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// Chapter 4: Exploring the Mind 
// Story: The Destruction of Reality 
// by whynot707 
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“Fire, destruction, is that all I bring? The fire of my soul, it burns so bright and hot, yet it feels so cold and dark. Just who am I?”
Floating in the dark of his consciousness, Flare was losing himself again. Many times he had been here and many times he had drifted, hoping to figure out what his purpose was. All he had found the countless times he drifted was just darkness, everything around him a void that had long ago been emptied. 
Who am I?
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“Doctor! Where are you?”
Derpy’s yells were getting frantic. This… thing that had been chasing her seemed to have stopped playing and was now closing in fast, not to mention the fact she was carrying the dead weight of the unconscious Twilight on her back. 
“Doctor!”
The creature made of flame was now just a few feet away. She could feel the ends of her hair begin to singe.
“Doctor!”
It was just Inches away now, she felt like she was burning alive.
“Derpy, dive!”
She did as she was told as a steady stream of water rushed past her head and struck the creature in its own, momentarily distorting it.
“Doctor, who, where, how?” she was stumbling over her words as she spoke to the Doctor who once again showed up at the last minute to save everything.
“Well, to answer your first question, I am simply the Doctor, it’s what I do. The second I had just defeated those three things made of cardboard, it’s quite the trilling tale actually involving great dance moves and a fez, but we’ll save that for another time. Anyway, of course I saw the great ball of fire flying after the grey mare who was shouting my name, so here we are. And for the last one, I used this water pistol from said tale, but that not important now, what’s important is what to do with him.”
Derpy had been so caught up in the Doctors explanation she had forgotten about the flame creature that was now charging at them. 
“I think it would be best if we run”
“agreed.”
The two had taken off, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. The flame creature was confused, but thrilled that it had a new victim to chase. 
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Discord was both appalled and impressed. Not only had his student of chaos been knocked out, this new pony had completely shown her up in causing chaos. 
“Perhaps this one will make quite the formidable foe. I think it’s time I take this thing into my own claw… er paw… you know what I mean.”
The blue alicorn jumped when he turned, asking her and simply nodded her head.
“Good… now get back to work!” As he said this he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
As the theater grew quite the blue alicorn began to think to herself.
“Why does thou feel an empty feeling every time we look upon this stallion? It’s like something’s missing. We do remember the one who travels through time and the one with the odd eyes, but why does this one escape us so. Perhaps… perhaps he is from that time.”
“Luna, we need to get back to work.” The white alicorn stood next to her.
“Yes sister.”
“Luna, why are you crying?”
She reached up and felt her hoof to her face. Indeed there had been tears coming from her eyes.
“We don’t know.”
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“Any ideas?” 
“Just one, keep running.”
The two were still running from the flame creature. They had managed to get out of the town and were now running towards the Tardis.
Derpy’s body was starting to give out because of the extra weight and the doctor took notice.
“Do you want me to take her?”
“Please.” With that she tossed the limp body of twilight onto the doctors back causing him to almost trip, but he regain his balance quickly and continued to run.
They finally reached the tardis, but the creature was closing in fast.
“Inside, quick.”
They both ran inside and slammed the door behind them. Derpy slumped to the floor by the door as the Doctor eased Twilight off of his back and onto the floor.
“Now then, time to get Flare back to normal.”
“How?” she managed to say, still out of breath.
“Easy, we just use the Tardis’ transmitter to send out a molecular pulse, slowing all surrounding molecules, turning the fires energy back into potential energy giving Flare back his physical form.”
“Uh… right.”
“Simple isn’t it.”
“Yeah… simple. Oh, and Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“Your fez is on fire.”  
“It is? Ah so it is.” The Doctor threw the fez to the ground and quickly stamped out the small blaze.
“I liked that fez; the ambassador of Solatry gave me it as a present during the competition.” The Doctor looked truly sad as he said this.
“We can get you a new one when we get out of this, alright?”
“Thank you Derpy. Anyway back to business. Just pull this, flip that switch and…” a loud explosion sounded right outside the Tardis causing a slight tremor. “There we go.”
“Now Derpy, I need you to keep the molecules from speeding up and becoming flame again.”
“So how do I do that?”
“Use the sonic screwdriver. Hold the button and keep it pointed at him, it should be enough to keep the molecules from speeding up again for a short time.”
“Doctor, you’re making it sound like you’re not going to be there to help me.”
“Well… yes and no. I have to get into his mind and pull him out, because whatever’s been chasing us is still in control. So I’m going to be unconscious while I’m in there.”
“What happens if he changes back to flame?”
“Let’s not worry about that, alright.”
“Alright.” She was still worried not for herself, but for the Doctor. He had done some stupid, yet amazing things in the past, but nothing like this.
