What You Wish For 3: The Book of Earth Pony

Fluttershy gently poked at Alex’s side as she whispered, “Alex, wake up.”

Alex groaned loudly, “No…” his head slowly rising from the pillows to reveal his messy hair, “it’s way too early.”

Fluttershy hesitated for a few seconds before saying, “It’s actually about noon now.”

There was a pause between the two, silence had come upon them. Alex’s brain was still waking up and beginning to process the information. He slowly rose from his bed as he mumbled, “I’m up, what’s going on?”

Fluttershy smiled brightly, “Oh nothing,” she began, “we’re just going to show Mike how to use his abilities.”

Alex rubbed his noggin, he was slightly confused with the order of things so far, “I thought he was flying perfectly well.” Alex mumbled tiredly.

“Oh but he is,” FLuttershy said with the nod of her head in agreement, “for the first few seconds before he loses his ability to fly.”

Alex looked out the peep hole, he checked the deck for Mike’s presence while shielding himself from the sunlight. Alex took a quick breath before mumbling in a less tired voice, “So what, you want me, a unicorn, to train a pegasus on how to use his wings?”

Fluttershy nodded her head, “Essentially,” she began, “you had to learn all about finding your zen. It might be the same principle for him as well.” Fluttershy trotted up and pulled Alex to the window as she said with a warm smile across her face, “Now hold your breath as mama takes care of your hair.”

Before she could open the window, Alex muttered, “Calling yourself mama is making it really awkward for me to be dating you.”

She simply rolled her eyes in response, “Oh whatever, you know I’m trying to help.” With that, she opened the window and gently nudged Alex’s head through the window. Only exposing the top of his head to the water that was splashing up the side of the boat, she began to wash and pat down Alex’s short hair.

After a couple of seconds, Fluttershy pulled Alex back in as she asked with a confused look on her face, “How did you get your hair back?”

Alex shrugged, “I’ve been exploring the extent of my magical abilities and figured out that growing my hair at an accelerated rate is one of my abilities.”

Fluttershy looked down at Alex’s chin as she said, “Your beard is looking… rather… umm...” Flutteershy had troubles putting the words nicely for Alex to understand without being offended. His beard had barely any hair in some places while it had too much hair in other places, resembling the many beards on pubescent colts that Fluttershy met during flight camp.

Alex felt over his beard as he said with a raised eyebrow, “I guess this is looking kinda scruffy eh?”

Fluttershy simply nodded, “Yeah, you’re almost a legal adult and you still have a beard.”

Alex laughed a bit, “Shut up, it’s not my fault I can’t grow a beard.” Alex paused for a minute; an idea had just popped into his head, “Hold on,” he said while taking a few steps back, “maybe this’ll work.”

Alex began to stroke his beautiful man mane chin warmer, each stroke bringing out more hair than before until he had a ZZ Top-esque beard growing out of his face. A proud look dawned Alex’s face as he boasted, “Well? Is this not the best and most manliest beard ever?”

Fluttershy looked at it only for a second before saying, “Remember back on earth, you showed us a movie called Iron Man?”

“Yeah, that was a great movie. What about it?”

“Well remember the beard the main character had? What was his name?”

Alex snapped his finger, he immediately knew who she was talking about as he exclaimed, “Robert Downey Jr. what a handsome devil he is!”

Fluttershy nodded in agreement, “As creepy as that was of you, I was thinking of a beard like that on you.”

Alex lifted his beard to his face, he thought about it for a couple of seconds. He didn’t really want to get rid of such a luscious beard, but he knew that a relationship required constant obedience to the female or else she psychologically damages you. Alex sighed, “Fine… hold on.” Alex quickly swiped over his beard with the chop of his hand and it all came falling off, the hairs quickly disappeared into the air in bright orange glows. Alex then drew on his face what looked like a goatee, the one resembling Tony Stark’s. After a few seconds, he had a drop dead sexy beard and stunning hair.

Fluttershy looked at him with a red face as she whispered, “Perfect. Now go and talk to Mike about the whole flying thing.”

Alex nodded his head before exiting the room; he swung the door wide open in a proud manner before stepping towards the center of the deck. The first thing to catch his eye was Mike standing at the far right side of the ship as he looked out towards the ocean, his mind deep in thought. Alex approached the soldier as he said with a serious look upon his face, “Michael, you’ve demonstrated your abilities to use your pegasi powers for good. Yet these powers have not been mastered yet.”

