private IC: Return of the King (1x1 with Catpone Cerberus)

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

Sombra's dream however, was a different story. While Rarity was locked away in reality - she was not locked away within dreams. Sombra had total control here, and as soon as he realized that - Rarity would "Awaken" and find herself in a cage. The poor mare would be shaking in fear at the darkness surrounding her as if she was suspended in a black void.

"Well...well...well, what have we here? Isn't this interesting?" Sombra spoke to her in a dark fashion, with Rarity all the way backed up from the voice that was speaking to her from the dark. Rarity couldn't see what it was. Sombra would let her mind wander for a few moments before the darkness would take shape - looking at her from the other end of the bars, was Sombra.

"Y-you! You were supposed to be gone! You've taken my body, what have you done?!" Rarity shrieked out to him, hyperventilating at the sight of him.

"I have only killed your friend, Applejack, so far. I have taken possession of Mayor Mare's mind, possessed someone with my mentality - to construct what else I need to take over completely." an image of Applejack's death would flash in front of Rarity, leaving her a crying, screaming mess. Sombra could only cackle deviously at this.

"W-why...why do this...she has a family! She didn't do anything to you...oh, Sweetie Belle...I'm so sorry I can't be there for you!" Rarity cried out, before Sombra would run up to her and grip her throat. "She didn't do anything to me?! It was because of her that I lost my body! If not for her, than at least you share the same fate that was bestowed upon me by your wretched kind!" Sombra shouted with rage, the deviousness gone from his voice, replaced by rage. Rarity by this point was rendered a crying mess. "My plan has already succeeded. The Elements of Harmony are destroyed! With one of you dead, the rest cannot work! I am unstoppable force now, and I will only go further by destroying those Elements, scattering your friends ashes to the four winds, and ensuring my reign over Equestria! While YOU will be there to witness all of the destruction I unleash! Perhaps I'll take Twilight's body if I get to her, but for now, yours will do nicely! Say whatever you like to me, it matters little! If you bore me too much, your own ashes will be scattered to the winds!" Sombra howled with primal rage.

Rarity could only sob at the sight of the enraged hideous stallion before her, her head falling over in anguish. Sombra would then slowly pull away, leaving her in a cage - bringing in the sight of ashes at her hooves.

The dream wouldn't go on much longer, because Sombra was sleeping lightly. He didn't need that much sleep, and so he woke up. As he woke up he'd just lay there a few moments, smirkng slyly at the thought of the mare locked away in his mind. Somewhat lazily, he'd observe Una's sleep. After a while he would walk over and shake her awake, it was time to begin planning the next phase of operations. Una's apparent anxiety perplexed him.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Sombra asked, waiting for an answer. 



 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
It took a second for Una to respond, as it took a moment for her to realize she was awake, and more importantly could move again. "I-I don't know how to explain it." she blurted out, not wanting to raise unnecessary suspicion by staying quiet too long "Something is happening to me." she stood up as she spoke, still shaking "I'm not accusing you, but have you done something to me? because if not, I just may be going insane." she decided to ask honestly about it, because she knew Sombra could affect minds, and knowing that he had done something would have actually made her feel a bit better, as it would have meant that someone had things under control, even if to her personally it wouldn't have been pleasant. "That was not just a nightmare." 
 

 

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

Sombra gave Una a confused look. "I did nothing to you. Like you, I was asleep, so what could I have done?" he asked with a certain look. "Something's going on with you. I sort of noticed it a few times before, that you seem to have something...inside of your mind? Something that isn't what you think it is. While I do have brainwashing magic, I can't get inside of someone's head and read their thoughts. Perhaps whatever it is, is somehow related to how I found you. Beyond that, I don't have a clue." Sombra spoke to her as he would walk to the window and look outside - seeing that it was now shortly after Sunrise in Ponyville. Word would soon spread of what happened to town hall.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
"Something? more like someones." Una stated, Sombra hadn't really asked, but she needed to say things out loud, even if nobody listened "They started as rogue thoughts, then they became voices in my head, and now they are haunting my dreams." "They made me to...eliminate that pony in the way I did." as she spoke, she got ready to move on if they needed to, not that there was lot to get ready, since she never became unready "I doubt it's possession though, they seem to have an interest to make me remember things, not that it worked." 
 

