”
They continued on in silence for a long while. Sombra sighed. “This really is ridiculous.”
“Agreed.”
They continued on for another several circuits. At length, Sweetie sighed. “I told you about the Crusaders, right?”
Sombra nodded.
“And you remember that I said that the search for cutie marks went better for some?”
Another nod.
“Well, my friend Scootaloo got hers a couple years ago. She was the last one, except for me.”
“Mmm…”
“And now they’re all at a bunch of different colleges, and my parents are never home, and my sister and her fiance are always busy. And it feels like I’m just… a blank. Nothing. Like I don’t make much of a difference.”
“I see.”
“And what do you think of that?”
“You were right. I do think it is ‘dumb.’”
A beat. “Wait, what?”
“It is not a reasonable fear,” Sombra said frankly. “You fear invisibility, or being forgotten. You fear that you have made no impact. But you have made an impact on the Doctor, that much is clear. No doubt, your friends have great respect for you also, as does your family. And if that is not enough for you… I have known you for perhaps eight hours. You have known me for about two. In that time… in that time, you have left such an impression on me that I would never forget you if I had to wait ten thousand years before we met again.”
Sweetie Belle glanced away awkwardly. “But I didn’t do anything. I just talked a lot.”
“Exactly.” Sombra cracked a toothy grin. “You talked. To me. And you didn’t seem to care what I had done under the crystal’s spell.”
“Well, it wasn’t your fault!”
“And that is why you make a difference.”
Sweetie pinked. “Do you really mean it?”
“Yes, I—”
He was cut off as the Doctor peered out from around the next bend, concern written into his features. “Top’s only a few more turns. C’mon, you need to see this.”
The two unicorns exchanged worried looks and charged up the stairs after the Time Lord.
The top of the tower overlooked the entire empire in what might usually have been a gorgeous panoramic view. The vantage was not at all spoilt. The empire itself was a different story. The Doctor gazed out over the landscape, disgust written on his features. Sombra and Sweetie burst through the door in a moment later. “What is it?” Sombra asked urgently. “What has it done?”
“The city is a living thing,” the Doctor said quietly. “And now, it’s dying.”
The two unicorns joined him at the edge of the balcony. Nopony spoke. Then, Sombra scowled. “What. The. TARTARUS.” he growled. His teeth glinted, and the faintest hint of fire licked at his pupils.
Neither of the time travelers could entirely blame him. The city was a disaster, all veins of muscle-raw and blood-red and fat-white. The lurid green tower was the only other color in the place. “What I want to know is, how is it possible for crystal to burn?” the Doctor commented, pointing to a plume of smoke that loomed over a large patch of the city to the west.
“It isn’t,” Sombra muttered, glancing down.
Sweetie Belle spun around. “Right! Now, where’s that Crystal Heart?”
“Secret panel,” Sombra muttered, gesturing vaguely at the floor. “Press the—” he cut himself off suddenly.
“What? Press the what?” Sweetie asked, turning around.
And then she saw it. A massive laser light, shining into the sky, turning the snowfall red. And the clouds twisted and shifted, darkening in some places, lighting up in others. “Oh,” said Sombra quietly. “I see.”
A giant stallion’s head, with black mane and dark grey coat, roared with laughter, rows of jagged forks of lightning lining its mouth. The two travelers glanced subtly at Sombra, who merely licked his lips and blinked, lizardlike. “Ah,” said the Doctor. “Okay, right, secret panel-ho!”
“Er, yes,” Sombra agreed quickly, turning away from the menacing shadow. “The trigger is…” he traced along the baseboard of the room. “Here.” He pushed in with a hoof.
“This city has a lot of secret passages,” Sweetie noted.
“I believe the founder was rather paranoid,” the Doctor noted as a panel in the center of the room slid open.
The trio gravitated toward the hole. The Crystal Heart was their one hope, their sole salvation. It was still faintly visible beneath the quick-bitten red crystal that encased it. “Oh,” said Sombra flatly.
“Well,” said the Doctor.
"Fuck," said Sweetie Belle, summarizing the situation quite nicely.
The balcony snapped off of the building, sending the box and its occupants crashing to the ground. Celestia let out a gasp of pain. Jade sat next to her, tail flicking in a decidedly feline manner. Nothing else about her so much as twitched, apart from her desperately flickering eyes. Silent as pallbearers, four bulky guards stepped forth and bodily lifted the crystal trap from the ground, carrying it forwards toward the center of the square.
The crowd parted in front of the box as it was carried along the ground toward the spire in the center of the square, which was glowing with an unsettling red light. Lightning flickered up and down its vastness up to the top, far too high for eyes to see. Celestia’s prison continued in its graceful path beneath the legs of the colossus. The world turned bright red. Celestia vaguely recalled her brief stint as Midnight Sun, specifically the time she had visited a nightclub in Manehattan. The strobing red light was even more unpleasant now than it had been then. The box ground to a halt just before reaching the center of the maelstrom, and the ponies carrying it along set it down with surprising gentleness.
The silence was almost unbearable. By all rights, this place should have been deafening with the crash of thunder and the static scream of electrical mayhem. But the only sound she could hear was a faint mosquito hum at the edge of her hearing.
After several seconds had stretched into multiple minutes, she snorted indignantly. “Well?” Celestia demanded. “Isn’t this meant to be the grand reveal? The part where the great architect comes out and walks me through the blueprints? Taking over our northernmost territory is one thing, but this is simply unprofessional.”
The red lightning crackled in front of her, and a figure stepped out of the crowd. He seemed to be a guard, one of her guards no less, judging by the outfit he wore, but Celestia knew better than to judge on that criterion alone. He held himself upright, walking pridefully, almost swaggering. Celestia nodded at him. “Good morning,” she said with all the pleasantness she could muster.
“Isn't it?” he replied. “For one of us, at any rate.”
“Ah. But which one?” Celestia asked mildly.
“Me,” said the guard, nodding. “Definitely me.”
“What, no banter?”
“Later,” the guard promised. “Not much later. In between the part where you guess who I am, and the part where I atomise you.”
“Hmm…” Celestia cocked her head. “Is your name… Sterling Shield?”
“No.”
“Argent Spetum?”
“No.”
“Rumpelstiltskin?”
“Not even close.”
“Michael Grade?”
“Please. I have some standards.”
Celestia shook her head. “I am sorry. When you meet quite so many foes as I do, the less interesting ones tend to slip into the cracks.”
“I thought we agreed to banter later,” the guard said, disapproval evident in his voice.
“You did. I said no such thing.”
“Tsk. Pedantry. Well, we can't have that.”
The hum grew into a shriek, and a bolt of ruby lightning shot down and struck the guard. Celestia didn't even have time to blink. One moment he had been there, the next moment, he was… gone. There wasn't even a corpse left, save a melted breastplate and a teaspoon worth of cinders.
The princess breathed in. “That's cheating,” she said quietly. “You never even gave us your name when we met.”
“Oh, so you did guess.” Another guard, this one a native of the empire, stepped into the center of the circle. This time, Celestia studied the eyes. They were red and glowing, yes, but there was no emotion in them, no drive.
“We sent you away,” Celestia said coldly. “Shadow-sprite, puppet-master, mind-twister, you were banished. By the light of the moon and the promise of the sun, your threat was destroyed, Barleycorn.” The last word was more spat than spoken.
The monster stared back at her, grinning with its stolen mouth. “Close enough for today,” it decided.
Celestia didn’t smile back. “What is it to be this time, then? Another attempt to swathe the world in darkness? To destroy all life? What is it that drives you? What purpose does all of this serve?”
The crystal mare licked her lips. No, wait, that was just a stray bolt of electricity escaping her mouth. “Life? Feh. Unpredictable. Chaotic. You understand, don’t you? Or is that particular garden statue just because you didn’t fancy a lawn gnome?”
“Discord wasn’t sealed away for staying true to their nature,” Celestia said coolly. “They were sealed for going beyond it. They were a detriment to harmony as a whole. Too much order is just as bad as too much chaos, and you haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m not serving my own purposes, Blaze,” the guard said. “Me, I can’t do nothing. Not without permission.”
“Was that an accidental double negative or a bit of wordplay?”
Lightning flashed menacingly overhead. Celestia glared. “Question rescinded. For now.”
“How good of you.” In the next instant, there was another flash. The air was rank with the stink of ozone and burning flesh.
Celestia stared, horrified, at the heap of slag and ash. “Congratulations, you just said the secret woid.” One of her sister’s guards stepped out of the crowd, an elderly stallion, blind in one eye.
