Ashes In The Wind

Chapters

This cannot be real
Training and a stupid decision
Child left behind and introductions
Feeling the hurt
Why choose Symbol?
Piece of history
No choice in the matter
Understanding
Symbols offer
Get ready for an Epidemic
Psychotic battle
Burning sensation
Forging Relationships
Trust in him
He has others?
Strangers
The graves
Strange foal
Looking back
Symbol at the bachelor party
His other child
The bigger they are...
Three's a crowd
Fusion is the solution
Time is changing
Rainbow wants to join us?
One more secret
Backed into a corner
Talks with friends
Silliness and a moment with Celestia
Friendly conversation
Unrest
Plain as black
Alive
The spot
Closer
Dreaming
Loneliness
Reunion
Ending
Prologue (revisited)
Side adventures
Free of a Nightmare

This cannot be real

Equestria

Celestia sat at her throne, listening to the last noble that would attend her day court for that day. After answering his plea and declining it due to it being very questionable, she slumped in her chair and breathed a sigh of relief.

"When there isn't any world threatening monster about everything here is just so dull." Rubbing her temples with her hooves she sighed. "I know that something will happen when I say this but...I just want something exciting to happen around her that isn't just gone with a shot of the elements of harmony."

Little did the sun princess know, there was someone that would make her wish come true.

Ashley's POV, Earth

Hi, my name is Ashley, but my friends usually call me Ash for short. I am 17 years old and I am a huge fan of One Piece. What! You haven't heard of One Piece? How dare you! Allow me to give you a short description.

One Piece is an anime that is based in the days of pirates. It's world has one huge continent called The Red Line that separates the sea into two pars. However there is a great sea that separates the world into four part, this is known as The Grand Line. The four seas of this world, East Blue, West Blue, South Blue and North Blue, all have multiple islands that each bring something new to those who travel the seas. The pirate king, Gold Roger or you can call him by his real name Gol.D.Roger, obtained everything the world had to offer, wealth, fame and power. With his dying words he shook the world. "You want my treasure? You can have it, I left it all in one place, now you just have to find it!" These words drove countless souls to the seas, in search of the one and only, One Piece!

The story takes place twenty two years after Rogers execution, and no one had found the One Piece. A young man named Monkey.D.Luffy dreams of becoming the next pirate king and sets out to explore the bast oceans and along the way he finds extraordinary people to join his hearty crew.

Now this is where things get interesting. You see, in the world of One Piecethere exists a special fruit, the devil fruits. If a person were to even take one crumb of these fruits and eat it, they would be given supernatural powers. Some are useless but some have the power to cause freakin earthquakes with a punch! They exist in three variants, Paramecia (superpower) Zoan (Animal) Logia (Elemental). There is a weakness to these Godlike powers, whoever eats the fruit loses their ability to swim as the ocean turns against them, kinda inconvenient for pirates dontcha think?

You get all that? Good, now we can begin. As I said I am a huge fan of the show and I am also a pegasister. I am a little embarrassed to say this but I am a Fire Fist Ace fan girl, I don't mean that I think he is the best character, I am literally obsessed with him. That's why for this years Comic Con I was going as a gender swapped version of him, although the way the costume is it might cause a few nerds to have a heart attack.

The costume consists of a pair of short black jeans with a large belt around it that held a sheathed knife. A backpack that held nothing as that would hold the stuff I bought at the Con later that day. A large orange hat that had a pair of goggles on the top with one lense having a smiley face while the othe had a frowny face. A red beaded necklace and lastly a white bra...that was it, a bra. I couldn't even find a shirt that could fit the costume so I guess I'll just have to be a piece of eye candy this year.

Anyway, I was in my brothers sports car. His name was Frank and he was, funny enough, going as Franky. "Couldn't you wear something a little less revealing sis?" He was a pretty buff guy, great muscle and smooth skin. He generally attracted a lot of attention from the girls in his collage, although he never strayed away from his girlfriend Samantha, who was waiting for us at the Con dressed as Nico Robin.

"I tried to find something Frank, but I couldn't. I already spent a crapton of money on all this I am not wasting it. Plus it'll be funny to see all the nerds reactions." He groaned and faceplamned.

"What am I going to do with you Ashley?"

"Love me forever, protect me, scare off my boyfriends, go along with my crazy schemes and just follow me wherever I go because you don't trust me." He just remained silent.

We pulled up to the parking lot of the Con and got out of the car. Frank walked to the trunk of the car to put on the rest of his cosplay. He put on large robot arms with spherical shoulder pads. He had a metal nose and some sunglasses. He had a Hawaiian shirt and a blue speedo. He dyed his hair blue and combed it until it looked like a hairstyle from the 80's. "Only you can actually pull off Franky without looking ridiculous bro." He rolled his eyes and locked the car.

"Let's go, I don't wanna keep Samantha waiting. More importantly I don't want any desperate teens hitting on her." I chuckled and skipped along beside him as I imagined what the events that were scheduled would be like. There was a showing of One Piece Film Z later on and I have been dying to see it.

As we walked onto the grounds we immediately heard a familiar voice. "Yoohoo! Frank, Ashley!" We looked over to see Samantha walking towards us. She wore a tight leather dress with stockings and boots. Her hair was dyed black and was straightened, her skin was tanned. "Hello you two."

"Hey babe, looking gorgeous as ever." Frank hugged her and they kissed, causing me to gag. "So, you ready to go in?" She nodded and we began walking up to the entrance, them walking hand in hand. We decided to split up as they both wanted to look at the Marvel and DC Universe stalls. I however went straight to the anime panels, Eiichiro Oda the creator of One Piece was supposed to be here at a QnA along with the FUNimation and Japanese voice actors for the show.

On my way I accidentally bumped into someone, causing us both to fall over. "Oh my goodness I am so sorry!" The person got up and dusted himself off before holding out his hand to help me up.

"It's quite alright, I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, to busy admiring this beauty." This boy was dressed as Trafalgar Law. He reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of fruit, but not just any fruit, it was the Mera Mera No Mi, or the Flare-Flare fruit for those who don't know. Fire Fist Ace's devil fruit.

"How did you get that?"

He looked at me confused. "Oh, I bought it from this really creepy dude a few panels back, gave it to me for just thirty bucks, sucker." He looked me over, but not the way you'd expect, he was looking over the costume. "Hey, nice gender swap cosplay."

"Thanks, I like your Trafy costume." He looked to the fruit then back to me.

"Hey, tell you what. I'll give you the fruit if I can get a picture with you."

"Done!" I don't care what this go was going to do with the picture but I needed that fruit for some reason. He smiled and pulled out a camera. He stood beside me and we leaned against each other.

"Say, Equestria!"

"Equest- Wait what?" He took the picture and handed me the fruit.

"Pleasure doing business with you..." His black eyes turned purple, "...Portgas.D.Ashley." My vision became blurry, soon becoming completely black. "See you soon." With that I passed out.

Equestria

I slowly opened my eyes and was greeted by a soft ray of sunlight that managed to pierce through the leaves of a tree. Slowly siting up I took in my surroundings, I was on a hill in a field of grassy hills with a large tree giving me shelter from the sunlight. The grass flowed in waves as the soft breeze blew across the tiny plants. The field seemed to go on for a long way, but I saw a forest near the horizon.

Rubbing my face I stood up. I then looked at my hands and froze. My fingers were slimmer that they were before. Looking over my body I noticed I had a killer figure. My waist was small and my hips were a little wide, my legs were longer and slimmer, as were my arms. My skin was silky smooth. Seeing a puddle nearby I walked over and looked at my reflection. My face was smoother and I had adorable little freckles under my eyes. My hair was short and black, consisting of spikes that went down rather than up. My eyes were also turned grey and they were noticeably bigger.

I then realised I was still in my Ace costume. Looking at my arm I noticed a tattoo that was no there before. It was the letters A, C, a crossed out S and an E. It was official, I was the actual gender bent Ace. "This cannot be real."

"Oh it's real alright." Turning back I saw a young man standing there in a purple trench coat and long grey hair, his underclothes were grey and his eyes...wait those are the eyes of that Trafy guy. "Now now, let's not get angry at anyone."

I just stared at him. "Who are you?" He chuckled and leaned against the tree.

"The name is Symbol, and I'm your displacer." That sentence right there, that was when I realised what the hell was going on.

"YOU DISPLACED ME?!?!" I yelled causing him to flinch.

"Um, yeah that's what I just told you." I slowly approached him with a stern expression. He had his back against the tree as I was right up in his face, he was only few inches taller than me. I then brought him into a bone crushing hug.

"Thank you!"

"Huh...you are taking this remarkably well." He just smiled as I hugged him. Then I realised something which caused me to set him down and slap him.

"You displaced me in skimpy clothes you jerk!" I covered my chest and huffed.

"Hey, I don't control what you wear when you get displaced. If you had just asked I would have given you a shirt or something." He snapped his fingers and a yellow shirt appeared.

"Actually, I think I'll stay this way, gives me more freedom and allows my skin to breathe." He just shrugged and the shirt vanished.

"Anyway, I don't think I have to explain to you where you are, so I'll just be leaving, Canterlot is that way, Ponyville is that way." He was about to disappear when I placed a finger to his...well built chest.

"Oh no you don't, you got me into this and you are gonna help me control my new fire powers." I grabbed his hand and began leading him in the direction of Ponyville.

"Hey! I have important stuff to do!"

"Yeah well I don't care, you're staying with me during this!" He shut up and just had a dumbfounded look on his face as I dragged him.

Training and a stupid decision

I clenched my fist and looked at a test dummy that Symbol had put out for me. Focusing on my hand I managed to summon my fire. Winding up my arm I threw my flaming fist foreward. "Fire Fist!" A large blast of fire shot out of my hand and completely destroyed the test dummy. I heard clapping and saw Symbol leaning against a rock.

"Well done, you've gotten used to your powers faster than I anticipated." I blushed slightly at his compliment. "Now, I'm going to show you something a little different." I looked at him with curiosity. Walking over and sitting down I watched him appear in the middle of the clearing. "You have leaned how to create fire and use it in attacks, but you do not know how to maintain it fire more than a few seconds." He reached his hand out and small tongues of purple fire started circling it. "Being able to maintain a single attack for longer periods of time can give you an edge in battle." He shot out a small burst of purple fire and it stayed in the air. He then held out his hand and the flames converged into his palm creating a dark purple blade. "As you can see, you can also shape your fire into objects, such as swords and small knives." With his other hand he swiped the air and five small blades of fire shot out and impaled a large rock.

"Coooooolll." I got up and focused on both of my hands. Creating two small bursts of flames I focused on keeping them in the air, I then imagined the fire turning into two blades and that's precisely what happened. Looking in my hands I now had two orange curved blades. "Awesome."

"Hmm, as I thought, your powers are also connected to your thoughts." He looked up to the sky and noticed the position of the sun. "Alright, enough training for today. Well go to Ponyville, get all the introductions out of the way and rest up. Tomorrow I will teach you how to use Armament Haki." I squealed in joy and began following Symbol as he led me towards Ponyville, a frown adorning his face.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He looked at me quickly before turning back.

"Nothing, it's just...something is happening today and I can't even go, even though it greatly involves me." I suddenly felt guilty.

"Am I holding you back from it?" He shook his head.

"No, just some rules I have to follow, even if it means I miss this." We continued walking in silence until I heard another voice.

'Ugh, that's it, I can't handle this anymore!' Symbols body went dark purple and a blob of black liquid jumped off of him, forming the shape of a pony. "Symbol, ignore the rules just this once and go see her!" To say I was surprised by the sudden appearance of this mare would be an understatement, I was more confused than anything.

"Abi, you heard Roden, I'm not about to go against his word, I owe him too much."

"What do you owe him huh? He'd be dead if it weren't for you! All of us would be dead if it wasn't for you! I think he's the one with the debt to repay Symbol, not you!" Symbol went to say something but came up short. Looking to the ground his face went from sorrow to determination.

"Abi, take Ashley to Ponyville, I've got to go see someone very special." He burst into purple flames and disappeared.

I just looked at the pony that I now knew as Abi confused. "Um, hi?"

She turned to me and smiled. "Oh, hi there. Name's Abi, symbiote pony if you're wondering."

"You mind telling me what that was all about?"

"Symbol had a life before he became a displacer-in-training, he had to leave that life behind with little choice in that matter. He left behind a legacy among other things." She gave me a look that told me she couldn't say any more.

"Well...uh, shall we go then?" Abi nodded and began leading me through a forest.

Symbols POV

I stormed down the hall of doorways until I came to the door with the sun necklace on it. As I put my hand on the doorknob I heard someone cough behind me. "Don't try and stop me Roden."

"Take your hand off the door Symbol."

"Why should I? I have a right to see her be born! I have a right to see both of them be born!" I turned to him with a look of rage. "I deserve, to see my daughter's birth."

Roden just stared daggers at me. "Don't you remember what you owe me? I saved your life."

"But before that I saved yours! And everyone else's in the damn multiverse!" I clearly caught him off guard with this. "It's you, that owes me something. I never asked to be resurrected and you didn't have to teach me. I at least deserve to hold my child at least once."

He remained silent and crossed his arms. "Fine...just don't let anyone know you are there." He walked away and I opened the door, walking through and into my old universe...The Second Universe.

When I walked in I failed to notice Roden hiding behind a pillar. "He's learning..."

Ashley's POV

We finally reached a hill overlooking the peaceful town of Ponyville. I took in the details of the town that couldn't be shown in the cartoon, due to limited animation. Just then Abi and I heard screams in the town. Looking at the centre of the village I managed to spot a gang of Timberwolves terrorising the town.

"Well, ain't that convenient?" Stated Abi sarcastically.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you were to save the town from the Timberwolves that are vulnerable to fire the ponies will accept you easier." She thought about it and looked at me. "Ok, I'm gonna do something here and you can't freak out, ok?"

"That depends on what you wanna do." I said uncomfortably.

"I'm going to fuse with you, give ta a bit of a power boost and I can stop any attacks from going haywire." I nervously nodded at the plan and she turned back into liquid, fusing with my body.

"Hey hey! Easy on the chest!"

'Sorry, they're just so plump.'

I groaned and began running towards the town. Unaware of what my displacer was doing at that very moment.

Child left behind and introductions

A group of ponies and glowing human figures stood around the hospital bed that Octavia Melody was laying in, a newborn foal in her arms. A skeletal figure in a black cloak stood by the wall with a man in a white coat and a woman that was all blue and had her hair in a ponytail.

It had almost been a year since Symbols supposed death and now his child had been brought into the world. The foal in Octavia's arms had pink fur, it's mane was a light purple with a stripe of white at the edge and was curled to look like cotton candy. The little filly's eyes were light purple and her pupils were swirls. "Beautiful, isn't she?" Octavia asked to everyone in the room, getting a nod from everyone.

A few displaced walked into the room, they were a Mecha Sonic, Metal Sonic, Slenderwoman, a humanised Auldin with two young children and a Bill Cipher. The Slenderwoman walked over and knelt down beside the bed.

"So this is Symbols daughter, she's adorable." She tickled the newborn with one of her tendrils.

"Thank you Lisa, and again, thank you for the magnificent baby shower you threw me a few weeks ago." Lisa just nodded and walked away from the bed, allowing Bill and the rest to come and say their piece. The filly giggled as the Mecha Sonic and Metal Sonic pushed each other to get a look at her.

Suddenly time stopped around the filly and everyone in the room froze except for her. She looked around at the now white room and heard footsteps coming from the hallway. She suddenly felt herself being picked up out of her mother's arms and being carried over to a chair where the one carrying her sat down and cradled her.

Symbol stared at her, looking over to make sure she was healthy. "Well now, ain't that something?" He noticed her eyes. "Well, at least that makes you unique." He tickled his daughter and she playfully batted her hooves at his hand, causing him to smile. He looked around the room and saw all of his old friends. "So, it looks like Gale and Lisa have gotten together." He looked over to a golden glowing human that looked like him. "I see Posit is still around then." His sights fell onto Twilight and Octavia. "It's good to see they've moved on."

Looking back to the filly in his arms he saw her looking at him with curious eyes. While looking at her he began to tear up and held her close.

"I'm sorry little one, but I won't be able to be around for some time. I know you can't understand me but, you be a good girl for your mother, don't let hate rule you like it once did me." He felt her place a hoof on his chest. "Be safe, you don't know it yet but you're destined for great things young one." He kissed her forehead before walking back over to Octavia and setting the filly back in her arms. "Goodbye my daughter, I will see you again someday." As he was walking out of the room he stopped and stared at the man in the white coat. "One day, I'll meet you personally...father." With that he walked out of the room and let time return to normal.

Everyone in the room all stopped and looked around, feeling the familiar presence. The man in the white coat and the skeleton looked to each other and nodded, disappearing.

Ashley's POV

“BURN IN HELL MOTHER FUCKERS!” I waved my hand in front of me and flames swept the battlefield, scorching anything they touched. The timberwolves were caught off guard by my surprise attack, but not for long. They ran to my location and began to circle around me, growling the whole time.

“So that’s how it’s going to be huh?”

‘Don’t get too confident. You don’t exactly have the best control over your powers yet.’

“Then why is my fire not spreading to the ponies houses?”

‘Because I’m making sure it doesn’t. If it weren’t for me, the entire town would be burning down in a blaze of glory right now.’ I blushed and smiled sheepishly, while also rubbing the back of my head.

“That bad huh?”

‘Yes it would have been but right now you need to focus. Watch out!’ I barely managed to dodge an oncoming timberwolf that was racing towards me at high speeds. I leaned back and it leaped over me. I turned toward it with a lare. “Attack someone while their defence is down? Not cool!”

Throwing my arms out in front of me I shot fire at the wooden beast. It turned to ashes, consumed by the flames. The other timberwolves seemed to noticed that I control a huge weakness of theirs because they took more defensive stances.

“Come at me timbers!” Hearing the challenge, a few timberwolves dived at me all at once. I shot fire at each of them, leaving them as nothing more than smoldering piles of dust. I looked at the remaining timberwolves and smirked. “What? The rest of you want some?”

The timberwolves, being smarter than they seem, decided to retreat for now, and scampered off whining into the Everfree Forest. I sighed in relief.

“Man, glad that’s over.”

‘That may be true but we’ve still got company.’ I turned to see Twilight and her friends slowly approaching, as if every move they made was going to make me turn the fire that just saved their butts on them.

“Oh, great." I cancelled out my powers and turned towards them, the fire disappearing. "Uh, Abi? I could use a little assistance please."

'Sorry but after keeping your powers under control I feel a little worn out, I'll need a while before I can regain my strength. Good luck to you.' The voice in my head went quiet.

The group was now in front of me, all giving me cautious looks. Twilight cleared her throat and looked me in they eye. "Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, would it be ok if we asked you a few questions?" Well...that was certainly not what I was expecting, I thought that she'd just ask what in the wide world of Gaia I was, but apparently I was wrong.

"Um...sure. I'm Ashley by the way." They group nodded and began leading me towards the Golden Oaks Library. 'Symbol, hurry it up with whatever you're doing.' Twilight held the door open for me and I walked inside.

"Please take a seat over there, I just need to talk to my friends for a second." I nodded and did as I was told. They all began whispering and arguing, up until Fluttershy stopped an argument between Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack. Fluttershy just looked to me and smiled, she then walked up to me and started looking me over.

"I've never seen an animal like you before, what exactly are you?" She asked with adorable curiosity.

"Oh I'm not an animal, I'm what's known as a human." Fluttershy nodded and sat beside me, which caught me off guard as she did just witness me burn a horde of timberwolves like it was nothing.

"Well could you tell me a few things about your species?" She gave me the most adorable puppy-dog eyes ever, probably giving me type 2 diabetes in the process.

"Um, sure. What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

I just looked at her uncomfortably. "My friend should be in the area later, he probably has more information on this kinda stuff."

"Oh a friend, is he your mate?" This innocent comment caused me to blush furiously.

"N-No, we're just friends."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I make you uncomfortable?" She asked with a worried tone.

"It's fine, you were just curious." I scratched behind her ears and she melted right in my hands...not literally of course, a figure of speech. Smiling at me she jumped off the couch and Twilight walked up to me.

“Well, would you mind telling us what you do know?”

“Sure um… my species lives on a planet called earth, and humanity is the dominate species on earth.” The girls waited for me to continue, but that’s all I had.

“Wait… that’s it?”

“Well not there’s more but… science wasn’t really my thing. How about you ask me some questions and I’ll be able to bring up a bit more information.” Twilight nodded.

“Okay first question, are you an alien?”

“Um, that’s kind of obvious isn’t it?” Twilight was about to say more, but Rainbow Dash interrupted her.

“Wait you’re an alien? Cool! Do you have a spaceship and stuff? Did you land here as part of some sort of exploring mission or did you crash land here and now you need stuff to repair your ship?”

“Um, no to all of that. I was brought here through a portal that was created by my friend. I’m now considered a displaced, which is when someone from my world gets sent to their own version of Equestria as someone or something they cosplayed as.”

“Another Equestria?”

“Correct Twilight. Have you all ever heard of the multiverse theory?” Twilight nodded, but the others shook their heads. “Okay well the multiverse theory states that each and every decision you make, creates another universe that chose the other option. For instance, say for breakfast you could either have pancakes, or waffles. If you chose pancakes, then another universe is created and in that one, you chose waffles. You get it?” They all nodded.

“So wait, the multiverse theory is true?”

“Yep. Though, it can get very confusing.”

“How so?”

“Well, these decisions could have also been made in the past. For instance, one universe, like this one, has mostly magic. Another universe could have mostly technology, or technology growing right alongside magic. Does that sum it up for you?” They all nodded.

Just then we heard something come from outside. We all walked out of the library and saw a portal had appeared. Symbol walked out of the portal with shadows over his eyes.

"Hey Symbol..." As I looked at him I saw a single tear drop rolling down his cheek, "...what's wrong?" His lips curved into a small smile and he looked at me with teary eyes.

"I'm a dad now." He said with joy and also a bit of sorrow. Just then I felt Abi starting to stir, she disconnected from my body and formed back to her pony self. This caused the groups eyes to widen.

"So did you also check up on that other foal that was supposed to be born?" He nodded.

"Yeah, the other was a unicorn filly named Gail." I just stared at Symbol, beyond confused.

“What other foal? Who are you guys talking about?” Symbol just shook his head.

“I’ll tell you later. It's more of a personal matter than anything." Looking at him with suspicion I nodded. "So, I take it you've already introduced yourself to these ponies and told them what you are?" I nodded. "Good, then all that is left is finding a place to stay. I can build us a house but it'll take a few hours, I suggest you get used to the area while I'm building." He gave a sorrowful glance at Twilight then teleported away, leaving Abi with us.

"Does he have to be so mysterious?" I asked the symbiote.

"He has his reasons, he won't tell me them but I know they are justified." She answered before turning to the mane six. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Abi, a symbiote pony. Our other human friend who was just here is called Symbol, he's the one that brought Ashley to this world."

Twilight just had a smile on her face. "Does that mean that he can travel to other worlds?" She asked with glee.

Abi just facehoofed. "Oh boy, here we go."

Feeling the hurt

Symbols POV

Looking over the progress of the log cabin I was building I began wondering why Roden would have me displace someone to this specific universe, I'm mean sure there's always a chance that a Nightmare managed to find its way here but then why not just send me.