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

"It could be related to the odd...condition you have of being a hybrid between 3 different creatures. You are an artificial being, after all, so its not a surprise at all that you would have something like that." Sombra stated. "I believe the next order of business is to merely observe what happened with Town Hall and see what Mayor Mare's schedule is for the day, I am sure she has some stuff that would be useful to me around the house." Sombra said, and would search the house for Mayor Mare - if she was here. If she was, he would ask her if she had anything valuable or historical in her home here.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
Sombra clearly didn't care much about Una's predicament, so she stopped talking about it, sure there were details that would have probably made him care more, but Una had nothing forcing her to disclose them, Sombra did have control over her actions, and she couldn't say anything to purposely harm him, but she could leave things unsaid, especially now that she had learned to bend the rules by thinking in specific ways. 

And what was this information? simple, from the three...minds? personalities? whatever they were, that were in her head, only this one, her, seemed to be obligated to loyalty, so keeping things under control, was as much to Sombra's interest as it was to hers, but really, why would she tell him that? why indeed...

The mayor was still home, after all, her job had burned down, so while she probably should go there to watch over the clean up, being the mayor and all, it wasn't as toed to schedule as the normal duties would have been...this was going to me a stressful week or so, dealing with the aftermath of this. She answered to Sombra while getting ready for the day, and the answer was pretty much no, as besides obvious things, like money and the aforementioned key, there was nothing special she owned, as she was a regular pony just as anypony else, being a mayor of a relatively small town didn't make you filthy rich like, well Filthy Rich. 

Sure there was historical stuff, like old pictures and one or two old maps of Ponyville as decoration, but those were both useless and worthless, as they weren't in any way unique.

Una kinda just looked around, as she had nothing to say or do, though as she did, she noticed something on the floor, it looked like just dirt at first, but she looked at it closer and realized it was ash, had Flint been here during the night?

 

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

It didn't seem like Sombra would find anything more of value here - and after he had finished talking with Mayor Mare about how there wasn't anything else useful in this town he would stand there and ponder over things a bit. His plan was to take power. He destroyed the Elements of Harmony to put it one way, as there are now no longer bearers for two of them. The next phase of his plan was to destroy the physical Elements of harmony themselves just to be safe - of which he assumed they were kept in Twilight's castle. He would also think Twilight's castle had some form of detection for Dark Magic or some way to ward them off. He knew that Rarity was locked away in his mind and he could likely mentally torture her until she breaks, however long that would be - he did not know. 

Sombra would allow the mayor to leave and attend the duties she needed to do - he didn't want to interfere with that to make it look suspicious. Looking to Una he would see that she noticed something. "What is it?" he asked and then looked down at the ash by Una's hooves. Sombra knew neither of them had any ash on them, so he realized it must have been Flint as she had been inside the fire. He then bears his teeth. "That...ugh! If that is her...why must she always interfere with things? She knows we were here, if she really was here...but no matter, the next phase of operations is to find out where the Physical Elements of Harmony are located, and then destroy them. It will be a difficult task, but I have no doubt we shall succeed." he said, with confidence - but was visibly irritated by seeing the ash on the floor and what it made him think of. 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
After some moments, and after there not being any questions or such for a while, the mayor left to figure out the mess that was the town hall.

Una was bit less concerned on if Flint had been here, and more why, nothing obvious was missing, the mayor hadn't at least mentioned anything being missing, and nothing was on fire, so what exactly had she done here? Sneaking around doing things secretly didn't really fit Flints brand as far as Una could read her. There wasn't really ash anywhere else either, at least not in noticeable amounts, so there was no real way to see where she had been, besides this specific point. She just felt uneasy about someone like that deciding to try to be sneaky.