The princess’s jaw hardened. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“Oh, but I did. You said ‘question.’ There’s a new secret word, now.”
Celestia glared. “What is it?”
The guard shrugged. “How would I know? It’s a secret.”
Celestia continued to stare flatly. “Tell. Me. What. You. Are. Doing. Here.”
Collectively, the mob began to converge on the center of the plaza. The Sun Princess glanced around in confusion. “What are you—”
She was interrupted as the mosquito whine grew louder and louder until it was practically an alarm siren. The alabaster mare folded back her ears, cringing away from the unpleasant noise, but that didn’t help at all. If anything, the noise got worse. “Gah! What is that?”
“You may as well unblock your ears,” said the batpony. With a jolt that was no less shocking than the sparks flying across the spire overhead, Celestia realized that he sounded just as clear as he had a moment before.
“It’s in my head,” she muttered. “You’re in my head!”
The stallion shrugged. “Chaos. It happens regardless of anything you or I do. So why not just… accelerate it a little? Ratchet up the emotions, fear, wrath, pain. Then spread them across the whole world.”
“Drive the whole world crazy,” Celestia muttered. “It wouldn’t affect too many unless they were directly exposed, but get enough…”
“And get a few world leaders along the way…” the batpony continued. “Not to mention a couple armies. Always wanted one, ya know. Too bad Sombra grew a spine at the eleventh hour, a king would’ve been a great figurehead. Guess I’ll just have to make do.”
Celestia struggled to retain her composure. If you get angry, it will win, she thought silently. No doubt it requires a certain base level of anger to already be present before this energy can affect a being. Remain calm. Remember, you are the sun. The heat, the power burns within you, and if you let it slip, everything you cared about is gone.
Something about that struck her as being rather important. The sun.
Celestia glanced at the horizon to the east. She could see the dim light of dawn hovering there. It would be a move made in anger, allowing it easier entry to her mind, but if she could be fast enough, and if what Jade said was true…
It was an uncomfortable amount of ‘if’, but she was out of options.
“I’m afraid your plan is doomed to fail,” she said softly.
“And why is that?”
“It’s time for the dawn of a new era,” Celestia said, lighting her horn. Or, at least, trying to light her horn. She felt the aura fizzle and die before it had even half lit up. Surprised, she peered up at her own horn. It was coated in dull grey crystals which seemed almost to grow straight out of the bony protrusion.
The half-blind guard smirked. “Oh, dear. Did you think that I was referring to you? Sorry, Celestia, this time it’s not your show. Ladies and gentlecolts of all ages, give it up for the one, the only, Princess Luna!”
The crowd parted and an alicorn stepped into view. Her coat was pitch and her eyes a brilliant red. Her mane glowed like a supernova. “Better luck next time,” the guard murmured to the horrified elder alicorn. “Not that there’s going to be one.”
The ground began to glow red, sparking and flickering fit to explode. Celestia’s mane rose up, frizzing with the energy in the air. Bolts of red began to flicker in the center of the square, firing upwards toward the top of the spire, powered by all the rage and fear and hatred of the assembled, not excluding the sunraiser herself as she watched the travesty in horror. Overhead, the clouds began to twist into a parody of a pony, colossal and monstrous.
“Well,” said the Doctor, stepping back from the hole. “I suppose that’s that.”
The hole had perhaps once held the Crystal Heart. But the artifact was no more, having been swallowed by red rock. Sombra shook his head. “It can’t be,” he murmured. “It can’t be. The Heart was meant to be incorruptible, infallible.”
“No such thing,” the Doctor said dourly, gazing out at the blazing storm of lightning outside. “Everything gets destroyed eventually. All things fall apart.”
“Doctor, there has to be something left for us to do,” Sweetie said desperately, stepping toward the dun earth pony. “We can, can, we could go back! Back in time to when the heart was whole, we could take it, put a copy in the hole, and bring it forward to now, that would work, right?”
The Time Lord snorted humorlessly. “Yeah, sure. Two problems, though. We can’t get to the TARDIS, and it’s still not working even if we could.”
Sombra frowned. “Tar-diss?”
“Our traveling machine,” Sweetie said. “Remember, we needed a crystal for it?”
“Oh,” said the unicorn, nodding. “Yes. I’m sorry, but I fear there may be some delay in getting you that carved crystal you requested.” His voice, though measured, had a note of hysteria in it.
The Doctor laughed humorlessly, then suddenly stopped. “A specified carving,” he muttered. “A specific… Oh, I am an IDIOT!”
Sweetie blinked, and Sombra looked up from his vigil over the lost hope. The Doctor turned around, grinning broadly. “A carving! We can make a new crystal heart!”
The two unicorns were absolutely silent. “Well…” Sombra began, before trailing off into thoughtful silence.
Sweetie Belle was a tad more vocal. “That doesn’t work. Twilight tried it once, in the future, when the Empire... well, y'know. It didn’t work at all.”
“She didn’t have any kind of instructions,” the Doctor said. “We, on the other hand, have a first-hoof account of the heart.”
“Really?” Sombra asked. “Where?”
They both looked expectantly at him. “Oh. Oh… Well, I’ve seen it, of course, but that sort of carving would need to be extremely precise. I don’t have measurements, you don’t have tools…”
“Well, is there anything about the heart that we can use?” the Doctor pressed. “Anything at all would be more than we’ve got now.”
The dark stallion hesitated. “Well…”
“Come on,” Sweetie said, pleading. “You spent your childhood in the library, right? You must have read something about the history of your own empire!”
Sombra cogitated. “There is one thing. A legend surrounding the heart’s creation. It is said that it was not carved at all. In a time of great desperation, when the city was on the precipice of destruction, the Heart was borne of the collective minds of the entire metropolis, manifest of the dreams of every citizen for peace and prosperity.”
“Hence, the reason it was a conduit for positive emotion,” the Doctor murmured. “That might just be it. If we can find a way to get everypony down there to think positively all at the same time, we can harness that power to create a new heart!”
“Yes,” Sombra said, monotone. “Let us all speak of peace and love to the angry, mind-controlled mob below us. Miss Belle may have a knack for reducing the anger of others, but I doubt that she could even get all of those ponies to hear her, let alone listen.”
“That’s the thing. We don’t need to talk to all of them individually. You said it was borne of the collective mind of the populace. Right now, the whatever-this-thing-is has every mind here all connected in anger, but if we can twist that in the other direction, we might be in with a shot.”
“And how do we do that?” Sombra asked, interested despite himself.
The Doctor grimaced. “Ah. That’s the unpleasant part.”
Sweetie took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “Doctor,” she said quietly. “That is, without doubt, the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard, and that’s including Button’s ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Assassins’ plot.”
Sombra started. “Assassins?”
“We were eleven, he thought it was something to do with donkeys.”
“Oh. Yes, this idea does sound marginally less thought out than that.”
“Marginally.”
The Doctor rubbed his forehead with a hoof. “Look, I don’t like the idea of going back to face that any more than you do, Sweetie, but we don’t have much of a choice. Anyway, we do have some safety measures. Sombra’s already demonstrated that he doesn’t need to worry about any attacks, and if worst comes to worst, he can wake us up.”
“Okay, but what exactly do we do once we’re in?” Sweetie asked pointedly. “I don’t know about you, but all I can remember is being all sulky. I guess that’s not much different than you usually act anyway!”
The Doctor blanched, and Sombra rested a hoof on the young mare’s back. Instantly, she drew into herself, hooves over her mouth. “Doctor, I’m— I didn’t mean it like—”
“Astutely said,” the Time Lord said stiffly. “It was something that’s needed saying for awhile now, I think. Ditzy wouldn’t stop dancing around it for months.”
“I still shouldn’t have said it,” the mare said quietly.
“I imagine that at long last, the stress of the situation is getting to you,” Sombra said. “Given the nature of the storm outside, I suppose it was only a matter of time before we all began to succumb.”
The Doctor set his jaw. “Well. I’m not giving up yet. We still have one last shot at this. We need to at least try it, don’t we?”
Sweetie considered him for a long moment. Then, she sighed. “Yeah. I guess we do.”
The Doctor’s lips twitched up around the edges, and even that was forced. “So… how do we do it? Just… get scared, I suppose?”
“Wait, you didn’t answer my question!” Sweetie said desperately, but even as she spoke, the Doctor’s eyes turned an unearthly shade of lime. He tipped over onto his side, unresponsive. The young mare stared down at his prone body. “Well… great. Now what?”
