//------------------------------//
// The Training 
// Story: The Powers That Be 
// by fieeesh 
//------------------------------//

We had decided that I would spend the night at the hospital, so when I awoke I slipped on my clothes and headed over to Applejack's farm to start my training for the day. It was a ten minute walk to the farm, I made it in seven seconds. God I love super speed. Anyway in front of me stood acres upon acres of apple trees, I started towards the barn and saw that everyone was there already.

Celestia smiled at me and said. "Good morning and I hope you don't mind but would you be willing to tell us about your home?"

I shrugged. "Sure. Well I guess I'll tell you about my family, I was orphaned at a young age, my father killed himself and my mother died of cancer. After several years in foster care, I began college with my sister who was a year older than me. Pretty soon my sister...she fell in with the wrong crowd and got addicted to opium, which was fairly expensive and hard to acquire at the time. So maybe she saw it as a sign of prestige or maybe she was just trying to deal with the pain, either way one day I came home from classes and found her on the floor, she died from overdose. I finished my schooling and took a job at a small company that specialized in computers and was on an errand for my boss when I died." A deep aching had formed in my chest as I recounted my tale, but no tears fell.

Rarity put a hand to her mouth as she spoke. "What a sad tale. But why do you not cry? I can tell you are deeply pained by this, most ponies would have been sobbing by the end."

I gave a half-hearted smile. "When I lived in the orphanage I learned quickly that tears were a sign of weakness, the other kids would give me hell if I cried, after awhile I just stopped."

Pinkie put a hand on my shoulder and offered words of condolence. Everyone soon followed her example. When they finished we strode towards a relatively open part of the orchard for me to practice my powers in. We had decided to work with one power at a time so I could get a feel for each.  We decided to start with my Nephilim Physiology, Rainbow Dash flew up and quickly constructed an obstacle course, made of clouds, for me to fly through. I flew up and began by flying through the first ring, several chicanes were next, I weaved through them as fast as possible, a row of pillars were next to slalom through, a straight beam of cloud was ahead I attempted a barrel roll, I ended up slamming straight into the beam. I began to plummet from the sky, my mind was racing, a fall from this height would shatter several bones, quick healing or not. I quickly tried to start flying again but couldn't concentrate, I began to think. "Oh. How I wish I was on the ground right now.".
My vision shifted and I was staring at the dirt.

Everyone ran over and asked if I was okay. Twilight was writing things down on her notepad as she spoke. "Matt I do believe you just teleported! Do you know what this means!? You can do magic! I'll have to set up some tests. Oh, I'll get right on it." She quickly scampered off and we continued my training. Next we began to test my endurance, by making me jog around Sweet Apple Acres until Twilight was done, after four hours of jogging with no sign of my slowing down they decided to call it quits. I saw that Twilight had set up several things during my jog, namely a table with several spheres on it, another table with a dish of water, a clump of dirt, a candle, and a fan, and a dummy. I walked over to the sphere and she told me that young unicorns would lift these orbs to practice their magic, I imagined myself picking up one of the spheres and moving it around,causing the orb to float up, Twilight had me pick up and set down the orbs multiple times as well as juggling them.

She was still taking notes as she led me over to the next table, she then told me this was to test my ability to manipulate the basic elements. I smiled at that, I stood tall and proclaimed. "DO I HAVE POWER OVER THE ELEMENTS YOU ASK? YOU FOOLS I AM THE AVATAR MASTER OF THE ELEMENTS! Alas I am too late, as the fire nation has already attacked." After my little  theatrics (and a brief bout of applause from pinkie), I worked on the elements. It was simple stuff, move this, burn that, dowse the fire, pick up dirt. We then moved over to the dummy, Twilight said this was for testing my weapon generation, I started off by visualizing myself holding a sword, I felt a tingling sensation in my arms as a sword was formed in front of me. I swung at the dummy and cut a slash down its chest. The whole movement felt natural. I began to work on bigger and more varied weaponry, as far as I could tell there was no limit on the size or complexity of the weapon. My final powers took far less time to master and as such I will not be recording the events here.

After we finished training we all headed over to Sugar Cube Corner for lunch. Let me be the first to tell you, ponies know how to cook some damn good pastries, I had devoured two whole cakes before we left. The Princesses then informed me that I would be moved to Canterlot so that I could properly be introduce to the populace, namely at an event called the Grand Galloping Gala. I waved goodbye to my new friends before setting off on the road to Canterlot, I had decided to walk there as to give me some time to review my situation and decide on the next   best course of action.

Scrawled in the margins of this journal was this message: I'm beginning to have doubts about this whole escapade. What should I do?