//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Memories 
// Story: The New World 
// by jt45fan 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 4: Memories

“So what is happening with Ryan that you need my help with Applejack?” I asked the orange pony, attempting to find out what the problem.
“He’s been actin real strange since this mornin.” she said as we were walking up the the large farmhouse where my friend was staying. As we neared the structure I could hear another pony walking about, and as we got even closer I saw that Big Macintosh was already getting ready to plow the field. Applejack walked up to him and asked “Is he still inside?” 
“Eeyup.” was his rather characteristic response. Before he could even return to his work Applejack had already run halfway to the house. We nodded to each other as I walked past him. 
As I entered the house the first thing I saw was Granny Smith’s rocking chair, occupied by her. “Applejack went upstairs, deary.” said the elderly pony as she saw me. I went up the stairs to the left of her, and down the hall to the room that I heard Applejack yelling at Ryan from. 
“Who is this imbecile?” asked my friend as I entered the room. 
“Ryan, what are you talking about? It’s me John.” I answered to him, trying to get closer to my friend. 
“Why do ponies keep calling me that. My name is Atom Smasher!” he yelled at us. There was something off about him, not just mentally, but physically as well, and not just being a pony. 
I motioned to Applejack and we left the room, Ryan staying inside. “Has he been like this all day?” I asked the farmpony.
“Yes, since he woke up this mornin’. I caught him as he was walkin out of the front door. I said hello to him, and he asked ‘who is Ryan?’ and it took off from there.” she responded to my question. “Do you know how to fix ‘im?”
“No clue,” I said. “but I know who would. Can you keep an eye on him?”
“Yes, I can.” she responded.
“Good, I’ve got to go see another one of my friends.” I told her. “If anypony can solve this, it’s him.” 
“Well then, go get him.” she said. I walked back down the hall and flew into town. Then looked for the building I knew was Carousel Boutique, finding it in the northern part of the town, near the market. 
I landed, walked up to the door, and knocked on it. After a couple moments I heard from the other side “Come in.” I walked into the room and saw Rarity, setting up shop for the day. “Oh hello John.” she said as she saw me enter. “Are you here to see Shamus?”
“Yes, it’s a bit of an emergency.” I responded to her, with a bit of urgency in my voice.
“He is upstairs, in the room at the end of the hall.” she said. I walked up the stairs and to the room at the end of the hall. I knocked on the door. Once. Twice. Three times. No answer. That was odd. Shamus was always up for company. “Is he answering the door?” Rarity called upstairs. I heard her walking up the stairs, mumbling about lost work as she did so. As she walked up to the door she levitated the keys to the lock and unlocked it. The door opened to show the guest bedroom of Rarity’s house. And just the guest bedroom. No other pony. He was gone. Just like what Ryan tried to do. I started to put the clues together, but I need more evidence.
“I need to go.” I said to her. I turned to run out the door, but then I stopped. “Where I the nearest one of my friends staying?” I asked. 
“The mare is staying at the library, do you know where that is?” she responded to me. 
“I should be able to find it.” I said and I ran out the door and took off, without even thinking about it, a definite improvement. But I wasn’t thinking about that. My friends were disappearing, or losing their memories of being human. 
I needed to get to the library quickly, so I didn’t go up to cruising height. Instead I flew low to the ground as I shot over to the library, getting there rather quickly. I landed and ran inside. Twilight was taking notes out of a book. “What is going on here?” she said as I burst in. 
“Where is Diana?” I asked, in between gasping breaths. Apparently I’m not fit in this world either.
After realizing who I was she said “She left some time ago. Why?” 
“Something is happening to my friends, I needed to see if it was happening to all my friends.” I said to her. Memories of today came rushing back, the dream, Ryan acting strange, his coat being more grey than usual, Shamus- wait his coat. “Was Diana’s coat more grey today then yesterday?” I asked.
“A little, why?” she responded. 
“When was the last time that happened? The last I can remember was the Discord Incident.” I said.
“I don’t get what you’re getting… Oh no.” she said. “No. No. Not again.” 
“Perhaps yes again. And if it’s going to be stopped were going to need to get moving now!” I said.
At that point Spike descended the stairs. “What is all the yelling about?” he asked.
Twilight quickly scrawled a letter on paper and handed it to Spike. “You need to send this the the Princess.” she said to him urgently. She then turned to me. “We need to get going now.” 
“No need to tell me twice.” I said. We walked out of the house and I filled her in on the situation. “We need to find them now, before they get too far away.” 
At this point we heard the sound on one of those little party blowey outie things. I don’t know the name of them, and this is no time for semantics. Then I saw a pink blur. Of all the time for her to show up it had to be now. “Hiya! What are you doing? Is it some sort of game? I like games! Is it with Diana and Devlin, because they are over by Clockwork’s stall in the market. Did I ruin it because if-” She was silenced by me jamming my hoof into her mouth.
“What did you say about Diana and Devlin?” I asked Pinkie Pie.
“That they were at Clockwork’s stall.” she responded to us. 
“Pinkie, can you get use there?” I asked the Element of Laughter. 
“Sure I can show you the route.” she happily responded. 
“No I mean your more efficient way.” I said to Pinkie.
She responded to my inquiry ,“Ohhh. I’m not supposed to ever since the last time I did that, Clockwork told me that I nearly broke the Abstract Plain, whatever that is.” Ok, that option is out, and it lets me know, somewhat, where I am on the timeline. 
“Well we’ll walk.” I said. It took only a couple minutes to get to the market. 
When we got there the Doctor was holding a conversation with Diana and Devlin, looking like he didn’t recognize them from the day before. There was a good chance he didn’t, but after 900 years you tend to forget the small stuff. But when he saw me he called me over. “John, glad to see you I did some research and-” 
“Not now, we need to get them inside the stall.” I said as I cut him off. But the Doctor would have none of it. 
