Present time.
“Twilight, do you really think it’s wise to do the training inside?” Celestia wearily asked.
Twilight regained her focus and cleared her throat.
“Well… Considering you just made a gigantic hole in the castle’s side… we really should move this somewhere else.”
The young alicorn’s idea for a little warm up (smacking a punching bag with as little force as possible) produced an unexpected result in the form of a now VERY clear view of Canterlot City.
Well, unexpected for Twilight at least.
One might ask why Celestia wouldn’t just use her magic.
Well, that had indeed been Twilight’s first suggestion, but Celestia reminded her that using normal magic, like levitation, was safe but not suitable for handling mighty foes.
On the other hoof, using the Sun’s power to fuel her magic would be strong enough to defeat every major villain but would also most likely incinerate the atmosphere…
The strength of a sun-powered hoof slap might still be an unpredictable weapon of mass destruction but at least it didn’t usually mean more than one or two new ravines. A dozen tops.
Hopefully, the training would reduce the damage.
In any case, Twilight agreed, that using the hooves was preferable to a blazing Armageddon.
But let’s get back to our story...
“Twilight, I already told you fifteen times that you should reconsider this whole thing.”
Celestia pointed at the humongous gaping hole.
“As much as this gym needed a proper window… I think this undertaking will turn out too costly. Now I’ll have to calm down the citizens of Canterlot.”
Twilight, who (luckily) had been standing further away, teleported in front of her mentor.
“J-Just a minor setback! Leave the collateral to me!”
She quickly summoned a quill and a piece of parchment, wrote some instructions on it and sent it magically away.
“I’m positive that Spike will do an excellent job!”
“Spike?! Why don’t you let me handle the issue? After all, I am the one responsible…”
“Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh no! I won’t let you off the hook that easily, Princess.”
Celestia’s ears dropped. Her hopes of getting away from the whole ordeal crumbled.
“Oh… You’ve got me.”
Darn it! For the second time today, one of my bluffs has been called out! Well, it IS Twilight Sparkle I'm dealing with here, one of the smartest ponies in existence. But with all that intelligence, why can't she see how futile and dangerous this endeavour is? She must have a lot of pent up anger because of all the struggles I've sent her through. For now, it might be better to play along for damage control and to not infuriate her any further. After all, I have certainly asked a lot of her...
The diarch sighed.
“I still have my doubts about this whole plan of yours, but fiiine... Where should we go?”
“How about the middle of the city?” a disembodied, snarky-nasal voice proposed.
Realizing immediately who it was, Twilight groaned.
“What are you doing here, Discord?”
With a flash of light, Discord, clothed in a training suit, appeared in the middle of the gym.
He was unusually muscular and was smugly lifting a huge dumbbell.
“Well, I was sensing some excellent chaos happening here! You don’t think I’m gonna miss out on that, Sparkles, do you?”
He looked at the hole, then at Celestia.
“What’s the matter, Celly? Taking out your anger on punching bags for being one for every villain?”
Celestia didn’t seem to care much about the remark, but Twilight grumpily turned to her mentor.
“See? That is exactly what I was talking about! You got defeated only one time and unfairly captured three times during your whole over-a-thousand-year life and now EVERY stupid meanie calls you weak!”
Discord huffed and swallowed his dumbbell. Then he turned to his normal form.
“Stupid? Me? Au contraire, dear Twilight! I am a genius! Do I have to remind you how I outwitted you all in the maze? Oooh, how embarrassing… for YOU! HAHAHAHA!!!”
He threw himself on the floor, laughing, with the floor growing a mouth to join in.
Twilight narrowed her eyes.
“Yeah, I do remember that time.”
Then she smirked suddenly.
“And then, Princess Celestia easily outwitted you, simply by sending me my Friendship Reports. It took a lot of foresight and insight to know that that would defeat you in the end. Not just anypony can pull that off!”
Discord angrily stared at her and scrunched his muzzle.
“T-That was just a lucky try! I’m much smarter than she is! There is absolutely NO doubt about that! I’m VERY intelligent!”
Twilight went smug.
“Well, it’s also a common characteristic of stupid creatures to think of themselves as very smart.”
Celestia, while not wanting to be mean to poor pouting Discord, couldn’t help but giggle slightly at the remark. This infuriated the Spirit of Chaos even more.
“OH, HOW FUNNY! HAW HAW HAW!!! You know what is funny to me, Celly? Your weakness! You think that hole impresses me? Don’t make me laugh! I can do that ten times as large! No big deal! But I have an even better idea!”
He snapped his talons and teleported himself and Celestia into the gym’s boxing ring.