The Doctor set his sonic for the right setting and handed it to Derpy. He waved her over and they stood by the door.
“Are you ready?”
“Doctor, you seem to already know what to do. Has Flare done this before?”
“Let’s go. Alons-y!” With that the Doctor pushed open the door and ran out before he could answer her question.
The unconscious body of flare was slumped a few feet away from the entrance. The Doctor took his head between his hooves.
“Here we go.” He bashed his fore head against flares and fell unconscious.
Derpy held the screwdriver pointed at flare. She looked up as a few dark clouds rolled overhead and a few drops started to fall. She stuck out here tongue, thankful for the rain. As a drop hit it, her eyes widened as she realized what it was. It was raining chocolate milk.
“Doctor, please hurry.”
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Drifting through the endless darkness, many questions still filled my head. One weighed heaviest on my mind. Why do I have no memories since the time I woke up in that ditch 1 year ago? 
Continuing to drift a warm breeze blew by. “What?” turning i saw what looked like a bright light in the shape of himself.
“Who are you?”
“I can’t say yet, the time has not come.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I bring a warning, don’t let the delusions take control of you, look past them and into the light.”
“What does that mean?”
“That is for you to find out.” The light started to fade from the creatures body. “Well, it looks like my time here is up, we shall meet again.” The light faded.
“Who was that?” Flare muttered under his breath.
“I don’t know, but that was interesting.”
“Yeah… wait… what?”
“Ah hello, sorry to intrude on you like this, couldn’t help watching that spectacle and I must say I have never seen anything quite like it.”
“Wait, why are you here or more importantly how are you here?”
“Basic mind merge, it allows me to see into others minds but if done correctly I can go deeper inside them. So here I am. Anyway I need you to wake-up, your kind of going on a rampage and lets just say it’s not pretty.”
“Oh, please tell me I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“No one was hurt, save an innocent fez, but we have to stop it before you do any real damage.”
“Right. So how do we get out, I normally fade into the darkness before I wake-up, but right now I’m far from fading.”
“Simple, just use the door.”
“What door?”
“You’re not seeing past the limitations. It’s your mind; just imagine the door and it should appear.”
“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”
I closed my eyes and thought hard. I pictured a simple brown door with a bronze handle. When I opened his eyes it was there right in front of me.
“Doctor, does this mean I can control when the flames subside now?”
“Not quite, I think you have to gain more control over it before you can leave without help.”
“I guess it’s time to leave then.”
“Yeah, after you.”
Opening the door flooded the darkness with a bright light.
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“Ugh. I always hate waking up after this.” My body was still in pain from the damage I took earlier but was healed for the most part. Looking around I realized I was in a puddle of light brown liquid, it wasn’t dense enough to be mud and it smelled sweet. Standing up wasn’t easy, I stumbled over my legs a few times before I regained my balance. The Doctor was already up and looking around with a confused look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Derpy, she’s not her and the Tardis was locked before I entered your mind.”
“Come on let’s look for here, she couldn’t have gone far.”
The Doctor ran off along the road to look for her while I checked the surrounding area. Staggering around I checked in trees and behind bushes. After turning up nothing the Doctor came back to help me check the area. Walking along a ditch the wet grass caused me to slip and fall in, landing on a soft mass of grey fur.
“Doctor I think I found her.”
Derpy was unconscious and bleeding from the head. By the looks of her position she had sliped and fell in here too. The Doctor came down in the ditch and helped me carry her to the Tardis.
“The medical systems should be able to help you both and you two should be fine in a few hours.”
Derpy started to stir as we entered the Tardis.
“Hey, can you hear me?”
“Doctor?” she managed to say groggily  
“Yeah, Flare’s here too.”
“Derpy, do you remember what happened?”
“Rain, chocolate milk…”
“Wait don’t tell me it’s…”
“Hello my dear opponents, it seems you two finally woke up.” The Tardis shook as he spoke.
“Doctor, we’re in no shape to fight him right now.”
“You’re right, we need to get out of here quick.” The doctor ran to the console and began flipping switches.
“It’s no use hiding, come out and fight me like the stallion you are.” His words became more malicious as he spoke.
The Doctor tapped the button for the Tardis’ speaker system. “I think we’ll save that for another time, goodbye Discord. Allons-y.” with that the doctor pulled the switch and the Tardis took off, leaving a screaming Discord in its wake. 
“Doctor, where are we headed?”
“Not far, I can’t seem to get the old girl back into the time stream so we go to the next best place.”
“Which is?”
“The moon of course, it will give us enough time to get answers out of her and time for you two to rest.”
At the mention of her I realized that we had an extra passenger who was just waking up.
“You know what, I’ve never performed an interrogation before, this should be fun.”
“Dear Celestia, what is he thinking?” was the only thing that came to mind as he spoke those words.