Shaking the thoughts away I returned to constructing my new home. When I went to lift up a log I froze. My hand was dark grey and my fingertips were claws. Blinking my hand returned to normal. "Oh no..." I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to sense the being my body once imprisoned. After a good ten minutes of searching I came up short, I grabbed my head as the strain of being in a prolonged search mode took its toll.

As I got back to building I saw Applejack walking up to me. "Hey there sugarcube."

"Hello Applejack, what do you want?" She walked around the half built cabin and nodded.

"Ah figured ya could use a helpin' hoof and somepony to talk to." I rolled my eyes.

"Thank you Applejack, the blueprints are over there." She nodded and began looking over the plans. Once she was done she began helping me by either moving logs or cutting them, making the production move quickly.

"So...uh, Symbol was it?" I nodded. "That Ashley girl said you could travel through different worlds, that true?" I hammered a nail into place and stopped.

"Yes, but only a small number of worlds. The way it works is like a big hallway of doors, each door leads to a different world. The amount of worlds you can visit depends on your power and if the creator of said universe allows you to enter." She looked at me with great interest.

"So ah take it you've been to other Equestrias then?"

I nod and moved a few logs into place. "Yeah, five in total."

"That must've been interesting and fun. Ya said earlier that you're a dad now, who was the mother?" She gave me a look that told me I didn't have to say it if I didn't want to.

"A mare called Octavia Melody."

"The cellist?" I nodded. "Well, um, if ya don't mind me askin. How did that work exactly?"

It took me a second to register what she meant. "Oh no, we didn't do...that...what happened was that she was drained of most of her life force, I gave her a portion of mine and that unintentionally created a foal in her womb."

"So ya never had a marefriend or partner?" She asked with curiosity.

"Why are you offering?" I teased with a sly smile.

"Nah, I'm not looking for a relationship right now." I nodded and returned to working.

"To answer your question, no. Well, I was married on my home world, but that wasn't for love or anything, it was to make peace with rivalling families. We still cared for each other but we didn't love one another. I was going to enter a relationship with my original Equestria's Twilight and Octavia, but it never lifted off because I..." She looked at me in concern.

"You what?"

Sighing I answered her. "I died." She looked at me confused. "I was killed by a powerful enemy, but was brought back by my mentor." She went silent and I couldn't hear any movement. Looking back I saw she was nervous about asking something.

"Um, how...how does it feel to die?" I just froze. I didn't have the heart to tell her how painful it was and will be.

Ashley's POV, a few hours later

During the time that Symbol and Applejack were building our new home, I got to know the rest if the mane six and a bit about Symbol through Abi. Apparently Symbol wasn't his real name, just one he chose. His real name is Neo Rayleigh, a nice name in my opinion, reminds me of Silvers Rayleigh from One Piece.

He doesn't like to be called Neo because while he went by that name he did a lot of bad things, Abi wouldn't tell me what kind of things though. Although it doesn't matter, because like most girls, I like a bad boy. Oh my Griffith what am I thinking?!

'You ok there Ashley? You kinda shouted in here.' I heard Abi say in my mind as she was fused with me.

"Yeah, just thought about something I shouldn't have."

'Oh do tell.' She said with a bit of excitement.

"Are you desperate for gossip or something?"

'Hey, I haven't had any female contact in my life outside of today, cut me some slack.'

I rolled my eyes and made my way over to the now finished log cabin. I passed Applejack who had an unsure look on her face as she headed back to Ponyville. Looking around I couldn't find Symbol. I then looked up to see him standing on the top point of a pine tree with his arms folded and eyes closed, a small purple glow radiating off of him making his body sparkle.

He tenses up before bursting into purple flames. As the fire cleared Symbol was drastically different in appearance. His skin had gone pure white, his hair was spiky, shiny and glowing purple, his hands were claws, his mouth was gone and the shoulders on his coat were now spiked, as were his boots. "Did...did he just go super saiyan?"

I could see the strain on his face as he struggled to maintain this new form. Eventually the new body shattered like a glass layer on his skin, revealing an exhausted Symbol to float slowly to the ground. He was breathing heavily until he collapsed to his knees, Abi quickly separated from my body and ran up to him, as did I.

"Symbol, what were you thinking? Roden told you never to try and enter that form again!" Scolded Abi. Symbol just looked to her and smirked.

"Since when were you one to follow the rules?" He stated before falling into unconsciousness. Abi shook her head and put one of his arms around her neck.

"Could you help me get Goku here inside?" She joked.

"What was that?" I asked as I wrapped my displacer's arm around my shoulder and helped carry him to the cabin.

"It's what he calls the 'demon state', he used to be able to transform into it easily but after he got his new body he's been having trouble."

"New body?" She shook her head.

"Not now, I'll tell you later." I opened the door to the surprisingly well furnished cabin and whistled. We set Symbol down on one of the green couches and looked around the place. Whatever Symbol did to get all of these furniture pieces I'll say that sixty-minute-makeover can go suck it.

I looked to the coffee table and noticed two orbs, one purple and one orange. I picked up the orange one and inspected it.

"That's a decor-orb, you throw it into an empty room and it will fill it with what you either require or want, it does have its limitations though." Abi gestured to a door leading to an empty room. I got up and opened the door, thinking about my freak bedroom I threw the orb in. After a flash of light my bedroom was finished. There was a queen sized bed with bed sheets that had patterns of fire on them. An orange chair and desk in the back where I could sketch or write. I found a laptop on my dresser and an orange wardrobe. Looking inside I found three different outfits. A dress for formal occasions, orange pyjamas and finally a simple day's wear consisting of a yellow button shirt, skinny blue jeans and trainers.

I plopped down on my bed and looked around my new room. Thinking of what the future held for me my mind suddenly went to my brother and Samantha. Where they looking for me? Did they get displaced in another world? Did they miss me?

My parents died a few years ago, my brother was old enough to take care of me when it happened so I didn't have to go into foster care. I wiped a tear from my eye and looked to one of my bedside tables, which held a picture of me, Frank and my parents. I placed my hand and the photo and sniffed.

Little did I know my displacer had woken up and walked into the room. He walked over and brought me into a hug. I accepted it and started crying into his chest, slowly causing his shirt to become wet. He rubbed his hand on the back of my head and started cooing me out of my tears.

"Shhh, it's ok Ashley, it's ok." I hugged him tighter and started giving quiet sobs. Symbol stayed with me until I had cried myself into a peaceful sleep. "Sleep well Ashley."

Why choose Symbol?

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.

Piece of history

When we returned everyone rushed up to us asking what had happened.

I glanced at Symbol, before answering them. “It’s been dealt with. Symbol took care of whatever it was.” Everyone visibly relaxed at my answer. I was still wondering what the hell that thing was, but I didn’t want to get on Symbol’s bad side anymore than I had, so I kept quiet.

Unfortunately Rainbow Dash didn’t have my reservations as she asked, “What in the hay was that thing?” I slowly turned my head to see a Symbol looking at Rainbow with a slight glare. It was strange, when he showed up he seemed like a nice guy, but after that thing showed up he changed completely.

"Alright, I'll explain what that thing was, but I won't go into massive amounts of detail." He sat down and the rest of us did too. "That was a creature I have come into contact with many times in my life. It's like a parasite, it either enters a world and copies its most powerful fighters abilities or possesses said fighter, using the body as a puppet. It is known only as, and I quote, 'The Nightmare Fuel.' I have already told you that their are multiple Equestrias, and those Equestrias are The Nightmares main target due to the huge amounts of magical energy present in those worlds. As I said, The Nightmare is like a parasite, there are hundreds if not thousands of them lurking around the multiple worlds. Some are pathetically weak, while others are incredibly powerful. The one that showed up here was somewhere in the middle to these strengths."

"So why couldn't we just fight it off?" I asked.

"There is a catch to these things. That catch being only I can completely destroy them. You'd be able to defeat it yes but it would turn into a small purple orb and regenerate."

"How is it only you can kill them?" Asked my wife with interest.

"That would be because of my father, a powerful displacer known as The Author. He encountered a great evil alongside the Nightmare and managed to banish it with the help of his council of displacers. Author knew that this evil would one day return, so he started preparing. Over the course of millions of years he began developing the ultimate warrior to finally destroy the evil that he could not, that warrior was me."

We all looked to each other in shock.

"Eventually, that great evil did return. It possessed one of my close friends and destroyed one of my other friend's homeworld. I tried to fight it off but ended up close to death. In order to form a plan of action I played dead to think. After my friend was freed from the possession the monster made itself known. In a last minute attempt to save my friends I sacrificed my very soul to perform one last attack, destroying the monster and returning my world to its former glory."

"If that's true how are you still here?" Asked Ashley.

"I was fortunate enough to have a tiny piece of my soul find its way into a dimension known as the void. There a displacer known as Roden Godswell, revived me and made me his pupil." As he finished his tale we all looked at each other with a look of sympathy and confusion plastered on all of our faces.

I sat there for a moment, before sliding a hand down my face. I inadvertently stretched my face, which snapped back in place as I lowered my hand. The others, minus Pinkie who was giggling at the sight, deadpanned at me.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to do that,” I said, smiling sheepishly. “Anyway, I get why you told us to get away from it. If we ever run into one again, whether here or somewhere else, I'll be sure to be extra careful and get ahold of you.” Symbol reached into his pocket and pulled out his token. He placed both his hands on it and it glowed. When the light died down there was another purple diamond in his other hand which he tossed to me.

"That's a copy of my own token, if you need me just use it and I'll come as soon as I can."

I nodded and placed it in my pocket. “So how exactly would we go about making a token so you can get ahold of us for something or if someone else out there needs help?” I asked.

"Just take a small object and focus your energy on it, speak a phrase like what you heard in mine then a small portal will appear. After that just toss it in and wait to be summoned."

I began to think of what to use for a token. After a moment I heard a snap and looked at my wife. She had a pair of fingernail clippers. She clipped off a fingernail and hand the clippers to me. I looked at her in confusion before I remembered something from One Piece. I took them and clipped off a nail. I handed it to her and she placed them in the palms of her hand. She snapped again and two stark white papers appeared where the nails were. We each took our own and tore it in half. She took mine and placed the torn pieces next to each other. She used her magic to meld them together into one piece. She then summoned a pen and drew a jolly roger on it with a fedora on top of it and a marine symbol behind it.

I grabbed ahold of the paper and focused my energy into it. As I did, my wife and I spoke.

“I am Luffy the Rubber Pirate… I am Tashigi the Magic Swordswoman… if you need anything… whether it’s help with a fight… or if you just want to hang out… call us and we will be there.”

I let go, but Ashley seemed to still be concentrating on the paper. After a minute she stopped and nearly collapsed, but I caught her.

“What were you doing?” I asked.

“I wanted it to work like an actual Vivre Card for whoever got ahold of it,” she said. “All they have to do is concentrate on who they want to find and, as long as they are on the same world, it will point them in the right direction.”

I was somewhat surprised she thought that far ahead. I glanced at Symbol. “So all we do is toss it?”

"Hang on." He lifted it up and duplicated it, he placed one in his pocket and tossed the other into a small vortex that had appeared. "There, now you just have to wait to be summoned. Don't worry, if it's a bad time or if you're busy then they won't be able to summon you."

“That’s good. Wouldn’t want to be summoned if we are doing something rather personal or if we are in the middle of a very important event,” I said. “So were you here for the Nightmare or was that just a huge coincidence?”

"Coincidence. I had brought Ashley here to meet another displaced, apparently I can't go anywhere with that damn thing showing up. Oh well, at least he's not here." That last part was said in a quiet voice, but I decided to ignore it, he already told us his story so I'll leave him be.

“Now what?” I asked.

“I get home and start on all mah chores,” Applejack said.

“Yeah and I’ve got my weather duties,” Rainbow Dash said. Everyone started mentioning the things they had to do.

“Pinkie, ya mind waiting until tomorrow to throw Sean and our Ashley their party?” Applejack asked.

She seemed to deflate slightly, but smiled, “Sure. I know everypony has work they have to do..”

“Think of it this way Pinkie. Now you have more time to prepare a party that would be perfect for us,” my wife said.

Pinkie grinned widely, “Good point!” She disappeared in a puff of pink smoke that was shaped like her.

I stared at the spot before I felt my arm being nudge. I looked over to my wife.

“Don’t think about it,” she said. “It’ll save your sanity.” I just nodded numbly as everyone started to head home. I was brought out of my reverie when Ashley spoke.

"Hey, Tashigi used magic earlier right?" she asked. We nodded. "How?"

"Oh, apparently there are Equestrian Devil Fruits, at least here there are, and she ate what we've decided to call the Magic-Magic Fruit or Mahō-Mahō no Mi if you prefer," I explained. "She can use different kinds of magic. So far, she's used chaos and pegasi magic."

"Interesting..." Symbol scratched his chin in thought.

No choice in the matter

"So what do you guys want to do now?" Ashley asked us. My wife and I looked to each other and shrugged.

"Hey Symbol, you can traverse dimensions right?" My wife asked.

"I can, yes." He responded.

"Well, how about we go see another world, maybe somewhere where we can have a little adventure or something?" Symbol looked at her and shrugged.

"I don't see a problem with it, hold on." My wife, Ashley and I stood in front of Symbol as he closed his eyes and held out his hands. We were enveloped in a bright light and found ourselves in a large hallway filled with doors. "This is what displacers use to find someone to displace and select their Equestria." He began walking along the side of the hallway until he came across a blue door. "You guys ok with an adventure course?"

"You mean like those jungle gyms for kids?" I asked with a raised brow.

"No, have you ever played any of the Sonic The Hedgehog games?" I shook my head but my wife nodded. "We're going to a place with a similar layout to the levels in those. You'll know what to do when we get there." He opened the door and motioned us inside.

Once we were inside he shut the door behind us and we were pulled into a vortex. Once on the other side my wife and I gasped. We were in a world made of dark purple crystals, long pathways, huge amounts of obstacles and a few crystalic creatures.

"Welcome to my training grounds. This is a good place to get used to one's powers. There are fighting arenas if you want to have a sparing match, and these long obstacle courses if you're looking to test your agility." Symbol explained as he walked along one of the long pathways and motioned us to follow. "My teacher brings me here often, as it has any kind of training you can think of." He stopped and looked back at me and my wife. "I have noticed a very obvious weakness in you two, and I'm not talking about sea stone or water, it mainly lies in you Sean." He pointed to me.

"What are you talking about?" He walked up until he was in my face and motioned to my wife.

"You are unable to stay calm if she is not around so you can protect her." He then turned to my wife. "Your weakness is that you cannot stay completely calm when he is around. While it is only slight, it can be dangerous. You both need to overcome these weaknesses."

"What are you suggesting?" I asked with ice present in my voice.

"That, right there. You know there is a chance I'm going to ask you two to separate, and you start to become aggressive. What I'm suggesting is that I will take your wife to another area and I will teach her a few things, while you stay with Ashley so you two can hone your skills with your devil fruits, while also teaching you to remain calm while your wife is in danger."

I glared at him and clenched my fist. "Not gonna happen." I snapped.

"I wasn't giving you a choice." He snapped his finger and he along with my wife vanished. A few seconds later Ashley and I appeared in a large arena.

My anger sparked as he blatantly ignored me, however Ashley placed a hand on my shoulder and I looked over to her. Seeing worry in her eyes, I took calming breaths to keep from exploding.

“He’s just trying to help you know,” she said.

I sighed, “I know, but I’ve lost most of my loved ones, so I tend to be protective of my wife.” I grabbed my fedora and gazed at it sorrowfully.

“What happened?” she asked.

I took a deep breath, “My father was in the army and was killed while he was fighting fifteen years ago. About five years after that my mother disappeared without a trace. This hat is all I have to remember them by. They both made it themselves. That’s why I’m wearing it instead of a straw hat, in case you’re wondering. To me, it’s the importance of the hat not what kind it is. Considering our situation I’m glad that I decided on that because if I didn’t there’s no telling what would happen to it back home.”

"What about siblings?"

I shook my head, "I didn't have any. At least not biologically. My wife had a brother I got pretty close to." Ashley seemed to flinch at the mention of a brother. "Something wrong?" I asked.

"Oh, um. It's just...when Symbol displaced me, I was at a convention with my brother and his girlfriend, he was dressed as post-timeskip Franky and she was post-timeskip Robin. He's...the only family I have left, and I'll probably never get to see him again." She wiped a tear from her eye.

"If that's the case wouldn't you be blaming Symbol for separating you guys?"

She shook her head. "I know that the Merchant was at the convention, Symbol saved me from being displaced by him and he possibly had displaced my brother or gotten someone else to. Symbol is a nice guy, he just has an odd way of going about things." I looked at her and sighed.

"Hey, there's been something I've been wondering for awhile now." She looked up at me and tilted her head. "What's Symbols deal with the colour purple?" This got her to giggle, I was glad I could lighten the mood a bit.

"Alright, we should probably get to training." I just froze.

"Uh, I'm not normally one for hitting a girl."

"Oh well, that'll make things easier for me then." She smirked and shot a pillar of fire my way, which I barely dodged.

"Oh it's on!"

Understanding

(Sean's wife)Ashley's POV

I looked around the area that Symbol had brought me to. It was a long pathway with pits, obstacles and enemies like the levels from Sonic Unleashed...minus the loops, there was even grind rails. "Why bring me here?" I asked him.

"There is a reason I brought you here and sent Sean to the arena. You are capable of defending yourself in tight spaces, but you don't know how to use your agility. Sean is the reverse. He is strongest in large open areas while he will struggle in close combat, and his stretching abilities give him an edge in courses like this."

I nodded, “I suppose I see what you mean. With his stretching he can hit people farther away and, while he’s fought before, he doesn’t have much formal training. I’m more adept with using a sword and fighting right there.” I looked around the area we were at. “So, what should we do first?”

“We should probably get you used to your magic,” he said. “What kinds can you use?”

“I’m pretty sure all of them,” I answered. “As Sean said, I’ve used chaos magic and pegasus so far. Haven’t tried unicorn, earth pony, alicorn (if that’s a separate magic), or any other kinds that there might be.” I didn’t mention dark magic because I was unsure that, even if it didn’t corrupt the user, I’d want to use that kind of magic.

"I couldn't help but notice that you left out dark magic." I immediately froze and looked at him unsure. He studied my body language and gave a small smile. "I see. Very well, we won't go near that for now." I breathed a sigh of relief. "However, you will find that there will be a point where you will be required to use it, whether you want to or not."

I nodded in understanding. There probably would be instances where my hand would be forced, so better to have an understanding of the magic then to blindly cast it.

“What should we work on?” I asked.

“How about fighting without your swords? You may find yourself disarmed and you should know how to fight without them.” Symbol said. He snapped his fingers and several monsters appeared a short distance from us. There were Red Rexes, Nightmares (from the game, not what Symbol dealt with), and Killer Bees. All three were of different sizes and varying speeds. “Try taking all of them out,” he instructed.

I raised a hand and aimed at one of the monsters. I focused my magic into my hand and an orange glow surrounded it. Once I figured there was enough magic, I fired it at one of the Nightmares. My aim was right on target, however the power behind it wasn’t enough to destroy it. The beam just slammed into the monster and pushed him back. The others didn’t react, but the one I’d hit glared at me and started charging.

As it ran, it threw its arm forward, stretching it toward me. I sidestepped the strike and grabbed its arm. I then yanked it toward me and charged magic into my hand. When it reached me I uppercut it, releasing the magic stored in my fist. The magic exploded outward, destroying the Nightmare.

Raising my hand again, I took aim and focused the same amount of magic into it as before. However, instead of shooting the Nightmare I aimed at the Red Rex. The small bulldog headed dino burst into purple smoke. Smiling, I took out the rest of the Rexes in a similar manner. I then watched the Killer Bees as they zoomed around in the air.

Focusing on my pegasus magic, I lifted myself off of the ground and charged at them. When I got near, one of the bees shot toward me. I charged toward it as well and tried focusing my magic into my leg. My pegasi magic was cut off, but my momentum kept me going for the moment. I noticed my leg start to glow and kicked the bee into another that flew into it’s flight path. After reactivating my pegasi magic, I heard buzzing behind me and I spun around just in time to see a bee heading at me with its stinger pointed at me. Not being able to dodge in time, I threw my arms up and braced myself for the attack. When nothing happened, I looked down and was shocked at what I saw. I had a hole in my stomach. However, there was an orange glow surrounding it.

I smiled as I realized what this meant. I was a Logia-user. ‘Now to make sure I don’t get overconfident with that,’ I thought. I willed the hole to close and it did. Launching myself forward I started taking the Killer Bees out with quick kicks and punches. After they all were dealt with I looked down at the Nightmares. Sudden inspiration hit as I remembered a game Sean played. I cut off my pegasi magic and started falling. As I fell, I gathered magic into my hands. When I landed, I slammed my fists into the ground and sent out an orange shockwave of magic, obliterating the remaining monsters.

I stood up and dusted myself off, “How was that?”

"Very good, you seem to already have a grasp on your powers. And since this means you can literally do anything you can imagine there isn't much more I can teach you outside of magic balance."

"Magic balance?" I asked with a great deal of curiosity.

"It's when your body is in perfect form, a perfect balance between dark magic and light magic. For many creatures that can use magic they only require one type of magic, mainly light. You on another hand, possess every type of magic from your Equestria. If your body should ever configure itself to only use a set type of magic, then you will be left extremely restricted with what you can do. Regardless of whether your magic is from a devil fruit or not."

“So what should I do to prevent that?” I asked warily.

“Keep using different kinds of magic,” he said. “Don’t just focus on just one or two, switch things up. It’ll also keep your opponents from guessing what you’re going to do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. What should we do next?”

"Next we will test your agility." Symbol gestured towards a nearby course. "Complete that course as fast as you can, I will be waiting at the finish line to give my judgment." He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

I turned to the course and examined it. After examining as much as I was able to see, I started running through it as fast as I could. I decided to refrain from using pegasi magic unless absolutely necessary. Didn’t want to get too reliant on it. As I ran, the monsters charged at me. Since this was to test my agility, I didn’t fight any of them, but instead did my best to dodge their attacks. A few grazed me, but thankfully I focused on phasing through them and was left unharmed. Ahead of me, was a pit that more than likely had spikes at the bottom. I gathered magic into my hands and, when I reached the pit, I fired the magic at the ground, propelling myself over the hole.

Once on the other side, I raced forward and continued through the course. I soon came to a grind rail that was suspended above some kind of purple liquid. I didn’t see any other way across other than to use the grind rail. I contemplated on how to do this, when I had an idea. I took one of my swords and jumped up. Holding onto each end of the sheathe, I used it to slide across grind rail. As I neared the end, I saw a big group of enemies waiting for me. Not seeing another way around them, I tried to think of a way to deal with them quickly. I suddenly had an idea and I began to charge my magic into my sword. When the grind rail ended, I quickly returned the sword to my side and gripped the hilt. After landing on the ground, I slashed sideways releasing my magic outward. The released magic formed an orange slash that cut a path through the monsters. I sprinted through the opening, dodging or phasing through every attack I could. Some managed to nick me, as there were too many to keep track of.

I made a rush for a large pit to gain some momentum. As I jumped I slipped and fell down the hole. I looked down at the spikes that I was eventually going to get to know and started to panic. I looked to my right and saw Symbol quickly grinding down a rail and launch towards me.

He caught me and held me bridal style as he jumped from wall to wall until he reached the top. He landed and set me down. "You ok?" He asked as he knelt down beside me as I lay on my back trying to catch my breath.

"Yeah...sorry I failed the course."