"Do you have a plan on how to destroy them?" Una asked "If they are capable of taking you down, how do you know you can destroy them?" "Or are you planning to use Lunar to destroy them?"

 

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

"My best guess is that the Elements needed all 6 bearers alive to function. I do not know much else how they function, but I guess that they only work with the proper wielders. We must act fast in order to prevent them from finding other wielders for them, if that is how they work. I like the idea of using Lunar to destroy them, it would need to be done - to completely eradicate their existence. Find out the possible source of their power, if it is something external, and destroy that as well." Sombra stated. "But one has to learn more about them, and their location, first."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
"I have a feeling that information like that will be well protected." Una concluded, though she also had a feeling that it wasn't that simple, sure she knew nothing about the elements, but to her something called the elements of...anything really, that seemingly are magically very significant, were unlikely to be something you could just break, if nothing else, they would probably be destined to form again if destroyed. 

But then again, it really wasn't her concern, Sombra was the one worried about them, and would be the one needing to deal with them, she...well, she wasn't naive, she knew she was probably as much of a target for them at this point, but she wasn't as worried, since unlike Sombra, she wouldn't survive as a tiny piece, and death didn't really scare her, after all, her 'life' wasn't exactly the desirable kind. 

 

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

"I would think that the most likely ones who know of their location would be the elite Canterlot guard, who are tasked with protecting Equestria's secrets. While we were in their headquarters recently, we did not look too deeply for anything like that, and the guard Captain I did not brainwash." he suggested, seemingly satisfied with the idea of returning to Canterlot to pursue that avenue. He also added that Una was free to suggest ideas, but he'd begin leading the way towards the Ponyville railyard - ready to look for a train to hop on. He'd pull out a basic cloak of some kind, to hide the fact that it was Rarity's appearance he was using. 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
Una, as usual, nodded, and for ideas, she didn't have any at the moment, and mentioned as much, but also stated that the only thing currently was that they should use what they have access to, so if, when, they got their hooves on the elements, they should probably see if Lunar can tell them something before doing anything drastic with them.

Train catching wouldn't go quite as planned this time though, because certain somebody would interrupt them on a quiet spot in their way to the railyard, though this time she seemed lot less amused, and lot more...sinister, not that they had much time to see her face. As out of nowhere, Flint dropped from above, landing directly on Una, with enough force to knock the air out of her. Blue magic burned in her eyes, in the same way dark magic flowed out of one's eyes, and the symbols in her hands were glowing red. As she landed on poor Una, she grabbed her middle horn with one hand, while holding some kind of amulet on the other, though other than that and the glowing magic, it wasn't clear what exactly she was doing.

Una meanwhile, besides gasping for air from having had air hit out of her, tried to struggle to best of her ability, but Flint had a good hold on her, and it didn't help that she could barely breath, and there was intense pain similar to what she had gone through with the helmet, which actively hindered her from even trying to use magic to free herself, not that she could have done much anyway, since she was yet to learn any actually powerful spells. 

After Flint got her position in order after landing, she moved her amulet-hand to also press it against Una, which spread the pain beyond the area around Una's horn, and she spoke quietly something to Una's ear, though due to her current state, Una didn't really catch all of it. 

This all happened in matter of second or two, so there was no real chance to stop it from happening. 

 

[King Sombra]

@Catpone Cerberus

To put it one way, the whole situation de-railed Sombra's entire plan. For the moment, the entire plan went to the wayside - Flint had made her appearance again. It all happened so fast, all that Sombra could currently think was that Flint was transferring some kind of magic into Una or doing something to cause her pain. Whatever it was, he had no chance to stop it from happening. There wasn't currently anyone around in the rail yard where they were, so he was free to explode into rage. His rage surged and dark magic built up in Rarity's eyes. Sombra then charged towards Flint like a bullet, bringing out various dark magic blades in an attempt to stab at her and shove her off of Una. Sombra was done playing around with Flint. The first few times may have been amusing, if a bit bothersome - but whatever this was, this crossed the line. If Flint was going to act out towards Sombra, than Sombra had no qualms in treating her like an enemy. 