She looked up at Sombra. “I don’t suppose you have any insight?”
The former king mulled that over. “I suppose that the thing to do would be to… awaken inside your dream. Perhaps if you were to overcome your fear, then the beast could no longer contain you.”
“But how can I do that?” Sweetie asked, plopping down on her rump. “They cut me down, take away my self worth. They make me feel like dirt, just ‘cause I don’t have a cutie mark. So unless I can get a cutie mark in the next… three minutes, I don’t think I’m gonna win this one.”
Sombra considered the young mare for a moment, then sighed. “Sweetie Belle,” he said gravely. “I have something which I must tell you. Come closer.”
She looked at him warily for a moment, but trotted towards him. He stared down at her for a long moment. Then, he pointed to his flanks. They were still covered by saddlebags. Sweetie looked at them uncertainly. “Is this about how you always wanted to travel? Are they full of like, old maps and a compass and stuff?”
“No. They are, actually, but no.” Sombra unbuckled a strap on top of the bags, and they slid off of his flanks, revealing… nothing. Nothing at all. He had no cutie mark.
Sweetie Belle’s jaw dropped. Sombra snorted slightly. “If I managed to run an empire without a cutie mark for politics, there is surely no end to what you can accomplish, regardless of what lies on thy flanks.” He hesitated. “That said, I am certainly not a good role model for— oof!”
Sweetie Belle rubbed her cheek against his barrel, hugging him as tightly as she could. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
Sombra stared, flabbergasted, at the off-white mare. Then, slowly, he smiled. It was a very nice smile indeed. “Thank you,” he replied quietly, wrapping his hooves around her slight figure.
Beneath them, the ground shifted, the yellow leaching out of the hideous chartreuse shade as it faded into a lovely light blue. “Alright,” she said, letting go after a few moments. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?” She closed her eyes, letting herself hear the voices in the back of her head loud and clear, the ones that were always there to nag at her, eat away at her ego and generally make her feel inferior. It sounded a little like Diamond Tiara and a little bit like Rarity in full lecture mode, and a whole lot like her own voice echoing around her head late at night. Then, her teeth firmly grit, she stepped into the patch of green-yellow crystal that still surrounded her, the voices needling at her, telling her that she wasn’t good enough, never did anything right, ruined everything. Her eyes snapped wide, glowing bright green.
Her legs wobbled. Her ears flattened. And down she fell.
With a well-placed hoof, Sombra caught her, and settled her gently on the ground. The circumference of the circle in blue shrunk slightly away.
Sweetie sat alone in a dark room, staring at a picture. Her friends stared back, eyes empty, smiles forever frozen in an instant of time as the faint radium light of the radio reflected off the glass. She sighed miserably, hugging the photograph to her chest. How she wished that those days could have lasted forever. But they had moved on, and she… hadn’t. She was still here. Wherever ‘here’ was.
Then her brow wrinkled up. “That’s a point,” she muttered, setting down the photo. “Where am I, anyway? And… aren’t I meant to be an old mare? I… how did I get here?”
She frowned and rose from her rocking chair, making for a door that she wasn’t sure had been there before. The darkness of the room began to rise and swill about like oatmeal being stirred, sticky and lumpy, but she ignored it. It was only darkness, after all.
Sombra stared, incredulous, as the floor beneath the young mare began to fade from the lurid shade of green to light blue. He almost smiled, but then his eyes flickered over to the Doctor. The bay stallion lay unmoving on the floor.
Sweetie found herself in a dark alleyway lit by a flickering, greenish gas lamp, her stomach empty and her coat covered in filth. She carried a sign. She glanced at it, confused. It read, Markless, please help. Hadn’t she just been in a darkened room which had no distinguishing features aside from a rocking chair and a photograph? Or something? The sound of hoofsteps attracted her attention, and she glanced up.
A rotund stallion with fudge-colored coat was making his way up the road toward her. She blinked. “Button?”
The stallion turned his head slightly and sniffed. “That’s Mr. Mash, thank you. Mr. Mash of Pomegranate Industries. And who are you?”
Sweetie recoiled slightly. This was not her Button. He was too oily, too cold, too stiff, like some kind of well-greased clockwork. Also, his eyes were glowing red. He raised an eyebrow. “Well? Tick-tock, I’m a busy stallion.”
“How long has it been?” she asked.
“Since you began talking? Too long. Good day to you, blank flank.”
He turned to walk away. Thinking quickly, Sweetie Belle sang “We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders…”
The weighty stallion froze midstep, as though the strings pulling him had been trimmed.. The entire scene flickered, as the light refracted oddly. For a second, Sweetie wasn’t sure what he would do. “Trying to find ourselves,” he murmured, setting down his hoof. “Sweetie Belle? What’s going on? Where are we?”
The unicorn smiled, vindicated. “It’s a dream,” she said triumphantly. “I thought it didn’t make any sense! Mysteriously appearing doors, changing scenes, it didn’t work! And then when you came in, well, that clinched it. You’d never act that way, not to anypony.”
Button made a face, then sat down by the unicorn. “So, wait. Is this your dream, or mine?”
“Mine, I think. I remember something about the Crystal Empire.”
“So… am I just, like, a figment of your imagination?”
“I guess so.”
“Huh.” He looked down at himself. “So this is what you see in my future?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re not really big on exercise, are you? Or healthy eating. But I guess that just means there’s more of you to love, ya big marshmallow.” She reached over to pull the larger stallion into a tight squeeze.
“...Actually, I meant being a selfish corporate jerk. But it’s good to know I’m cuddly.” He grinned as Sweetie pulled further into his embrace.
“Oh. Yeah. Well, I always pictured you as being successful in some big important technology job in some big city. I guess my mind filled in the rest of the blanks in a really lousy way.”
He grinned. “Heh. Well, thanks for believing in me. So, what exactly is going on?”
She let go, her smile fading. “I… sort of remember some things. There’s some kind of creature in here with us, trying to attack me.”
Button was instantly on the alert, his eyes darting up and down the alley. “Where? It didn’t hurt you, did it?”
“Not like that. It wants me to fall into despair, or fear, or rage. It’s very negative.”
“So I was a selfish jerk earlier because…”
“It thought that it would hurt me. If I wasn’t sure this wasn’t real, it probably would’ve been right.”
The stallion blushed, ruffling his mane with a hoof. “Eheheh. Sorry.”
Sweetie snuggled into hi side. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault, just like it wasn’t Sombra’s fault.”
“...Sombra?”
Sweetie blinked. “Sombra! Right! I remember what I was doing now! Sort of!”
Button scrunched up his nose. “I don’t follow.”
“You’re a part of my imagination, you should know what I’m thinking.”
The stallion shrugged. “Sorry, Sweetie.”
She shook her head. “Never mind. The important thing right now is getting out of this dream and meeting up with the Doctor. Do you see a door or something anywhere?”
Button leapt to his hooves. “Uh, I guess there’s the school door over there.”
“Oh, yeah, ri—” She paused. “School door?”
The sun shone brightly overhead, nary a cloud in the sky. She and Button were sitting together outside the Ponyville schoolhouse. The stallion had returned to colthood once more, and when she looked down at herself, she felt a profound sense of vertigo, as though she didn’t know what size her body was meant to be beyond ‘Not this.’
“...Okay. This is weird.”
Button massaged a temple, and for a second, he flickered back to the stallion that he’d been in the city, and then the young adult he'd been the last time Sweetie had seen him. “...Ow. My head hurts. We were in an alleyway a minute ago, right?”
“Hm.” Sweetie regarded the schoolhouse, and got the distinct impression that something lay beyond those windows, watching her in return. “...I think this is my original nightmare, but… backwards?”
The colt cantered nervously on the spot. “So… is something going to attack you? What should I look out for?”
Sweetie shook her head. “It’s going to be subtle,” she muttered. “I’ve beaten it twice already, this is its last shot. Whatever it is, it’s inside there.”
“So don’t go in there,” Button said. “Duh.”
“I have to,” Sweetie replied, her face growing stern. “I need to face my fears. That’s the… the only way to beat the game.”
Button considered that. “This is the final boss battle?”
She shrugged. “At least the end of the level.”
The colt looked at the red schoolhouse and nodded. “Are you scared?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
“Thanks.”
“Hold hooves?”
Sweetie smiled. “Sure.”