Both were wearing a full boxing gear, when they appeared.
Discord lifted his boxing glove covered paw and claw up.
“You may have bested me in a battle of wits, but how about we finally have a direct confrontation? The last time you did something like that was with Chrysalis, as far as I know, and that didn’t turn out so well, did it?”
Something purple pulled itself up to the side of the ring.
“I wouldn’t try that, if I were you, Discord.” Twilight dryly said.
Ignoring the young alicorn, Discord threw a few fake punches in front of Celestia.
“C’mon, Celly! I’ll even let you hit first. Let’s see if you’ll still be laughing when I’m done with you!”
Celestia had a pleading look on her face.
“Discord, please! I don’t want to do this… Aren’t we friends now…?” said the princess unintentionally giving him puppy dog eyes.
“Oh, don’t even try to be Fluttershy! C’mon and fight! Do your best!”
“She’d better do her worst.” Twilight smugly remarked.
Discord leaned towards Celestia and pointed at his outstretched chin.
“Give me some, Celly!”
Celestia looked over at Twilight, unsure what to do.
Twilight smirked, a tiny, devilish glint in her eyes.
“He asked for it, Princess.”
Celestia gulped and turned back to Discord.
“O-O-Okay… if you really want it.”
She slowly lifted her right boxing glove covered hoof and closed her eyes shut.
***
Two seconds later.
Discord was in the gym’s corner.
…and the ceiling.
…and the walls.
…and all over the training equipment.
“I can’t feel my legs…” groaned what was left of his muzzle.
“We can’t feel you either” one of his legs responded from a distance.
Celestia was grimacing and holding her grumbling belly.
“Oooooooh, Twilight, that was a bad idea!”
***
Two weeks later.
The door to Celestia’s bathroom opened. The Princess sluggishly came out, head hung low and bags under her eyes.
Twilight was already waiting for her.
“You must admit, Princess, it was worth it!”
Celestia glared at her.
“Maybe for you! Ugh!”
Twilight grabbed her mentor by the hoof and pulled her away.
“No time for discussions! We need to continue your training! There’s a long-needed vacation I want to take and I won’t let some silly threat to the world interfere with it! Or better said: YOU won’t let it interfere with it!”
Celestia silently wailed.
“Ohhhh… has at least Discord recovered? I was feeling so sorry for him.”
“Partially… literally. You know he can pull himself together… even though I hid some parts.”
Worst. Cover art. Ever! (Sorry that's my inner Comic Book Guy speaking)
You've got something good going here. Keep 'em coming!
I was expecting something like this happening:
So I was thinking about how she could control her strength my first thought was while her magic might also be very deadly, couldn't she use it on herself to restrict her movement thus reducing strength. But I doubt that would work because reasons, so my next thought was maybe some kind of mental block that would prevent her from hitting too hard. I honestly think this might work since Celestia already gets constipated after inflicting violence which sounds to be a mental issue and should probably be treated first but ehh.
Overall great story so far and I am looking forward to more.
This is FAR too good to not track!
Well that escalated quickly no really two seconds and discord’s down (sorry for the curse I’m going to use) fucking bravo Celestia about time you show how strong you are plus no wonder you’re giving Equestria over to Twilight you basically do nothing doesn’t even try to save anypony when they need help. Basically it’s like this:
“Your highness we have a problem “
“What is the problem “
“The channelings are invading “
“Eh I don’t give a fuck”
“But you’re highness aren’t you going to help”
“No I’m not going to help even if you blackmail me with cake”
That’s basically what Celestia dose when there’s a big problem and the only time she dose something is to stop the snow storm from covering the crystal empire.
Enjoy your day.
9570084
But it's so accurate https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/saitama-ok
This seems entirely accurate,
9570247
You... You realize she basically does nothing because if the all-powerful mentor archetype character shows up to handle issues Twilight's dealing with/involved in, there's no story, right? Think about every single challenge Twilight's overcome. Now imagine Celestia showing up when it starts to just wave her horn and make it disappear. Would you watch nine seasons of that? Each episode would be like five minutes long. That's with the opening and ending song/credits.
A big focus of kid shows is that the adults are clueless while the young protagonists run around saving the day, or know and for whatever reason can't do anything about it despite being notably better than the youngsters at it.
9570287
But it looks stupid and unhumorous. I find MJ's later years image far more pleasant than whatever deadpan expressions Saitama gives.
9570150
Shame author for not doing that!
9569586
9569672
Geeze people, what's your tissue? It really feels like I got a bum deal here.
Celestia needs to take some training lessons from Superman, he's also in the same one-punch boat... to an extent.