To say Sombra was furious was an understatement. Flint could burn down buildings, or verbally insult him all she wanted - but this was too much for him to control his emotions with. Perhaps it was his weakness, or perhaps it was his strength. If Una and Flint were capable, or receptive - they would possibly be able to feel Sombra's own hatred exploding before them into a large outpour around Sombra. His dark magic aura, the way he moved, everything about it emitted raw hate. Sombra said nothing to Flint, he was done talking.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
With the daggers, Sombra would find that the metal thing Flint was wearing, wasn't just an odd fashion statement, as regardless of it barely covering anything physically, it turned out to be a full-body protection, in a way. The blades did hit her, they even seemingly hurt her, but, there was no physical damage to her, not a scratch. She was shoved off Una, however, it happened on her terms, as she jumped off her and with a roll landed on her feet, the amulet she had been holding was left on top of Una. 

Flint was grinning as she faced Sombra, both of her eyes engulfed by the blue magic, however, interestingly enough her horn wasn't lit, rather, the magic seemed to flow through her entire body, and it was quite powerful magic indeed, and similar in its nature as dark magic, "Ha Ha, Finally!." "You were so boring!" "Lets see if you can hurt me." She then materialized a knife from her hand, and threw it towards Sombra, the knife had a red symbol on it, and when it hit something, the symbol glowed and the point of impact grew small vines out of it, which would be quite painful if the point of impact happened to be alive.

If Sombra kept going attacking Flint, she wouldn't dodge, or even try to block it, and would instead to just take the attacks, and while she seemingly felt pain, and would be pushed back and so on like one would expect, she seemingly did not get injured, and every time she just smiled, grinned or laughed, she was enjoying it. Notably, besides the one knife throw, she did not attack Sombra, she only did things to provoke him to attack, and then took the attack straight on. 

Meanwhile Una, now that the literal weight was off of her, scrambled on her hoofs as best as she could, the amulet moments later shattered, which put a stop to the continuous pain surging through her, though it didn't mean she was feeling fine, as she was still feeling it, and she needed to catch her breath. though she did move to the side to avoid getting hit by something. What came to Sombra's aura, Flint had not ability to feel it, and Una, whiles he could sense it, didn't really comprehend it at the moment, partly because she wasn't in the right headspace, but also because it wasn't the only thing, Flint's aura had also gotten lot stronger, and it felt different to her usual weird aura, it was oddly similar to Sombra's normal aura, just more...ancient. 
 

 

[Props Valroa 26,046]

@Catpone Cerberus

Sombra would snarl at Flint, of which Flint may consider it amusing it was basically Rarity snarling at her. Sombra would quickly dodge the knife that was thrown his direction - he had combat experience in war, so he knew how to hold a fight. Though Flint would very likely prove she was no traditional opponent - as her seemingly just standing there taking the blows Sombra did towards her. Sombra also took note that her whole body was seemingly glowing with magic - so it was clear to him she did not have traditional magic.

The blades had seemingly failed to do any real damage to her - so this called for a more direct approach. Sombra then began charging right at Flint's direction, though would randomly skip and jump side to side in an unpredictable manner that seemed to be rather unusual for someone to be able to do. His horn was glowing with dark magic, so it was likely some kind of dark magic spell that he was doing on himself. As he charged towards Flint, suddenly he would begin shooting black crystals towards her direction - though they would not actually hit her, but land in various spots in a circular pattern around her and begin rooting themselves into the ground quite rapidly - while also rapidly expanding as well. He wanted to try to ensnare her in a trap or try to damage her with the crystals. As this process happened, he kept shooting them towards the ground, making the process exponential. 

