One month later, in Canterlot Castle’s dining room…
Princess Celestia slumped in her chair. She frowned in reluctant acceptance at a slice of strawberry and vanilla cake in front of her, each cake waiting on its own plate on her table.
“Luna was right. I don’t know why I even tried.”
She shook her head–she could whine about her limited cake-resisting willpower later. And she could delay any whining about the bump on her horn, which resulted from when she literally hit the ceiling after a certain guard called her hips humongous. “No, I shouldn’t be upset over this right now. I need to figure out what to do ab–”
Princess/ex-Sergeant Luna trotted inside the dining room with skips in her trots, pride still bubbling inside her over successfully turning her guards into buff, mean, fighting machines. Thanks to alicorn healing speeding up her recovery, she was already fully healed from injuries suffered during the no-holds-barred beat-down her guards gave her.
But if alicorns can heal so fast, why did Celestia still have her horn bump? Fate or whatever must have held back Celestia’s alicorn healing abilities to troll her. Considering Celestia’s own tendency to occasionally troll, albeit playfully and to make her feel more relatable to normal ponies, she probably had it coming.
“I’m glad you’re here, Luna,” Celestia said as she turned her head to Luna. “We have another problem.”
“Is it that your cake-free diet attempt just ended with you eating even more than before?” Luna asked with a sly grin.
“No–well, yes, but before you start an ‘I told you so’ prance, I was talking about a different problem.”
“A different one?” Luna gasped, followed by a facehoof. “Don’t tell me our guards lost another battle while I was asleep!”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” Celestia blew a long sigh. “Do you know how Twilight can be…passionate?”
“Hehe, calling her a ‘passionate’ pony would be an understatement.” Luna strode to the table and took a bite out of a pineapple, her way again.
“Well, when she heard about how you personally trained our guards and knew that I had trained them too, she rashly concluded that she should follow our leads to be – in her words – a proper princess like us.”
“But she has no guards! Who could she train?”
In Ponyville, outside the front doors of the Castle of Friendship…
This was a sight to see.
Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, and Discord – yes, Trixie and Discord – continued to do one push-up after another. Sweat rolled down their cheeks. Princess Twilight Sparkle, wearing a purple hat, watched their performance with a stern frown.
Is it possible for a princess to be too dedicated to her craft? Seven ponies, a dragon, and draconequus would very likely answer “yes.”
“Come on guys–uh, worms! You can go faster than that!”
Rainbow whined in-between push-ups, “I’m going as fast as I can! Lay off me!”
“Push-ups are kinda fun-fun-fun, but will we be done soon? I have to bake some very important cakes.”
“I understand that this is important to you, darling, but doing something as crude as push-ups simply isn’t suitable for a lady such as I.”
“Um, not that I’m trying to complain, but why do we have to do this again?” Fluttershy meekly asked.
“Yeah, why?" Spike asked, not meekly. "You don’t have the Elements anymore, but is this really necessary?”
“I told you; I need to train guards in order to be a proper princess, but you are the closest I have to guards.”
Applejack growled under her breath. “I swear, of all the harebrained stunts yer–”
“Less complain–uh, whining, more push-ups!” Twilight interrupted. “Think of this as being for your own good too.”
Although irritation boiled within her, Applejack continued her push-ups. At least her annoyance allowed a little surge of energy to flood through her. “One of these days, Twi, one of these days…POW!”
“But why does Trixie have to do this too?!” Trixie stopped to wipe some sweat off her forehead, then resumed her push-ups. “Trixie is a performer, not a fighter!”
“Even so, like Discord, you have experience in facing villains and be in Ponyville often, so you are close enough. Think of it this way: me giving you this training means I trust you. That’s good, right?”
“Trixie thinks she liked it better when you and this whole town didn’t trust her.”
“Oh, please, you below-average performer! If you think you have it bad, imagine how I feel!” Discord stopped ceased pushing up and waved an arm. Said arm pitifully flapped during the waving. "See? These arms aren’t meant for push-ups!”