The two gripped hooves and walked forward.With her free hoof, Sweetie pushed open the door. There was a terrible moment of vertigo, and then
“Well?”
Sweetie’s eyes came back into focus. A mare was staring back at her. The face was familiar. The expression on that face was not. “Miss Cheerilee?”
The teacher (for if it was not she, it was a bloody good facsimile) sighed. “I asked you what you were going to be when you grow up.”
“Um,” said Sweetie.
Cheerilee turned around. “Apple Bloom is going to be an engineer. Scootaloo is going to be a mathematician. Dinky already is a Time Lady, though how that pays the bills I’ve no idea. Rumble is going to be a Wonderbolt. Even Snips and Snails are going to be a barber and a malacologist. But what about you?”
Sweetie glanced around. Dozens of unfriendly faces stared back, far more than could reasonably fit into a classroom. More ponies than had ever been in the classroom at once stared at her, each familiar face silently judging her. She tried to speak, but a hard lump rose in her throat like a rock. Or perhaps a crystal.
Sombra peered at Sweetie, concerned. The blue was rapidly fading away, and Sweetie rolled over onto her back, whimpering. The stallion reached toward her, but pulled away when she flinched back.
He didn’t know what her dreams held, exactly, but their earlier talk gave him a decent idea. “You are not alone,” he murmured. “You have friends. You have the Doctor, you have me. You have others, presumably. Button Mash, you mentioned earlier? The one who tried to be an assassin?”
Sweetie let out a low groan and flopped over onto her stomach. The Doctor was still motionless. Sombra bit the inside of his cheek, drawing blood by accident. “Please, Sweetie Belle,” he whispered. “You saved me. You saved the Doctor, and you saved Jade, did you not? You can save yourself. You need to save yourself.”
“Come along, class. Recess for everypony while Miss Belle thinks about what is obvious to everypony else,” Cheerilee opened the door, and the glorious golden air filtered in.
Sweetie’s mind felt feverish and labored. This wasn’t meant to be happening, was it? There was something wrong, very wrong. And there was something that she was meant to be doing. Occasional flashes of familiar faces in the swarm heading out the door brought with them tinges of memory, but nothing concrete or lasting came with them. Only bits and pieces, sound and fury.
“Can you believe—” whispered a filly
“—doesn’t even have a cutie mark—” a colt snorted
“—so sad,” said a foal of indeterminate gender, not looking at all sad. None of them did.
“Only thing she’ll grow up to be—”
“—is a blankflank loser.”
And then Sweetie stood. She didn’t rise from her chair. One moment she was sat at her desk, and the next she was on her hooves. There was a sensation of vertigo, but it was outweighed by the rush of adrenaline overcoming her. “I know what I’m going to be,” she said calmly.
Everypony stopped.
“Impossible—”
“—can’t be—”
“—no mark!”
“I know what I’m going to be,” she repeated, looking around the room. She saw Button smiling back at her, Dinky grinning and smacking one hoof against the other in eager anticipation, Apple Bloom staring proudly, Rumble glaring around, looking for anypony stupid enough to insult his friend, Scootaloo smirking and leaning forward, ready to hear what came next. And at the very back of the classroom, her newest friend, Sombra, quietly mouthing the words, “Save yourself.”
“There was always only ever one thing that I could be,” she said.
“A loser?” some unknown voice piped snidely. A moment later, there was the sound of a skull being thumped against a desk.
“Thanks, Rumble!”
“Detention!” Cheerilee snarled, eyes red and oddly glassy and Sweetie wondered how she ever could have mistaken this phantasm for the real, kind, true Miss Cheerilee. “You can’t know what you’re going to be! You aren’t marked for it!”
“I know what I’m going to be,” Sweetie replied, smiling beatifically. “I’m going to be me. I’m going to be the best Sweetie Belle that I can be, with my friends or on my own. I’m going to be cheerful and bright, and help ponies even when they don’t want me to. I’m going to sing songs that I made up in the shower, and I’m going to sing them in the middle of town, too. I’m going to be curious and nice and frankly dreadful at cooking, and I’m going to be a little annoying, especially to Rarity, but with a sort of endearing charm! And as long as I do that, as long as I’m myself, my friends will still love me! And I will never, not ever, be alone!”
She stared at the frozen tableau around her, still smiling. “And that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.”
The entire scene shone bright blue for a second, and Sweetie could see crystallized forms shining through, just on the edge of vision. And then it broke apart.
The red light flickered for a moment, and the entire crowd winced collectively, Luna included. Even the massive cloud pony seemed to dissipate momentarily. The veteran thestral that the evil abomination had been speaking through growled. “You’ve gotten lucky, Majesty.”
“Don't call me that.”
It continued as though it couldn't hear. “A brief stay of execution for you, while I deal with a minor inconvenience.” He jerked his head toward a bright green tower not too far from the square, and a squadron of crystal guards promptly stampeded off.
Celestia looked on, unimpressed. “They beat you before, and they’ll do it again,” she said calmly. “You may as well save yourself the embarrassment of a flankbeating and just leave now.”
The thestral wheezed a laugh. “Who, the Doctor? Out of all you counteractive elements, he’s the only one actually still under my spell.”
Celestia s eyes went wide as cruel laughter echoed all around the square, reverberating off of the shifting sides and vertices of the empire. As abruptly as it began, however, it cut off. The thestral’s body leaned in menacingly. Celestia did not flinch. She didn’t dare show weakness. “Won’t be long now,” it cooed, the emotion not showing in its eyes.
The princess licked her lips in the cold, dry air. Not too far away, her sister’s eyes flickered upwards, just for a moment.
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.”
“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.
“Whoa.” said Sweetie. The word echoed for several seconds around the cavernous sphere. It was, unsurprisingly, made of a certain translucent, well-organized type of mineral of which Sweetie was starting to become thoroughly sick.
Somewhat more surprising was the colossal sphere of light in the center of the room. It was strange to look at, at once the size of a pony and the size of a planet. And it was beating like a heart. “What is this place?” she asked, and as she spoke, she could hear a strange, musical buzz in her words, carried back to her by the powerful echo of the chamber.
“An analogy,” the Doctor said simply. “This place is nothing but emotion and imagination.”
The sphere convulsed angrily, and the two ponies flinched back. “Not that that’s a bad thing to be,” the Doctor added quickly. “You’re a very lovely construct, honestly.”
The sphere appeared to be mollified, and shrunk back slightly, resuming its steady beat. “So are we just going to pay it compliments and hope it cheers up?” Sweetie murmured.
“Have you a better plan?”
“Well, no.”
“Right.” The Doctor turned to the glowing orb. “That’s a beautiful shade of red!” he called.
“It accentuates your curves!” Sweetie added helpfully.
“You’re looking extremely bright!”
“And shiny!”
“...”
“I really like your… I got nothing.”
The orb twitched slightly, an arrhythmia in its steady beat. Then, without any further warning, it fired a bolt of lightning straight at the duo.
Sombra had perhaps been something of a bookish child. He certainly was not overly endowed with great practice in the physical arts. In his teenage years, he had been coerced into taking fencing lessons up until his father’s death had left him with more important matters, and in more recent years, he had performed a great deal of physical training from an admittedly regrettable trainer. He was, however, not remotely skilled in the arts of fighting.
Sombra’s readings in anatomy and some of the more descriptive tales of bloodshed had done for the first couple of attackers. Surprise had also been helpful in that regard. A few deft blows to the back of the neck, and four guards were down for the count. After that, it had been a matter of using his size and natural strength to his advantage. It would perhaps have gone better for him had he still possessed his armor, but in the heat of battle, he found himself doing remarkably well. Worryingly so, a small part of his brain commented, but it was quickly overridden by pure unadulterated adrenaline.
All he knew at this moment in time was that the two ponies currently on the floor, dead to the world, represented his kingdom’s last gasp of hope. More importantly, they represented the only line of defence between this twisted crime and the rest of the world. Most importantly of all, they represented the only friendship he had had since… ever.
And so he fought on, not out of fear, nor out of rage. He fought out of hope. He was not a fool. He had heard them speak of ‘going back’ to undo what had been wrought. They were of a different time, a future time. A better time that would someday come to be. Resplendent in this knowledge, he sank to the floor, a lump on his head, lacerations across his flesh, and a smile on his face.
Celestia met her sister’s red, glowing eyes evenly. Then her head bowed. “Make it quick,” she murmured. “I will not hurt her.”