Sombra was furious - and had the intent on doing severe damage to Flint. Only way he would stop is if Flint somehow forced him to stop, or if there were other ponies who stumbled into the area, if there were - he would grab Una in his magic and rapidly withdraw from the scene - using his magic to dispel all of the black crystals and dark magic from the area. If there were no such interruptions, he would aim to gain a tactical advantage. Right now he wasn't focusing that much on Una, but was concerned about the possibility of Flint doing some kind of mind altering spell on Una to make her not listen to him, or something of the sort. 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
Flint was beyond finding things amusing, she was having fun, and she didn't hide it. Sombra's skipping and jumping were rather pointless, as Flint wasn't trying to dodge his attacks, nor was she actively trying to attack him either, so at most it made her rise an eyebrow, as it looked quite silly to her. This however didn't mean she was standing totally still, because as Sombra did his thing, she did hers, more specifically, she materialized two axes from her hands, they too had some kind of red magical symbol on them, but instead of using them against Sombra in any way, she tossed them to her sides, and when they landed, they started freezing everything around them. This didn't seem to have any real threat to Sombra, as they were relatively far, and the Ice wasn't spreading towards them, but rather evenly around the axes. 

Regarding the crystals, Flint just looked at them before looking at Sombra gain, chuckling "Trying to restrain me? aright, I'll humor you." she spread her arms and just stood there, mocking grin on her face "Do your worst, king" the way she said 'king' was mocking and derogatory.  Una meanwhile, now that she was in safe distance, observed the situation and grew bit concerned, what was the deal with this creature? she just stood there taking blows, and now she just waited to be restrained instead of even trying to avoid it?

 

[Props Valroa 26,046]

@Catpone Cerberus

Up until this point Sombra had made no indication that he was capable of using any other magic other than his shadow magic. There would be no words from him as the dark crystals moved in on Flint, not even trying to just hold her in place - but rapidly sharpening like blades in an attempt to do severe damage to her limbs. It was at that moment, the amulet he had would glow a combination of white and blue. He had not much experience with his water and light magic that he had gotten from one of the amulets he and Una managed to steal earlier on, but he wanted to see if there was something he could do with it. 

Suddenly all around Flint would be a bright white flash as water started to shoot out of the crystals in all directions around her. Sombra was attempting to focus the water into fine, highly pressured streams but appeared to have been having some difficulties. Despite that, in a few seconds water had been shooting at Flint in a highly pressurized fashion, as if Sombra was trying to cut into her with it, as well as trying the black crystals to use as blades to cut into, and restrain her as much as possible, while keeping the flashing lights going, moving in the flashing lights towards her eyes to try to stun or confuse her. 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa

Flint just laughed, her voice was breaking a bit, again indicating that she in fact felt pain, but other than that, she didn't seem to be affected much. "This thing really is something isn't it!" she shouted "I think it was used as a torture device!" "It amplifies pain, but protects me from permanent injury!" she was silent for moment before talking more "And it's not the only trick in my non-existing sleeves." she then freed her arms like it was nothing, shattering the crystal that was holding them; the flashing lights didn't do much as she simply closed her eyes, not that stunning or confusing her did any good, since even now she was not fighting back in any way. "And the best part? magic nullification doesn't work because all of these are curses!" "But I gotta bounce, so see you later, King" again, 'king' was said in insulting manner. She then materialized two dagger sized military forks, again with symbols, and threw them at the ice that had been forming around them, Sombra's water only increasing the ice's formation; when they hit the ice, it instantly vaporized, covering the area in thick, hot steam, and when the steam faded, Flint and all of her weapons were gone.

[Props Valroa 26,046]

@Catpone Cerberus

Even despite Sombra's failure to damage her in any way - Sombra smirked wickedly. Flint had ran her mouth and spoken of something that could be used against her. She spoke of curses and her being protected from permanent injury. Now he knew something about her that he didn't before. Flint had been cursed. Knowing curses, there would be a way to break them. Not that Sombra would know right off the bat, but he had a way to move forward with this - to defeat Flint, he needed to nullify her curses somehow. Pain didn't really matter if there wasn't a way to perform permanent injury. While he was enraged that he wasn't able to defeat her here and now, he had the wisdom of seeing the value in learning what he learned. Once Flint was gone, he would dispel the magic he used in the area. The water, ice, and the dark magic would fade from the area as he stared at Una.