Mike turned towards Alex with a confused look upon his face as he replied, “The hell are you talking about?” When Mike turned around to stare back at the ocean, he realized he had somehow climbed a few hundred feet into the air above the boat.

Alex and Mike began to fall as Alex shouted over the sound of the rushing wind, “You seem to demonstrate a state of zen when you need to be a hero.”

Mike shook his head as he yelled his response, “You need to save me, dumbass! You’re the one with the magic!”

“Unfortunately, you’re on your own,” Alex began as he placed his hands around his neck, “for you see, I am unconscious.” With the twist of his arms, Alex snapped his neck a full 180 degrees around until his head was facing the opposite direction, his body immediately going limp.

Mike stared in disbelief at what he just saw; he was overcome with the feeling of shock and disgust as well as the sense of urgency. Mike tilted his body towards Alex and soon began to curve his fall towards the dead corpse as he shouted at the top of his lungs, “You stupid son of a bitch!” Once Mike was against his dead friend, he grabbed hold of him and closed his eyes. He could feel a sudden rush of energy go towards what felt like an extra pair of arms sprouting from his back. Mike turned his head to see the fiery green flames in the shape of wings sprout from his shoulder blades suddenly sprout and cause him to make a sharp curve upwards. Mike quickly realized he was now flying at maximum velocity past the ship, Mike smiled only for a couple of seconds before remembering that his idiot friend had just killed himself. The winged soldier quickly turned around and headed back to the ship, his jets of green flames spraying from his back like after burn on a military jet.

Mike finally landed on the boat, the ponies as well as Faust and Spike as Mike gently placed Alex on the floor as he shouted at the dead man, “You stupid mother fu”

Before Mike could finish his cursing, Twilight pointed towards Spike as she said with a stern look, “There’s a baby dragon on here that doesn’t need to hear you swear.”

Mike quickly apologized to the purple dragon and returned his focus on Alex, his sense of heroism was still kicking as he twisted Alex’s head back into place. The man’s skin was cold and dead and his eyes had rolled into the back of his skull, the neck was badly twisted and ruined as parts were poking out where they shouldn’t be. Mike looked towards Twilight as he pleaded in desperation, “Is there anything you can do to save him?”

There was a long pause, Twilight hung her head low as she said in a solemn voice, “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

Fluttershy trotted around with a look of calmness upon her as she said with a smile, “This is classic Alex, he did this to me when I wouldn’t let him leave the table without eating his peas. You just gotta stick your hoof right here.”

As Fluttershy planted her hoof deep in Alex, his head jerked upright with a smile across his face. Alex quickly squirmed out of the way as he said with a shade of red on his face, “I said don’t poke me there! You know that’s an exit only doorway right?”

Fluttershy giggled as she spoke softly, “You know how I hated it when you pretended to snap your own neck.”

Alex hesitated to respond, he looked around at the entire group to see he was being showered with looks of concern and disappointment. Alex eventually looked down towards his bright white shoes as he said sheepishly, “I guess I’m sorry for scaring you all.” Alex looked up towards Mike as he said with a look of fear and embarrassment, “I’m sorry for scaring you there.”

Mike punched his friend across the face, his fist making a satisfying whack as it connected with his jaw before sending him to his behind as he shouted, “Don’t you ever do that again. I thought you were gonna die!”

Alex pointed towards Mike’s back as he said with a look of pride, completely ignoring his pain, “Look! Your wings are still here, that sense of constant need to save is what puts your mind at zen. You are a true warrior of the pegasi race.”

Mike stopped; he slowly turned around to look at his warmly glowing wings. The flames didn’t seem to hurt him as he touched and felt them. The low hissing of flames emanated from his back as he touched his wings ever so gently, it felt like touching an actual wing of a bird. Mike watched them disappear as he said, “So all I need to do is just feel like I need to save the world to keep these wings going?”

Alex nodded his head, “Although we will need to perfect your stamina because magic drains your energy as a beginner. Not only that, but here are thousands of skills a pegasus needs to learn and be trained in.” Alex looked at Mike’s reaction and nodded, “That’s right, there’s a lot more about a pegasus than it looks. Tomorrow, we’ll train you on your indestructibility.”