“As I thought,” the thestral sneered. “Weak to the last, like all of your subjects. She didn’t even last as long as Sombra, you know. Maybe I should stretch this out, see how far I can make her go…”
Celestia looked up to glare at him. “Even you can’t be so sadistic as to force me to listen to your blather before I die,” she bit out.
“Harsh. Very well. Luna, kill.”
Celestia closed her eyes as she heard the air rent with a powerful spell. It was not death she feared to face. Only that last betrayal.
There was the sound of a very powerful spell being fired.
Celestia waited to feel either intensest pain or nothing at all. She waited for several seconds. Then, slowly, she lifted her head. The elderly thestral lay on the ground in several places. Of Luna, there was no sign. Then there was a massive explosion from overhead. Celestia looked up. “Ohhh, dear,” she murmured, and even she wasn’t sure if she meant it or not.
Sweetie’s coat smelled singed, but she didn’t waste time looking back. She was running, bolts of energy flying all around her. The Doctor had scarpered, too, though she couldn’t see him any more. It was probably best not to wonder where he had gone, considering the impossible nature of the room as it already existed.
It was funny, but though she was running for her life, she felt oddly giddy. Possibly it was a flawed coping mechanism to the imminent threat of death. On the other hoof, from what she had seen, emotion was power in this world. So, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Resounding silence filled the room. “Well,” she said. “That worked, I suppose.”
“I guess it did,” a voice replied.
Sweetie turned. “Button?”
The brown colt grinned guilelessly at her. “After a fashion, yeah. That's what you conjured me up to be.”
Sweetie studied the apparition more closely. It… was not Button. She wasn't even sure it was a colt. Or a pony. She stared into burning red eyes. “Is this a trick?”
“Yep.”
“Oh.” Sweetie was silent. “Okay, so, who are you, then? Who are you really?”
The thing that looked almost like Button shrugged. “Another dream, I expect. A shared one. I could change, if you like.”
“Yes, please.” Sweetie glanced up. She was not entirely surprised to see that the massive red ball was no longer there. The Doctor was currently racing with a curious bipedal gait along the surface of the hollow space, dodging objects that only he could see. “You’re the Empire.”
“Not quite, I’m afraid. Close enough for government work, though,” the dream-thing said with a slight grin. True to its word, it had changed shape into the friendly other Doctor that she had met in that nightmare TARDIS.
“Can you…” Sweetie gestured toward the Doctor, and the other’s smile faded.
“I’m afraid that this is a problem whose solution lies solely in the mind of any given individual. He’ll be fine so long as he doesn't imagine what getting hit would do to him.”
“Oh.” Sweetie’s eyes lit up. “Oh! This is some sort of… mind palace. The hallways connected every mind in the empire. This does the same thing, right?”
“Very astute!” the apparition crowed, clapping its hands together. “I see that at least my taste in companions has remained as sharp as ever, even if my dress sense is failing.”
“So… you must be the one that can get us the Crystal Heart!”
The smile was gone as quickly as it had come. “I fear not. I’m merely... well, you might think of me as the interface. The heart and all of its power come from a very different source. I'm sure you can puzzle out what that might be?”
“The empire,” Sweetie sighed, deflating. “We’re back to square one, then. Unless we can snap the whole empire out of it, we're stuck. Again!”
“Mm,” the apparition raised a brow. “Are you indeed? I believe the solution to be obvious, myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said it yourself; snap the whole empire out of it. If you can do that, give manumission to their minds, I should be able to recreate not only the heart, but the crystal you need for your ship. A fair bargain, if I do say so myself.”
Sweetie shut her eyes tight. “But HOW?” she asked, swallowing back the urge to… do something. Not yell or cry or scream, but some other uncontrollable desire was welling up inside her.“I can't even talk to the whole empire at once, let alone cheer them all up. I don't know what to…” she trailed off. The interface was gone. The vast, burning red orb glowed bright overhead. The vast, burning orb comprised of every mind in the empire. It blinked briefly, or maybe winked.
“Oh.”
Another guard rushed out of the crowd, a grey-coated mare. One of Celestia's own. “What is this? What have you done?” she snarled.
Celestia gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I have done nothing,” she said shortly. “You did this, all of it, to yourself.”
“Explain!”
“You sought to bring rage,” Celestia said simply. “Pure, mad rage. Directionless rage. No matter how my sister may feel about my actions, I have no doubt that her anger at you is more powerful than her anger at me.”
As if to punctuate her point, a massive explosion echoed overhead, and the cloud-Sombra stumbled back as a berserk blue mare came at it like a hornet, shrieking like a banshee. The sun princess shook her head. “She may destroy us all, but you, at least, will fall first.”
“No! No, this cannot be!” The guard’s face was suffused with red. “I will destroy you! I will destroy you and your sister both!” Her horn began to glow.
And then a wave of blue hit.
The soldiers gathered around Sombra, Sweetie, and the Doctor, weapons raised. And then a wave of blue hit.
Jade stared up at the vast, red spire, a blank expression on her face and a mad, straining protest behind her eyes. Thousands of others surrounded her, doing the exact same thing. And then a wave of blue hit.
The Doctor was still running like a stallion possessed, dodging blasts which might or might not have been imaginary. Sweetie sighed, and as her friend passed by, she stuck a hoof beneath his red sneakers, tripping him up. “Ow! What was that for?”
“The lightning stopped,” the young mare said bluntly. Now wasn’t the time for beating around the bush.
The Time Lord blinked and glanced up. “So it has. Why? What's it trying to do?”
“I asked it very nicely to stop,” Sweetie said neatly. “Doctor, do you still have your recorder?”
The Time Lord frowned and scrabbled around before producing the instrument. “Yes, I suppose I do. Nopony ever actually searched me before throwing me in the dungeon. Pity I broke the sonic…”
“Good,” Sweetie said, glancing up at the pulsating red orb in the center of the room. Only the belief they had that they wouldn’t be hurt was preventing their immediate death, and that could only last for so long. “We need it.”
“What, the sonic? Like I said, it’s broken.”
“No, your recorder. Just follow my lead.”
“Sweetie, I think we’ve managed to establish that I very much cannot carry a tune on this thing,” the Doctor warned, holding the instrument to his lips.
“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that too much,” Sweetie said with a small smile. “I believe in you.” Then, as the first sweet notes began to trickle out of the end of the pipe, she tilted back her head and allowed the tune that she had been suppressing to bubble up out of her throat.
Crystal Empire, the snow falling in deep,
Lie down with thy King, for ten centuries sleep
O Crystal Empire…
The guards around the ponies suddenly dropped their weapons, hooves suddenly too heavy to hold up the pike staves and axes. Throughout the room, blooms of blue positively exploded against the walls.
Far have I traveled through space and through time
I’ve seen things terrible, and I’ve seen things sublime
But nothing I’ve seen has done so much to inspire
As the freedom and peace of the Crystal Empire…
“No!” the possessed guard wailed. “No, no, no! This isn’t the way it ends! My empire! My glory! My dreams of conqueszzz…”
The ruddy glow vanished from her eyes moments before they snapped shut, her legs giving way beneath her.
Crystal Empire, the snow falling in deep,
Lie down with thy King and sleep for centuries
O Crystal Empire…
The light, sleepy blue color swept over the square, sending ponies of all nationalities and backgrounds to their knees, and shortly thereafter to dreamland. Slowly, it began to climb even the colossal spire, deadening the sparks of fury and blood red glow.
Sweet silver slumber on gossamer wings
Carries you off, and peace to you brings
‘Neath Luna’s dark night with the stars all afire
For the freedom and peace of the Crystal Empire…
As her name was mentioned, Luna’s furious attack on the clouds faltered, her wings slipping into a glide as she floated downward, fighting sleep. The monstrous image laughed in derision for a moment, but then choked on nothing. A faint blue glow began to shine from deep inside of it, and the phantasm began to dissolve from the inside out, swirling into inky lumps that fell from the sky like rain, running into crevasses in the crystal.
Crystal Empire, the snow falling in deep,
Lie down with thy King and sleep for centuries
O Crystal Empire…
The King himself lay peacefully on the ground, his horn cooled to obsidian black. For the first time in years, his sleep was completely undisturbed.
Fie to the Nightmare, have only sweet dreams
Even if it’s not as real as it seems
Let the soft snow put out the Tartarus fire
And bring freedom and peace to the Crystal Empire…
Luna spiraled to the ground like a whirligig seed, joining the crowd of snoozing ponies. Celestia smiled faintly and let the waves of exhilarating exhaustion overcome her as well. As she fell to the ground, the crystals holding her horn and hooves crumbed away, as if the empire itself was too exhausted to carry on holding her.