"I never said you'd have to finish the course. I said I would wait at the finish and judge your abilities, and you got further than me when I first attempted this course so there's that." He chuckled as he sat down beside me.

"Really? But you were such a badass when you saved me and you grinded on that rail like you were actually Sonic."

"I wasn't always like that, the first time I grinded on a rail was when I first met one of my brothers, his name is Epidemic. I struggled to keep my balance but I couldn't afford to fall off."

"Why not?"

"There was a giant crystal snake chasing me." I laughed and sat up.

"You seem to have had a few adventures, mind telling me about one?" He put to finger to his chin in thought.

"I don't see why not." I summoned a bucket of popcorn and listened to his tale. "In my Equestria before I fought the great evil I was investigating a cult that had somehow predicted my arrival. I found one of their temples and began searching for an artifact that was supposed to be in the main chamber. After solving a few puzzles I made my way into the main room and the artifact was there. But when I took it, the temple decide to go Indiana Jones on me and started collapsing. I ran along the long hallway I had traveled down and found that the CMC had followed me in there. So I grabbed them and ran from the collapsing ceiling that was chasing me. Then the hallway suddenly started to get longer and the large stone doors that I had entered through started to slowly shut itself as the hallway grew. Now this was before I had any powers or anything so I had to sprint for my life as well as the filly's lives. I can tell you that I barely got out of there as the second I jumped out the door it slammed shut."

"So what did you do with the CMC?"

"I made them clean my house as payment for saving them from their own stupidity."

I giggled at his joke. "I bet Scootaloo was complaining the whole time."

"Oh she was, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle seemed fine with it though. Scootaloo and I never had any real interactions after that though. The only two fillies in the town I ever spoke to on a regular basis was Applebloom and Dinky. Although that would have to be because Dinky's mother was my best friend."

"You were friends with Derpy?"

"Yeah, I didn't get involved with the mane six that much. My friend group was Derpy, Vinyl, Lyra, Octavia and Bonbon. I occasionally hung out with Twilight on missions from Celestia, one of which I had to turn into a pony." I looked at him expectedly. "What?"

"Show me what you look like as a pony." I said excitedly.

He sighed. "Fine." With a flash of light his body transformed. He was now only three feet tall. His fur was dark blue and his mane was grey. His cutie mark was a necklace with the symbol of the sun on it and his eyes were sapphire blue. In a few words, he was adorable. "Happy?"

"Not until I get a cuddle." I picked him up and hugged him like a teddy bear. I had never seen a real MLP pony before as my world was full of anthros. I always wanted to hug one of the ponies and, while I’m sure I’d like hugging one of the anthro ponies, there was something about picking a pony up and hugging them.

"You will tell no one of this..." The adorable grumpy pony in my arms said in a car keys voice, but it was hard to be intimidating with that little body. I slowly reached up to his ear, but before I got close, Symbol said, “Don’t even think about it.”

“You’re no fun,” I pouted slightly and set him down. He changed back to his normal form and arched a brow at me. “What? Sean scratched Dinky behind the ears and she liked it. I wanted to see if it worked on you,” I said innocently.

"Fine, only because Tashigi is my favourite character in One Piece aside from Vivi." He changed back into a pony and I picked him up again. "Just get it over with..."

I smiled slightly, but, even though I wanted to try it, I didn’t really expect much of a reaction out of Symbol. He was pretty serious after all. I started scratching behind his ear and waited to see exactly how he’d react.

His eyes widened a bit and his frown became a straight line. His tail started wagging and his eyes became half lidded. Hard to believe that the big, tough Symbol that had just forced my husband out of his comfort zone and had these great dangerous adventures was now putty in my hands as a little pony. I smiled and began stroking his back slowly, which caused him to smile.

"Ok, I think it's time we got back to training." He was about to change back to normal but I continued hugging him.

"Just let me cuddle you a little while longer."

"Ok how about this. If you can disarm me in a sword duel without using your magic I'll let you carry me back to the arena."

"You just like to be held like this don't you?" I asked with a smirk.

"I never got any love as a child just give me this." I looked at him with shock. "Crap..."

"You never got any love in your childhood?"

"Another story for another time, now let's get back to training." He jumped out of my arms and turned back to his human self. I just watched him carefully as I got up and we readied our swords.

Symbols offer

[POV Change: Sean]

I dodged another Fire Fist and threw my fist toward Ashley. It was coated in Haki, but it wasn’t complete Armament Haki. She dodged my attack and I quickly retracted my arm. We both stood there panting rather heavily. She’d managed to cause several small burns here and there and a few of my attacks had connected as well. I had no idea how long we were fighting, but it felt like it had been awhile. She suddenly charged forward, her fist alight in flames. I focused on my arm, trying to coat it in Armament Haki. It suddenly glowed and turned the familiar black color. Not wasting time, I charged at her. When we reached each other, we threw our fists forward and they collided. The ground cracked from the force of our strikes.

We were thrown back and we both hit the walls of the arena. We got to our feet and walked out of the dust clouds, staring at each other with determination. I then shot forward and began swinging my fist rapidly. "Gum-Gum..." She yelped and put her arms up with armament Haki. "...Gatling Gun!" I sent a wave of fists at my opponent with blinding speeds, making it look like my arms had multiplied.

Suddenly my attacks stopped. I looked at my hands and saw that Ashley had grabbed my wrists.

"Clever girl." She smirked and began spinning, causing me to lift off the ground as she turned. She then started slamming me into the ground before throwing me up into the air and sending a huge wave of fire after me.

I wasn't able to get my Haki up quick enough and I suffered some serious damage from the flames. I took in a deep breath and blew the fire away. I swung my head backwards and my neck stretched. "Gum-Gum Bell!" I shot my head towards Ashley and delivered a mighty headbut. My head stretched back into place and I smirked, until I saw that the spot I had hit had turned to fire. Her face reformed and she looked at me questioningly. "Right, forgot about the Haki for a second there."

She shrugged and launched two fire fists my way. A few minutes later we were both lying in the centre of the arena with our arms and legs sprawled out while we breathed heavily. I heard a few clashes and looked over to a platform not to far away from us in the sky. It sounded like someone was fighting with swords. "Well I guess we know where Symbol and my wife went."

Suddenly the sounds ceased. There was a cheer of victory that I assumed to be my wife cheering, and someone congratulating her, who I guessed was Symbol. "Sounds like those two are having fun up there." Ashley said as she sat up.

“My wife always did like to fight with swords. Though it was usually with ones that couldn’t cut you in half,” I said, sitting up too.

“Obviously,” she said. She glanced at me, “So you’re still calm, even though you figure that they’re using actual swords?”

Breathing deeply, I said, “I admit that I’m worried as hell that she might be injured, but there are going to be times where we either aren’t together or we’re separated and I need keep myself under control. If I don’t, others might get injured or worse. And I’m sure that Symbol would do his best to make sure that he didn’t hurt her to bad.” I winced slightly as I tried to stand, “Besides, I’m too sore to try and do anything.”

Ashley giggled before wincing as well, “Yeah, I’m not in much better shape.” Just then two balls of light appeared out of the middle of the arena. A ball floated to each of us and entered our bodies, our injuries healing quickly and our energy returning. "Well...that helps."

I got to my feet and looked up at the platform that my wife was currently on. "He was right." Ashley looked at me confused. "I need to learn how to keep calm when she's not around." I looked to her. "He's been acting different ever since he said the name 'Abigail', any guess on who this person was?"

She shook her head. "I'm guessing she was a close friend or relative, I'll ask him about it later. She was obviously important to him." I nodded and we began walking towards the exit of the arena. We began walking along a long spiral walkway. On the way up we saw my wife walking with something blue in her arms, Symbol was nowhere in sight.

"Hi honey." I greeted her as she reached us. I looked to the thing in her arms and found it was a small pony, which was just adorable with its little grumpy expression while she held it like a teddy bear. "Where's Symbol?" She giggled and pointed to the pony in her arms. Ashley and I just looked at the pony as it blushed slightly.

"It was the only way to get her to train." The pony just sighed. "Go on, get it out of your system." We both started laughing. My wife just punched my shoulder with a great deal of force which caused me to stop.

"Ow, what was that for?" I complained.

"It's just that Symbol told me a pretty tragic story from his past and you're laughing at one of his insecurities." She just stared daggers at me as she gently stroked Symbols mane.

"Then why don't you have a problem with Ashley laughing?" I asked gesturing to the girl that was now on her back laughing.

"Personal reasons." Symbol dryly stated. "I'm not telling the story again, let's get you two back to your world." He jumped out of my wife's arms and transformed back into his normal human form. With a snap of his fingers a door appeared and he held it open for my wife and Ashley. As I was about to walk in he closed it and looked at me.

"Hey! Open the door." I was starting to lose my patience with him. He just inspected me and shook his head.

"Still no improvement." I quickly realised what he meant and I backed off. "This needs to change or you're going to cause more harm than you prevent Sean." He ordered in a stern voice. With that he opened the door and walked through. I walked behind him, thinking about what he had said.

[POV Change: (Sean's wife) Ashley]

As Ashley and I walked through the door, it suddenly closed behind us. We glanced back at it in confusion, but after a minute it opened and Symbol walked through with a stern look on his face.

Sean followed behind him and muttered, “Damn it. This is going to be harder than I thought.” He sighed and stood next to the rest of us. I was somewhat confused about what he was talking about, but decided leave it be.

Symbol held out his hands and we were enveloped by a bright light again. We were back in Ponyville, exactly where we had left from.

“How long were we gone?” I asked.

"Just about three hours." Symbol looked at us. "Be sure to keep practicing your magic and sword skills Ashley." I smiled and nodded. "And Sean, you know what you need to do." My husband nodded and looked at me with a slightly concerned look. "Remember to summon me if another Nightmare shows up. I'll be checking in with you guys a few times in the future. Also, I'm going to go kick the Merchants ass for you two." We both smiled at him and thanked him. "I just want to ask you something before we leave." We looked at him with confusion. "If I kill the Merchant, which I've been meaning to, I can take responsibility for your displacement."

"You don't mean?" I looked at him wide eyed. He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Yes, if you want, I can become your displacer."

Sean smiled, “We’d be honored Symbol. You’ve helped us a great deal and you brought something really important to my attention.” He held out his hand, “I hope that we can be friends despite the rocky start we had.” He took my husband's hand and shook.

"Ok, when I have killed the merchant you will receive a purple band on your right wrist with a blue sun gem. This will let other displacers and displaced know you are under my protection so they won't mess with you, they'll most likely try to help you out." Ashley looked to her wrist and saw a band appear. "Ok, I need to get Ashley back to her world, I'll see you two in a bit." He was about to snap his fingers when he stopped. "Oh, and if someone called Epidemic passes through this world you hide the bands and if he asks you if you know me you say no." We looked at each other confused before nodding. "Good. Goodbye for now."

"Goodbye you two." Ashley gave us a little wave before they vanished.

We began walking back to Ponyville, a few minutes later the bands appeared on our wrists and Symbols voice could be heard. 'There we go, the Merchant that displaced you is dead and I am now your displacer. If you ever need me just use my token or speak into the band while pressing the gem.'

The voice ceased and we were left to think about what had happened during the last few hours. It was nice to know someone like Symbol was watching over us, he was very mysterious and threatening, but from what he told me earlier his actions are pretty much justified.

"Well I'm starved after all of that, wanna go get a bite to eat?" Sean asked as he wrapped an arm around me.

"Yeah, that workout really took a lot out of me." He smiled and we made our way to the nearest restaurant in Ponyville.

Abi ran through the forest as fast as she could, a Nightmare tailing her as she went. "No no no, I can't let this happen!" Soon she head the sound of a portal opening.

"Ok Ashley, find Abi and then use this gem to teleport yourselves to Canterlot. I'll just go kill the Merchant then I'll be right back." She ran towards the sound of her brothers voice, hoping to catch him before he walked through another portal. She was too late, he had already closed the portal.

"Ashley! Run!" Ashley turned to Abi and looked to the creature perusing her. Ashley then started running alongside Abi until they were backed up against a large cliff. They looked back to see the Nightmare slowly walking towards them with a wide grin. As it lunged forward it was knocked to the side by a blood red blur. The Nightmare slid across the ground and growled at its attacker. Abi looked at the figure that now stood in front of her. "Oh no..."

Get ready for an Epidemic

{Symbols POV}

After leaving Ashley back home I entered the void to find the scumbag that had displaced Sean and his wife. I walked along a long hallway made of black crystal, seems to be a common trend in the void.

Upon reaching the end of the hallway I found a wooden reinforced door. Opening it quietly I peeked in and saw the Merchant at a table with a few screens, watching a few people and trying to decide who to displace them as.

Quietly walking over to him I caught a glimpse of someone I knew on one of the screens

"Yes, he'll do nicely!" The Merchant crackled before turning around. Once he saw me his pupils shrank to the size of a dot on a page.

"Tell me, what were you planning to do to this one?" I placed my finger on the screen in question. He looked over and gulped. "Answer the question."

He just looked at me and smirked. "Or what?" I just looked at him dumbfounded. I sighed and turned away.

"You obviously know who I am and what I'll do to anyone who is a threat to my friends or family, what the hell do you think I'm going to do?" I held up my fist and it glowed with my purple fire. His smirk never left his face as he started backing up and took a fighting stance. "Very well then." I swung my fist forward and a wave of fire was sent his way.

He dodged the attack and pulled out a Skorpion machine pistol. When he fired it the bullets were glowing red. I dodged the gunfire and put up a small wall of fire to deflect the bullets. Once his clip ran dry he tossed the gun away and pulled out an MP40.

"Oh you Goddamn Nazi." He smirked and began firing again. I sprinted towards him in a zigzag pattern to avoid the bullet fire until I managed to land a hard uppercut to his jaw. His head hit the roof and he crashed down onto the floor. He got up and sent a wave of red energy at me, knocking me off my feet.

As I tried to get up he leaned over me with a blade to my chest. He stared at me with bloodlust until he raised the dagger. When it was about to pierce my heart I grabbed his wrist and redirected it to his own chest.

He looked at me wide eyed and slowly looked down to the dagger that had pierced his heart. He coughed up a bit of blood and fell backwards. I was about to leave him to die when he spoke.

"You...you can't protect...them all..." He coughed up some more blood and looked at me with a psychopathic glare and smirk. "In the end...one brother shall...fall at the hands...of Xram." He laughed insanely before coughing up more blood and drowning in it. I stared at the corpse with a glare so cold it froze parts of the blood puddle.

"I defeated Xram once, I can do it again." I looked over to the screen and saw my twin brother, Zero Shattered, babysitting my foal. "I'll do whatever it takes to defend them. No matter the cost." As I walked out of the door I threw a compressed fireball into the room and it exploded, destroying everything in there. "Now...to send those bands to Sean and his wife."

{Ashley's POV}

Abi and I stared at the figure that had saved us from The Nightmare that had been chasing us. He was a tall boy that looked like he was somewhere along the lines of eighteen. He wore a blood red jacket with black stripes and had blood red hair that was spiked back. He had black jeans, and red shoes, and a red scythe in his hands. The Nightmare he had knocked away stood up and growled at him, then shot fire like I could. He took the flames, his stone cold expression never changing. Once the flames were done, he leaped at the nightmare again, and sliced it in half with his scythe. The nightmare turned into a purple orb that he caught. Then, he did something that Symbol said only he could do. He crushed it, the remains fading away. Then he turned to us.

"So this is where you are huh?" At first I was about to ask what he meant, but then I noticed Abi shaking.

“Abi? Are you okay?”

“Y-Y-You’re not supposed to be here!”

"Then you should have stayed out of danger little sister."

’Litte… sister?’ I couldn’t even begin to understand what was going on. “AbI? What did he mean by that who is that guy?”

“W-Well… remember when I said Symbol had a life before he became a displacer?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, he used to know Symbol. In fact, they became adoptive brothers when they worked together to save a soul that split in two to make me and this other girl. But… he was never supposed to find Symbol until Symbol wanted him to.”

"Where is he?"

“He’s uh… doing something! He won’t be back for a while so you might as well leave!”

"I’m not going anywhere until I talk to him."

“Um… I still have no idea what’s going on.” I just looked between the two in confusion.

"Who’s she?"

“Um… it’s hard to explain.”

"Tch, figures."

“Well, why don’t we all get introduced?” I asked in a shaky voice.

"Very well. I’m Epidemic, the son of Alduin and the combined form of the Twins."

“Well I’m Ashley. Nice to meet you.” I held out my hand for him to shake, but he just glared at me. “Okay… no handshake.”

“Look Epidemic, Symbol’s going through some training and he doesn’t want to be found right now.”

"Then it’s your fault that I did find him."

“What? How’s this my fault?”

"You were in danger. Because of that a little energy signal went off and I was able to track you down."

“Oh… right.”

"I’m not leaving until I talk to him." Just then I felt myself being picked up by someone and was suddenly moving very fast. I was being carried bridal style by Symbol and Abi had merged with him.

"Symbol? What's going on?" He just looked at me with a stone cold expression.

"Something that was never supposed to happen. I'm taking you girls to Canterlot then I'm going to try to fix this mess." I looked back, it seemed that Epidemic wasn't following us. Just then we ran through a portal and appeared outside the train station in Canterlot as the mane six were walking out. "Stay with them and don't try to find me." With that he was gone.

Epidemics POV

It appears as though he is dead set on not letting me find him. Doesn't he know the amount of sadness his supposed death had caused? Of course he did, he knew yet he still didn't come back. I was going to find out what was going on and possibly bring him back, if I could.

"Now where did he speed off to?" I looked around and tried to sense his aura in the world but came up short. "So he's learned how to conceal his aura. That'll make this difficult."

I switched into my dragon form and took to the skies. I didn't care if I attracted attention from the ponies of this world, I had a mission to complete.

'Epidemic, I think you shouldn't do this.'

"There's something going on here and I'm going to find out what. I don't care what Symbol wants he has a job to do back home."

'...You just miss him, don't you?'

I sighed and kept flying. Sure enough, there was panic below me. Pretty soon, I could see the Twilight of this world and her friends coming at me from below. My best guess was that they were coming to stop me. Guess they were going to learn the hard way that I was not going to fail my mission. I had waited for a long time for this chance, and they way I came by it couldn’t have been coincidence.

{Flashback}

‘Wow. Still can’t believe that someone as strong as Symbol died.’ The Twins and Alduin had just got back from Symbol’s world a few days ago. Octavia had been pregnant with Symbol’s kid, so the Twins had to meet their, sort of, niece. Her name was Screwball, and the Twins thought she was adorable.

‘Is that all you think about?’

‘Well why wouldn’t I? Power is the only thing that matters in the multiverse. My god, the one that beat Symbol must have SO MUCH POWER!’

‘Yeah, power we don’t want to have anything to do with.’

‘WHAT?! Why? That much power would make us unstoppable! So much delicious power.’

‘We’re never going to get used to you, are we?’

‘Oh you will, trust me. And once that day comes, you’ll agree with me that power is everything, EVERYTHING!’

"SILENCE! ALL OF YOU!" Epidemic could feel the Twins and Psychotic flinch in his subconscious.

‘Geez, what crawled up your ass?’

"I’m trying to find something." Psychotic and the Twins quieted down, knowing exactly what Epidemic was looking for. Marx and Author were the only ones to sense it besides him, that trail of leftover aura. It was hidden well, very well mind you, but Epidemic’s trained senses could spot it. He knew, right then and there, that Symbol was alive. Of course, he had no way to him. That is, until today.

‘Come on Abi. I sensed your distress signal just a second ago. Where are you?’ Suddenly, he sensed a distress aura again. ‘Found you.’

{Flashback End}

If it hadn’t been for that signal, then I never would have found him. I don’t care what I have to do, I will get my answers. I looked back down at the mane six and saw Abi talking to them. They all shared unsure looks before teleporting back to Canterlot.

Suddenly a portal appeared straight in front of me and a purple blur shot out and knocked me out of the sky before vanishing again. I growled and took to the sky again. I tried tracking the aura but Symbol had managed to scatter it, whatever he's learned since we last saw each other is only going to cause me problems.

I suddenly felt something flying towards me, looking back I saw multiple purple projectiles flying towards me with tails of purple fire. I began flying and spinning, the projectiles exploding when they got close enough. Many of them grazed me and I switched out of my dragon form and back into my human form.

As soon as I hit the ground I was knocked off my feet by a huge wave of force. Just then a portal appeared in the side of a tree and I was knocked towards it. I threw myself to the side to avoid being sent through it and it closed.

"Symbol! Stop being a coward and show yourself!" As expected I got no response. Another wave of the fireballs shot up into the air and chased me. I managed to kick a few away but one came from behind and hit me square in the back. I flinched a little as it had caused a lot of damage. "You've gotten stronger...either that or smarter."

Just then something hit me in the back of the neck and paralysed my body. After falling to the ground I felt something grab the back of my collar and began dragging me towards a portal back to my world.

'Epidemic, you can't move. Let me and Amnesia take over.'

'No...I can still do this...'

"You ever think about why people do things?" I stopped at the sound of a familiar but yet unfamiliar voice. "No one does something without reason, even if they don't know what those reasons are. People may not have a choice in the matter, their reasons are forced upon them, whether they like it or not." I could feel the twins starting to become uncomfortable. "You're asking yourself what my reasons are, aren't you? You won't get an answer. Not yet anyway." We stopped as we reached the portal. "You are to tell no one about this. Not Vivi, not Lisa and not Auldin." He sighed. "I saw you kill that Nightmare and I'm not gonna ask how you did it, but it seems as though I am no longer needed back home, Screwball will continue where I left off."

I was thrown into the portal. As I looked into the portal I only saw a silhouette that seemed familiar but with significant changes. It snapped its fingers and the portal closed.

The paralysis wore off and I got to my feet. There was no way I'd let myself be beaten this easily. So I went to the only other person that could open up portals anywhere, I went to Marx.

“Marx!” A portal opened and Marx stuck his head out.

“What is it Epidemic?”

“I need you to open the portal to the world of a, certain displaced.”

“Alright who’s?”

“She goes by the name Ashley.”

“Ashley? Hmm, I think she’s new isn’t she? Her universe is pretty far away in the multiverse, far enough that the passage of time is different. However, if you’ve been there before, then they should be linked.” Snapping his fingers, Marx opened another portal, back to the very world Epidemic just came from. “By the way, why do you want to go there?”

“A certain someone is there, and I need to talk to him.”

‘More like beat his ass.’

“Yeah, you’re right. And you’re going to help me.”

‘Wait what? Do you mean?’

“Yes, it’s your turn to fight.”

Psychotic battle

{Third POV}

‘Agh, how in the hell did he find me?’ Symbol was trying to piece together exactly how Epidemic found him. ‘It makes no sense. I mean, unless he got Ashley’s token, which I made sure he wouldn’t, then there’s no way he could find me. Unless… that’s it! Abi must have fallen into danger, that’s how he found me!’ He nodded, concluding that this must have been the answer.

“Well, at least he’s gone now.”

“Oh I wouldn’t count on that heh heh heh.” Symbol turned to see a person that looked very much like Epidemic. Only difference was, wherever it was red on Epidemic, was blue on this guy. His eyes were also different. The whites of his eyes were black, and his pupils were small blue circles. “It’s nice to see you Symbol.” It was at this point that both Psychotic and Epidemic took the time to look at Symbols new look. His hair was long and grey, he was significantly taller, looking around nineteen. He wore a purple trench coat, grey shirt, purple jeans and grey boots. His eyes were also purple and he had a small buzz of a beard growing at the bottom of his face.

