Symbols POV

I placed the covers over Ashley as she had fallen asleep in my arms. I wiped the tears from her cheeks and placed her hat on a chair. As I got up from the bed I looked to the photo on her bedside table. I stood there, frozen, feelings of jealousy and sympathy came to me all of a sudden. Shaking my head I walked out of the room and approached my own.

Abi had fused with me and went to sleep in my mindscape, a dimension that exists inside my very being. It's like the inside of a dark castle, it's actually quite beautiful if you look at it from a certain point of view. The main hallway of it is solid black, one wall is lined with huge paintings of my memories and the other is made of glass looking down at a sea of clouds, patterns of black roses embedded on the windows.

As I walked into my room I threw the orb down and a bedroom with the basic essentials appeared, the main colours being purple and grey. I sighed and lay down on my king sized bed and closed my eyes.

I was pulled into a dream. I looked around and found myself in an area comprised mainly of dark purple crystals. I then heard the laugh of my two greatest foes I had ever encountered in my past life. Turning around I saw them, Xram and The Nightmare. Xram was a black skeleton wearing a white cloak that was held by a red gem. The Nightmare had the same physique as me, except his skin was grey and his hair was jet black. Two red lines formed from the bottom of his dead black eyes and ended at his chin. His black eyes only had glowing red dots as pupils, his teeth were razor sharp and he had four dark tendrils growing out of his back.

"Why are you here Xram? You are supposed to be dead." I stated with ice in my voice, the danger he had put my friends into was unforgivable. He possessed my friend’s body, nearly killed my other friends, destroyed a universe and drained Octavia of her life force. I started walking towards him with purple fire furiously burning from my clenched fist.

"Wrong, that part of me was destroyed. Truth be told you only took a smidge of my true power away from me when you destroyed it, but that's all you did. Barely even weaken me. You even sacrificed your very soul to destroy me, and look where that landed you." The skeleton mocked with a sinister chuckle.

"Why Symbol, haven't you learned by now?" Nightmare teleported right up to my face. "You can't escape me, you really can't forget, the party has just begun, you can try to run and hide but it just makes things more fun!" The dream started to fade and I fell into my mindscape.

I got to my feet and growled. "We'll just see about that."

Ashely’s POV

I woke up a few hours later, though I don’t remember falling asleep. I certainly don’t remember being tucked into my bed. Ah well, whatever. The sun had started to rise into the air, preventing me from trying to go back to the wondrous bliss that was sleep. I rose from my bed and got dressed in my usual cloths. Once that was done, I went out to see if anyone else was up yet. Turns out that Symbol was, and he was making pancakes. He turned and saw me entering the room.

“Huh? Oh morning Ash.”

“Morning.”

“Would you care for some pancakes?”

“Yes please!” I sat down at the purple and orange dining room table, he snapped his fingers and one of the cupboards opened to reveal a few white plates. Extending a finger a two tiny tendrils of fire grew and grabbed two plates. He placed a few pancakes on one of the plates and used a tendril to pass it over to me.

"The syrup and other toppings are on the counter beside you." He explained before turning back to make some more for himself.

"Hey, aren't you gonna make some for Abi?" I asked with a piece of the pancake still in my mouth.

"When she's fused with me whatever I eat also gets eaten by her. So if you see me eating large portions of food randomly you know why." I shrugged and went back to eating, he sat down on the opposite end of the table with a slightly bigger pile of pancakes.

"There been something I've been wondering about you." He looked at me confused. "Who calls their kid Symbol?" I already knew why he changed his name but I wanted to know the meaning behind it.

He looked down and sighed. "My parents didn't call me Symbol, I did. When I went to Equestria I changed my name as an attempt to let go of my past. The reason I chose Symbol...I honestly don't know why, it just came to me and it matched my current situation at the time. Full name was Symbol Shattered, weird I know but it honestly fit at the time. Now I'm just Symbol. I've grown to like the name." I just looked at him as an image made its way into my mind.

It was of a younger looking Symbol. He had short brown hair and blue eyes. He wore an open blue shirt with a black t-shirt underneath. He also wore light blue jeans and white trainers, also having a necklace with a silver medallion with the symbol of the sun on it. The look on the younger Symbols face was stern and depressed. The look in his eyes made me shiver a bit, those were the eyes of someone that had seen some serious shit.

The image was gone as soon as it came. I guessed that was what he looked like before he was taken from his Equestria. The difference was huge, he looked like he was only fourteen then, but now he seemed like he was at least nineteen.

Looking at him with a careful gaze I went back to eating the delicious breakfast he had made for me.

We began walking towards Ponyville when Abi separated from Symbol. "I'm going exploring, you two have fun."

"Be careful, I don't need Epidemic randomly showing up when you suddenly find yourself in danger." She nodded and walked off in a random direction.

"Who's Epidemic?" He looked at me and closed his eyes.

"He's one of my brothers, he's a symbiote like Abi except he is the combined form of two younger symbiotes. To say he's strong is an understatement. I fought with him a short while before I had fought a great evil. He helped create Abi and if she is ever in danger he will show up to defend her, and that would only cause more problems for me and my teacher." It was obvious I wasn't going to get anything else out of him, so we just walked in silence.

As we passed the Everfree Forest a group of timberwolves jumped out and growled, obviously wanting revenge for the events of yesterday. I was about to fry them when Symbol placed his hand on my shoulder and walked towards the wolves with his head down.

As one of the wolves was about to pounce Symbol lifted his head and gave the wolves a death glare. The wolves cowered under his gaze and started backing away. They all retreated into the forest of thorns. Symbols features softened and he continued walking. "Come on, we have so,e training to do before we meet the princesses." He stated calmly.

'What the hell was that?' I thought as I stood still.

"You coming or not?"

"Oh, right sorry." I ran until I had caught up with him. As we entered Ponyville Symbol stepped to the side to avoid being knocked down by a familiar pink blur. "How did you know to do that?"

"I lived in Ponyville before, remember?" I just nodded and we turned to the pink ball of energy that was Pinkie Pie. "So Pinkie, what's up?"

The mare was on her head. "You are!" She giggled at her own little pun before getting up. "Oh, and Twilight wanted me to get you two. Said something about Princess Celestia wanting to see all of us! She was really serious about it too."

"Alright Pinkie, tell Twilight we will meet you girls in Canterlot when you get there." Pinkie gave him a salute and shot off towards the train station. "We have a few hours before they get to Canterlot on the train, let's get some practice done then I'll take us there." I nodded and we turned to walk to our training grounds.