Crystal Empire, the snow falling in deep,
Lie down with thy King and sleep for centuries
O Crystal Empire…
As the last notes of the song faded, the crystal walls pulsed with a faint spark of energy, disgorging a pair of objects, one in the shape of a heart. The other crystal was, as promised, exactly the shape needed for the TARDIS to take off again. For a moment, the shape of an animalistic face could be seen traced in the wall, its eyes fluttering closed. In the next moment, it was gone, no more than a trick of the light that no one was awake to see.
The Doctor blinked awake, finding himself on cold crystal once more. Beside him, Sweetie sat up abruptly. “Did it work?”
Below, the city had fallen silent, the snow muffling any sounds that might yet remain. Soldiers lay around them, snoozing, as dangerous as kittens. Sombra’s head lolled, his eyes closed and an expression of perfect angelic peace over his features. “Well,” the Doctor said softly. “You’ve managed to get inside the collective consciousness of everypony in the city and sing them all to sleep. I suppose congratulations are in order.”
Sweetie shook her head. “Not yet. We still have to finish de-corrupting the empire, right? Is de-corrupt a word? Purify? Un-evil-ate?”
“Not actually what I meant,” the Doctor said, a small smile tracing over his face. “Look at your flank.”
Sweetie froze. Slowly, almost glacially, she turned her head around towards her tail. A big blue eighth note was emblazoned on her hindquarters. Her eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth— only for the Doctor to jam a hoof into it. “Shhh!” he hissed, gesturing at the sleeping forms around them.
The mare blushed. “Yay,” she whispered. “But Doctor, the city?”
The Time Lord scratched at his chin. “Good point,” he agreed. “You’ve driven the actual sentient part of the problem out of the city, which should help things get cleared up. But the problem of the present damage…”
There was a faint groan from the floor. An obsidian forehoof bicycled weakly in the air. “Five more minutes,” Sombra muttered, rolling over onto his side.
Sweetie gently prodded the stallion in the side. “Wake up. We won!” She poked him again, this time in a different spot.
The large stallion sat bolt upright, stifling a shriek. “Tender,” he wheezed. “Very tender.”
“Oops!” Sweetie blushed. “Sorry.”
“Hm,” the other unicorn rumbled, grinning faintly. “Quite alright. We won, you said?”
The Doctor nodded out the window. “See for yourself.”
Sombra glanced at the guards instead, and his eyes went wide. “No. No, tell me I did not…”
He fell back, pupils like pinpricks. The Doctor blinked, confused, but Sweetie got it immediately. “Shh, no, no,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re not dead, they aren’t dead. They’re just sleeping, see?”
Hesitantly, the large stallion reached out a dinner-plate hoof and touched one of the soldiers on the chest. Slowly, his face regained its color. “Alive,” he breathed. “They are alive?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Doctor, finally catching up. “Everypony lives today, Sombra. Everypony lives!”
—Are you sure about that, Doctor?| The voice was at once inaudible and omnipresent, like the doubt that nags at the back of your mind three hours after the conversation is over and the parties have gone their separate ways.
Sweetie threw her hooves up into the air. “Are you serious right now?” she shouted at the room in general.
—Very much so,| the room in general responded. —Did you really think that sending them all to sleep would be enough to stop me? Their dreams may be happy for now, but I am still here! Influencing their minds! Altering their emotions! You will never root me out of the Empire, for I AM the Empire!|
Sombra drew back from the walls, a strangled sob escaping his throat. The Doctor, however, stepped forwards. “No, you aren’t. You’re a parasite, leeching off of it. The Crystal Empire isn’t buildings and streets, it’s made of the ponies living here, living in fear and hatred of you.” He snatched the Crystal Heart from the floor and brandished it. “You see this? Concentrated love and hope! Gathered from all over the Empire! How d’ya like that? How are going to stand up to that?”
—How do you intend to use it?|
The Doctor faltered. “Ah.” He turned to Sombra. “Thoughts?”
The ex-tyrant stared mutely back. “Right…” The Doctor sighed. “So it’s stalemate. We can’t banish you, you can’t kill us.”
—Oh, can’t I?|
Slowly, the walls began to shift from blue to meaty red, not even passing through purple along the way. Sweetie yelped and jumped back. “Ow!”
Sombra quickly rose from the floor. The unconscious guards began to wail and gnash their teeth in their sleep, pulling their limbs in tight like dying insects. The Doctor could feel it now, too, like burning needles stabbing through his hooves. —Drop the Heart, Doctor. Let it fall to the ground, and the pain will stop.|
“Oh, and I suppose you’ll let us go free?” the tan stallion asked, gritting his teeth through the pain. “I suppose that’ll be the end of it?”
—No, I’m still going to kill you, but it will be much quicker. And if you don’t fear for yourself, consider your companions.|
The Doctor glanced back. Sweetie Belle was curled up on the ground, weeping silently. Sombra was faring rather better, but he didn’t exactly look great either. The Time Lord stared at the Heart for a long moment. He tightened his jaw. —Have you the strength to watch your friends writhe in torment, Doctor? Have you will enough to do that? How devoted are you to the greater good when a child lies in pain?|
The heart fell to the floor. It never made it. The Doctor blinked. “Sombra? What are you doing?”
Green eyes met brown. “It is us or the world, Doctor. Either way, we lose. This way, all else wins.”
—Let it drop! Die!|
Sombra gazed at the wall. “I will not.” In his hooves, the Heart began to vibrate slightly.
—If you do not, you will suffer!|
“I will.” The Heart began to glow a faint blue. The Doctor’s eyes went wide.
“I will suffer with you, and gladly,” the Time Lord said. The Heart went even brighter, and began to hum.
—You will all suffer!|
“We will,” Sweetie said, making a concerted effort to rise from the floor, but falling back on her flanks. “Together.”
In Sombra’s hooves, the Heart lit like a fire, humming like mad. It rose into the air. —No! NO! You will never escape me! You will never|
And then it was gone. The room was a pale, translucent blue again. The Crystal Heart fell back into Sombra’s outstretched hooves. The charcoal unicorn grinned broadly. Then his eyes crossed, and he collapsed to the ground.
“Sombra?” Sweetie gasped, struggling to her hooves at last. “Doctor, what happened? Is he okay?”
The tan stallion checked the unconscious unicorn’s pulse. “He’s alive,” he said slowly, hesitantly.
“But?”
The Doctor gnawed at his lower lip. “It wasn’t entirely wrong about being the Empire,” he said. “It’s like, like, a fossil. Bone slowly gets washed away and replaced by minerals and that, yeah? It’s a bit like that. Sort of. Not at all, really.”
“I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”
The Doctor took in a deep breath. “The Empire’s been severely weakened. The psychic defenses haven’t just been compromised, they’ve been completely corrupted. The Nightmare’s gotten its nasty mental tendrils in everywhere you look. Everything’ll recover eventually, but it’s not going to be quick.” He looked down at Sombra, whose breathing had become very shallow. “And those bits that were infected the longest are going to have the harshest reaction.”
Sweetie’s eyes went wide. “He’s going to die?”
“Without medical care, specifically medical care that won’t be around for another few centuries at least… well, it doesn’t look good.”
“But… we can’t just let him die! He helped save the Empire!”
‘After nearly dooming it to begin with,’ the Doctor almost said, but he caught himself at the last moment. He took in a breath. “I’m sorry, Sweetie,” he said. “Sometimes, there’s nothing we can do.”
She didn’t look up from the unicorn on the floor. “You said it would take a long time to fix everything,” she said carefully. “How long?”
The Doctor frowned, thoughtful. “It worked its way in pretty deep. A few centuries, perhaps, maybe longer.”
The unicorn glanced away from the unconscious stallion on the floor to look up at him. “How about a thousand years?”
The Doctor opened his mouth, then closed it again. His eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh! Oh, that is good! That might, might, OH!”
“So there’s a way to save him?”
“Yes!” the Doctor said, grinning. “But we’re going to need some help…”
Celestia awoke to the unenviable situation of being buried in snow tail-first all the way up to her withers. “Hello, Celly,” a pleasant voice said. “Need a hoof?”
The alicorn turned around to see a dun earth pony smiling at her. She smiled back. “If you would be so kind, Doctor.”
He began to dig away at the snow as the solar princess concentrated. Her wings broke the fresh-fallen white surface, heat radiating off her body. “Quiet,” she noted.