“Who are you?”

“Oh yes, we were never properly introduced. Well, I’m the newest fusion of the Twins. Epidemic is the representation of anger and rage. I on the other hand, am the representation of the madden lust for power. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, heh heh heh.”

“A new fusion for the Twins?”

“Indeed heh heh heh. Now, why don’t we sit down and have a nice chat?” Symbol just shot a ball of purple fire at Psychotic, who barely dodged it.

“I told Epidemic to leave this place, I’ll do the same for you.”

“So you want to do this the fun way huh? Heh heh heh, fine by me!” Psychotic flew at Symbol, his scythe outstretched. He slashed at Symbol whom promptly dodged it and returned the attack by kneeing Psychotic in the stomach, sending him flying. Then, he bombarded Psychotic with purple fireballs, causing a huge explosion. He glared at the smoke cloud, then watched in shock as it proceeded to recede into itself. After a few seconds, he saw that it was Psychotic, absorbing the leftover energy.

“Ah, that was a nice little power boost. My thanks to you Symbol, heh heh heh.”

“What? How did you?”

“Ah ah ha, that would be telling you how I’m going to win this fight, and that wouldn’t work in my favor.”

Symbol flew at Psychotic, charging up his fist with magic. He slammed his fist into Psychotic’s chest. Psychotic just smiled and Symbol began to wonder why. Then, he felt his magic draining. He moved away quickly, holding his fist which was now drained of the magic he supplied it with. Psychotic just smirked. then, he charged and slammed Symbol with a magic infused fist straight into his gut. Symbol was sent flying straight into the ground.

“Oh come on Symbol. I expected someone as strong as you to actually put up a good fight.”

'Ok, looks like energy based attacks are useless, gotta switch it up. Time to see if this works.' Symbol got to his feet and put his hands together and closed his eyes. "Mode three, level one unlock!" His body glowed with energy and his hair turned black as did his clothing. "Ok, so it works."

"Ha! Trying to hide your energy? Though it does work, to an extent, there’s still a little tiny bit my specialized instincts can sense. This will still make you difficult to track, but now I just want your power even more."

"Let me tell you something about 'Mode Three'..." Symbol disappeared. Psychotic tried to track him but to no avail. Just then he was knocked around by several hits that came out of nowhere. Symbol then appeared on a nearby cloud. "...it focuses the energy in my body on speed..."

He disappeared again and rapidly kicked his foe in the chest before sending him flying into a mountain.

"...in small doses it can have a huge effect, use all the magic energy in my body however..." He came face to face with Psychotic with an ice cold death glare. "...then whoever I'm facing is slower than a slug in slow motion compared to me." Psychotic tried to grab Symbol but he backed away. "I already analysed your fighting style and abilities, don't think I'll make such a simple mistake."

“Heh heh heh. Heh heh ha ha. Ah ha ha ha ha. AH HA HA HA HA HA! EXCELLENT! PERFECT! THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR! SOMEONE THAT HAS SO MUCH POWER, AND KNOWS HOW TO USE IT ALL! AH HA HA HA HA HA!"

“What are you talking about?”

“Heh heh heh, once I meet someone like that, my lust of power gets out of control. So much power that I could have, and I WILL MAKE IT MINE!” Suddenly, Psychotic began to change. His body became all black, with a blue outline, and Symbiote eyes. His body also appeared to make his teeth, which were sharp and long. His horns, wings, and tail were also in the same state. There was a definite increase of power in him. “I have waited for someone like you Symbol, because it warrants my full takeover of our body! AH HA HA HA HA HA!”

Symbol just sighed. "Mode Three, level two."

"More power? Excellent." Symbols hair became longer and his skin became grey.

Symbol just stared at him breathing heavily.

"Ah… your body isn't used to this kind of power usage yet is it? What a foolish decision to choose that form if it takes so much out of you!"

"My golden rule is… never use a form like this… unless you know it's gonna finish the job." Symbol disappeared again.

"Alright then. Go ahead and try to hit me, I’m sure you’ll be surprised." Symbol appeared behind him. He punched Psychotic, or at least attempted to. When he did, the part of Psychotic’s body that he tried to punch separated, preventing any damage.

"Well... That'll be a problem now won't it?" Symbol asked sarcastically.

"Well? Are you not surprised?"

"Nope." Psychotic just looked at him dumbfounded.

"Why?!"

"I literally live with someone with this same ability, and I'm not talking about Abi. And that means..." Symbol held out his arms and they became solid black and metal like. "...I have a counter." Symbol threw a punch, which Psychotic didn't expect anything from. But as the fist neared its destination and Psychotic tried to separate he was unable to. As the attack landed Psychotic was thrown towards the same mountain again. Symbol started to become tired, he cancelled out the technique and grabbed his chest.

'Damnit... I can't keep this up much longer... This body is still developing.' Symbol switched back to his normal self to regain his natural energy. 'Mode Three just takes too much energy, and using armament Haki only accelerates the energy consumption... I am so screwed.'

“What’s this? Wasted all of our energy have we? Heh heh heh, perfect. Now you’re vulnerable, weak, and hurt. This shouldn’t be too hard.” Psychotic dove at Symbol and tackled him into the ground. Symbol tried to kick him off, but Psychotic’s body just separated around him. Psychotic carried him into the air, threw him, and blasted him with a large beam of magic. Symbol took the shot, slightly surprised at its power, and then summoned two purple fire blades. He charged and swung his swords, but Psychotic’s body simply separated before the blades could touch him.

“What’s wrong Symbol? Can’t beat what you can’t touch?” Symbol slashed again, and Psychotic separated into four balls of symbiote material. They surrounded Symbol before smalls bits of them rapidly launched from one ball to the other, striking Symbol as they did so. Cuts were appearing everywhere on him, and Symbol couldn’t do a thing to move out of the way. Then they stopped, converged on him, and then launched him into the ground. They reformed Psychotic, who was smirking at the spot Symbol had just been launched into. The smoke cleared and Symbol was standing there.

“Okay that was definitely different. How are you doing this?”

“Well, even though I have control of the fusion, this effect is only temporary. It will not last forever, so I am inclined to do as I was told. I’m not allowed to kill you, nor drain your power, although that order I may ignore, so I might as well tell you. You’ll find out eventually. Basically when I’m like this, I have more control over my body then what is natural. The saying, “Mind over matter” literally applies to me! Heh heh heh ha ha ha!”

With that he dived towards Symbol. he separated into four balls of symbiote material, and landed on the ground, surrounding Symbol. Then, spikes grew out of each one, impaling Symbol from four different angles. They then converged on him, surrounding him in an orb of Symbiote material. From inside Symbol was constantly impaled again and again until a lot of his bones were broken. The material got off of him, and Symbol collapsed. Psychotic reformed and walked to him.

“It’s nothing personal Symbol, I was doing as I was asked. But now, heh heh heh, I’m afraid there’s one part of the request I must ignore, heh heh heh ha, there’s too much power FOR ME TO IGNORE! HEH HEH HEH HA HA HA HA HA!” He slowly walked up to Symbol and placed a hand on his back. Symbol could feel his energy draining, he assumed it was being absorbed by Psychotic. Suddenly there was a ball of fire and it nailed Psychotic, knocking him away.

“What the hell?” He looked around and saw Ashley standing there, fire in her hands.

“I don’t know who or what you are, but I won’t let you hurt Symbol anymore!” She charged up a ball of fire in her hand and shot it at Psychotic. Being ready for it this time, Psychotic’s body separated, letting the fire ball pass. Once he reformed, he gave Ashley an insane look.

“Oh? And who might you be? Heh heh heh, oh wait, I know who you are. Your Symbol’s displaced, aren’t you? Heh heh heh, I don’t have anything to do with you. But that just makes you an open target, heh heh heh, and around me that’s never a good thing! Heh heh heh HA HA HA HA HA!”

Burning sensation

Ashley held out her hands and they glowed green, then dozens of tiny green balls of light surrounded Psychotic. "Firefly!" The balls ignited and caused a massive explosion. Psychotic tried to absorb the energy but failed.

"What they hell?!" Ashley charged forward in a ball of fire and nailed him in the chest. When he tried to grab her his hand slipped right through her, the part he tried to grab had separated into fire. "What?!"

Ashley smirked and summoned two fire blades. She spin kicked Psychotic and he was thrown against a tree, she then threw the blades at him and they impaled his chest and stuck him to the tree. She charged her first with energy and sent a huge wave of fire over him. Charging forward Ashley held out her arms and they became black and metal-like, much like Symbols did.

She reached Psychotic and punched him in the stomach. She brought her other fist down on his chest. She then began to repeatedly punch him in the face and stomach until she charged up one last punch and landed on his chest, causing an explosion that burst out of Psychotics back.

Ashley watched as Psychotic fell to the ground with multiple burns, bruises and stab wounds. Smiling at her victory she moved her attention to Symbol who had his back against a tree and was holding his chest while breathing heavily.

"Ashley... I told you not... to come... after me."

She rolled her eyes and knelt down beside him. "I couldn't just leave you out here, you still need to teach me how to use observation Haki." Symbol smiled before falling unconscious. "Come on, let's get you to Canterlot where you can rest up." She grabbed Symbols shoulder and they teleported away from the area.

Psychotic slowly opened his eyes and punched the ground. "Damnit! I was so close to all that power!" Suddenly a portal opened and a man with spiked green hair, a scarf that covered his mouth, a green tracksuit top with a metal sash over it and jeans walked out. "Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Roden Godswell, and I have no business with you demon, I wish to speak with Epidemic." Roden placed his hand on Psychotics head and forced Epidemic out. "You were never supposed to be here young one, it isn't yet time for Neo to return."

"And why is that?"

"That does not concern you, Neo will return eventually but until that time comes he must remain here where he can develop."

Epidemic just growled and stood up. "Sorry old timer, but I have a mission to complete."

Roden just looked at him and frowned. "Fine, but if you succeed you are the one that must suffer the consequences." With that Roden stepped into a portal.

“Consequences? What the hell is he talking about? Hmph, I don’t time for this.” Epidemic became let loose his dragon phase and took the sky, readying his scythe for an attack.

Meanwhile Ashley had teleported to Canterlot, where Twilight and her friends were located. When they all saw the damage done to Symbol, they knew something was wrong.

“Oh my gosh what happened?” Ashley looked up as Twilight came rushing to assist.

“Someone very dangerous and determined arrived here. Remember that strange human looking thing with wings?”

“Well yeah of course.”

“He, sort of did this to him.”

“Sort of? How in the hay do ya sort of do this ta somepony?”

“Well, I don't think it was exactly him. It’s like it was a crazier, more insane version of him.”

“So he’s been corrupted by dark magic?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t feel any dark magic, I think it was just some other side of him.”

“You’re partly right.” With a gasp they all looked up to see Epidemic above them, glaring at them all. His glare was only intensified by his wings, claws, horns, and tail. “He is another side of something, but it’s not me. Maybe if we meet again I’ll tell you what that truly was.”

“Meet again? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean I’m taking Symbol home, and I don’t care if I have to kill each and every one of you in order to do it.”

“W-What?!” Twilight and the others started to panic, but Ashley kept her cool.

“Oh yeah? Go ahead and try! I beat the guy that beat Symbol pretty easily, what makes you so different?”

“Difference is, Psychotic is better meant to fight those that have a lot of energy. His keen energy sense can detect even the most well disguised energy signature. He can also absorb and steal energy from others. You however, are not fighting Psychotic. You’re fighting me, Epidemic, and I assure you our attack strategies are very different. I will not be concerned about gaining your power, I already have my own. Now, before this battle starts I'll give you a choice, surrender Symbol to me, or die.”

“Bring it on!” Ashley took up a fighting stance as did Twilight and her friends.

“Very well, then take a good look around you, for this is the last place you’ll ever see.” Epidemic dove at Ashley and the girls, causing them all to dive for cover. Ascending into the air again, he fired off a couple blasts of fire at them all. He hit his targets dead on, and everyone was sent flying. Ashley recovered first and fired off her own blasts. Epidemic dodged them and flew down at her, scythe at the ready. He swung and she barely dodged. He was about to swing again, but then got hit by a blast of magic from Twilight. He didn’t even budge, only slowed down for a second allowing Ashley to roll out of the way. He gave a look of fury towards Twilight, who wilted under his gaze. Ignoring her, he went back to his real target. Ashley had taken cover and started to charge up a ball of fire. Epidemic was about to go for her when…

“Hya!” Rainbow Dash came in with a spin kick, aiming straight for Epidemic’s face. He however, caught her leg and tossed her right into an incoming Applejack. Pinkie Pie fired her party cannons, which Epidemic destroyed with blasts of magic. Twilight ran in front of him and shot a beam of magic at him, which he simply walked through it to her. He grabbed her horn, stopping the spell instantly, and threw her to the side. By this point, the girls had bought Ashley enough time to build up a huge ball of fire in her hands.

“Take this!” She threw it at him as hard as possible and smirked when it hit her target. It exploded, creating a huge dust cloud. Ashley couldn’t see a thing, but she knew that there was no way anyone could survive something like that. Then, in the smoke, she saw a figure.

’N-No… no way… how could anyone… survive that?’ Epidemic walked from the smoke and closer still to Ashley. She grunted and rushed him. She threw a punch, which he simply dodged, and returned with a knee to the gut, and followed it up by a blast of magic, sending her flying into a wall. With difficulty, she separated herself from the wall and rushed him again, this time with a fist of fire. He caught her wrist and squeezed, forcing her to kneel from the pain. He held up one hand and charged up a ball of fire in it. He looked into her eyes as he was about to throw it and kill her, and saw something.

Determination. That’s what he saw. Even though she knew she was dead she was still willing to fight on for her friends. For the ones she cared about. In that moment, Epidemic knew he couldn’t kill her. She had a life to live, things to do, people to meet, places to go. If he ended all of that right here, it would have been too cruel.

So he didn’t. He let go of her arm, and dispersed the ball of flames.

“W-What are you?”

“If Symbol truly does have his reasons to stay, then so be it. I will wait until he returns. But, tell him this.” Epidemic turned to Ashley with a glare. “The moment he decides to return, I want answers.”

And with that he was gone, disappearing into a portal that opened up behind him. He walked out, leaving Ashley to wonder just what the hell was really going on. If Symbol had a life before, why didn’t he go back? Why wasn’t Epidemic supposed to find him yet? And maybe the most important of all, what happened to Symbol in the first place?

As Symbol lay in a bed in Canterlot Castle recovering from his wounds, a dark figure entered the room.

"My plan to have Epidemic bring him back has failed, looks like I have to do it myself." The figure grabbed Symbol and tossed him through a portal. "I have to make sure no one gets in my way, let's see how little Ashley does without her teacher for awhile!"

Forging Relationships

Ashley's POV

After meeting Celestia and explaining what had happened the best we could, the princess asked Abi and I to show her to Symbol. He was currently resting in a guest room if the castle while we walked.

"Princess, I can assure you that Equestria is safer with Symbol watching over it." Abi stated as she looked up to the alabaster mare.

"I sense no lie in your voice young one, but I must see this person for myself, I cannot just allow someone with such immense power to just walk into my kingdom without at least seeing them." Nodding in understanding Abi opened the door into Symbols room. We all looked in shock as the room was covered in claw marks and a few bits of furniture destroyed.

Abi ran over to the bed. "Symbol isn't here! Whatever did this must've taken him!" I walked over to the bed and found it empty.

"Who would want to take Symbol?" I asked. Abi looked around until her pupils shrank.

"Oh no..." She teleported away, leaving us confused.

"Do you know anything about this?" Celestia asked me.

"No, I'm just as lost as any of you. Geez, I really need to get Symbol to explain all this to me sometime." I shook my head and turned to Celestia. "If I do find him I'll tell him that you want to see him." The princess nodded and we all left the room that held a dark atmosphere. I knew that Symbol had some enemies, mainly due to his brother showing up earlier. If he does have many enemies then I'm gonna need to know about them, I don't want to be left in the dark anymore.

Abi's POV

I ran down the the hallway of doors until I came across a large door with a large green gem painted onto it. I burst into the room and saw Roden carving a small animal figurine from a piece of wood. "Roden! Something terrible has happened!" Roden just looked at me with a raised brow and spoke through his scarf which was always covering his mouth.

"And what would this terrible thing be?" He set down the freshly carved owl figure and picked up another piece of wood.

"Symbol has been kidnapped, I think it was Xram's doing!" He just looked at me with a neutral gaze.

"Really?"

"WHY ARE YOU NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY, IF SOMETHING HAPPENS AND SYMBOLS DEVELOPMENT IS INTERRUPTED THEN WE'RE AS GOOD AS DEAD!!!"

"Relax Abi, everything is under control. This was planned." I looked at him with a deadpan expression.

"Say what?"

"This was indeed the work of Xram, but he didn't take into account that I would completely disguise Symbols aura if he was forced back into one of his friends worlds. There he will reach a new stage in his development."

"What kind of stage, a higher tier demon state?" He got up and walked over to a locked chest.

"Something like that. Abi, do you know what becoming a displacer does to the body?" He asked as he opened the chest.

"No, I don't."

"That's because no one knows, it could have a number of effects on a person. However, I altered Symbols new body to take a... Specific, chain of development."

"What do you mean?" He pulled five black four pointed stars and snapped his fingers.

"Symbols current body is merely a vessel like his old one, as that body is no longer needed Symbols soul will break free and his true form will be revealed."

Ashley's POV

I returned to the log cabin when Abi reappeared saying everything was under control but Symbol would be gone for a few days. I don't know what she meant by that but if there is anything I've learned the pad two days is that I should trust what those two say. I changed into my orange silk pyjamas and set my gat on my armchair in my room. Climbing under the covers if my bed I lay my head on my pillow.

As I closed my eyes I felt myself being pulled from a dream and into somewhere else. I looked around and found the sky was blood red and the trees were black. "Did I just fall into Hellsing? Oh my gosh please let it be TFS Hellsing!" I got to my feet and ran to a cliff tags overlooked whatever was below.

As I approached the cliff I saw that the town of Ponyville was in ruin, the ponies all frozen in place. The red sky had large white glowing cracks in it.

"Ok I'm definitely not in Hellsing, something has to be wrong for the sky to be doing crack like that." I said as I looked up. I then heard quiet echoed laughter coming from behind me. I turned around to see a boy that looked like a younger version of Symbol, except his hair was short and everything on his body was pitch black save for his glowing red eyes, his body was outlined by a red aura.

"Well isn't this a lovely surprise?" The figure asked in a voice best described as psychotic. "I've been so lonely here ever since everything froze."

I took a defensive stance. "Who are you, where am I?" He laughed like a maniac and walked towards the cliff, looking out at the ruined town.

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Forge." He gave a playful bow before turning back to the view. "As for where you are, you're in a world that was previously home to a displaced Slenderwoman that goes by the name of Lisa, one of Symbols friends." This caught my interest.

"How do you know Symbol?" He laughed again.

"What, he didn't mention his dear brother? I'm hurt." He sarcastically grabbed his chest and winced. "Just kidding, I could care less."

Another brother? How many brothers does Symbol have?

"I take it after he defeated Xram he ran away to displace you correct?" He asked while looking at me from the corner of his eye.

"I... I don't know, he told me about that but I don't know his reasons for displacing me." He smirked at this.

"You wanna learn more about Symbol, don't you?"

I looked to my hands and over my new body before nodding.

"Alright, but don't blame me if this disturbs you." He put a finger to my head and images began to flash in my mind. I felt a blast of pain and backed away from Forge who was just looking at me with an evil smile. What I saw in those images... I-I can't even tell you, they were too... they were too... gruesome.

"No... no that couldn't have been Symbol."

"It was, he did all those things without mercy. That monster you saw was him, he did all of it." I put my hands to the sides of my head and fell to me knees.

"It couldn't... He couldn't..."

"Why are you denying it, you don't have any emotional ties to him and haven't known him long enough to- Ohhhhhhhhh." He held his sides as he started laughing at me. "You like him don't you?!" He ceased his laughter and brought up a screen. "Well I hate to burst you bubble missy, but it's called a crush for a reason!" I looked to the screen and saw Symbol in his old world as a pony dancing with Twilight, after the song ended and they stopped dancing they shared a passionate kiss.

For some reason this really hit me hard, it was true that I might have had a teeny tiny crush on him but it shouldn't have hurt the way it did.

"Here's a word of advice kid, you can't trust Symbol. He's a walking talking embodiment of hell, his sanity is slipping and he'll leave you whenever he has the chance." I looked to him with a glare.

"He won't leave, he can't leave." He shook his head.

"Hate to break this to ya lass, but Symbols with you temporarily." I looked at him with disbelief. "Once his body is finished developing and his training is done he'll take Abi and head back to his universe with his family and friends, you'll be left behind and be left as a distant memory. There's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. The Displacers Council have plans for him that need to be completed, he has a fucking kid back there as well as his family. What's left in your universe huh?! There's only you, you think you are so important to Symbol that he'll give all that up just to stay with you?! You best stop dreaming kid, you know what you are to him? You're nothing but a part of his training, a tool, a means of getting power!" The dream started to collapse and I woke up. "REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU!!!" Was the last thing I heard Forge yell before my eyes opened and I woke up in a cold sweat.

Trust in him

Ashley's POV

I sat in Sugarcube Corner, poking my slice of cake with my fork while leaning my head on my arm. Abi sat opposite me happily nibbling away at her slice. I was busy thinking about Forge and what he said.

'Is it true? Am I really just a part of Symbols training?'

"Who told you that?" I looked to Abi who was looking at my with a stern glare.

"Wait you can read my mind?" She nodded.

"I can read the minds of those I have fused with, apart from Symbol... I'd rather not delve into the abyss that is his subconscious." Abi shivered slightly and looked back to me. "Now tell me, who told you those things?"

I blinked in shock. "Wait if you can read minds does that mean that-"

"I know of your crush on my brother?" She asked with a raised brow and a sly grin. I blushed furiously and struggled to form words. "Relax I'm not going to tell him anything, you can trust me." I gave a sigh of relief. Abi stopped smiling and put a hoof to my face so I would look at her. "Now, who told you those things about Symbol?"

"One of Symbols brothers." Abi's expression went from stern to worried.

"Which one?" She asked in panic.

"He said his name was Forge or something." A look of horror made itself known on Abi' face.

"Ashley, you can not trust anything that comes out of that monster's mouth, understand?" I slowly nodded and she released a breath she was holding. "Good, did he do anything else?"

I rubbed my arm nervously, trying not to think about the things I saw in Symbols memories.

A look of horror bought a new home on the mare's face. "No... Nononononono. Ashley, understand he had no choice when it came to those things, he isn't like that anymore." I knew deep down that was true, but I couldn't get over what I saw.

"So much destruction... And that monster he turned into..." Abi sat down beside me and gently rubbed my back.

"I know, I know, you'll forget about it soon. I'll make sure of it." She was about to merge with me when I stopped her.

"No, I want to remember this." She looked at me surprised. "If I'm going to trust Symbol, I need to know who he is." She smiled softly and nodded.

"That's a better way to think about it. Hey, if it wasn't for all those events he wouldn't be the badass we know today." I giggled slightly and scratched her behind the ear.

"So, where do you think he went to?" Abi put a hoof to her muzzle in thought.

"Well, he wouldn't be taken to his universe, only somewhere close like Bill's universe or Gale's."

I looked at her in confusion. "Who're Bill and Gale?"