Question then becomes; what is Celestia's mild mannered alter-ego? Sunny Sky the somewhat timid, a little clumsy, and glasses-wearing pegasi working at a local newspaper?
Somehow nopony can tell it's Celestia wearing glasses, a business blouse, and a hat with "Press" written on a card attached to it. Those closest to Sunny Sky at work, down at the Canterlot Daily, think she's a huge fanmare [nerd!] of the Princess. They just ignore her "obviously" fake horn and expensive rainbow dye job with tail/mane extensions. Hay, whatever floats your boat, right? Now get me pictures of Spidermare!
Dick move Twi.
Twilight is enjoying herself probably more than is entirely healthy. On the other hand, it's hard to blame her, and he literally asked for it.
....Has Equestria not invented Ex-lax yet?
I can see that being a scene:
TwiPrime: "I needed this vacation."
Sunset Shimmer: "Why come here, though?"
TwiPrime: "Because here I'm a teenager that nopon—I mean, no one expects to do anything meaningful. Also, hands."
SShimmer: "Well... hands are pretty good."
SciTwi: "Uhm, the book thing is shaking?"
TwiPrime: "Oh for-! Can't she handle just a little bit of constipation?"
SShimmer: "Uh, what?"
*Explanation and laughter later*
SShimmer: "That's pretty funny. But who doesn't she just use Ex-lax or something?"
TwiPrime: "Ex-lax?"
SciTwi: "It's a brand name for a laxative. Though given there's a psychological component she probably needs some counseling as well."
SShimmer: "Or weed."
SciTwi: "... Yes, and maybe THC."
TwiPrime: "Wait wait wait! What's a laxative?"
*Silence*
SShimmer: "Hooo boy."
Then when Celestia needs to beat up on someone she squeezes a can of laxative like Popeye squeezes a can of spinach. "Ag ag ag ag ag!"
Hm antagonizing Discord, while satisfying may have been a not so smart idea, as he probably COULD have dealt with the issue of constipation...
I'm reminded of a story that was released recently called "Discord's Penis is Missing." I'm going to go read that right now, and whatever happens, pretend that it is a direct sequel to this chapter.
9571197
But would you let Discord near your nethers..?
9571276
If the alternative was three weeks of constipation? CERTAINLY.
9570531
"Sunny Skys is not Celestia! Sunny Sky wear glasses. Celestia doesn't wear glasses"
"She take them off!"
"That's stupid. Then she could not see!"
9570334
Aurora, that's precisely the problem. We are informed of the princesses power by various means.
1. We see all of their combined power in Twilight, allowing Twilight to fight inexpertly with a Tirek who has been powered up by an entire nations worth of magic and Discord.
2. We are informed in the movie that when all four of them are captured, the Storm King will have the combined magical might equivalent to "one hundred armies".
I think perhaps the only thing worse than having Superman around is constantly acting like he's on a coffee break. It's just bad writing.
Now, if we did actually see one fight and in turn saw what it did to Celestia after the fact (injuring her or causing some lasting damage to her or another character) maybe it would make a little sense. The show wants to imply all of these things and have Twilight save the day anyway.
Oh no. Discord, you better stop this foolishness now, not if you want to retain your physical coils...
Do I want to know which parts?
9570865
There are these thoughts we have, but don't need to share. Such as that last line of that scene. That was one of them.
Quoting Tumblr here, I'm actually smiling, thank you for the laugh.
I am enjoying everything about this story so far... and from the looks of it, some other people are liking it too
https://www.deviantart.com/estories/art/ES-Shorts-216-One-Punch-Mare-794125982
9571494
Exactly this. It's the mentor trope. They've even ended it the same way: the mentor dying (to protect the protagonist)/retiring in order to elevate the young protagonist, showing that the torch has been passed, the mentor leaving behind big shoes to fill that the protag is going to work hard to take care of.
Meanwhile we have so many points of analysis that shows us that the alicorns are practically demigods.
"Celestia's a bad ruler she never does anything." For a thousand years, Celestia was alone - there were no Elements of Harmony, no Pillars of Equestria, no Luna, no Cadence, nothing. Yet if we assume the rate of monster attacks and villains and whatnot is relatively the same, that means the Guard wouldn't have been able to keep up with essentially anything, and would mean a lot of dead ponies at any rate, and a lot of failures that would make 'happy, shining Equestria' impossible to achieve. Unless Celestia was handling ALL of it herself, as well as being the sole conductor of the heavens, and dealing with diplomacy to keep Equestria out of war with other, more hostile nations - if not actively going to the battlefield herself (given that ponies seem to know what war IS and have concepts for weapons, cannons, and tanks) to put a stop to things. Clearly she's a good ruler internally, because Equestria is prosperous, powerful, and previously unconquered despite just being by herself, her people have few wants if any they can't solve themselves, and everyone can do what makes them happy - free to find out what that is.