As Discord resumed his "task", Starlight strained to push herself up as sweat rained down even harder. Her latest push-up done, her forelegs wobbled and she fell to the ground on her stomach, panting.
Twilight ran to stand right in front of the spent unicorn. “Starlight, what in Celestia’s name are you doing?! You still have twenty more push-ups to do! Keep pumping!”
“I’m too pooped to pump. I want my bed.”
“You just have to believe in yourself, like I always tell you!”
“Then I ‘believe’ that I’m too pooped to pump and want my bed.” Starlight wiped sweat off her brow. “If you must train me, can’t it be in magic instead of your idea of hoof camp?”
“You can’t rely on your magic all the time in battles; remember what happened in the Changeling Hive?” Twilight smirked and added, “But I’ll tell you what: my book about drill sergeants said I shouldn’t do anything like this, but if you can finish your push-ups, I will give you…that later.”
“‘That’? What–waaaait.” A huge smile crept on Starlight’s lips. “Do you mean that?”
Twilight nodded.
“Can I have it my way?”
Twilight again nodded.
A spark of energy fired a series of energetic push-ups from Starlight.
“Hehe, see? I knew you could find your second wind.”
“Can I get something too?” Spike asked with his push-up speed slowing.
“You are.” Twilight strode to Spike, her head proudly held high. “When I’m done with you, Spike, you will be one of the toughest, mightiest dragons who have ever lived! Other dragons will tell stories of the feats you will be able to do.”
“Hmm…mightiest dragon,” Spike said with a grin curling on his lips. “I do like the sound of that.”
Twilight leaned her head down closer to Spike. Looking at him eye-to-eye, she whispered, “And you never know; if you become buff, Rarity might stop looking at you as a little brother and as dragonfriend material once you’re a little older.”
The next morning…
Princess Celestia arrived at the Castle of Friendship and knocked on the door.
No response.
She leaned her head to the door. Faint voices echoed from deep inside the castle. The words of the voices couldn’t be identified, but her equine hearing sensed that the words were being spoken in an anguished tone.
“It might be even worse than I feared. I better hurry and save Twilight’s friends!”
Celestia flew open the castle doors with her magic and ran inside. She hurried down the crystal hallways, trying to hone in on the voices to guide her. Finally, she reached one of the library’s doors; the voices seemed to be coming from the other side. While many of the words still couldn’t be made out, two words that definitely emerged sounded to be “please stop.”
As if she needed another reason to do so, Celestia opened the door and ran inside.
“Twilight, apologies for barging in, but...” Celestia trailed off. Her pupils shrank. Her wave of worry folded to…something she couldn’t even tell for sure. “Confusion” was probably the closest to it.
Inside the library, Spike was surrounded by magenta magic while doing push-ups. Twilight, with her horn glowing magenta, emitted strained grunts as she seemed to be trying to pull Spike away with her magic. Yet the dragon appeared unfazed.
“Um, Twilight? Spike? Am I interrupting something?”
Twilight swung her head to Celestia, wearing a frantic frown. “Princess Celestia, I need help! My plan to train Spike backfired because I can’t get him to stop doing push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups for longer than ten minutes! He'll stop to eat, but he won’t go to sleep!”
“What?!”
“Yes! Not only that, he’s so determined, he’s become able to resist Starlight’s and my magic, so I can’t force him to stop!” Twilight turned back to Spike and lay on her stomach, looking at him face-to-face with desperately pleading eyes. “Come on, Spike, please stop and come to bed! Do it for me, Twilight!”
“For the thousandth time, no,” Spike answered in a non-negotiating tone, stubbornly continuing his push-ups. “No pain, no gain.”
“Look, I’ll tell you what: if you give this up, I won’t try to train our friends anymore, just like you wanted from the start! It was an absurd idea anyway! You can even keep training if you really want to, but just do it at a slower pace! Deal?”
“No deal, but I'll make a counter-deal: I’ll make up on some sleep after I do another five hundred push-ups and sit-ups.”
“Five hundred more?!” Twilight and Celestia shouted.
“Not enough, huh? Then I’ll stop after seven hundred of each.”