She looked up at me with a smile. "Bill is the first displaced Symbol ever met, he was a Bill Cipher. Gale is a displaced Mecha Sonic, he met Gale before the Xram incident." I nodded in understanding.

“So, which do you think it is?”

“Considering what happened with Gale and Lisa, and since Bill would probably be able to tell that it was Symbol if he was sent there, probably Gale’s.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“What was the, Xram incident anyways. I’ve never really been given any details on it.”

“Oh boy. Get comfy, this is gonna take a while.” I adjusted in my seat before nodding, giving her the go ahead. “Alright, so it all began like this…”

One day, Symbol had to go to the universe of someone named Lisa with Gale, whom he had met before. Anyways, they were summoned there to kill a particularly powerful Nightmare. When they arrived, they worked together with Lisa to track down the Nightmare. When they did, they found Forge instead. Symbol went to look for these things called reality stars to see if they could help him defeat Forge for good, while Lisa went after a Nightmare that was with Forge, and Gale went for Forge himself.

The battle didn’t last too long, and ended abruptly when Forge attacked Lisa. Gale dove in front of the blast and got badly hurt. Forge tried attacking Lisa again, but that brought out Gale’s dark form, which stalled Forge a little longer. However, he too, was defeated. Forge was about to kill Lisa and Gale, then Symbol showed up. He fought forge for a little while before Forge turned the tables and started beating Symbol down. That’s when… it happened.

When Gale saw Symbol getting beat on, he used his beast form as a last result to save him. However, something went wrong, and Gale got possessed by Xram. I don’t know too much about Xram. What I do know is that he wants to destroy the entire multiverse and remake it in his own image. Anyways, once Xram came in, it was all over. He knocked Forge unconscious, and Symbol had to send Lisa to his own universe before… before Xram killed him.

I couldn’t believe what I just heard. Xram killed Symbol?

“Wait what? But that’s impossible, Symbol is alive right now!”

“He was brought back later using the reality stars. Anyways, after that Xram threw Lisa’s universe into a rip in time and space, then went to Symbol’s universe where he caused mass destruction and chaos. He fought and won against Marx and Author, and battled a fusion of Epidemic and their father known as Apocalypse. Apocalypse almost won, but Xram used a sneak attack to get the upper hand.”

“How did they beat him?”

“Well, after Apocalypse was struck down Lisa appeared in front of him and called out to Gale. Apocalypse defused back into Alduin, Gale’s brother, and his son Epidemic and they did the same. Then Metal, a Metal Sonic displaced came in and did the same. Gale heard them and his control over his body back and forced Xram out. Everyone was happy, then Xram came back in his true form but Symbol sacrificed his soul to beat him once and for all.”

“Oh…” I was shocked. Symbol risked his life to save everyone.

“Yeah… Anyways, no one but Roden, and now Epidemic knows that he’s alive and Symbol wanted to keep it that way for some reason.” I just looked at her in shock.

"Could... Could I see what happened when Symbol beat Xram?" Abi went into deep thought.

"Alright, but not here." After teleporting us back to the cabin Abi fused with me. My vision started to go black. When it returned I was standing in a field of grass. The sky was blood red and the clouds were black. Large amounts of smoke rose into the air as towns and cities burned. Looking over I saw a black skeleton with a white cloak floating in the air, laughing evilly as he stared down at a group of beings, including a few humans, ponies and displaced. What shocked me was a Symbol look alike was holding a dead Symbol in his arms. Symbol was much shorter, his hair was brown and short. He also wore some kind of necklace with the medallion being a symbol of the sun. The look alike also wore a necklace with a star on it.

"Who is he?" I asked.

'One of Symbols brothers, Zero.' I watched as the skeleton rose it's hands into the air and a huge ball of energy formed. As a huge beam fired down on the ground a large pillar of purple fire rose from the ground and shielded everyone. A figure made entirely out of the fire with glowing yellow eyes stepped out and summoned a huge ball of energy. After giving one last warning to Xram and being denied, the figure launched the huge energy sphere at him, destroying him. The ball then turned into a bubble and spread all across Equestria, returning everything to normal. The figure then started to fade away, a look of satisfaction on its face as it faded out of existence, the sun shining down on the spot it had arose from.

"That was Symbol?" I asked in complete shock.

'Yes, that was his soul. He used his very life force to create a greater attack to kill Xram and save his loved ones. We would all be dead if it weren't for him. Now, watch the sky closely after the group goes away.' As the group headed for Canterlot and took Symbols lifeless body away, a few tiny tongues of purple fire appeared in the sky. Multiple portals showed up and they all shot into one. Except for the largest one. Roden walked out of a portal and grabbed it, taking it to revive Symbol.

"Where did those flames go?"

'They went to each one of his friends universes so he could keep an eye on them. When they got back to their homes a small candle with a purple flame appeared.' Explained the symbiote. 'And hey, it's not like him dying was a bad thing. It brought two displaced into a loving relationship, brought some old friends together and to top it off, everyone is safe.' This got me to smile.

"Hey Abi, how old was Symbol then?" I asked in curiosity, he looked really young here.

'Oh, he was fourteen.' That young? He saved the multiverse at just fourteen?

"How long has he been away from this world?"

'Just over eleven months.' I suddenly felt sick. 'What's wrong?'

"I have a crush on someone nearly three years younger than me."

'Relax, his aging process was sped up, he's basically twenty now. Besides, it's not like he has the mind of a teenager, he never has. There's no problem whatsoever.' I gave a sigh of relief. 'You really like him don't you?'

"I don't know."

'Well I'll tell you one thing you know.' I raised a brow. 'You can trust him to take care of you.' This filled me with a sense of security. 'He'll protect you any way he can, because he's the one that brought you to Equestria, he holds that responsibility to himself to take care of you. He will never just leave you behind Ashley, he never leaves anyone behind, even his enemies.'

The dream faded and I woke up in my bed. I looked to my dresser and saw a small candle with a purple flame.

'See? He cares about you, he'll never let you go.'

I smiled and sat up. "God damnit Abi you're making me love him."

'It's kinda my job to, sisters are usually the ones that help get the ball rolling in these situations.' I shook my head and she defused with me. "You should probably go get a shower or something, all that sweating has made you stink, it's like the air is filled with ashes." Abi covered her snout adorably.

"Well, my name is Ashley." She looked at me with a death glare.

"Bad joke, feel bad." With that she walked out of the room.

"I wonder what Symbol is doing right now." I said to myself, taking off my clothes and heading for the bathroom.

Meanwhile

In a large cave there was a huge chamber with a giant cross statue. On that statue Symbol was hanging from chains, blood running down his arms and face.

"Let it out Symbol, show me your power or die!" Symbol raised his head and smirked at the black skeleton before him.

"I died once, it was an amazing experience, I'd love to go through it again." The piece of Xram growled and punched him in the stomach. "Come on, you can do way fucking better!"

Xram looked to the grinning demon before him. "Your sanity is slipping."

"Really? I would have never fucking guessed, give the walking dog treat a prize." With that Symbol fell unconscious. 'Need... To get... Out of here.'

He has others?

In the city of Manehatten late at night, the ponies that were not out and about during the late hours slept peacefully in their homes. However, one young Colt woke up violently after a horrible nightmare of a monster made of a dark purple substance and a wide evil grin. Shaking his head the foal looked out his window and stared at the moon.

"The night is a wondrous time, do you not agree?" The young Colt froze at the sound of the voice.

"Y-You can't be real! You're only a nightmare!" Exclaimed the pony as he tried to run to the door of his room only to be blocked by a tendril shooting into the floor.

"You aren't wrong there, I am a Nightmare, the Nightmare, your Nightmare." The Nightmare that had once been trapped in Symbols body slowly dragged himself towards the shaking Colt. "But soon..." he reached his claw out to the pony and placed one finger on his head, the colts eyes going black with only black dots as pupils. "... You'll be part of the nightmare that covers this world beyond." The Colt stood up and became stiff, it's dead black eyes unmoving.

"Y-Yes... Master."

Ashley's POV

I woke up the next morning with a goofy smile, I had the most wonderful dream. It was of Symbol and I, we're were dancing at a party with soft romantic music in the background. The slow dance soon turned to a more intense dance, ending with me hanging off of Symbols neck with my arms wrapped around him. He was leaning towards me, and me towards him until our lips met. At that point I woke up with my ridiculous grin.

Oh God, listen to me. If this keeps up no one is gonna keep reading, and that would mean the end of my existence and Symbol would just be moved to another world to start again... Wait where the hell did that come from?

Not important. Anyway, I walked into the dining room to see Abi and Alucard. Taking a seat I-What the hell!? Alucard!?

"Oh, so our new sister has awoken then? I'll say that I didn't expect Symbol to choose such a skimpy outfit for you to wear, not that I'm complaining or anything." His voice wasn't the official Hellsing Ultimate voice, it was the TFS voice. I looked to his wrist and saw that he had a purple band with a gem on it, just like me, Sean and that the other Ashley.

"Um, who're you and why are you in our house?" I asked slightly terrified.

"What, you didn't think you were the only one that Symbol had displaced did you?" Abi just sat eating her cereal calmly. "If you haven't guessed I am Alucard, but you may call me Jackson, or just Jack." He reached out his hand and I took it.

"Ashley." He nodded and began drinking a cup of red liquid which made me shudder slightly. "So, you're one of Symbols displaced?"

"Eeyup, there are also three others."

"Hey Jack, you find Symbol yet?" I looked into the living room where two others sat.

"Dear, he may not be here, he is a busy man after-all." The girl with green hair said as she looked at the man in the seat. Moving her eyes she spotted me. "Oh, you must be that newcomer we've heard about. I am C2, but you may call me Jessie. This is my husband Lelouch, or Mike." I looked to their wrists and saw the bands.

"Um, it's very nice to meet you. I'm Ashley. Uh, can I ask why you are here?" Just then the door to the cabin opened, revealing the last figure.

"The answer to that is, we are looking for Symbol." The spartan that walked towards me almost made me fangirl. "I am 117 Master Chief, but you can just call me Marcus." Instead of holding his hand out to shake he brought me into a friendly hug, catching me completely off guard.

"Yep, that's Marcus, always hugging everyone he meets." Alucard, I'll just call them by their displaced names, said as he entered the room with Abi. "Like he said we're here to find Symbol, he hasn't been responding to our calls as of the past few days, so we're trying to find him before a Nightmare shows up or if we actually do require his assistance."

"Um, Symbol is living here now, and he's gone too do some training in another displaced world." I explained while releasing myself from Chiefs death grip.

Lelouch starched his chin. "He's living here and not in Rodens palace? Interesting. What do you make of this Abi?"

"He's doing it to help Ashley here to feel better about being in Equestria and away from her brother and his girlfriend." The symbiote explained while handing everyone present some tea.

"Isn't that just like him?" Asked Chief sarcastically. I expected him to take off his helmet to drink but a small slot in his helmet opened and he poured the liquid into it.

Just then there was a knock at the door. Walking over I found the mane six standing there.

"Good morning Ashley, we just wanted to see if you were up for a picnic. We do want to get to know you better after all." Said Twilight. I looked back and saw the displaced in the room nod.

"Ok, I'll be right out in a few minutes." The ponies nodded and went to sit on a few logs Symbol had laid out around a fire. Closing the door I saw all the displaced get up, one threw a black four pointed star in the air and it opened a portal.

"If you see Symbol tell him we were looking for him." Said C2 as she and her husband walked into a he portal, followed by Chief and the smiling Alucard.

As the group disappeared I glared at Abi who flinched at my gaze. "What?"

"Why didn't you tell me he had more displaced?!" I yelled, suprisingly hurt that I wasn't told.

"It never came up, you didn't ask. He displaced them when he displaced you. When he travels to other worlds he slows the flow of time in there worlds so he can be away for longer with the help of some gems known as Reality Stars. You know, the things he was brought back with?" I just narrowed my eyes.

"So he's been randomly disappearing?" I was really confused as to why I was acting like this.

"No, he's been here the whole time. When he displaced you he put you a year ahead of everyone else, meaning he had the time to get them all ready in their worlds before he came here to meet you." This calmed me down a little.

"I want a better explanation whenever Symbol gets back." She nodded with a soft smile and I walked out the door.

Alucards POV

I watched as my fellow displaced walked to their worlds. They were going to patiently wait for Symbol, I was going to find him. "Now, where did he scamper off to?" I began walking through the hallway of doors, passing the one of my version of earth.

Eventually I reached one a bit farther than I expected. It had the symbol of a blue screw and nut.

"Oh this cannot be good."

Strangers

{Third POV}

“Hmm.” Gale sat on the couch, thinking.

“What’s on your mind?” Sonic was sitting next to him, playing Sonic Unleashed. Currently, he was fighting the Egg Dragoon.

“That robot, I wanna make it.”

“What?”

“I wanna make that robot.”

“The Egg Dragoon?”

“Yes, I wanna make it.”

“Well, what’s stopping you?”

“One, materials. Two, how to make it.”

"I'm sure there’s some displaced out there that can give you some blueprints or something.”

“Fuck that!” Gale nabbed the controls from Sonic. “Snatch!”

“Wha? Hey!” Gale exited the boss level and went to the extras. “Oh come on man I was almost done!”

“No you weren’t. You still had Dark Gaia.” Flipping through the different original drawings, he eventually stopped on one of the Egg Dragoon. “There we go, I can make a blueprint out of this! Oh and here!”

“Uh…” Gale gave Sonic the controls again and walked off. He looked back at his game, shrugged, and went back to it. As he was about to enter a stage Lisa snatched the controller away.

"My turn!"

"Hey! I was playing that!"

"If you can call that playing, you lost seven lives just getting through Eggmanland, granted it is a long hard stage but it shouldn't have taken more than three." Sonic sighed and sat down.

“Ugh, this was a whole lot easier when I actually did this.”

"Yeah but you were at the mercy of a player when you did it."

"Thanks for pointing out that my entire life was nothing but a videogame Lisa."

“Your welcome!” Lisa turned back to the game and began to play, easily getting through the level without losing any lives. “See? That wasn’t so hard for me.”

“Because you’ve had videogames all your life! I didn’t!”

“Excuses excuses.” Flicking through other games to play with a tendril Lisa put a finger to her chin in thought. "I'm in the mood to race someone, might as well call up Metal to actually have a challenge."

As she tried to summon Metal Sonic with his token she was surprised to find it didn't work. The token turned red and threw itself out of Lisa's hand.

“Aw what? Boo!” She picked up the token again and examined it, feeling something very, very wrong with it. Looking to the portal that joined their worlds she saw that it too had turned red and flickered on and off. "What the hell is going on?"

"Hey Lisa, are you having trouble opening a portal too?" Gale called in.

"Yeah, I'm trying to get Metal to come here but his token and portal turned red."

"I'm trying to call for Marx to get materials but he's not responding and no portals are showing up."

“What the hell is going on?” Gale was about to suggest something, but then out of nowhere came a raging headache.

“GAH!”

“Gale!” Lisa rushed over to her partner who was on his knees in pain. When she tried to touch him she was shocked by some force that prevented it. She heard beeping and looked up to a small golden candle that had appeared a few months before with a purple flame. It was flashing and beeping, like it was detecting something.

Suddenly the beeping stopped, and Gale stopped groaning. He stood up, with a serious energy about him.

“Gale?”

“He’s here.”

“Who?”

“Xram.”

{Symbol’s POV}

"Come on come on, find him already you two!" I shouted as I focused my energy on the candle I had given them after my death. "I can't make this more obvious for you Gale!"

With my energy spent I slumped down. I looked to the chains at my wrists that we're keeping me attached to the giant stone cross.

"Of all places Xram could have brought me, it had to be here." Sighing I looked to the blood that was slowly slipping down my arms from my damaged wrists. A bit of blood dripped from my forehead and fell to the floor of the huge underground room.

Just then I noticed a familiar black skeleton with a white cloak walking into the room. "My my, someone is restless."

"Go get bucked by a timberwolf Xram."

“Ooo~ no thanks. Had someone in the Black Plane have a fear of that. Lets just say things got, bloody.” Even he shuddered at that comment.

"Ok, I may be going insane but you are just sick, even for your own standards."

“Trust me, I let that guy go. That was a bit too much torture. Found out he died five seconds later from the, lack of, body parts. Man, watching that timberwolf maul him and rape him was horrifying yet strangely beautiful at the same time.”

I just looked at him disgusted. "Ok now that is just bucked up on so, so many levels. No wonder everyone, especially my dad, want you dead."

“What can I say, being crazily sane is a beautiful. You should try it sometime.”

"Please, I am beyond insane at this point, I was raised in that hellhole Masereth, and been corrupted by the Nightmares, been to hell and back, died once and all of my mental barriers I set up to block out the pain of my past are gone. I just hide it extremely well."

“You know, I could make you sane again. All you have to do is agree to a deal.” I sighed.

"Even if I say I don't want to hear it you're just gonna tell me anyways right?"

“Nope.” I sighed in relief. “I’m just gonna do it anyways to make this part all the more fun.”

"You know what, I've had enough of this. Alucard, if you wouldn't mind?" Xram raised a brow before he was thrown against a wall. "Took you long enough, where are the others?"

One of my own displaced stood there with a smirk. "What, I wanted to see how this played out. The others are back in their worlds waiting for you, although it seems Roden put up a little seal to block you from getting out of here any time soon."

Rolling my eyes I looked back down to Alucard. "Mind getting me out of these chains?"

"Sorry, no can do, Rodens orders." I raised a brow.

"You aren't his displaced Alucard, you're mine, you take orders from me."

"Yes well, he was very persuasive." He replied, grinning like an idiot.

"He gave you your own version of Seras Victoria didn't he?" He just laughed and I sighed. "Well then, thanks for punching Xram, I needed that."

"No problem boss, I'll just be going before someone notices I'm here." With that he was gone.

"I wonder how Ashley is getting on back home. Probably not important right now."

“Well, it seems you're being abandoned.” I looked over to see Xram floating up to me, a crack in his skull from the force of impact that slowly faded.

"You gonna do your token villain thing yet or not?"

“Nah, I’m not really one for the clichés. Besides, there’s an annoyance making his way here at mach five speeds.” I smirked.

"Oh I wonder how that could have happened." He glared at me,

"Don’t think for a second that you warned him."

"Oh?"

“No, the little piece of me that’s in him did.”

"Little piece in him?”

“Yeah. When he kicked me out of his mind, he also ripped out a bit of my power and took it for himself. Clever little bastard.”

"Well, good thing I took down that little barrier you made around this place." He stopped grinning and looked at me with hate.

"Idiot, that wouldn’t have stopped him anyway. With that bit of my power in him being active many of my powers will believe that he and I are one in the same. With that shield down he’ll just be able to bring useless backup. Speak of the devil, here he comes now.”

"I would hardly call Lisa worthless backup." His face went from hate to horror. "Oh, I'm guessing you didn't know she lives here? That is highly unlikely, you know everything. Oh right, I damaged your senses when I killed you last time!"

“Idiot! You only destroyed that small part of my power that escaped. Just like this body is just a small part of my power. If this was the real me, then you’d be cowering in fear.”

"Let me tell you something..." I blinked and my eyes turned black with red dots as pupils. "... I lost my sense of fear a long time ago. You wouldn't try to kill me, you know what will happen if this body is destroyed. That's why you aren't killing me now when you clearly have a perfect opportunity.”

"Ooo~ I’m soooo scared. Hmph, like I could care about your little, coming back from the dead attack. I know that it would kill this body, but my true one would barely even flinch. It’s a shame that my prison keeps making these bodies. It does allow me set certain things in motion though.”

“What do you mean by, your prison keeps making these bodies?”

“Oh, well one reason my prison is unbreakable is because everytime I get to a certain point in my power, my prison disperses a very small amount all over the multiverse. However, I recently figured out how to concentrate that power into one spot, and sometimes a small bit of that energy gathers and makes these bodies.”

"So... like the Nightmares?"

"No, it's nothing like the Nightmares!"

"Last time I checked the King of the Nightmares did the exact same thing."

"How the hell do you know about the King?" I raised a brow at him. "Oh yeah, created to destroy them and whatnot."

"You're an idiot."

"And you're a pest."

"Hey, if I get to pester you then I'll happily be the infestation in whatever place your boney ass lives in." He facepalmed and turned away.

"I'm not doing this anymore. I have some guests to entertain.”

"Hey while you're out, we're out of milk."

"Okay I'll head down to the sto- wait a minute." I just burst out laughing.

"Oh this is just too bucking easy!"

“That’s because when this body was formed, the formation screwed up and now I’m quite a few teacups short of the full set.”

"That's an... interesting metaphor."

“Well apparently the universe decided make this body slightly British. Which reminds me, if I survive this I need to pester the real me about my tea time.”

“What?”

“Oh yeah, each of these bodies get random consciences and personalities.”

"So there can be versions of you that are actually good?"

“Nope, they’re all evil, just different in ways of thinking. The real me could easily give you your sense of fear back, as well as your sanity, then break it all over again, in like three seconds.”

"Shouldn't you be out there fighting those two?"

“Oh yeah huh? Thanks for the reminder and not letting them sneak up on me!”

“Wouldn’t you sense them?”

“Nope! This mind is plagued with the weakness of being easily distracted!”

"Just get out of my sight." Shrugging he teleported away. "Finally, peace and quiet."

‘Oh by the way, if I survive this I’m going to plague you with random conversations in your mind. Doesn’t that sound great?’

“WHY?!?!?!”

Lisa's POV

“Gale! Slow down!” Gale was carrying me bridal style while flying at a very fast speed.

“No can do, we have to get to him.”

“I understand that but why must you go so fast?”

“Because I’m going to annihilate that bastard for destroying your universe.”

“I love the concern babe, but at this rate my head’s gonna get ripped off from the G-force!”

“Don’t worry we’re almost there.” He seemed to increase his speed before he started to slow down. We stopped in front of a cave in a mountain. He floated to the entrance and set me own. I stumbled a bit before Gale caught my shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” With a nod Gale did one last check before he looked into the cave. His looked hardened before his plating turned a little darker. “He’s here.”

We walked to the cave, before we heard some insane laughter.

“Oh look who’s here! The metal monster that I possessed and the girl with the missing universe. What a surprise!”

“Xram.” Gale’s voice was as dark as it was when he was in his dark form. I turned to look at him, and his plating was completely black, and his eye was red. “Why are you here?”

“Oh you know, just doing my thing.” Okay what? Xram seemed way different than when we first saw him. Wonder why. With a grunt, Gale disappeared, then reappeared behind Xram with his hands together and attempted to slam them down. Xram dodged easily, and was about to return the attack when he stopped and held two fingers to the side of his head.

“Huh? What? Whyyyyyy? Ugh, fine. Your lucky Gale, I don’t have time for this right now. Goodbye!” With that Xram was gone.

“Um… what?” Gale, who was turning back to normal, looked at me and shrugged.

"I don't know." He looked down the cave and we both saw a light. "Hey, there's something down there, let's go check it out."

I nodded and we began walking carefully through the cave. As we got closer the sound of dripping could be heard. Walking into the huge room we were blinded by the light, once our eyes adjusted we both looked in horror at the sight before us.

In the middle of the room there was a huge stone cross with someone chained to it. It was a boy that looked not much older than nineteen with long grey hair and a small buzz of a beard below his lower lip. He had a purple trench coat, grey shirt, purple jeans and grey boots. There was blood dripping from his chained wrists and a small line of blood running down his forehead.

He opened his purple eyes and breathed heavily. "Took ya... long enough."