“Yeah, everypony else is still out cold, even Luna,” the Doctor said. “I suppose you got the least of it?”
“Mm,” the solar princess agreed. “Is the battle won, then?”
“For the most part,” the Doctor said, stepping back as the alicorn hauled herself out of the massive snowdrift, fluffing out her feathers to shake free the last of the crystals.
If Celestia noticed the evasion, she didn’t comment on it. “And Sombra?”
The Doctor hesitated. “You’ll not have to worry about him for a long while,” he said at length.
Now Celestia did quirk a brow. “Doctor, what have you been up to?”
The Time Lord glanced skyward. “Sun’s a few hours late,” he noted.
“Oh!” Celestia’s horn glowed, and the sky grew noticeably brighter. “Don’t think that’s going to distract me,” she warned. “Time?”
“Ten past nine.”
Her horn glowed again as she maneuvered the sun carefully through the sky. The Doctor licked his chapped lips. He hated the idea of lying to his old friend, but he couldn’t alter established history, either. Celestia would understand. Eventually. “Sombra wasn’t the main problem,” he said, his tone short and clipped. “He was being manipulated, and through him, the whole Empire was being controlled. He was just a convenient conduit for the corruption of the kingdom.”
Celestia glanced at him sideways. “Doctor,” she said, “I have no patience for being guided by half-truths. I get enough of that from the gentry.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” the Doctor said steadily. “Sombra was driven to this end by a malevolent energy. But, obviously, he needs to be remembered as a bloodthirsty, insane tyrant.”
“I don’t like lying to my little ponies, either.”
“Don’t tell them anything, then. I’ve already come from the future, I know how it all turns out, up to a point. Changing that could —”
“Alter the Web of Time!” Celestia interrupted. “Cause untold devastation and unleash nightmarish amounts of paradox on the timeline! Bring Gallifrey down on your head! Spill your tea! Yes, yes, I know.”
The Doctor let out a slightly forced chuckle. “I see I’ve taught you well.”
“Extremely. Though I don’t know if all your lessons were intentional.”
The wind picked up momentarily, making the silent streets howl hollowly. Celestia fluffed her feathers again, staring into the wind, half-expecting some shambling beast to step out into the streets at any moment. “What of the Empire?”
“Freed,” the Doctor said shortly. “But deeply unwell. Think about how it was cutting off Luna’s coffee habit, then make it ten times more gouging even than that.”
Celestia’s frown deepened, creasing her brow. “I see. We’ll have a lot of work to do cleaning this up, won’t we.”
She cast an eye over the Doctor. “Luna and I will, anyway.”
“Not for a while,” the Doctor said, raising a hoof. “My companion and I, we’ve been busy while you lot were snoozing. Moving the more vulnerable inside houses, though I’m afraid we rather had to pack them in. We’ve returned the Heart to where it’ll need to be in order to be recovered. And, of course, we’ve redecorated.”
Celestia glanced at the Doctor sidelong. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
The Time Lord smirked. “Why don’t I have her tell you? Here she comes now.”
The Princess glanced over her shoulder. Indeed, out of the doorway of one building, a long-legged unicorn mare in a mask stumbled down the steps. “Doctor, you’ve been running the poor mare ragged,” she scolded.
“That was more her than me,” the tan stallion corrected. “She’s been dashing about like mad fixing up the place.”
“Again, fixing it up how?” Celestia repeated.
The Doctor grinned as his assistant came running up, a clump of wires clutched in her teeth. “We’ve been connecting up the Empire. Come on, everyone to the TARDIS.”
“Hello, your highness. You have got the crystal, haven’t you, Doctor?” the unicorn said, pulling the wires from her mouth.
The Time Lord paused. “I thought you had it?”
The unicorn stared at the Doctor until the Time Lord coughed awkwardly and fished in his mane. “Oh,” he said sheepishly, producing a hexagonal crystal.
Both the mares chuckled. “Come on,” the new companion said brightly. “Back to the TARDIS!”
“Hold on,” Celestia said. “What is all this?”
“I’ll explain in the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “C’mon, we’re going to need you for this one.”
The blue box was right where Celestia had last seen it, in a military encampment, now as silent as the Crystal Empire. Of course, the wiring didn’t stretch nearly that far, and all three of them had to carry it closer to the Empire’s gates. “So,” Celestia had said at one point. “Who are you then, young one?”
“Oh, my name’s—”
“Not yet,” the Doctor cut in. “You’ll meet properly in good time, and I’m trusting you to keep it under your hat when you do, Celestia. Well, under your tiara.”
“I see,” said Celestia. “Doctor, is there anything that you’re actually going to tell me at all?”
“In good time,” said the Time Lord cheerily. “I’ll explain it all to you when it’s all been sorted out.”
“And that will be?”
“Oh, hardly any time at all, just a few centuries or so,” the tan pony continued breezily.
The unicorn grunted as the box shifted onto her. “Would you both stop talking and help me lift this thing?” she wailed.
The Time Lord and the Princess quickly shouldered the burden and all continued toward the gates.
“This ought to be close enough,” the Doctor said at length, stopping a few meters outside the walls of the empire.
“Close enough for what, Doctor?” Celestia said, patience finally exhausted. “What is your plan, here? What are you going to do? What have you done already?”
“Well,” said the Doctor, setting down his corner of the TARDIS, the other two following suit, “We’ve run these wires all through the empire, connecting up all the buildings, all the ponies, all the streets and tunnels and what-all-have-you.”
Sweetie pulled open the TARDIS door. “And now, we’re gonna hook it up to the TARDIS, put it into a time-shift, and set the Empire out of step with reality for about a thousand years, or until it fixes itself, whichever comes last.”
Celestia blinked. “Okay. I have one question.”
“Alright, go for it.”
“What in the world would make you think that’s a good idea?” The force of the Royal Canterlot Voice made both of the others wince. “And don’t tell me it’s because it’s what happened in the future. You’ll need a better reason than that to convince me to let you do this.”
“If we don’t do it, the Empire will be easy pickings for any vengeful nation who wants their land back with interest,” the Doctor said shortly. “It’s literally decayed from the inside out.”
“Or,” said the unicorn, “We can make the whole city disappear. Nothing left. Not even ruins, just snow.”
“And if somepony starts to spread a rumour about, say, a dying tyrant’s curse, well, that would just be the icing on the cake,” the Doctor said, grinning broadly.
Celestia hesitated, her forehead still creased. “What of the citizens?”
“Trapped in a moment, locked outside of time while the remnants of the invasion are washed away.” The Doctor waved a piece of iron in the air. “All the stored evil disperses into the environment, and with the level of hoof traffic this spot gets, it’ll just fizzle out.”
“They won’t be harmed, then.”
“They’ll be asleep! They’ve just been on the worst emotional bender of their lives. Let ‘em sleep it off.”
“What of my sister and the soldiery?”
“They haven’t been connected. If you’d like to make absolutely sure they’re not caught up in it, we can move them all out first.”
Celestia considered. “We will be doing that, make no mistake. After that… I think what you say has merit. I will… think on it as we work.”
By the time the soldiers had all been moved out of the city, a task made rather easier once Luna was properly awake, the sun had long since passed its zenith. Unicorns, earth ponies, pegasi, and all their nocturnal counterparts had been taken back to the encampment, either staggering along with pounding headaches or still stone-cold unconscious. As afternoon slipped into evening, two princesses stood outside the city gates with the Doctor and Sweetie Belle. “Well?” the Doctor asked. “Made your decision?”
Luna spoke first, having been filled in by her sister some hours ago. “We find this proposal… acceptable,” she said. “We do not like the notion of erasing an entire city, nor pinning the blame for our actions on another, no matter how disgusting that one’s actions may already be. Can you assure us that these problems will be corrected in time?”
The Doctor smiled. It was much thinner than either sister felt comfortable with, thinner than they had ever seen before, and they had traveled with the dour Scottish incarnation with the cultivated air of mystery. “Even I can’t tell the future,” he said.
Luna snorted. Celestia gave the Doctor a look. Even Sweetie raised an eyebrow. “I can’t!” he protested. “I can manipulate it, yeah, with a lot of prepwork, but even that was iffy. I stopped playing games with timelines a good while back. I just do what I can, nowadays. But I can tell you this much, there’s no better option to be had. One way or another, the Crystal Empire is going to disappear. Isn’t it better that we know why?”
