Bulk Biceps is a special pony.
Ponyville’s denizens may be as variable as the snowflakes that fall from the sky, but few can attest the immense presence that is Bulk Biceps.
With sick abs and bulging, twitching biceps as literally said in his name, he is a pony to be awed. They always wonder what motivates him to go through such immense training to obtain such gains. If he’s horse or pony? If he uses steroids—but that’s silly because he is steriods.
His answer was always the same: Because why not? There’s a dumb bell. It’s purpose is to be lifted. And lift he shall. But if it’s not a dumbbell, well, he’ll lift that too.
He had cleared roads leading into Ponyville of the boulders and stones in the way, benched pressed the massive, useless sewage pipes under the town, and even made laps with the sofas of the Sofa and Quills store, distributing them to homes miles apart. He has the many hats to prove it, for he is awesome incarnate.
But now though, he’s running out of things to lift.
His muscles have been bestowed great power from all his jaw dropping feats. As the challenges became few and ever more pitiful, he found himself miserable, unable to find pride in his work. But as per advice from a certain trio of Cutie Mark Crusader filles, he shall therefore bestow onto others the legacy. His legacy.
And so it finally came to the present.
In front him is a small group of ponies, young and old, scrawny and chubby, willful and anxious. Unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies stood in random colors under a high ceiling that extended from edge to edge of a relatively equivalent floorspace. The gym Bulk Bicep set up is a perfect cube, adorned with metal, bars, and even more metal that presses down on even any who gazes at their metallic brilliance, for their immense weight demands to be lifted. It took almost all of Bulk Biceps's savings to get the place built.
It is a humble beginning, but Bulk’s determination is endless. Staring into the eyes of the ponies before him, they quake under his audacious, crimson beads. Oh, he will make these frail stallions and mares into muscles. He will expand. His disciples will grow in number, and the alumni shall also pass along his teachings. It’ll only be a matter of time.
But first, they need motivation.
Bulk Biceps, however, is a stallion of action. Words are not his forte.
Which is why he found some help.
“Welcome fillies and gentlecolts!” Bulk roars, “To the grand opening of the Testosterone Shed!"
He glances to the side, and he sees a mare of punk collar, riveting lavender vest, and a killer mane of spiky cloth and actual hair. She nods in approval.
Rarity: his inspiration, the catalyst as to why he lifts
Bulk Bicep could still remember the fabulous suplex Rarity gave him when he foolishly made fun of her dresses when they were foals. It was with such great technique, such precision, such strength and such awesome. It was epic. The thought of it made his abs shiver. So humbled was Bulk that he dedicated his life to attain such power.
Even just yesterday, she suplexed all of his lines for the grand opening of his gym into his brain.
Today, he is going make his hero proud.
“You are all here today for a reason and one reason only: To improve your bodies and feel good about it!” He paced in front of them, his hulking form shaking the floor. “But why are you here?! You had a diet, you had good a routine… but that’s not what you want! You want gains! You want to eat? You want your jaws to turn into steel! You want muscle? You want the baddest flanks in all of Equestria! You want to eat ice cream? You want to turn that into the fuel of your everlasting determination!” He glares at the small group. “But I wanna hear it from you ponies! So tell me: do you wanna be big?!”
The question was sudden, but foals instantly shouted, “Yeaaah!”
“Do you wanna get stronger?!”
This time, regular adults of the earth pony variety joined. “Yeaaah!”
“Do you wanna be fast?!”
Pegasi. “Yeeeaaah!”
“Do you wanna show your nerd rage?!”
Unicorns, in indignant anger, concurs. “Yeeeeeah!”
“Do you wanna feel alive and young?!”
Even the elderly hollers all they could. “Yeeeaaah!” And yet, they shouted longest of them all.
“Do you want to beabulous?!”
“Yeeeeeeah!”
Bulk shouts, “Then go pump that iroooon!”
Instantly, his new disciples rushes to the many training equipment around them.
Grinning toothily, Bulk Biceps looks on at Rarity in the background, who materializes a guitar from behind her. Her eyes lower dispassionately, but the ferocity is definitely there. She stands strong, her equally firm instrument cradled along her hooves, and strums.
The strings electrify.
The room shrieks with a noise that invigorates the whole room. Rarity swings her hoof up and down, bobs her head to the movement as her mane flairs along the gym lights, and spins in an epic guitar solo.
A filly is trying to lift a dumbbell three times her size, pulling it with two small hooves with all her might but to no avail.
Bulk Biceps dives in front of her, yelling, “You may be small, but show that weight who's boss! Yeeeeah!”
Rarity’s guitar produces the strongest sound of all time, and a miracle happens: The filly lifts the dumbbell three whole inches. Bulk Bicep flexes in approval. “Alright! That’s how it’s done!”
The filly giggled before deciding the challenging a dumbbell that’s five times bigger than her instead. In the future, the filly will don the monicure of Three-Inch Filly for her undaunting ability to lift three inches no matter the weight or size.
As one of the elderly, Granny Smith is grunting as she attempts weight sled training, a ball filled with sand her target.
“Give it the what for!” Bulk Bicep shouts at her. “You’re not that old yet!”
Rarity’s music lowers in frequency, but came out stronger, heavier.
“Who’re yer callin’ old?!” Granny shrieks. And in herculean effort the weight sled moves...one hoof step. And that’s all it travels before Granny stops, gasping. But that is okay, for it’s a start to an even grander journey.
Doctor Whooves is at the bench press. He hasn’t even finished a single rep, the wimpy nerd. But Bulk Bicep, the stallion of muscle, shall fix that.