"Gale, we have to get him down." He nodded and flew up to the boy. He used his strength to break the chains on the boy who then fell to the floor with a thud. I ran over to him and saw he was falling asleep. "Let's get him to the apartment."

Gale nodded and teleported us back home, the boys unconscious body in my arms. "Any idea who he is Lisa?" I looked to him as I set him down on the couch.

"There's something familiar about him, but I don't recognise his aura, his face however, I know from somewhere."

"Well if Xram was holding him captive like that he must be important. I'll try and contact Marx or Author, see if they know anything about him." As Gale walked into the other room I looked at the body in front of me.

"I swear I've seen you before." I suddenly started getting sleepy, sitting on the couch next to him I started to drift off.

As I woke up in a dream I looked around at the black abyss I was now in, a small circle of light around me as I walked. Soon a figure appeared in the distance. Running to it I slowed down as I saw who the figure was.

The blue shirt with a black undershirt, the straight brown hair and sapphire blue eyes. Then the necklace, the necklace I nor anyone else in the displaced family could forget. The black wire with a sun medallion. "S-Symbol?"

He remained silent, looking at me from the corner of his eye. He turned away and began walking. Following him I looked around as the abyss slowly turned into a starry night sky and the floor turned to a sea of stars. Looking to my feet I saw I was on a small patch of land with a lamppost. Looking up I saw two moons and clouds that were a mixture of blue, red and pink floated through the sky.

Looking around I saw Symbol standing at the edge of the small island, looking out at the sea. "Symbol, please say something." I got no response. "Please, I need to hear your voice." Still nothing. "I never got to say thank you, for everything you did. I know you're just a figment of my imagination in a dream but... thank you, for saving me, Gale, everyone." He just stood still, his clenched fist opening slowly. "Please, even if this is just a dream, let me hear your voice again." He closed his eyes. "It's been almost eleven months since you died, I still feel guilty for not being able to do anything against Xram." He disappeared suddenly and appeared behind me.

Turning around to face him I was surprised when I was brought into a meaningful hug. "You shouldn't feel guilty Lisa." I started to tear up and returned the hug, burying my face in his shoulder while crying. "Everything worked out, your world is being rebuilt, you and Gale are together, everyone back on my world has moved on. You did the best you could, that's all anyone can ever expect. Don't feel guilty Lisa, never carry that guilt, that's my burden to carry, no one else's."

"This isn't just a dream, is it?"

"When I was killed, pieces of my soul survived, in the form of the candles. That candle in your home is part of my soul." I just tightened the hug. "Never blame yourself Lisa, it was my own fault for letting the Nightmare take full control the first time I fought Xram."

"Forge was going to kill us, you couldn't stop the Nightmare even if you tried." I pulled away and put a hand onto his cheek, his face was still the same, young and filled with pain. "I missed you so much, and now I'm gonna miss the real you even more."

"Don't worry Lisa..." The dream began to collapse and my vision faded. "... I'm closer than you think."

“Huh? Wha?” I woke up suddenly, that stranger still next to me. Groggily, I stood up and walked to the bar. I walked over to the fridge and pulled out a soda. Cracking it open I drank eagerly. “Ah, nice and fizzy.”

“Ugh why?” I turned to see Gale entering the room.

“What’s up?”

“My brother’s token doesn’t work either, and Marx still won’t respond. What is going on?”

“Perhaps Xram and this stranger are the reason?”

“Maybe. How’s he doing anyway?”

“Okay, but he’s unconscious right now and judging from his injuries he may not wake up for a while.”

“Hmm, I wonder what Xram wanted with him.”

“Me too. Hey um, I just had this weird dream.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Basically I was in a black void, and Symbol was there too. He told me to not feel guilty about what happened, and when I said I wished I could see him again, he said he was closer than we thought.”

“Hmm.” Gale put a finger to his chin. “Do you think that’s Symbol?”

“What? Why do you?”

“Yep.”

“But, he looks nothing like him. Well, a little like him but.”

“Reincarnation can change people’s appearances.”

“His aura is different too.”

“He can disguise it, and change it. I know I’ve seen it.” I looked at the stranger asleep on the couch.

“You really think that could be him.”

“That’s always the cliche path of fate ain't it?”

“True.”

“Welp, I’m gonna continue looking into what’s going on.”

“Alright good luck babe!”

“Thanks you too!” I nodded and turned back to the guy we saved from that cave. Could that really be Symbol? I mean, now that I think about it, his aura may not be the same but I still get that same vibe from him. Hmm, I guess I’ll question him when he wakes up. I left to go down to Ponyville to go get something at Sugarcube Corner.

{Symbol’s POV}

Opening my eyes, making sure that Gale and Lisa had gone, I got up and looked around. "So this is where Gale lives? Impressive." I looked over at the candle and smiled. "You keep looking after them." It flashed and flickered. "I guess now is a good time to leave their gift I was going to give them."

I held out my arm and black liquid fell to the floor and formed two figures, one of a combination of a robotic looking wolf and a lion creature and one of a robotic bird. Picking up a piece of paper I wrote down a message.

Dear Lisa and Gale

Thank you for freeing me from Xram’s chains, I guess this makes us even now.

I haven't quite recovered and cannot return to my world as of yet. Don't worry, I won't bother you. I'll find a place to rest in the mountains. If you want to search for me you can try, but it won't be easy.

I've left you these 'pets' to say thank you, for showing me a great time before Xram. The wolf is for Gale, he is called Greygar. The raven is called Falzar and he is for Lisa. Both of these can fuse with you to give you an ability. Greygar will cover Gale in a wolf/lion armour that boosts your original abilities without tapping into Xram’s power which by the way might eventually corrupt you, just be careful ok? I'm not sure what kind of effect Xram had on you but I can almost guarantee it is not a positive one.

As for Lisa, when Talon fuses with you he’ll give you some bird like armor with wings that’ll boost your fighting capabilities and speed so you can keep up with Gale.

Take good care of them. Oh, and you're gonna get a kick out of this, they can fuse with each other to create a powerful creature called the Cyber Beast. You may be wondering why they’re like this. Well, I made them so they can interact with both of you easier.

Until we meet again my friends,

Putting the more down I saw the two animals form into a robotic lion/wolf creature with raven wings. "Ok Cyber, you know what you need to do from here on in."

"I do, creator." I patted his head and walked out of the apartment. As I opened the trapdoor that led to the outside I found I was on some kind of floating platform. "Wait, is this Sky Sanctuary Zone from Sonic 3 and Knuckles?" I laughed a little and peered over the edge. "Well, I don't see any other way down."

I turned around and put my heels to the edge. Spending my arms I turned around, tilted back, and fell off the side. As the ground approached I turned around and held my hands out, summoning two pillars of fire to slow my decent until I landed with a loud thud.

"Now, where did those two get off to?" Pinpointing their location in Ponyville I smirked. "I'll not disturb them, but I do want to actually see them together while not hanging from a cross." Closing my eyes I teleported to Ponyville.

“CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” I teleported outside of Sugarcube Corner, to see a party going on. Currently Gale was downing a jug of, something. Not too sure what that is. I changed into my pony form, a blue stallion with straight white hair. My mark was, of course, my necklace. Time to play spot the Symbol you two. I walked in and hid amongst the crowd. I watched as Gale finished the drink, and slammed it down.

“WOOOOO!” Everypony cheered as another pony sighed and handed Gale a couple of bits. They all returned to the party and I looked around for Lisa. I eventually found both her and Pinkie in the kitchen, baking cake and other sweets. Pinkie was zipping around the room and Lisa was using her tendrils to bake multiple things at once.

“Thanks for the help Lisa!”

“Welcome! I’m just glad I get to practice my cooking.” She closed three ovens at once and set the timers.

“Wow, even I can’t bake three cakes at once!”

“Yep. It’s useful having tendrils.” I shook my head and left the party.

’Alright, where to find a home?’

Gale's POV

After finishing off another huge bottle of... something, I slammed it into a table and threw my hands up in victory, the ponies around me cheering. I had no idea who had organised this party or what it was for but I thought it would be a nice break from looking into whatever was wrong with this world and its portals.

Lisa was in the kitchen helping Pinkie while everything was going on. As I looked around at the crowd everything seemed to go in slow motion as I saw a stallion walking at the back of the group. His fur was dark blue with his hair being short and white. He had a playful smirk on his face as his sapphire blue eyes stared at me. Then something caught my attention, his mark, I had seen that necklace somewhere before.

Quickly looking through my memories a picture of Symbol appeared in my mind, showing him wearing that necklace. Once the stallion had realised I had recognised the mark he smirked and ran down the road. I got up and ran after him, however when he turned a corner he disappeared. "What the hell?"

Lisa's POV

The ding of the timer told me all three of my cakes were done. Using my tendrils I opened the ovens, took them out, and set them on the table. I looked at the three icingless cakes. Ah, perfect.

“Awesome job Lisa!”

“Thanks.”

“Now to add the frosting!” I was about to help, but then Gale ran into the kitchen

“Lisa! I saw Symbol!”

“What? Really? Are you sure?”

“Yeah! Come on!” Looking to Pinkie who just nodded I followed Gale out of the bakery. We rushed out the door and ran down the road. We looked all around town, but we couldn’t find a single trace of him.

"Are you absolutely sure you saw him?" I asked, starting to think he was just seeing things.

"Lisa I would never lie to you, especially about something like this." We looked around for a bit more before we saw a figure standing on top of one of the roofs. It was covered by the shadow of a cloud but it was in the shape of Symbol when he had fought Xram. We blinked and he was gone. "You saw that right?"

"Yeah, I sure did. I think he's... playing with us."

"Symbol doesn't seem like the kinda guy to play around Lisa, you know how he was when we met him, the guy didn't even smile back then."

"A lot can happen in eleven months." We heard a familiar yet unfamiliar voice say from behind us. We turned around and saw the man from the cave smiling at us and began running again.

"After him!" Gale nodded and we began sprinting after him. He just looked back at us with a raised brow. He shrugged and slammed on the breaks before jumping behind us and vanishing in a mist that had appeared. "What is it with him and mist?"

“No idea, no time, let’s go!” Suddenly picked me up bridal style causing me to yelp. With a burst of speed he flew after the purple mist, with me hanging on to him as tight as possible. “Gonna get ‘im gonna get ‘im gonna 'im.”

“Gale slow down!”

“NOPE!” He sped up, causing me to scream. He sped after the mist, not letting up for a second. “Almost got him!”

"I don't think you do." I looked behind us to see that Symbol was running behind us the whole time before disappearing again.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Gale slammed the breaks and was about to shoot off again when something lifted me out of his arms and knocked him away.

"Why don't you let the lady try?" Symbol was holding me bridal style with a smirk. That smile, combined with the fact that we all thought he was dead, but now coming back out of nowhere and doing this? He, is SO DEAD!

“Symbol.” Symbol looked down at me with that same smirk, until he saw my face. A scar appeared and opened up to reveal a blood filled mouth. My fingers sharpened into claws, and my hair got a little out of control. “You. Are. So. DEAD!”

“Well, I’m out of here.” He dropped me and tried to fly away, but my tendril caught his foot, and slammed him into the ground. I then slammed him around into the ground and nearby houses. After a bit of that, I slammed him into the ground in front of me. He coughed and spat out a bit of blood. "Why do all the women in my life either punch me, slap me, or turn into a monster?"

“First, we all think you’re dead. Then, you come out of nowhere looking different and chained to a stone cross. And now, you do this. I am going to make the next few hours of your life, a LIVING HELL!”

I was about to attack him, but he just closed his eyes and smiled. "I missed you too Lisa." I stopped in my tracks, looking at him with just a little less rage. "I wanted to come back and say I was fine, that I was brought back. Something came up, and I had to leave you all for reasons I'm not allowed to say. I never wanted to make you all feel bad about what had happened. I won't ask you to forgive what I did now, but I will ask you to forgive me for not coming back when you all needed me the most."

He got to his feet and looked at me with a soft smile. Gale ran out of the trees ready to stop me but froze when he saw us. I slowly began to turn back to normal, tears forming where my eyes should be. Symbol opened his arms and I threw myself into them and he brought me into an apologetic hug.

"I'm sorry Lisa. Can you forgive me?"

“You're an asshole, but yeah.” He chuckled.

"So I've been told." I let him go and slapped him across the face. "And there it is." He rubbed his cheek and started laughing. "You'd think of the amount of times someone has slapped me I would have built up some kind of immunity."

“Don’t expect to be immune to hers. Lisa’s slaps hurt, no matter how much resistance you have.” Gale walked over and added to the hug. “So, what’re you gonna do now?”

Symbol just pulled away. "Wait, you guys aren't gonna ask how I'm alive in the first place?"

“Nah, you have your ways I’m sure. Either that or Xram brought you here. By the way, was he different this time to you?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, apparently the Xrams we’ve seen are nothing but spurts of energy from the real one. They each have their own personalities and consciousnesses. The one you just saw was way more insane than normal.”

“Oh, that explains it I guess.” Just then I felt some sort of energy in the air fade and a portal appeared.

"You tell no one I was here, it isn't time for me to return. I need to gather my strength again before I can travel to my new world. Goodbye for now." With that he disappeared into the forest while Marx walked out of the portal.

"Finally got to you two!" He sat down and tried to catch his breath. "It took me forever to get that damn seal down."

"Wait a seal? Was that why Metals portal and token were glowing red?"

"What, no, seals don't do that. They don't affect tokens out of preventing them from working."

“Then why was… oh never mind. Anyways Marx I need to ask you something.”

“Okay but first, your brother has some exciting news!” Alduin hopped out of the portal behind Marx, in his dragon pony form.

“Oh hey Dan! What’s up?”

“Hi Alduin!”

“Lisa, Gale, I have some very exciting news.”

“Well what is it? Come on spit it out!”

“I’m getting married!” There was a sudden silence as we all took the info bomb in. Gale had froze up at the news.

“Y-You’re getting… married?”

“Yep.” Gale fell back and blacked out. I stood over him and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Um, Gale?”

Meanwhile I saw Symbol looking in, listening. "Well, looks like I'll be coming back here sooner than I thought. I wonder if I should bring Ashley with me, yeah that would be nice, help her forget what happened with Epidemic the other day." With that he was gone, fleeing to whatever part of this world he was going to hide in.

The graves

Ashley's POV

I sat with the mane six on a picnic blanket in Ponyville Park with a small spread in front of us. Abi was fused with me, saying she wanted to poke around my 'mindscape' for awhile. When I asked her what she meant she only told me that Symbol could explain it in more detail.

The girls and I talked about a few things, such as likes, dislikes, my life before Equestria, my brother, family, compared earth fashion with Equestrian fashion which got Rarity really excited and Equestrian history.

Eventually the girls all had to go do their own thing, although Applejack asked me to follow her to Sweet Apple Acres for some reason. When I asked Abi about what to do she told me just to follow the farm pony, saying that whatever she wanted to talk about was most likely important.

As we walked in silence down the dirt path I could tell Applejack was in deep thought, her expression unchanging as she stared at the ground. Eventually we reached the farm where she told me to follow her through the orchard. Walking through the vast field of trees I noticed that the green grass started to become more of a shade of amber. We reached a section of trees with amber leaves and the grass was now the full shade of the colour. We then reached a small clearing with a larger tree with two wooden crosses stuck in the ground next to each other. "Wait a minute, are these?"

"These are the graves of mah mom and dad."

I stood there in shock, I knew there was a few theories about why AJs parents weren't around in the show, but to find out that they were really dead it was just... it was just...

"That mare that hangs around that Symbol fella, she told me about yer parents." Applejack said as she walked towards the graves. "Ah thought that bringin ya here would make it easier, ta bring someone that can understand the pain of losin someone close." She sat down in front of the graves and took off her hat. "Mah mom gave this here hat to me, it's why ah wear it everyday, not a a fashion statement or ta add to the farm pony persona, ah do it in memory of them."

I walked over and sat down beside her. "It's true, I know what it's like to lose a family, but I learned how to get passed the sadness."

"An how did ya do that?"

I placed my hand on her back and smiled. "I focus on who I have left, and you should too." She looked at me with a bit of confusion. "Applebloom, Big Mac, Granny Smith, Bab Seed and all of your other family members."

She looked back to the graves and wiped a tear from her eye. "Ah never thought about it like that, thank ya Ashley." I patted her back and my smile faltered as I replayed the memory of my parents demise in my mind. Before it could reach the part about their deaths the memory faded.

'Don't you dare get upset right now missy, I'd never hear the end of it from Symbol.' I rolled my eyes at Abi in my head and looked at the farm pony beside me.

"Thanks for showing this to me Applejack, it means a lot." I saw two unlit candles by the graves and waved my hand over them, small flames appearing on them causing AJ to smile.

As I reached the cabin Abi detached herself from me and walked into the house with a look of deep thought. Following her in I saw her with her eyes closed and her mouth moving but no words being spoken. She opened her eyes and groaned. "What's wrong Abi?"

She turned to me and put a hoof over her eyes while she groaned. "You best get a dress ready."

"Why?" I asked completely confused.

"Because Symbol is taking you to one of his friends weddings, when he is supposed to be laying low for at least seven more years." She sighed and looked up at me. "The wedding is tomorrow, he said he should have enough strength to take you there after the bachelor party. He says he's also bringing Marcus, the Master Chief displaced you met earlier."

"Um, ok." I walked into my room and pulled out the sparkling orange dress. "I should probably bring this to Rarity, see if she can spruce it up a bit."

Abi walked into my room and looked over the dress. "Here, I'll make some modifications for you." I looked at her with a raised brow. "If you go to Rarity she'll bombard you with questions about earth fashion and you'd be there for hours. Give me the dress and I can make the modifications specified towards your new body. That dress is tailored towards your figure on earth, not the one you have now."

It was true, my figure had changed and for the damn better. My curves were smoother and my hips were a little wider, my arms were slimmer as was my waist. "Yeah, you can make the changes if you want." She smiled and took the dress. "Um, quick question." She turned to me with interest. "Why the hell did Symbol make my body this way?!"

"He didn't, women in One Piece just have amazing figures."

I couldn't argue with that, they did have great figures that ant women would be jealous of. "Still feels like he did this deliberately."

"Trust me, when he made the decision to displace you as Ace he had no thoughts like that, I know because I scanned his brain. And um... I may have tweaked a few things like your bust and hips."

My left eye twitched. "WHAT?!?!"

"I didn't do it for me it was because I wanted my brother to have a good looking partner!"

"What's that supposed to mean?! You think I wasn't good enough for Symbol as I was?!"

"What?! No! I jus-"

"No Abi, you changed me so you could have Symbols attention off of something by triggering his primal instincts of attraction!"

She froze and a look of fear showed itself. "How do you know about that?"

"Little thing I learned earlier, I can access your mind when you're fused with me." I walked towards her, a look of fear now taking it place on her face. "What are you hiding from him?! Why do you need him distracted?!"

"I can't say it's Rodens orders!" With that she ran off with the dress. Leaving me to myself.

I looked down at my hands and saw they were shaking. "Where... where did all that anger come from?" As I looked around I heard the laugh of a dark figure.

"Even she keeps things from you. Are you sure you can trust those two?"

I growled and walked out of the room. "Leave me alone Forge."

"Suit yourself, don't say I didn't warn you." With one last echoed laugh the voice ceased.

Strange foal

"I just don't get it, they're the ones that brought me here yet they hide so much from me." I sat in Twilight's library while she reorganised the books in the shelves with her magic.

"Well maybe they're doing it for a good reason, they are from other worlds and it seems like they have a great responsibility with what happens beyond our realm." Twilight suggested while stacking some encyclopaedias. "You said they don't tell you these things because of this 'Roden' guy right? Why don't you try to find him and see if he will give you the answers?"

I rubbed the back of my neck and thought for a moment. "I don't think that'll work, he's the one that ordered Abi not to tell me those things anyway."

Twilight shrugged and went back to her books. "Well I guess this is something you'll just have to figure out on your own, unless you can get Symbol to warm up to you enough to tell you."

I thought about that for a moment, maybe she was right, maybe all I had to do was earn Symbols trust. Smiling I thanked Twilight and walked out of the library and began walking around town. As I walked through the streets of Ponyville I was given friendly smiles and a few waves, these ponies were very welcoming, not one of them gave me glares or tried to avoid me, they welcomed me into their town with open hooves.

Smiling as I went along I spotted a filly over by the Everfree Forest, walking in a trance as she slowly approached the forest of thorns. Raising a brow I ran over to the young pony, turning my bottom half into fire to give me a boost of speed. As the foal was about to step into the forest I stopped her and steeped in front of her. "Hey, where do you think you're going little one? It's dangerous in there."

I looked the filly over, she was a unicorn, her fur was grey and her mane war tattered and black. I then looked at her eyes and flinched, her eyes were all black with only red dots as pupils. "Please... move..." She tried to walk around me but I picked her up.

"Sorry, but we're getting you checked out." She didn't even struggle, only continued moving her hooves like she was walking, still in a trance. "C'mon, lets get you some help." I held her in my arms and began walking back to the library.

When I walked into the library I felt the filly stop moving and fall asleep. Looking around I saw Twilight writing something down on a scroll at the back of the main room. "Hey Twilight."

Her ears perked up and she turned to me. "Oh Ashley, I wasn't expecting you to come back here so soon." She walked up to me and noticed the filly. "Who's that?"

"I don't know, but there is something seriously wrong with her." I lay her down on a nearby couch and opened one of her eyelids, revealing the black sphere beneath causing Twilight to gasp.

"What's wrong with her? I can feel a dark presence coming off of her body, and those eyes are just disturbing. We should report this to the Princess at once." As Twilight ran out of the room to get a new scroll and find Spike to send the letter I looked over the tiny filly. I noticed a name badge and took it off of her chest.

Reading it I learned her name, 'Easy Snow' and what school she belonged to. "Fillydelphia School For Unicorns?" What would a filly from Fillydelphia be doing all the way out here?

Twilight came back with Spike who blow a small green flame onto a scroll, sending it out of an open window towards Canterlot. I gave Twilight the name tag and her eyes widened. We tossed theories back and forth over what the reason for the filly being here was, all of which seemed extremely unlikely. "Maybe Abi knows."

I rubbed my arm nervously. "I don't think we should go near her for awhile, with the fight and all."

"Ashley this filly's life may depend on getting an answer." Sighing Twilight got up and headed for the door. "I'll go talk to her, you and Spike stay here and wait for the Princess." With that she was gone, leaving me and the young drake in silence with a possibility possed sleeping filly.

Third Person

A portal opened up in the Everfree Forest a few feet above the ground. As the portal flickered a boy jumped out and landed on his feet perfectly. The boy looked around twelve years old and had slick black hair. He wore a butlers outfit with black gloves, his eyes had reptilian slits as pupils with no irises. Looking up at the portal he saw Roden looking down at him.

"You remember what you have to do here Symph?"

The boy now known as Symph nodded. "I do master Roden, I am to hunt down the Nightmare in this world and assist my fathers displaced in any way I can." He replied I a relaxed, professional tone.

"Very good, now get going and make sure to get to Ashley as soon as possible before your father arrives, then get going to the party with Lisa." With that Roden closed the portal and left Symph to do his job.

Turning around Symph smiled and began walking. "It will be good to see father again, I haven't seen him in a few months, although given when is happening I can understand why he hasn't visited, dealing with insanity and now his own displaced family to manage." As a timberwolf jumped out in front of him it cowered under his glare, similar to when Symbol would intimidate them.

Smiling as he watched the wolf flee Symph set his sights on Ponyville.