"What did she do to you?" he asked with a frustrated grunt, walking over to her - the stare in his eyes indicating he wanted answers. 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
Flint hadn't been as careless as one would first think, sure, curses could be broken, but unlike spells and regular magic, there wasn't some single 'get rid of curses' spell out there, every curse was unique, and while some were as simple as purifying some item or something, others weren't, some may require active sacrifice, and some can only be transferred rather than entirely broken. That of course ignoring that Flint's curses were also unlikely to be Equestrian in origin, meaning that even learning the exact types of curses they were could be complicated to say the least. And ultimately, the biggest 'but' of all, could Sombra really be sure he was the first to come up with the idea?

"I don't know." Una stated truthfully "Besides a headache I don't feel any different." "She whispered something about a 'gift' and about thanking her later, but I couldn't really catch what else she said." she showed Sombra the pieces of the shattered amulet "Any idea what this was?" the answer was most likely no, the amulet wasn't any well known artifact, and whatever magic it may have had was now gone, the most notable detail about it was the fact that it looked old, as in, ancient, ancient enough that it would have been old even by the time Sombra had still been a ruler. 

 

[Props Valroa 26,046]

@Catpone Cerberus

Sombra had thought that he wasn't the first to come up with the idea. It was the only real idea that he had, other than potentially somehow trapping Flint somewhere. Flint was going to be a real problem for the future that he would need to address somehow. It was a serious problem.

Sombra would turn towards Una and look at the ancient artifact, he couldn't really tell what it was at all because it was shattered. "I have no idea what that is. We'll have to find someone to look at it. For now, we best be moving and get out of here. Sneaking into Canterlot should be easy. I expect the guards to have full knowledge of where the Elements would be and where other precious artifacts would be stored." he stated, looking for a suitable freight train to board. There were a few here headed to Canterlot - he wasn't sure at all of the time when they would leave - but there were two trains that seemed to be ready to depart soon. He'd lead the way and sneak into one of the empty rail cars.

If there were no other interruptions, the train would depart off to Canterlot within a half hour with Una and Sombra on board.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,428]

@Props Valroa
While she didn't say anything, Una did a mental eye roll in her mind, find 'someone'? they already had someone, in this town...she then caught herself thinking that, that was oddly....rebellious? of her, sure she didn't actually say anything, or do anything besides the usual nod, but she did have a momentary urge to actually say something along those lines. She put the shattered pieces into her pocket and followed Sombra. 

Her thoughts were cut short by her headache, it surged momentarily, causing her to bite her teeth, whatever Flint had done seemed to have a longer effect than the helmet, which was bit weird to her, since certainly an artifact like that would be more powerful than whatever Flint can get her hands on, right? In the car, she laid down; she wasn't tired, but the headache was really doing number on her mood "If it is aright, I'll try to rest this headache away, it's hindering my performance." 

[Props Valroa 26,046]

@Catpone Cerberus

Sombra growled in rage at Una's condition, though it was not anything Una did herself - it was all Flint. "If she did something to you and filled you with say, thoughts of betrayal - it's her fault. She probably wanted to meddle something into your mind to turn you against me." he hissed with toxic rage as he stood over Una, his eyes glaring at her as the train sped off towards Canterlot. Despite their relative security for the time being, Sombra was paranoid about the potential of encountering Flint or others who could stand in his way. He made it so the Elements cannot possibly defeat him, as far as he knew - but Flint could very easily stand in the way of enjoying his victory. After he finds the physical Elements of Harmony and destroys them, Flint will become his main focus. 

Sombra would otherwise be silent on the way to Canterlot. If the train arrived without issue, he would begin leading them towards an Alley nearby to the Guard Headquarters so they can plan out their next move.