There was a long pause. Luna looked to Celestia. Celestia closed her eyes and nodded. “Brilliant,” the Doctor said with a smile. “Just let me… connect you up…” with fairly impressive speed, he wrapped copper wires around the bases of each sister’s horn, Luna’s connected to the TARDIS and Celestia’s to the Empire. “Couldn’t do this with the TARDIS alone,” he explained.
“We needed a way to transmute the artron energy into magical power for best results,” Sweetie said, dutifully parroting the Doctor’s earlier explanation as she trotted into the TARDIS. On the console, the old, burnt-out crystal had been set out, replaced by the Crystal Empire’s present to them. The new addition had been itself wrapped in copper coils like an electromagnet and plugged into its spot in the array of machinery around it. It was vibrating slightly, almost as if, Sweetie thought, it was anxious to get on with the plan. Well. So was she.
“Now, I’m just going to need to get you to touch horns,” the Doctor said. The two princesses gave him sidelong looks, but both bent their heads until tip met tip. “Right. Okay.” The Time Lord stepped back into the TARDIS. “Now!”
Sweetie Belle pulled down on a lever. The TARDIS doors swung shut, and the blue box began to dematerialize. Luna almost pulled away, but Celestia’s sudden gasp gave her pause. The elder princess watched in astonishment as the entire city began to slowly fade in and out of existence, like a mirage. The sound hit a moment later, like the slow rise and fall of the TARDIS except amplified a hundredfold. In the base camp, all the soldiers froze, staring as the Crystal Empire simply— vanished. In the mountains behind it, several small avalanches were set off.
And then silence. The Empire was gone. So was the blue box. “Is it over?” Luna whispered.
Celestia raised her head again. The plane where the Empire had stood was almost clear, but not completely. Rocks scattered the ground in spots. Some few stone tunnels which the Doctor and his companion had apparently missed stuck out of the ground like great curling coral tubes. And there, in the center of it all, an iron rod, stabbed into the ground, easily missed from this distance if one didn’t think to look for it. The Empire’s last point of return to this plane. “For now,” Celestia said. “Yes. For now.”
Far beneath the surface, however, where Celestia could not see, the iron rod extended much further. It had taken more than a little effort but when you have a time machine that actually works, it really isn’t that difficult to travel back and commission a crystal casket, drill a borehole through the earth, stick an iron rod straight down through that borehole, and then put a gaudy statue over the top to keep the rod from being noticed, then be back before your unicorn companion has even finished running fake wires all up and down Heartshaven. Because of course the wire didn’t criss-cross the entire empire. It didn’t have to. Crystal conducted artron energy, alicorn magic, and electricity as easily as any other sort of energy. The real difficulty had been in getting Sombra to travel along with the rest off the Empire, given that he wasn’t a crystal pony.
Well. The REAL difficulty had been traveling back through time and getting a crystal casket in the first place. Ponies tend to look oddly at a stranger who orders that sort of thing without also buying a funeral, and it wasn’t fun getting it through the TARDIS doors, either.
“...And that's the story,” the Doctor concluded with a bob of his head. “Course, we also had to sneak into the tunnels and leave the note and the carving— and that’s my recorder, thanks much— but that brings us pretty much up to speed.”
Silence reigned. Shining’s face was twitching slightly, while his wife’s was perfectly still. Then, a slow clap echoed through the halls. “Wow,” Discord drawled. “I’m actually surprised. I shouldn't be, but bringing that one back to the Empire?” they shook their head. “Certainly something.”
Twilight, meanwhile, was working herself into a tizzy. “But I, Sombra, not evil? Then what? Crystal Empire, Heart, big black clouds. But not evil, I? But we?” She struggled to collect herself.
Sweetie Belle put a hoof on the older mare’s shoulder. “That was the remains of the Nightmare,” she explained, rubbing tiny, calming circles in Twilight’s back.
The purple mare paused. “...Oh. The big cloud thing. Right.”
“The one which we bucked to Kingdom Come and back, let us not forget!” Luna said proudly. “We doubt that even thy Rainbow Dash could perform such a feat!”
Sunset leaned over to Celestia. “I don’t understand. Even in the story, she could speak modern Equish, so why isn’t she now?”
Celestia raised a brow at her former student. “Really? That’s the part you don’t get?”
Sunset shrugged. Celestia leaned in. “She likes to talk like that,” she muttered. “Makes her feel more self-important.”
“...Huh. But she already rules, like, the entire night. All of it. How much more important does she need to be?”
Celestia shrugged. “If it keeps her sane and happy, I see no problems with it.”
“So…” Shining said slowly, peering around the corner. “Do we get to meet the guy? I mean, I believe you guys. You… trust him. But I wouldn’t mind forming my own opinion of how much a threat to the empire Sombra is actually going to be.”
“He’s a good guy! I’m telling you!” Sweetie insisted.
“That’s as may be,” Cadence agreed. “But to ponies around here, his very existence, it could cause chaos in the streets. We need to take steps to disguise his return.”
“You need not fear, highness,” a mellow baritone rumbled. A portion of the wall suddenly came into sharper focus, and a dark-grey pony stepped from the place he had been standing the entire time. Several of the assembled jumped, and Discord screamed like a goat.
Sombra shied back. Sweetie cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah. We kinda let him out before we came to see you guys. Um, Surprise?”
Cadence was among the first to recover. “Please, excuse me, sir,” she said, stepping forwards.
“Cady,” Shining muttered, pulling on her tail slightly with his aura.
His wife shot him an evil look that spoke volumes, specifically the Unabridged Encyclopedia of Digging Yourself in Deeper and its companion reference, the Complete Atlas of the Sofa you will be Sleeping on Tonight, Buster. Shining let go of his wife’s tail.
Cadence turned back to the stallion currently standing awkwardly in the doorway, the smile back on her face as though it had never left. “My name is Cadence. Princess of the Crystal Empire.”
“Yes, I know who you are,” Sombra did not smile, exactly, but his posture grew slightly more relaxed. “It is an honor to meet the pony who accomplished what I could not.”
“A good deal more than that,” Shining Armor muttered.
Sombra bowed his head in assent. “As you say, Commander Armor.”
Shining went nearly as pink as his wife as every pair of eyes in the room fixed stares of varying degrees of judgement on him, including those of his sister. “So, er, you were saying that we didn’t need to worry about the Empire finding out about… you.”
“Well,” Sombra said. “I scarcely intend to stay here for the remainder of my life. I would be unwelcome. I will live in obscurity in some backwater town, or perhaps take up the life of a nomad, travelling the world after all…”
“You could come stay at Twilight’s,” Sunset said.
“What? Sunset!”
“Well, you already have me and Trixie, and you used to have Starlight Glimmer. I mean, you might as well call it the Former Antagonist’s Halfway House or something.”
“You can’t just volunteer my castle!”
“Oh, so you’re just going to refuse the poor stallion? Leave him out in the cold?”
“I— what— I— no!”
“Then it’s settled,” Sunset said smoothly.
“Do I get a say in this?” Sombra asked.
The Doctor patted him on the withers. “No, not really.”
“Ah. Very well.”
“We’ll just need to get a good disguise on him for the trip,” Sunset said, rubbing her chin. “Or you could take the TARDIS.”
The Doctor’s smile faded. “I… no. No, just, just put the TARDIS in a boxcar. We’ll take the train back with you.”
Twilight blinked. “Really?”
“Yeah, sure!” the Doctor said, his smile slapped on as if it had never come off. “I love trains, me. Brilliant things always happen on ‘em. Trains, spending time with my friends, what could be better?”
Sunset studied the Doctor for a long moment. “Aaaalright,” she said slowly. “Come on, Twilight. If we’re going to get Sombra out of the city, we’re going to need one hell of an illusion… Wish we’d thought to bring Trixie.”
The Doctor looked at the scene. Sweetie was chattering excitedly at Sombra about how much fun he would have in Ponyville, while Celestia and Luna watched closely, though from a respectful distance. Shining was glowering at the former king, but Cadence mostly looked thoughtful. Twilight and Sunset were discussing the relative merits of various disguise spells, and Discord was helping by turning random objects into even more random objects. He let the smile slip from his face. There was something very wrong in his life right now. Something dangerous, influencing his actions at every turn. He would do whatever he needed to do in order to protect his family and friends.
In the TARDIS, the recently-replaced crystal hummed with energy, electricity almost visible beneath its bright, clear blue facets. And then, with a brief, angry crackle of sparks, it turned red.
