Twilight and friends looked out at the Crystal Empire as the train sped towards its destination. Twilight looked out in thought, wondering what Symph could be doing out in the Empire by himself. She felt slightly disappointed in him, going off somewhere to do who knows what in the middle of the night without letting her know beforehand, I read leaving a very vague not on her dresser. But, those feelings were only faint, she knew he was his own person and had things to do or that it may have been a last minute thing. She'd still want an explanation for when he got back though.

She couldn't focus on that at that moment, as she needed to concentrate on her students first friendship lesson. A few nights prior, Starlight and Twilight had a discussion involving their relationship. At first it seemed like Twilight was just watching over Starlight and keeping her in check, but Starlight wanted something more. She wanted to learn and grow like Twilight. As such, Twilight made her her pupil and would begin teaching her about friendship and her own self.

Her first lesson would be confronting her old friend Sunburst, something she was not happy about. Twilight wasn't blind, she knew that Starlight wasn't looking forward to seeing the stallion, but it was something she had to confront eventually, and it was better to do it with a close friend nearby to help her work through it with a steady mind.

"Hey, where's that little butler guy?" Rainbow asked as she looked over to Twilight.

"He's somewhere in the tundras, I don't know what he's doing, but he said he'd meet us in the Crystal Empire before the Crystalling." Twilight answered while looking out at the snow.

"Is something wrong Twilight?" Rarity asked as she walked up to her friend.

Twilight sighed. "I've just got a bad feeling is all..."

"I'm sure he can handle himself just fine Twilight, whatever it is he's doin' it can't be too dangerous for him." Applejack reassured.

Meanwhile

Symph streched his arm over and hit Dementia in the side of the jaw before retracting his limb and dodging some form of glitched electricity. Symph shot four of his tendrils over to his opponent, only for him to glitch through reality and appear in the spot next to the point of impact. Suddenly small tendrils grew out of them and wrapped themselves around Dementia. Symph smirked and wrapped his white flame covered hands around the tendrils, causing them to be set on fire, burning their captive.

Dementia managed to gain enough focus to glitch behind Symph and smack him away with a backhand. Symph crashed into the stone wall and grunted in pain before forming into liquid and wrapping himself around Dementia, beginning to crush him. Dementia summoned two large, glitchy, pixelated fists that grabbed the liquid crushing him and tore it in half and throwing the pieces down. They reformed into Symph who used three black limbs to counter and incoming fist.

Dementia then rushed up to Symph and stabbed his hand through the symbiotes chest. Symph winced and headbutted his enemy, causing him to pull his hand away while he staggered. The hole in his chest filled up and reformed before Symph created a large fireball and coated his fist with it. He dashed over to the recovering Dementia and struck him in the chest. Dementia coughed up a small amount of grey blood before grabbing Symph's arm and sending glitched electricity through it, causing the symbiote to yell in pain before separating from the arm and growing it back, the detached limb breaking down into liquid aged returning to his body.

Dementia held up his hands and time seemed to slow down. Dementia was unaffected and summoned more of the large fists and began to furiously attack his opponent with them. Time returned to normal and Symph was able to break apart into liquid before more damage could be done. 'Ok, this is getting us nowhere.' He thought as he dodged a kick from Dementia that cracked the stone wall behind him.

Symph looked to Zerlinda who was trying to sneak away and nodded to himself. His body returned to normal as he rushed over to the girl and picked her up bridal style. "Hey! What are you doing!?" She yelled in suprise.

"Just trust me." Symph then began running up through the caves as Dementia glitched to try and block their path, on,y for Symph to slap him out of the way with a tendril. 'Starting to run low on energy, I need to get out of here, and fast.' He came to a halt as he exited the cave and came to the tundras. "Hold onto me." He instructed.

"What?" Zerlinda asked as she tried to get free.

"Just do it!" Zerlinda immediately wrapped her arms around him and he encased them both in his liquid. "Just hope this works..." He closed his eyes and concentrated on finding Twilights energy. Once he had located her, he and Zerlinda nerfed together in a small black vortex with Symph's eyes in the middle, which closed resulting in the vortex to disappear before Dementia could exit the caves.

As Twilight and the others got off the train and walked out onto the Crystal Empires train platform they saw Shining Armour standing there with a slightly messy mane and tattered fur. They were about to greet him when they saw a black vortex appear out of nowhere, which dropped Zerlinda before it gathered together and formed Symph who fell to the ground exhausted. Seeing as Shining had fallen asleep standing, Twilight rushed over to her new assistant and looked him over. "Symph? What happened? Who's this girl?" She asked with concern.

"I'll...explain later...just, get her to safety...I need some...energy..." He said weakly.

"Alright, come on, in you go." Twilight spoke softly as Symph broke down into liquid and coveted Twilight before being absorbed into her body.

"Yeah...its just strange seeing that." Rainbow Dash commented.

"Who's this he brough with him?" Starlight asked as he looked over the now sleeping Zerlinda.

"I don't know, but Symph wants us to get her somewhere safe, so she must be important." Twilight answered before Turing to the sleeping stallion. "But first we should wake up my brother..."

Author's Notes:

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, if you spot any mistakes please feel free to point them out in the comments or a PM.

Any fight scenes in this story are going to be far apart from each other, they're not the main focus. If you'd like to see more of them though, I'll happily write up more scenes like them.