“You can do it, bro! You can do it!” Bulk cheers.
“I-I can’t!” the Doctor stammers. “It’s just scientifically impossible!”
“Screw your science! We have heavy metaaal!”
In background, Rarity is now on her knees, flicking and strumming the strings at the speed of sound—so fast that the room seems to echo with metal! The guitar catches aflame.
“Raaaaaaugh!” And as does the Doctor’s passion as he feels his heart pumping rapidly, as if in his very chest there are actually two beating inside! His forehooves extend completely. 300lbs. One rep. It is awesome. He stares wide-eyed at his feat and laughs in triumph. “I-I did it! Sweet, whickering stallions—I did it!”
Bulk Biceps turns to the sound of a pair of delicate voices going off like explosions one by one and his eyes widen. “B-bosses?”
Hitting the hanging punching bags are Aloe and Lotus, slapping its surface with as much as ferocity as Rarity’s guitar. The spa ponies are wearing the same attire they wear to work, seemingly being their makeshift exercise outfits.
Bulk Biceps need not to encourage them, for the bag is quaking in all direction.
Dangerously.
The chain that hangs the bag rattles as his two bosses seem to dance along with it in blurs of pink and blue. And then, it snaps clean.
Their Hoof Massage Kung Fu will forever be immortalized as one of the world’s dangerous martial arts the moment their hoof strikes became so powerful that the hanging punching bag broke out of its chain and its 200lbs flew. It is at such great velocity that, when colliding at an oblivious Derpy Hoove’s Flank of Steel, the punching bag bent. Permanently.
Derpy doesn’t move an inch from the blow and instead pauses, as if contemplating what is it that occured before shrugging. She continues her backward wing ups upon two dumbbells.
Bulk Bicep eyes waters from the display. Beautiful.
Soon, the gym smells of determination and salt and Rarity’s smoking guitar.
More reps, more weights, more heavy metal!
The Testosterone Shed has become an unstoppable force of ponies moving their bodies, with Rarity’s sick guitaring as the engine and Bulk Biceps’s deafening soul cheering as the steering wheel.
And so, the heavy metal peaked.
The noise transcends the boundaries that mortal physics could theoretically allow, condensing into a singularity within the depths of Rarity’s supernova-heated guitar, the strings burning the atmosphere. In the time the guitar since caught on fire, not an instant does its sound waver as the flame chips at its wood, held together by sheer willpower. The sound waves pulses, again and again in rhythm to the beating hearts of everypony in the gym.
Rarity’s very form vibrates, and her lavender vest bursts alongside the inferno. A dense ball of pure, blue flame forms inside the hole of the guitar.
Bulk Biceps voice forces it past the tipping point.
“YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
And the world explodes.
A sound shook the core of Twilight's Crystal Castle. The alicorn princess perks up from her book laid on the table of the Cutie Mark Map, ears flopping. She blinks.
“Why do I suddenly feel the irresistible urge to do bench presses of my entire library?”
“Twilight!”
The chambers slams open. When Twilight looks, her jaw drops. Standing tall with rock hard abs and bulging muscles under his scales is Spike, looking pleadingly in shock and a dash of gar. His spines glows hot from the blessings of heavy metal music.
“What’s happening to me?!” he cries.
A gust of whistling pierces through the doors of the royale dining room. Celestia is inches away from engulfing another slice of cake before she hears it, taunting at her, laughing. She frowns.
Even Luna feels it, going rigid as she pours her maple syrup overflowingly along her pancakes.
Suddenly, the delicious sweets appear as though they don’t belong. Feeling disgusted with themselves, the two royal matriarchs pushed away their plates of sugary goodness.
Celestia smiles wryly at her sister. “Do you want to face off the entire Royal Guard for their training with me?”
Luna snorts. “How about a diet?”
Shining Armor busts down a door across its hinges.
“Sunburst!”
“Gah!” Sunburst shoots up awake from his drool-stained books. ”I wasn’t thinking about Starlight, I swear!”
Shining Armor pays him no heed, dragging Sunburst by the scruff of his robes and out into the heavy metal bobbing sun. “You can think about impressing her when we start working out!”
Sunburst went bug-eyed. “What’s going on?!”
“The baby wants to train!”
“W-w-wait, what?!” the scholar sputters. “What do you mea—!”
“Traaaaaainiiiiiiing!”
And the door, in a feat of telekinesis, flew back into place...only to fall back down from the lack of hinges.
There is a whisper in the air.
Iron Will the Minotaur stops, just as he is about to step into the airship that’ll lead back into his home land. He turns around, back toward the land from where he came. And, to the shock of those around him, a shining bead of tears drifts from Iron Will’s misty eyes.
“Something’s calling to Iron Will,” he says, his muscular upper body shuddering from immense emotion.
Rarity got wings.
The gym patrons stares in awe as not only does she have wings, but her wings are on fire. Her illustrious, bouncy mane has grown back, putting back the "F" in front of the "abulous." The ashes of her guitar flew their way, as if baptizing them for their passage into the realm of self-improvement and gains. That only relight the flame inside, burning a passion that can never fade into dust.
Bulk does what he does best: "Yeeeah!"
And they bow, revering their newfound goddess for all the miracles they've been bestowed.
Rarity silently blinks, wondering if she has gone too far.
And so, the heavy metal brought unity to little horsie land.
Mere days later, Bulks Bicep’s Testosterone Shed turned Ponyville into a hub of the most toughest, dangerous, and bad flank ponies, dragons, minotaurs, and griffons in all of Equestria, producing heroes capable of defending the peaceful land against any threat possible.
Equestria became the most abulous nation in the whole world.