“We can’t.” he whispered into my ear. “Nopony here knows about who I am other than Derpy, Lyra, and the Princesses. The more who know, the greater the danger I and my friends are in, and Twilight is one of them.” 
“I understand, but we have a bigger problem. If you don’t remember, those ponies over there came to Equestria with me. Right now, they don’t. We need to get them inside so Twilight can cast the spell on them to get them their memory back.” I said to the Timelord. 
“Wait, what! They lost their memories. That is not good, not good at all, but you said you could fix them, right?” he said to me and Twilight. We both nodded our heads affirmative. ‘Then get them in here.” the timey-wimey pony said to us. 
“When we get in there, I’ll explain everything.” I said to the unicorn standing next to me, who was completely in the dark about the situation. 
As we enter the back of the stall, through a pair of blue curtains, Twilight saw the TARDIS and asked “What is that thing?” 
“That is the TARDIS, or Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It is my time machine, and I’m not Clockwork, I’m the Doctor, pleased to meet you.” said the ex- President of Gallifrey standing in front of us. 
“But what?” Twilight was able to sputter out before the Doctor ran into the TARDIS. 
“Are you coming in?” he asked us as we stood around outside it. 
“How could we fit inside that?” she asked trying to figure out what was happening. But I heard it only as a faint noise from behind, as I was already in the TARDIS. Standing in awe of the fact I was in the TARDIS. My friends were right next to me, but they didn’t expect that the TARDIS would be bigger on the inside. Twilight walked in behind me and was jaw dropped. “It’s bigger on the inside.” she stammered out. 
“I love it when they say that.” said the Doctor as he fiddled with some controls. “You wanted a private place to perform the spell, right? Here it is.” 
Twilight looked at the two ponies standing next to me. “Here goes nothing.” she muttered as she cast the spell. Her horn began to take on a bright glow, eventually filling the room with bright light. It grew in intensity, blotting out all other vision. Then the light was gone, my friends standing there.
“Diana!” I call to the grey unicorn in front of me. She looked up and looked at me.
She opened her mouth and said “I’m sorry, you must have thought I’m somepony else. My name is Bookworm, pleased to meet you Mr?” Her words hit me like somepony threw a brick at my head. She didn’t remember me. This whole plan failed. I failed. Devlin gave me the same look, the one of meeting somepony new, for the first time. I lost, and there would be no rematch. For the first time I noticed a pressure on my head growing causing a headache by this point. It felt like somepony was slowly setting an anvil on my head. I figured it was Discord, or whatever caused my friends to lose their memories. 
It kept growing, at an even faster rate, and I began to lose sight at the corners of my eyes, my hearing being gradually replaced by a terrible buzzing. My mind clouded over, and I blacked out.
	I woke up in the void again, still wearing the blue plates of armor as last time. The plate covering my chest was still pierced, although there was no sword in it. I looked up and saw the well-dressed gentleman again. “You put up much more of a fight than the other ponies.” he said in his smooth voice. It was Discord. Discord had gotten in my head. “But then again,” he continued “you were the only one to actually fight me. It was good fun too, the most I’ve had in a while. Right now I’m weak enough that is there was any resistance, I could be held off. But they didn’t and you did, that is why I needed to put more pressure on you.” I lunged at Discord, planning on choking him until I won, but I was stopped by chains attached to my arms and legs. “Oh no none of that or she gets it.”  I looked to my left and saw Diana, as a human, similarly restrained, as well as the remainder of my friends. 
Not many of my friends know this, but I have some anger issues. Not as bad as the Hulk’s, but still bad. I saw my friends, my girlfriend, getting hurt. That tends to piss me off. “You bastard!” I yelled at him.  The void behind him began to glow a deep red color. “I’ll kill you!” 
“Oh I won’t be having any of that.” he said, oblivious to the glow behind him. 
“John can you hear me?” rang out in my head. It was Twilight. “You have to fight it. I figured out how to get their memory back. You have to jog it. But you have to wake up.” I glared at the imprint of the god standing in front of me, and noting the shifting colors on the horizon. Of course he would trap me here. It’s the perfect prison. But it is also the worst, because I can control it. Because it is my own mind. 
I felt the manacles on my wrists disappear. I then flicked my wrist at Discord, causing manacles to appear there. “What did you do?” he snapped at me. 
“I figured out that you trapped me in my own mind. So I trapped you here as well Discord.” I returned. I looked straight into the eyes of the Draconequus.  “And now I’m going to free my friends and I’m going to leave you in here. Do you understand?” 
He then started laughing. “But I will escape as soon as you let down your guard.” he said calmly. “That is the problem with mental prisons. As soon as you forget about it I will escape, and I’ll be stronger, meaning that I would have to be truly defeated. And none of you could do that, now could you?” 
Twilight’s voice then rang again through the void, that I knew now was my own mind. “John! She remembers! You need to wake up!” Diana was ok that was good. Now, how to deal with Discord. 
“How about this.” I said to the god of chaos. “You said fighting me was fun, let's do it again. Only this time let’s do it fairly, where you aren’t quite so unfairly fast. If you win you get to take us over, but if I win we get to have our freedom. Agreed?”
“That sound rather fun,” responded the  Draconequus. “I accept. But let’s wait until later, I need time to ready myself.”
“That is fine by me.” I said to him. I then concentrated on waking up. The being before me blurred and my sight went black.
I woke up, collapsed on the floor of the TARDIS, my friends looking over me. “John you're ok!” said Diana as she hugged me as I sat up.
“Ok, now I’ve done it.” I said, with just a touch of irony.