Looking back

Abi sat in the living room of the cabin, guilt being the only emotion she felt as she put the finishing touches on Ashley's dress for the wedding. She didn't want to keep anything from her friend, but with everything Roden had told her she knew she had no choice. Only she knew about Rodens true intentions, even Symbol didn't know. What was to come, a great conflict, a great battle... and so, so many losses.

She shook the thoughts away and finished the dress. Looking over the design and measurements she nodded in satisfaction. Just then she heard a knock at the door. Not expecting anyone she raised a brow and walked towards the door, upon opening it she found it was Twilight. "Oh, hello Twilight, what can I do for you?"

Twilight sighed and looked Abi in the eye. "I need you to come with me to the library, Ashley is there, she found this foal devoid of colour and had weird eyes, it's sleeping right now and Celestia is on her way."

Any thoughts against going when she heard Ashley's name faded at the brief description. "Describe the foal again."

Twilight raised a brow. "Devoid of colour and had strange eyes. The eyes were all black with red dots as pupils."

Abi's eyes widened in shock and horror. "I'll be right there, I just need to make a call. Do NOT let that foal wake up."

"Why?"

"I'll explain when I get there, and use a powerful sleep spell." With that Abi closed the door and called for Roden. A portal appeared and the man in green looked though it. "Roden! We have a Nightmare here! It's possessed a foal and we don't have Symbol here! Get him back now!"

Roden shook his head. "Calm down Abi, Symbol will be returning shortly, he has important matters to attend to right now. As for the Nightmare, I've sent an agent there to handle it."

Abi tilted her head. "Who did you send? Marcus? Alucard?"

Roden chuckled. "No, I sent someone that you haven't seen in a few months."

Abi's eyes widened in shock and joy, a smile forming in the place of her frown. "You mean my little nefew is here?"

Symph ran through the forest, leaping from tree to tree at amazing speeds. Once he came to a large cliff he grabbed a vine and flung himself into the air, entering free fall down the tall cliff. As he fell closer to the ground he placed his feet on the side of the mountain and slid down, a small cloud of dust trailing behind him as his shoes grinded against the stone.

As he was about to reach the bottom he jumped and grabbed hold of a branch. As he swung himself into the next section of the forest he spotted a group of Timberwolves ahead of him. Smirking he jumped over each one, performing impressive flips as he went, dodging their attacks.

Soon he reached the end of the forest and slammed on the breaks, sliding a little before coming to a stop. "Ah, that was a nice little excersize." He dusted himself off, his butlers outfit clean as a whistle. Looking out to the town of Ponyville his body turned black, firming into the shape of a foal. He still kept his slick black hair, his coat was white and his mark was a reptilian eye with a bowtie below it.

Smiling he made his way towards the town.

Ashley's POV

I sat with Spike as we both watched the filly sleep, having nothing better to do. As we sat in silence I figured it would be a good opportunity to find out something I had always wandered about the young drake. "Hey Spike, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what do you wanna know?" He looked relieved, having something else to do than creepily watch a possibly possessed filly obviously bringing a bit of joy.

"In the TV show I talked about where you guys are the characters and all I've always noticed something, you just let the ponies use you as a punching bag for forced slapstick comedy. Why do you just keep going with it?"

His smile turned to a frown and he looked ashamed. "It's personal."

"I mean you could just sit Twilight and all down and explain it to them granted they'd probably forget about it the next day since the continuity in this world sucks."

He closed his eyes. "I said it's personal."

"How about I tell you something personal and then you tell me?"

He looked at me unsure, he thought about it for a minute before nodding. "Alright then." He took a moment to think of a question. "Why do you always twitch when the subject of family comes up?"

I froze. "W-What?"

"Whenever somepony even mentions the word 'mom' or 'brother' your left eye twitches. It did it right now!"

I did feel my eye twitch a little. "Well... My parents... There was this accident, I was at home with my big brother Frank. We were playing some games when he got a message from the local hospital. Next thing I know he turns off the game and tells me to get in his car. We got to the hospital and were led to a room where our parents lay on beds, injured and hooked up to all kinds of machines. They were caught in a huge traffic accident and came out of it with fatal injuries. They weren't going to make it, the last thing my mom said to me was 'Don't be sad for us, our time in this world has ran out, all of those years I spent raising you and your brother were the greatest years of my life, continue to grow and don't let us leaving slow you down on the road to greatness. I love you, my beautiful Ashley.' After that she passed away. I've never been able to get over it, it still haunts me."

I turned and saw Spike with tears in his eyes. He got up and brought me into a meaningful hug. I started to tear up myself as I hugged him, the memory of the event replaying in my mind. He pulled away and calmed down. "Alright, you told me your story, so I need to tell you mine." He sat down and wiped one last tear from his cheek. "When I was younger, and I became Twilights assistant, I started feeling like a pushover. Over time I started to get angrier and angrier, started calling myself a slave to Twilight. Whe n I tried to talk to her about it my anger got out of control, I grew, I... I hurt Twilight. Ever since then I've never questioned myself or anything else, that's why I go along with their crazy schemes and adventures. I've learned to control my anger, I'm fine with being a punching bag as long as I'm helping my friends."

I looked at the young drake in shock. I expected it to be something like a dragon code or something silly, but that was in its own way slightly tragic. Imagine that, you and your sister are having a few problems that could be sorted out by just talking, but then you let anger control you and you end up seriously hurting them, imagine how you would feel after that, how your sibling would feel.

If there is one thing that came out of today, it was that I now have a lot more respect for Spike the Dragon.

Symbol at the bachelor party

{Alduin’s POV}

After being thrown into the portal, I was flung through the void before popping out the other side. I landed on my hooves, and took a quick look around. From what I could see, I was atop Gale’s house. I could also see a gathered group.

There was Marx, Gale, Sonic, and Zero who I learned was Symbols brother “You ready bro?” Gale asked me.

“I have a bad feeling about this but yeah.” I looked around in confusion. “I thought that Epidemic would be here too.”

Zero chuckled. “We stuck him with babysitting Screwball since Octavia back on my is with Lisa and Twilight, wanted to pay her back for the baby shower she threw.” It still amazed me, the way that Screwball was created was truly remarkable. When Symbol had passed, the Octavia of his world was drained of her life force by Xram, in his dying act Symbol had placed a bit of his energy inside of Octavia to save her and that unintentionally created a foal.

“I bet he's loving that.” Knowing Epidemic he probably let Plague and Amnesia take over to avoid having to deal with his niece. “Alright then let's get going.”

“Wait, there's one other guy I'd like to invite, you don't mind do you Dan?” Gale asked me.

“More the merrier right?”

He nodded and flew off towards a mountain range. As we waited for him we all decided to catch up with each other. Then a question came to mind.

“Where's Author and that Metal Sonic displaced?”

Marx scratched his chin in thought. “We've been having trouble getting into Metals world, we suspect something either extremely important or something very, very bad has happened. As for Author, he is busy making sure the wedding is perfect.”

“Didn't take Author for a wedding planner, what's next? Symbol used to be a pastor or something?” Zero just looked at me. “Oh my God he was wasn't he?”

“Yeah, he was a lot of things, both of us were. With what we did back on our version of earth, which is dominated by crime by the way, required us to have a certain set of skills.”

**Meanwhile**

**{Third POV}**

Gale reached a small cave entrance in the side of a mountain. Landing just outside of it he began to venture inside. A few moments later he found himself in a beautiful sanctuary. The middle of the mountain hand been dug out and replaced with a patch of nature. A small waterfall flowed from a hole in the rock wall and created a steady stream out into the nearby forests. Flowers of various colours and shapes grew on the lush green grass and a few trees outlined the small clearing.

“Ah Gale, up here!” Gale turned around and looked up to see Symbol floating in place while reading a book. “What brings you to my temporary home?”

Gale looked around in amazement. “You made all this?”

“Sure did, if I'm gonna be hiding out in this world I might as well enjoy myself.”

“Anyway… We were just about to head for Dan's bachelor party, you wanna come?” Gale asked.

“Kinda defeats the purpose of hiding out, besides Epidemic will be there and he'll attack me on sight and blow my cover, it's taking a lot to keep my aura hidden without Rodens spell.”

“Epidemic won't be there, he's babysitting Screwball.”

Symbol froze at the mention of his daughter. A frown replaced his smile and he closed his book. “Fine, I'll go.”

“Sweet!” Gale and Symbol ran outside and they took off, back to the others. It didn’t take them long to return, and once they did, Alduin asked the obvious question.

“Um, who is this?”

“Huh? Oh! This is… uh…Fred! I recently made friends with him! I met him not to long ago when he was trapped here by his teacher for some training, he's a displacer in training at the moment.”

Alduin leaned in closer to this stranger, and looked into his eyes. There was something, familiar about them, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. His aura, though different from any he’d ever seen, was familiar as well. Where had he seen this before?

Symbol could only hope his new form would get past Alduin’s instincts. There was recognition in his eyes, but he couldn’t quite put two and two together. Alduin backed off, and Symbol gave a mental sigh.

“You're gonna have to forgive Gale here, someone that I probably knew from my past decided to play a trick on him and said my name was Fred, the name is actually Nero.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you Nero.”

“Yeah, you too.” While Alduin went to talk to Marx about what they would be doing, Symbol grabbed Gale and took him aside.

“What?”

“Fred? FRED? REALLY?”

“Sorry! I had to come up with a name on the spot! You’re just lucky Dan didn’t recognize you! I could tell from his expression he was pretty close!”

“Yeah, that could have been a disaster.”

“Alright, are we all ready?” Everyone was about to reply, but then a random portal opened up, and Epidemic hopped out.

“You’re not planning to do this without me are you?”

“Epidemic! Hey I thought you were watching Screwball!”

“As much as I love my little niece, there is only so much banter between her and Psychotic that I can take.”

“You let him out around her?”

“Nope.”

“Then how’d-”

“Don’t… ask.” As Epidemic looked around his glare focused Symbol.

“Ohhhh fuck.” Before he could react Epidemic had shot forward and grabbed him by the throat. “Ok… You really… Need some… Anger management.” This only caused Epidemic to squeeze his neck even more. “Ah regret, regret!”

“Epidemic!” Auldin scolded. “Put him down, what's gotten into you?!”

Epidemic groaned and let go of the now gasping Symbol. “What is he doing here?”

“That's Nero, Gales new friend.” Epidemic just looked to Symbol and Gale with a raised brow. Symbol just pointed to Gale and mouthed ‘His idea.’

Epidemic rolled his eyes and looked back to Auldin. “Alright, we gonna do this or what?” With a nod, they all walked off and began a trek to the Everfree forest.

“Um, why are we going here?”

“Well, we’re going to hunt some monsters! I thought that would be the funnest thing to do before you lose all sense of freedom.”

Symbol chuckled and looked to Gale. “If Lisa finds out you said that you're as good as dead.”

Auldin raised a brow at his brother. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” Alduin gave Gale a hard glare, before continuing on. After an hour or so, they had gotten pretty far in. “Aw man, where are the monsters?”

“Probably hiding.” There was then a sudden roar, and a MASSIVE black creature rose from the earth. It had a humanoid appearance, but it’s only features were a giant eye on it’s head, and purple veins going all over its body.

“The hell is that thing?!”

“Our entertainment.” Epidemic turned into his dragon form, released a mighty roar, and flew at the beast. It proceeded to backhand him out of the sky.

Symbol just watched as Epidemic got up and shook his head. “Swatted like a fly, and here I thought you were actually threatening.”

“Ok then why don't you have a go?”

“Gladly.” Symbol put his hands together and closed his eyes. “Mode two level one.” He glowed a soft blue and jumped towards the beast's eye. He swung his fist and a sudden magic blast knocked the beast on its back. Symbol landed beside Epidemic and smirked as he looked over to Auldin. “Why don't we let the soon to be married guy take a swing?”

Alduin smirked. “Watch the master.” He then took on his dragon form and flew up into the sky as the colossal beast tried to stand. He blasted it with fire, forcing it to lift up and arm in defence. The flames were doing heavy damage, until they didn’t. Alduin noticed this, and ceased his flames.

“What? Why isn’t this working?” The giant monster then held up it’s hand, and a burst of fire came out, hitting Alduin directly. It then got up, said something in a weird language, and glowed a soft blue. It then fired a magic blast at the rest of the group, which they barely managed to dodge. “What in the hell? Wait a second, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

“How in the hell did a Nightmare get so damn big and, detailed?”

“When are they not?” Symbol asked.

“How do you know about these things?” Alduin asked with a raised brow.

“I'm a displacer, these things are all over the multiverse, it isn't just you guys that have to deal with them you know.”

Zero looked up at the huge Nightmare and noticed it eye, there seemed to be a faint but noticeable magic blanket around it. Taking a chance he pulled out a .44 Magnum Revolver and aimed at the eye. Pulling the trigger a small burst of magic energy fired out of the barrel and hit the Nightmare in its eye, causing it to backpedal and groan in pain. “Guys! The eye is its weak spot!” Zero began to repeatedly shoot the creature, without having the reload. “God I love this gun.”

Sonic and Gale formed into their spindashes and launched themselves up into the air where they struck the eye with a homing attack, which caused it to backpedal further. Then Alduin and Marx jumped up and blasted it with beams of energy, and to complete the chain of attacks Symbol and Epidemic charged energy in their fists and landed the finishing blow by stabbing their hands into its eyes.

As the huge Nightmare fell to the ground instead of turning into an orb, it broke apart into a large group of smaller Nightmares. “Ok, that's new.” Marx said as he blasted a charging Nightmare on the face.

“Oh well, more fun I guess.” Gale said as he grabbed one by the throat and slammed it into the ground. The group formed a circle, covering each other's backs as they took out each individual Nightmare as they charged. Symbol avoided using his fire magic as to not reveal himself to Marx, Zero and Auldin, and instead just punched and kicked them.

All the while Epidemic was keeping a close eye on him, wondering what he was doing, struggling not to just grab him and demand answers. When Symbol noticed Epidemic glaring at him he looked back and shook his head. Epidemic snarled and crushed a Nightmares head.

The group all sat down in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by small purple orbs that Epidemic idly blasted to pieces. “So Auldin, you enjoying the bachelor party so far?” Gale asked his brother.

“Yeah, not very often I get to just cut loose and fight creatures of darkness without having to worry about the fate of the universe or anything.”

“Well we're just getting started.” Gale got up as did the rest of them. They were all about to continue on looking for things to fight, when the sound of a pack of, something, started heading towards them. Suddenly, each member of the group was knocked away into a clearing, all of the sprawling onto the ground.

“Okay, ow.” Everyone groaned in agreement at Gale’s comment. Gale sat up, shook his head, and looked at whatever had attacked them. It was another one of those giant Nightmares. However this time, there were two. “What the hell?”

“Who in the hell invited these guys?”

“Pretty sure they came on their own Marx.”

“Touche Zero.” Everyone got up and began attacking the giant Nightmares’ eyes. Each of the monsters were bombarded with magic, flames, spindashes, and lasers. Soon, each of the creatures fell, and burst into large groups of Nightmares. The Nightmares began attacking, and Alduin and the others did their best to defend themselves. Attack after attack, the Nightmares went down, and Alduin and the others were confident that they could win. That is, until the Nightmares backed off.

“Um, what are they doing?” The Nightmares began to change form, taking on the shapes of a robot and a monster. Pretty soon, each and every one of them looked like silhouettes of Gale and Lisa. “Okay, what the fuck?”

“Um, Gale? Why do they look like you and Lisa?”

“Hell if I know. You got any ideas Marx?”

“Nope. I thought that they could only copy your powers, but your form too? I’ve never seen that before.”

“That’s because they’re part of the new generation.” The group looked up to see a Nightmare with wings flying above them. “Xram sends his regards.”

With that the Nightmare was gone, and the Gale and Lisa look-alikes began their attack. The Nightmare Gales fired off lasers and blasts of energy, while the Nightmare Lisas attacked with their tendrils. The fight was now much more difficult, considering the group had never fought Nightmares like this before.

“Okay, what the hell is this? Why are they so hard to beat?”

“Because they’ve got your powers and skill Gale. You and Lisa alone are hard to beat, so a bunch of you is going to be very difficult.”

“Yeah well, it’s times like this where I wished that I sucked at fighting.”

“Gale, if you sucked at fighting you’d be dead.”

“Eh, probably.” The group finally started to pull through. The Nightmares may have Gale and Lisa’s abilities and skill, but they didn’t know how to improvise. Alduin and the others, did. They began to beat the nightmares back, and even destroyed a few. The nightmares once again, backed off.

“HA! How do you like that!” Suddenly, the Nightmares began to shake, then they converged on each other, creating one massive black blob. This blob, then began to grow in size, and began taking shape. Soon, it had become Gale’s most hated form. The Beast.

It roared out in fury and began attacking the group with its newfound power. The group did their best to get out of the way, but the still got severely damaged by that thing’s attacks. They all hit the ground, hard, and everyone except for Symbol and Epidemic lost consciousness.

“Ow… shit. What is that thing?”

“Presumably, the power of the new generation.”

“Ya think?”

“Why are you here Symbol?”

“Huh?”

“I asked, why are you here?” Symbol paused. He was about to answer, when the Nightmare Beast roared out in anger.

“Look we don’t have the time for this. We need to kill that thing now!” Epidemic nodded and the two leaped at the monster. It opened its mouth, and blasted them with a powerful laser, sending them flying back. Epidemic recovered in mid air, and blasted the Nightmare with his magic enhanced fire. Symbol also recovered, and shot it with a blast of magic. The Nightmare Beast took the shots, then fired out a ball of energy. It flew up to Symbol and Epidemic, before it exploded, causing them to receive heavy damage. Symbol was thrown straight into a rock, and Epidemic was tossed into a tree, before splitting up into the Twins. The Nightmare Beast roared in anger, before setting its sights on Alduin and the others.

Alduin was just waking up when he heard the roar. He sat up, shook his head, and glared at the Beast that was attacking them. It was charging up a huge blast that Alduin knew could be the end of him.

“N-No. I c-can’t die here. I have to make it to-” He never got the chance to finish his sentence, as the Nightmare Beast released its attack. The beam of energy was coming straight for him, and Alduin could do nothing to stop it.

The Twins were now witnessing this moment. They saw the beam of energy coming straight at their father, and knew they had to do something.

“N-No… Dad can’t… die.”

“H-He has to… get to… his wedding.”

“So then…”

“We will...”

“PROTECTHIM!” The Twins eyes glowed white, and they fused.

Alduin could only watch as the beam of energy was coming at him. He couldn’t move out of the way, he didn’t have the energy. All he could do, was sit and watch, as his death approached. Then, at the last second, something dove in front of him. There was a massive explosion, and Alduin shut his eyes tight. He expected to feel pain, but he felt nothing.

“I don’t think so.” Alduin opened his eyes, and saw a teenage girl flying above him, a magical dome shield in front of her outstretched hand. She had long, yellow hair, a yellow jacket with black stripes, and a black undershirt. She had black jeans, and yellow shoes. She had yellow eyes, and a kind voice. Her yellow wings, tail, and horns made her stand out. She looked to be about eighteen, just like Epidemic. “Sorry Nightmare, but my father has a wedding to go to, and it wouldn’t be any good of him to die here now would it?”

’Wait, did she say father?’ Alduin was beyond confused now. Who was this girl? And why did she call him her father? Whatever the case, she had saved his life.

“Um, thank you.” She turned around with a smile on her face. Alduin immediately noticed that she looked like an older Amnesia, which confused him even further.

“You’re welcome father.” She turned back to the Beast and was about to take off when.

“Wait!” She stopped and turned to Alduin. “Who are you?”

She smiled kindly and happily replied.

“My name is Patron, the third fusion of the Twins.” She then turned to the Beast, and flew at it. The Beast roared and fired shot after shot of energy at her, all of which she promptly dodged. She got up close to it, then summoned a yellow scythe, and slashed it across the face. The Nightmare Beast roared in pain, and sent a blast of energy straight at her. She smiled, and sent the attack back to its sender, causing major damage. The Beast had not been prepared for this, so it was knocked down into the ground. It got up, shook its head, and glared at her.

“Aw, is the little Nightmare confused? Hmm, well if you must know, I simply countered your attack, sending it right back at you with double the power.” She giggled a little at the Nightmare’s frustration. The Beast got up and was about to attack again, when suddenly, it split in half. It the disappeared in a puff of smoke, becoming an assortment of purple orbs. They all fell to the ground, revealing Symbol floating behind where it once stood.

“Just in time Symbol.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“A little demanding are we? Oh very well. My name is Patron, the third fusion of the Twins. And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Unlike my brother, I’ll leave you to your reasons as to why you don’t reveal yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“Welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to say hello to my brothers.” With that, she was gone, splitting back up into the Twins, who fell to the ground, only to get caught by Symbol and carried to the ground. He walked back into the clearing, where everyone was waking up.

“Ugh, what happened?”

“That giant Nightmare knocked us all out. We were saved however, by Plague and Amnesia’s newest fusion.”

“Wait, the Twins have a new fusion?”

“Yep.” They all turned to see Sym- Nero walking into the clearing, the Twins asleep in his arms. “Seems like that new fusion tired them out.”

Alduin took the Twins in his arms and set them down. They began to quickly wake up.

“Ungh… Dad?”

“What happened?”

“You two gained a new fusion, and saved us all.”

“We did?”

“Indeed you did my little ones.”

“WOOHOO!” The Twins began jumping around in excitement and happiness as everyone else watched them go. They all stood up, and stretched.

“Alright, I’d say that was a good party.”

“Yeah, especially the part where we almost died.”

“Shut up Nero.” They all just laughed, glad to be together, and alive.

Unknown Location

“Ah, nice to finally be here.” Patron was stretching out when Epidemic and Psychotic came in.

“Oh goody, another one.”

“It’s good to see you too Psychotic. And Epidemic, it’s nice to finally meet you.” Epidemic just grunted in annoyance. “I see that I’m the first positive fusion here. Great.”

“Hey think about it, you’ve got us!”

“To drive me insane.”

“Hey!” Epidemic just shook his head and turned away as Patron and Psychotic started bickering. He began to wonder, just how many fusions will the Twins have?

His other child

Ashley's POV

I stood there, waiting for an explanation from the two symbiotes. Symph looked to Abi slightly disappointed. "You didn't tell her?"

"Rodens orders..." Abi relied with shame.

Symph rolled his eyes and turned back to me. "Ok, I will be the one to answer your questions, with or without Rodens permission. The answer to your question is that a Nightmare possessed that filly for whatever reason, they've been getting smarter and their actions are becoming more and more unthinkable to downright cruel. Since my father or my uncle were unable to appear to destroy the monster I was sent in by my master, Roden Godswell."

"Your father? Do you mean Symbol? I thought he only had one kid, Screwball." I was just becoming more confused.

Symph chuckled. "Ah yes, my little sister. You see, I was not naturally born, I was created. My father had become fascinated with the concept of symbiotes and how they were created, so he began to research and test, experiment. During one of the tests when he was experimenting with some symbiote material that he had acquired through the multiverse black market, not as bad as it sounds the salesman was a very nice gentleman named Pete, my father had accidentally cut himself on a piece of broken glass and a drop of blood made its way into the material, in turn creating me."

"Then...why did he get emotional over Screwball and say 'I'm a dad now?'"