The background tidbit of that lost dog poster for Cerberus, which says if found, to contact Celestia. ... Cerberus is her dog, then! Seems she did some populating of Hell, and put down a guard to keep her conquests in check.
Numerous others. Scenes with Chrysalis, Glimglam's dream with Daybreaker, etc. The list goes on.
So on and so forth, the more you break down what goes into a successful country, the more you find it in Equestria, and it would have had to have developed within a matter of centuries, meaning it was all due to Celestia, who ruled alone, who defended alone.
Instead these days we just get Worf Trope Celestia, who is immediately taken out so Twilight or whoever the new main character is can save the day. If they explained it as Celestia handling other issues while sending Twilight through what amounts to training so she can build up a portfolio of high-profile successes and adventurous defense-of-the-nation skills, so that the people would accept her when it came time for her to ascend, only the most diehard Celestia haters would still be on the 'Celestia's just lazy and eats cake and does nothing' train.
Lazy, shoddy writing. I don't mind the 'Superman exists' idea, because it's a fantasy world, there's supposed to be people who are inordinately stronger than the main character or else it's just power-fantasy garbage. And heck, some of them should be good guys. But they should be busy handling other things while the main character undertakes their journey to become better and stronger, more close-knit with their team, etc.
Just, ugh.
9572152
Not only did she populate Tartarus she's created an agency of monster hunters trained to track and imprison these dangers to her realm, and they seem really good at cleanup after the mane six encounter a new one. Think about it: The bugbear, the chimera, the basilisk, the manticore. All encountered by the mane six, all caged in Tartarus. Not to punish in their case, but because they are too dangerous to be free in the world. This is apparently all Bon Bon and her sisters
9572175
Competency levels through the roof. Considering normal ponies really aren't that dangerous, how did Celestia wind up creating such an agency? Dunno, but clearly she did, there it is.
9572180
And yet so frustrating. Celestia is the shoe elf of her land! We only know of her works by the evidence left after she is done, and can only speculate how. And yet, we are not meant to know, because she's not the hero of the story.
9572190
Exactly the case, Steel. We only ever get to see Celestia being taken out, eating cake, doing effectively nothing, being bratty with her sister, and congratulating people for doing something she should have been able to do easier. There are several explanations that would make it all make narrative sense, but we get none because Celestia is a plot device, not a main character. You're only supposed to care about what the Mane Six do - and so that's all you get.
9572196
And that is why fanfiction and extended universes are so wonderful. Works like these, and the comics in which Celestia charges off to battle with Spike on her back...
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/3/6/264254.jpg
That's where you will find her being the hero.
9572212
Far better depictions by my estimation. Even if she doesn't end up being the Big Damn Hero, showcasing her as competent, powerful, and cornerstone to victory - as is right for someone in her position and with her age and wisdom - is all you need. The Immortal Game holds one of my top five Celestias. Who doesn't love a Chessmaster Godlestia?
9570507
Eh, they're just feeling rather anal. Give 'em a bit and they'll loosen their sphincters.
Oh you!
9572190
This is a great portrayal of Celestia!
9572218
Yes! The Immortal Game was one of the first fanfics I ever read. It introduced me to pony fanfiction and sensitized me to it and then I read a Dresden crossover and I was hooked. I like competent Celestia. Why No One Messes With Celestia by Scion is another one I liked. I'll Kill You With My Tea Cup by Cloud Hop
The White Horse by Carabas I read this a long time ago and recently reread it. It is superb and influenced my head canon for Celestia rather heavily.
9572779
I loved that story, and love it still. Although to me it will always be Ponies Make War. I really miss AestheticB. He never did write Rarity's Theorem like I hoped he would. But what he did write was amazing.
9573078
Oh good, someone else remembers it as Ponies Make War.
9572979
Wow! I forgot about that one! Yes. That was fantastic.
Discord is like Iron Giant. Sorta.
9572779 Celestia finally gets to show a wee bit of power in the season 9 opener... but only after tossing rule on Twilight and quickly realizing that was a really stupid idea.
So, the show's solution to worfing Celestia, is make her dumb.
That only works with Goku, and only because everyone in DBZ knows better than to put him in charge of anything.
9572779
As much as i like a good comedy fic a competent Celestia story will always peak my interest.
I Iove this!
Ahhaaha