A Wish Come True

The lanterns flicker as Princess Celestia speaks. As the minutes drag on with her words, Twilight's hopes of keeping Spike at home dwindle more and more. Since the guards had left to escort Joseph to the medical area, it seemed eerily quiet when nopony spoke. But now Somepony was speaking, and her voice booms into Twilight's ears.

"-And such damage would take months to recover from," Princess Celestia continues. "Spike's developing powers must be contained exactly when they appear. Do you understand Twilight Sparkle?"

Spike, who has moved over to Princess Celestia's left side, looks at Twilight. He has his arms crossed, trying to contain himself. Twilight bites her bottom lip. "...I...I understand. I've understood from the very beginning."

"Good." Celestia looks down at Spike. "Now Spike, it is still your decision whether or not you wish to remain with Twilight, or wait here to encounter your soon-to-be-appearing powers."

The little dragon turns away from the two mares and sits on the carpet. He drags a finger along the red carpet’s rim. "Is it really? It's really sounding one-sided. If I stay with Twilight, I'll cause trouble, if I stay here, I won't." He sighs. “…I don't want to leave home, but I guess-“

“Princess Celestia.” A single guard slips into the throne, grabbing the attention of all the occupants. “We have a bit of a problem.”

“No! No, no, no, we don't!” A pony in a white nurse's shirt pops out from behind the guard. “Everything's fine, just a few complications.”

Princess Celestia's left eyebrow begins to escalate. “Problem? Complications?” She steps forward. “Explain, if you would, Doctor Hurtz.”

Hurtz straitens and regains herself. “Ahem, yes. It seems that the tests you asked me to preform have hit boundaries that Joseph wishes not to cross.” Taken by the Princess' expression, she continues further. “The blood sample you asked me to retrieve won't be coming soon.”

“And why not?” Celestia asks.

Hurts fixes her glasses. “Well, he appears to be deathly afraid-”

“Of needles,” Twilight finishes.

Hurts nods. “He passed out at the sight of it. Joseph is currently sleeping in my office.”

Celestia smiles. “Well now, if I wasn't royalty, I would say that seems a bit...cute. If you would, since he is unconscious, please, Doctor Hurtz, take the sample.” Celestia looks down at Twilight. “Let's continue out discussion later Twilight. Right now, you're friend may need you.”

…

Spike and Princess Celestia had retreated to another section of the castle to further discuss the problem at hand. Doctor Love Hurtz and Twilight both made their way back to the med lab in return. With Doctor Hurtz at her desk re-reading the notes she had taken earlier and magically placing the three vials of Joseph's blood away, Twilight focuses her attention on Joseph's sleeping form.

He is covered in a pale green blanket from the mid-section of his chest down, although the blanket stops short just above his ankles and leaves his feet exposed. His toes twitch every-so-often, and his hands move in a fluent pattern on his stomach. Every now-and-again, Joseph mumbles something in a dialect that Twilight can't quite catch.

“...Ehh...Crouch. Wait fer... Ten seconds... ...Headshot.” Joseph moves his head a bit in his sleep.

Twilight shuffles a bit and looks back at Love. “Is something wrong with him?”

Love looks over her notes at Joseph. “Well, he's been doing that ever since I covered him. He seems to be reliving some sort of event from his recent past. See how his hands are moving?” Love reclines back in her chair and tosses her notes back on the table. “He's doing something in there.”

Joseph moves and bit. “Ehh...Mission begins in...thirty seconds.”

Twilight rubs her chin with a hoof. “...This could be a good time to learn more about him,” she says quietly.

“Mission begins...ten seconds.”

Twilight scoots closer to Joseph, watching him talk.

“...Five...”

She moves his left hand away from his stomach with her nose.

“...Four...”

She lets his hand close around her horn.

“...Three...”

She closes her eyes.

“...Two...”

Her horn glows.

“...One...”

Twilight opens her eyes, but they’re not her eyes. She's looking through someone else's body, Joseph's body. His feet her move forward as the large gate in front of her slides open in a quick fashion. Then the real sound begins.

Gunshots, explosions, metal crashing against metal, and many other destructive sounds bombard Twilight as Joseph's body moves across the barren wasteland, the battlefield, following a railroad of some sort. His blue coat and darker blue gloves outstretched in front of him. On his left arm sits a watch, in his right is a large butterfly knife.

Twilight's fear begins to grow as Joseph turns invisible and sneaks around into an old-looking building. He turns visible again and stalks up the stairs in a crouch to the second floor. His head pops up and spots another man near the window with an elongated gun in his hands. His shirt is red under his gray vest. Joseph watches in horror as Joseph rushes forward and plunges his knife into the man's back, and he screams as he reaches back, trying to grab his wound. He falls dead a moment later.

Tears well up in Twilight's eyes as she sees Joseph bring out a black gun with a white handle. He takes aim at a man in a long white trench coat. A medical personal. He fires and the man drops, his unusual backpack sliding to the ground as well.

A booming female voice filled the area. “The bomb is approaching the checkpoint!”