Symph sighed and sat down. "When I was created, my father was surprised, but he did not consider me his son at that time, that had to be earned for completely understandable reasons. Don't get me wrong he was kind to me and didn't lock me up as a test subject, he began training me, teaching me and eventually came to terms with his role as a parent. He had more pressing matters to deal with in my early days, the fact that he was separated from his friends and family, not knowing how many survived the battle until a few months later, hunting down the Nightmares and several mental breakdowns, not to mention keeping Xram occupied."

'Mental breakdowns?'

As I was about to ask another question we sensed another portal appearing outside. We all walked outside to see Symbol jumping out of a portal. "Finally, managed to get enough energy to break that damn seal." He stretched a bit before looking to us. "So, what I miss?"

Symph pushed to the front of the group and smiled at Symbol. "Hello father."

Symbol smiled and ruffled the symbiotes hair. "Hey there kid, what's Roden got you here for? I thought you'd be off adventuring with Bill Cipher or getting used to your own Equestria."

"Well, there was a situation that needed taken care of here while you were away and has been dealt with, but it may be just the beginning of something far greater." Symph explained.

"Nightmares?"

"Nightmares."

"What did they do this time?" Symbol asked I a tired tone.

"Possessed a foal."

"Damn, I knew the Nightmares were cruel but tainting the mind of a child, that's something that even they should be ashamed of." He shook his head and looked towards me with a smile. "I take it you've already been introduced?"

I just nodded silently, multiple thoughts going through my head as I tried to process what had happened, like I'm sure a lot of you are as well.

"Good. The wedding isn't for another day or so, we have time to do a few things beforehand." He snapped his fingers and Symph nodded, his body became black and he fused with Symbol, disappearing into his body. "So, what do you want to do for now? Train, explore, play video games?" He asked.

I shook myself and rubbed the back of my head nervously. "Um, I actually wanted to talk to you about something if that's alright."

"That's fine, you wanna talk here or some place private?" He asked.

"I think a little privacy would be good yeah...is uh...is Symph gonna be listening?" I asked with concern.

"No, he's sleeping right now, used a lot of energy just getting here so he needs to recharge for an hour or so." He looked about before nodding over at a mountain. "There's a cave over in that mountain if you wanna talk there. Abi, could you leave us alone for a bit?"

The symbiote pony nodded and began walking towards the cabin. "Alright, I have a few things to do anyway, see you two lovebirds later."

Symbol looked confused. "Wait what was that last part I didn't catch it?"

Abi looked to me and I frantically shook my head. "I said I'll see you two birds later."

Symbol shrugged. "Meh, you've said weirder around my displaced." With that he teleported us both to the cave where we sat down on boulders opposite each other, me nervous about what I was going to ask. "Alright Ashley, what's on your mind?"

I shuffled a bit in my seat. "Well...you see...this is kind of awkward for me to ask you...you don't have to answer if you don't want to! It's just, I've learned certain things since Abi fused with me...and one of those things concerns me."

I saw his smile fade. "And what would that be?"

I took in a deep breath. "Do you...find me...attractive?"

He just stared at me, motionless, silent, no emotion on his face. I started regretting the decision to ask him that. "Um...well...look Ash I...I don't know how to respond to this..."

"Is that...a yes?" I asked with slight hope.

"Uh...Ashley...you're a good person and all...but...no...that doesn't matter anymore..." He took in a deep breath to clear his mind. "Ok...let me put this together a sec." I could tell he was trying to pick his words carefully, either to avoid embarrassment or to avoid hurting my feelings. "I find-" he was cut off as a large shockwave struck.

"Oh what now?!" We both rushed out of the cave and looked down towards Ponyville. "What..."

"The..."

"Fuck?!" We both said at the same time as we looked out at our newest target.

The bigger they are...

Ashley's POV

Symbol and I just stared wide eyed at the huge being before us that stood just outside of Ponyville, or I should say towering over Ponyville, because this thing was freakin' huge! "Symbol what the hell is that thing?!" It appeared to be a giant pile of dark purple goo with two large arms sticking into the ground, it's huge yellow circular eyes glowing. "Is...is that a Nightmare Fuel?! Since when are they like that?!"

"There may or may not be a new generation of Nightmares out and about now." My displaced responded uneasily.

"Are you kidding me?!"

"Sadly no, now they don't just copy one of your abilities, they mimic you're entire body and power, able to use your attacks as fluidly as you can." He looked out at the huge beast and clenched his fist, causing it to burn with his signature purple fire. "You want me to handle this, fight it alone or both go at it together?" He asked patiently.

"Together, I'm not letting you fight that thing on your own." I said with a smirk as I summoned my own fire.

He smiled back at me and took a step back. "Alright then, let's go!" With that he grabbed my arm and jumped down the cliff and began sprinting while holding me bridal style causing me to blush. We sped through the Everfree Forest, occasionally jumping from tree to tree while the world passed by in a blur. We were nowhere near the speed of sound or anything, but e were still going faster than any human could manage.

I looked up at my displacer, my blush never leaving my face. I just watched his smooth, long gray hair sway in the air as Symbol ran. The sunlight occasionally caught his purple eyes, causing them to sparkle. I just looked at him, wondering what his answer was before we were interrupted. Shaking my head and ridding myself of the thoughts I looked up to the huge beats that was now trying to swat something out of the air. Squinting my eyes a noticed a rainbow trail zooming around the monster, Rainbow Dash.

"At least she's trying something." Symbol said as he saw her. "We should get over there before she gets herself hurt or worse." He picked up a bit of speed and broke through the treeline. As we enter the large veiled where the monster was located Symbol threw me up into the air. I was surprised but knew that I needed to reach the monster on my own to attack.

I focused on my legs and they became fire, which gave a burst that shot me towards the monster. "Fire Fist!" I charged my fist up and shot a large wave of fire at my opponent. As it turned around to try and hit me it jutted forward as Symbol punched it in the pack of the head while it turned. Rainbow Fash saw an opportunity and flew high in the sky, shooting back down with incredible speed before crashing into the Nightmare Beast, causing it to roar in pain before swatting Rainbow away.

It turned to me, opened up its mouth and shot out a large purple blast of energy. I put up my arms defensively and blocked the attack with Armament Haki. As I put my arms down I was too late to dodge a huge hand striking me. I closed my eyes and prepared for impact, but just felt something go through my body with no pain. Looking down I saw that a few pieces of my body were gone with fire taking there place. "Oh yeah, Logia powers, guess it only works on none magical attacks."

I reformed my body and propelled myself higher into the air before summoning two spears made of fire before throwing them at the Nightmare. The two blades pierced it's goopy skin and it cried out in pain before multiple smaller limbs shot out of its body and streched towards me. I tried to avoid them but the multiple hands and tendril clamped onto my body with some being in...less than desirable places.

Symbols POV

As I was about to land another attack I heard Ashkey shriek. Looking over I saw her trapped with multiple limbs clamping onto her body. When I saw the places she was being touched something inside me snapped. I growled in anger and flash-teleported up to her before furiously ripping the tendrils off of her and shooting down towards the Nightmare with a a fully charged fast at the ready.

As I reached its head I swung my fist forward and hut it right between the eyes, resulting in a large explosion of purple fire as my anger flowed into my flames. The Nightmare roared in pain and defiance before sprouting many more huge arms and blasting everything in sight. I teleported between it and Ponyville and put up a shield to avoid damage being dealt to the town which would surely end in Celestia giving me a stare for a few weeks, it's how it was in my first Equestria, and this place seems to mirror it so I have no reason to not believe that Celestia will be any different.

I saw Rainbow Dash coming in for another attack. "Rainbow Dash! To me!" I yelled catching her attention. She flew over tome and I focused the shield in one arm. "You up for a combined attack?"

"Depends, what's gonna happen."

"I'm gonna spin you up while coating your body in fire and then throw you between its eyes. So you in?" I asked casually.

She looked unsure but nodded. She positioned herself like a javelin and I grabbed her by the stomach. I began spinning up my arm until it was a buzz saw of purple flames and used all my strength to throw Rainbow, having to give the move a name I yelled out. "Rainboom Javelin!" She shot towards the Nightmare and burst out the other side of it. It swayed a little before falling backwards and splitting into a small horde of new generation Nightmares, which we had all named Mimickers due to their nature.

I shot off towards the falling Ashley and caught her in midair. As we reached the ground with Rainbow following us we looked out at the horde. I looked to Ashley and to the mob of Nighmares. "Ashley?"

"Yeah Symbol?" She responded with worry as she looked out at the crowd.

"There's something that I can do with you that will destroy all of these guys but it will take a lot out of us afterwards." I said while turning to her but punching a Nightmare away as it charged.

"What do you have in mind?" She asked uneasily.

I looked to my right palm and a purple symbol of the sun appeared. "We need to fuse."

Three's a crowd

Broken World

Forge sat on the damaged throne in Canterlot, looking around at the frozen ponies that once lived in the corrupt world. He sighed before standing up and teleporting to a large open field, looking around at the blood red clouds and scattered tears in reality. He began walking, thinking and planning.

He suddenly stopped, feeling a familiar presence in the air, two familiar presences actually. Turning around he saw them standing there, a Nightmare Fuel and Xram side by side, the Nightmare however seeming to be further up in the ranks as this ones power looked above that if the Xram copy beside him. "Well well well, look who came to visit little old me, a Slenderman ripoff and Jack Skellington."

Xram glared at him while Nightmare just snorted in amusement. "Pretty big talk coming from a recolour of Symbol Shattered."

"Well looks like a little Nightmare knows how to make a decent comeback line, what about you Pumpkin King? You got anything to say?" Forge mocked with amusement.

"Quiet Forge, there is no time for jokes."

Forge just smirked and turned away. "If you didn't notice shit-for-brains time has no meaning here! Nothing ends and nothing begins, it's just stuck in one moment until all the pieces are put together again."

Xram remained quiet and Nightmare stepped forward. "Let's get down to business shall we? We didn't come here just to insult each other, we all have a serious problem on our hands."

"You mean you have a problem on your hands, things are going swimmingly for me here, my plan is going perfectly, I can train to my nonexsitent hearts content and I can manipulate my brothers pathetic displaced even from here. So I'm not the one with a problem, and I'm not about to listen to a worthless parasite and a demon fragment who have both tried to kill me in the past." Forge shook his head and turned his head to look at them over his shoulder."Give me one good reason why I should even bother listening to you two and not just kill you now and steal your power?"

Xram stepped forward, raised a hand and summoned a magic screen, showing a shadowed figure. "There is someone messing with our timelines, making the past the preset and the present the future. We cannot take credit for this, as there now seems to be more threats to all three of us."

Forge just looked at the figure in the picture before tilting his head. "He doesn't look so threatening."

"Looks can be deceiving, this newcomer could be a serious problem to us, so much that The Nightmare King and True Xram have seeked the help of a third Black Plain Wonderer, as well as creating newer, stronger minions."

"I take it that's why she exists?" Forge guess while pointing to a young figure behind Nightmare.

"She is a backup in case things get out of hand, if The Nightmare King and True Xram fall there needs to be someone to take their place. This young one, the Nightmare Princess Zerlinda, will be the key to killing Symbol Shattered. Starting by destroying everything he knows and loves, starting with his son Symph Shattered." Nightmare said as he stepped in front of the young girl behind him while blocking Forge from seeing her.

"Let me guess, 'She was different from all the other drones that came from The Nigjtmare Kings breeding sows.' Has anyone told the King that he is seriously fucked in the head?" Forge said with disgust. "He could at least be decent with how he does things, most of the crap your leaders pull is just downright disgusting." He pointed to Xram. "You with the way you torture your victims!" He then turned to Nightmare. "And you with how you do things, I mean possessing fucking children!? That is low, even by your standards."

"Since when do you care about what we do? You're evil just like us."

Forge just glared at them both with a mighty rage. "I, am NOT, EVIL!!! I merely do what I want when I want to, I have no reason to bring suffering upon others. Except for my brother..." He clenched his fist and the world around them darkened. He held up his fist slightly and it began burning with blood red fire while red mist began seeping from the corner of his right eye that was now glowing orange. "He robbed me of my body, forced me into the void. I was labelled an 'accident' by that accursed woman Vivi and Author, only soaring my life out of pity. Symbol cost me my very reason for being, threw me out of my own body. Well I don't want my body back anymore, all I want is for Symbol to pay, I want nothing more than to hear his screams of agony and despair as I crush everything he holds dear and dies of a slow painful death. I wish this fate on no others, only him."

Xram just laughed. "You'll never get the chance Forge, Symbols life is mine to take, you can't deny anything about that, you're trapped in this Broken World."

Nightmare just glared at Xram. "The death of Shttered will be by the hand of The Nightmare King, you will not think otherwise Xram."

Forge just summoned two large fireballs and his eyes glowed. "Why don't I make this simpler...and kill both of you right now?!" He threw his arms forward and blasted the two demons.

They recovered and jumped backwards while taking fighting stances. "Princess Zerlinda, please leave this world while I deal with these pests." The girl just nodded and disappeared.

Xram just looked to Nightmare with an unamused stare. "So you're betraying me now are you?"

"This conflict not between The Nightmare King and True Xram, it is merely us that have something to settle."

"You make it sound like you're your own being, like I'm my own being, but that's not the case." Xram growled and summoned a large scythe. "Enough of this foolishness. Let us begin."

Forge just smiled like a maniac and chuckled. "Just to let you know...neither of you are leaving here alive, my power surpasses both of you combined. Say goodbye to your pathetic existence."

Fusion is the solution

Ashley's POV

"W-What?" I asked wide eyed.

"You heard me, if we want this fight to go down easy we should attempt a fusion." Symbol simply stated. "Now it's not the same as symbiote fusion or anything like DBZ or Steven Universe, one of us will have the majority of control over the fusion but the other will still be able to influence the one in control." He explained. He held up the palm of his right hand and showed me a glowing purple symbol of the sun that had appeared on it. "If I grant you this symbol, you will be able to fuse with anyone else that has it."

I blasted a Nightmare as it got too close and nodded my head, trusting my displacer. "Ok, let's do it."

He nodded and told me to hold up my right hand. Once I did he grabbed it in his hand and I could feel a weird surge of energy flow into my arm. He let go and the symbol was no on my palm. "It will appear and disappear naturally depending on the situation. If tow people that have the symbol are close together it will naturally appear if their minds are set in fight mode, the Rory of the time it is hidden." He explained to me while kicking a Nightmare away.

"Have you fused before?" I asked as I put up a wall of fire to make the Nightmares back away.

"A few times, my first experience with fusion was with Epidemic, creating Symbolic. I was the one in control as he basically became a set of draconic armour that was fused onto my body. I'll tell you, the power I felt in that form was...incredible." He grinned madly. "I felt like I could crush the world in my palm, although I was nowhere near that strong. Alright, let's do this. Focus on your power, let it flow over your body." He instructed.

I nodded and closed my eyes, feeling the power I had flow through my veins. Symbol did the same and we placed our palms together. I felt his energy pour into me and my energy start flowing into him. In a bright flash of light I felt myself being pulled into Symbol as our bodies began to morph together.

Third Person

As the light died down, Rainbow Dash looked up at the new figure. It was a man slightly taller than Symbol. His hair was long and red, covering his back until it's end reached just past his knees with some parts draping over his shoulders. He wore a red overcoat with flame patterns on the wrists and ends. He held a dual bladed sword made of magma rock in his left hand while his right was burning with red fire. His eyes were red with mist seeping out of the edges.

"Wow, this feels...amazing!" It's echoed voice said while marvelling at its power.

"Yeah, I was like that the first time I fused as well." Now a normal voice or sounded like a deeper version of Symbols. "How about we name this form Volcanic?" He suggested.

"Better than anything I could come up with, let's do this!" The echoed voice exclaimed. Volcanic glared down at the Mimickers before him, smirking as he spun his blade.

The Mimickers did their thing and began to change shape, forming dark purple copies of Ashley and Symbol, their power increasing in the process.

"Imitation is the best form of flattery? I'd say it's just a way for someone to feel special by stealing the originals look. Oh well, I'll take it as a compliment." Volcanic spun his blade before pointing it at the small horde. "Let's see if you can land a good bit."

Rainbow Dash just looked at him in awe, her eyes sparkling. "So...awesome!" She looked to the Nightmares and smirked. "Well, looks like they'll be more of a challenge now, bring it on!"

"Are you sure you want to do that Rainbow? These things are almost as powerful as Symbol and Ashley." Volcanic asked with concern.

"I'll be alright big guy, if it gets too rough I'll bail, so don't you worry about me." Rainbow took a fight in stance while Volcanic chuckled.

The Nightmares either charged on the ground or by air. Rainbow shot up to the sky and began making hit and runs on the Nightmares with her speed. As a Nightmare Symbol held out a hand and fire a large beam of energy at Volcanic he blocked it with his magma blade and swiped at the copy, leaving a trail of fire in the area of the attack. The Nightmare spilt in two before bursting into flames and forming an orb.

A group of Nightmare Ashleys formed up and blasted Volcanic with high waves of fire, he grunted before pulling back and using his own fire to counteract it. He then changed forward and swung his blade while spinning it causing the effect of a buzz saw made of magma rock. The group disappeared into orbs and were then destroyed by Volcanics fire.

Rainbow Dash grabbed one of the Symbols and flew high up into the air before taking a nose dive with a sonic rainboom, throwing the Nightmare down and turning before she could hit the ground. The impact destroyed the copy as well as a large number of others and shook the ground a little.

Volcanic used this as a distraction and grabbed an Ashley in his hand which then tried to burn him and stab into his skin with tendrils. He crushed it and used its body to make a solid fireball which he threw at a group of Mimickers causing a large explosion.

A Symbol got behind Volcanic and began to rapidly fire a barrage of blasts and waves of fire at him. As Volcanic tried to block the blows he was pinned by an Ashley which had coated itself in fire and began to burn him. The Nightmares around them began to blast with everything they had, causing severe damage to the fusion.

He managed to raise a clenched fist into the air and brought it back down to earth with great force causing a large explosion of red energy. The blast threw the Nightmares off their feet and freed Volcanic from the Ashley that was holding him down. He quickly got up and coated the area in fire, destroying every Nightmare in the process.

Having taken too much damage Volcanic let out a sigh before his body turned white and he split back into Symbol and Ashley. The two landed with a loud thud and lay on their backs.

"So...that's fusion for you?" Ashley said between breaths.

"I don't...normally do fusion...but most of the time...yeah, it feels like that." Symbol gasped out, becoming increasingly tired as the fusion had taken a lot to maintain.

Ashley felt the effects as well, her eyes closing and both of them falling asleep. Fully restored Symph separated from his father and looked around the flaming area in confusion before seeing the state the two were in. "I need to stop going to sleep when my father is around, I miss too much." He grew two tendrils out of his back which he wrapped around them and began walking to their cabin.

Meanwhile Rainbow lay on a cloud, tired from the experience. "It was exhausting...but it was awesome." She said before falling asleep herself.

Time is changing

Ashleys POV

Upon opening my eyes I found I was in my bed in the cabin, feeling refreshed after forming Volcanic with Symbol. It was a...very empowering experience I'll tell you that. That power...was that what Symbol felt like all the time? That power was overwhelming but...it also felt cold, unnatural and just plain wrong. I don't know what is going in in the boy's body, but I can tell you it is a hell of a lot worse than puberty.

My mind began to wonder a bit as I lay there, thinking back to the cave and how Symbol had responded to my question. What was his answer? I did kinda put him on the spot like that and he probably hasn't ever been asked something like that before. His reaction though interested me, it didn't look like he was trying to say no, it more looked like he was trying to find a way to say yes without coming across as a creep tart only liked me for my looks.

Getting out of my bed and tossing the clothes I had on onto the floor before stepping into the shower, I heard the sound of two people talking but couldn't make it out due to the running water making more sound than it should. I recognised Symbols voice but there was one I didn't recognise, it wasn't Abi's and it wasn't Symph's. Shrugging I just focused on cleaning my body.

Symbols POV

I sat in the kitchen of the cabin, Roden sitting opposite me. I knew immediately when he showed up that anything I wanted to do today would have to wait since when this guy came to visit he either had some new training exercise for me to complete or something had gone wrong...very wrong. From what he was telling me, it seemed to be neither of those things, all he was doing was delivering a message to me, a warning. "Wait, so what you're saying is that someone is messing around with the timelines?"

My teacher nodded and spoke through his scarf. "Yes, this has also attracted the attention of Nightmare and Xram, and they have recruited a third member into their ranks, but you need not worry about him as one of your fathers displaced will be taking care of him in the future."

"Well what do you know about this Reality Bender? They have to be powerful to be able to alter the path of different timelines." I knew there was beings capable of doing such things in the main Multiverese, but in this area? So far out in the weaker Equestrias? It didn't make sense. Why would someone like that do those things around these almost harmless worlds.

"I'm afraid the only things that I know of this new enemy is that they take the appearance of a young girl and are extremely powerful. Even I know very little, and we both know that is not a good sign." He replied in a serious tone. He was right, Roden was one of the smartest and well informed beings of the Multiverese, if he didn't know something it was either kept hidden extremely well or it was a sign that something bad was going to happen.

"Do we at least have a name?" I asked.

Roden paused and closed his eyes, focusing on try to find the name of our new enemy. "Celia...her name appears to be Celia."

I just raised a brow. "Doesn't ring a bell. But at least I know what to look out for. What has happened recently?"

"It seems that she is targeting three worlds right now, your fathers Metal Sonic displaced, my Galactic Ranger displaced and...a world that doesn't involve displaced at all...it even has an alternative version of me but...as a teenager?" Roden looked confused as he explained. "That is just weird on so many levels, but not surprising. There could be countless versions of us out there in the Multiverese or different timelines."

I just nodded. "So, what do you need me to do?"

Roden shook his head and glared at me. "Before you can do anything...you need to get a better grip on whatever is left of your sanity." I frowned and looked away slightly. "You're slipping, and you know it. When you were given this new body your mental barriers were nonexistent, all of those memories and things you blocked out came rushing back. Including your failure to completely rescue your sister, Abigail."

I said nothing and closed my eyes.

"Have you forgotten your reason for staying away from your friends and family for so long? The more you see of them the more your sanity starts to slip away, because whenever you loo at them more and more memories of before start to gather, and that darkness inside your very soul starts to grow. You feel guilty for what you've done to your friends and family, you regret not being able to go back and tell them you were ok. You feel you have no right to their friendship because of what you did on your version of earth, of what you did in Equestria and how you selfishly tried to avoid your destined path."

There was nothing I could say at that moment, what he had said was true, but there was more to my reasons for staying away from them all, something I had to do to make sure they were all safe for as long as possible.

I did feel guilty, I had failed my friends and more importantly I failed my sister. When Epidemic and I had faced down DEATH himself to retrieve her soul I thought I had finally rescued her...but of course fate had other plans. Her soul was suffering, her entire life was a hell hole, I needed to make it up to her. I wanted to give her a second chance at life, but she would never remember me if I restarted her life in a peaceful world.

But even then, it wasn't that simple. When I, Epidemic and Marx had given Abigail new life her sould split in two, one half forming Abi, the other half just a fragment of a soul which was used to create Gail in my old Equestria where my daughter was being raised. She didn't remember, Abi was not Abigail, merely half of the real thing. If Abi and Gail met and fused together...there was a chance they'd never separate, Abi and Gaik would just stop existing all together just to bring back Abigail. I didn't want to rob a family of their foal just to get my sister back...I don't want to be a monster anymore...I don't want to be a demon anymore!

But the fact remains clear as day...I am a demon...I always have been...I always will be.

Rainbow wants to join us?