Joseph switches back to his knife and sneaks down out an open doorway. He jumps the railing and runs toward a large bald man carrying an equally large weapon. “Medic!” he calls. “Charge me now Doctor!” Joseph goes up behind him as the large man's gun pumps out bullets. Joseph brings up his knife...

...And Twilight pulls herself from his dream. She falls backwards into the leg of the other table of the room. Doctor Hurtz hears the commotion and turns around, seeing Twilight almost in tears. “Miss Sparkle, what happened?” She leaves her seat and goes to her side. “What did you do?”

Twilight closes her eyes and lowers her head. “...I saw him kill people.”

Hurtz jaw nearly hits the floor. “What?

“I looked inside his dream, his memory.” Twilight shakes her head.

Doctor Hurtz leaves her side and walks over to Joseph, letting him subconsciously grab her horn as well. Her expression

changes to horror, then it softens. “...Twilight, you may want to take another look.”

She shakes her head.

“Come now Twilight, it's something that will make you feel better.”

Finally Twilight stands back up and walks over to Love's side. She lets Twilight put her horn on Joseph's hand and allows herself to be sucked into his dream again. Music is playing, a victory theme, and Joseph is randomly stabbing at the air. Then her vision goes gray. A small box appears saying “The server is changing levels.”

The view begins to widen back out to a large piece of plastic with dozens of buttons. Two hands fumble on the buttons, then give up and rub Twilight's face, no, Joseph's face. He turns and stares at his door behind him. “Well, good game,” he says to himself. “Sis! I’m done, you can use the computer!”

Twilight pulls herself back to her own mind. “...What?”

“It was a game,” Love says quietly. “He was playing an electronic board game or something like that.”

Twilight blinks. “It wasn't real?”

“No, not at all.” Love pats her on the back and returns to her desk. “You know, that was a huge invasion of his privacy. He probably won't like it once he hears we were inside his head.” She returns to her notes. “This also says that you should never jump to conclusions.”

Twilight rights herself. “Of course. Right. Joseph wouldn’t do those kinds of things. Not after the type of behavior I’ve seen him display.” She wipes her face and gives a shaky laugh. “I should have known better.” Twilight sits down and watches Joseph sleep, watch his face twitch, his hands moving, his feet trying to walk on nothing.

Many minutes of silence pass. Love rewrites some of her notes. Twilight preoccupies herself by tracing figures in the air with her hoof. After a few moments, she glances over at Love. “Those notes…They’re all on Joseph, correct?”

The doctor turns to face Twilight, her tail swiveling behind her as she spins in her chair. “Yes. Though they are mainly about how humans eat, how they arrived and evolved, for Joseph’s understanding at least. I also have details about the human body.”

Twilight’s eyes catch. “…They don’t have tails, do they? Humans I mean.”

Love tosses Twilight her notepad. “Read for yourself, everypony will sooner or later.”

Twilight looks at the cover. The whole first page is labeled “The Human Male: Bio-labels and such”. Twilight flips open the first page and folds it over the back, reading. “The Human species apparently have evolved… …not to mention the Human share similarities with… … …And… … …” Twilight flips through almost half of the notepad, absorbing the information.

She reads in solitude for nearly another fifteen minutes, completely ignorant to the others in the room. Joseph’s unconscious laughing go unnoticed, Love’s organizing as well. Twilight turns another page, this time finding details drawings of various parts of the human, no, of Joseph’s body. The first page held a picture of his hand splayed wide to see every finger, and little lines pointing to certain places connected notes of very little writing.

Twilight turns the page, this time finding a drawing of Joseph’s entire arm up to his shoulder. Dotted lines fix the boundaries of his muscles, and more little lines and tiny writing. Twilight glances over at Joseph’s bare arm and compares the two. She hadn’t really looked, but he was muscular to a certain point.

Twilight turns to the next page and sees a detailed drawing of both Joseph’s chest and back. Twilight could see the bends of his back, where his shoulder blades rested, how toned his stomach really was. She is learning more from a piece of paper about Joseph that she really noted from living with him. But a piece of paper wouldn’t tell you how smart he is, or how kind and well-mannered Joseph acts when around others. It wouldn’t tell you his eating habits, it wouldn’t tell you that he has a very slight limp on his left side that is so unnoticeable you need to stare for minutes to see it, it wouldn’t tell you that he’s a dedicated worker, or a great friend.

Twilight catches herself and flusters. She turns to the next page, seeing a picture of Joseph’s foot and leg. The diagram cuts off just about halfway above the knee, but still gives a lot of insight. She could see each toe, each tendon, everything. She turns to the next page and blushes a deep shade of red. “…Um, Doctor Hurtz?” The doctor looks down at the purple Unicorn. “Um, is this…?”

Love takes the notepad back and closes it, then places it on the upper corner of her desk. “Yes, it is. I needed to know every detail about his body, as Princess Celestia requested.” Love puts her hooves together. “However, he was asleep when I…observed him. It’s just biology, nothing to be ashamed about.” She returns to organizing her desktop items for the thirtieth time.

The door opens before anything else can be said. Both Love and Twilight redirect their attention to the door to see Princess Celestia's mane flow into the room just seconds before her own head. "Twilight, Spike has come to a conclusion."