“It’s a beautiful day outside. The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming…on a day like today, kids like me…should be burning in hell,” Ever since I had been dumb enough to listen to one of my work friends about Undertale and did a genocide run without knowing what that meant, that line had always floated around in my head during nice days like today.

“You say something, Ranma?” Rainbow asked.

“Just thinking out loud,” I lied.

“Egghead,” Rainbow quipped, “Anyway, let’s get you started on establishing those baselines! I set up test dummies rated for Earth Ponies just in case. I don’t think you’ll need ‘em, but better safe than sorry. Otherwise, this is your show Ranma, how you wanna kick things off?”

“Heck if I know. Jumps maybe? Original Ranma was a pretty great jumper,” I decided.

“You can do it Ranma!” Fluttershy cheered. I wasn’t sure exactly why she was watching me, but I wasn’t without ideas either.

“OK, standing high jump. 3…2…1…” I put as much strength into my legs as I could and sprang up a good two stories. I had yet to consider how to land. I halfway hoped Rainbow would catch me, but no such luck. I planted face and top half of my body first into the ground and it hurt.

“Are you OK, Ranma?” Fluttershy asked with concern.

“Aren’t these things supposed to be air bags? Why do they hurt so much?” I whined as I rubbed my chest. Rainbow burst out laughing.

“Whoever told you they were airbags was lying to you. It’s not as bad as getting kicked in the balls, but getting hit in the tits hurts like a bitch too,” Rainbow explained, “If you’re gonna be a fighter, you gotta learn to either not get hit there or get used to the pain.”

“Duly noted,” I sighed and already the pain from the shock was dissipating.

“Anyway, with jumps like that, it might not be a waste to teach you some Pegasus styles after all. If we can get you some mid-air control, you could make some great use of those techniques,” Rainbow noted.

We spent a little while longer going over various kinds of jumps until Rainbow was satisfied.

“So, next up let’s see how hard you can hit. I wanna see what you think a punch is, so just let loose on this dummy here,” Rainbow pointed at the dummy closest to her. I stepped up to it and positioned myself as I had been taught and threw a punch. The dummy swayed a bit with impact, but otherwise didn’t respond. A series of numbers popped up in the air above the dummy. Rainbow let out an appreciative whistle and Fluttershy let out a quiet ‘oh my’.

“Well, looks like I was right to set up the Earth Pony dummies and I gotta say, you do know the basics of a punch. You had a decent stance, throwing the punch with your whole upper body, and thumb outside the fist. I can’t tell you how many newbies put their thumb in their fist,” Rainbow shook her head ruefully, "Not to say you can't still improve, but not bad."

“I did study martial arts for a couple of years,” I noted.

“Really? What styles?” Rainbow asked.

“I learned karate and judo. Judo focused mostly on throws and pins and no strikes of any kind while karate focused more on kicks and punches. Neither are armed styles,” I recited from memory.

“Sounds pretty basic to me, but if all you had were humans, then I guess there weren’t a bunch of species and tribes doing stuff only they could do in their martial arts.” Rainbow reasoned.

“There were over 170 different styles of martial arts back home, but most of them really only stood out in the philosophy. Tiger style Kung Fu is about absolute offense, but Tai Chi is, to my understanding, all about finding inner peace. Both are considered Kung Fu, but one is a fighting style and the other is used for meditation. That’s about where my knowledge ends, unfortunately,” I said apologetically.

“Nah, that’s fine. It might be better you don’t know all that much anyway. Easier to train you from scratch if we don’t have get you to unlearn a bunch of stuff,” Rainbow said dismissively.

“So what do those numbers above the dummy mean?” I asked.

“Oh, right, that’s the force of your punch in psi. A trained Earth Pony can get about 17 to 19 hundred psi out of a punch. Strongest ever recorded was over 2600 psi. You’ve clocked in at about 1650 psi. I bet with some proper training we could get you up to at least 1800!” Rainbow said excitedly. I was privately wondering if I could get it even higher than that. I wasn’t sure if I was using Ki to boost my punches or not.

For the next couple of hours we continued setting baselines. How many sit ups, pushups, crunches, sprints, mile runs, and more. I was pretty well worn out by the time we finished.

“Alright, I think I have what I need to start with. Anything else you wanna note before we call it a day, Ranma?” Rainbow asked. I decided to voice something that had been bugging me all day.

“I feel like I have some kind of muscle memory, but it doesn’t match up with anything I’ve done. I might’ve inherited more than just Ranma’s looks and curse,” I explained.

“That…could be a problem,” Rainbow admitted, “Do you know the styles Ranma practiced?”

“Ranma didn’t practice any one style. He used his family style “Anything Goes” or to be more accurate “The School of Indiscriminate Grappling”,” Fluttershy answered, “He just cherry picked anything useful and added it to his style. I could lend you the series so you can see for yourself.”

“Ugh, reading homework,” Rainbow groused, “But if it might help, I don’t see why not.”

With that agreed upon, Fluttershy and Rainbow headed to Fluttershy’s house while I headed back to the castle and a shower. Unfortunately, I was bushwhacked as soon as I opened the door.

“Welcome back, Ranma,” Twilight greeted. Standing next to her was Celestia. I’ve read stories where Celestia is lauded as the pinnacle of beauty for pony-kind. This Celestia was gorgeous, make no mistake, but I wouldn’t go that far. She was a full head and neck taller than Twilight and wore a simplistic one piece white dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Naminé. It billowed in some unseen wind just as her hair did and combined with her regalia and large white wings, it gave Celestia quite the ‘angel queen’ look.

“Er, greetings, your Highness,” I bowed crisply and felt extremely awkward that I was sweaty and wearing a sweat drenched workout tank top in my first meeting with the one who was basically the queen.

“Quite the charmer you’ve got here, Twilight,” Celestia snarked. I was immediately thankful that this Celestia seemed to be a more laid back type. I shudder to think what I would’ve done if I had wound up in an Equestria with a tyrannical overlord Celestia.

“Usually, when meeting royalty, I’m given a bit more heads up and a more accurate time frame than ‘tomorrow or the day after’,” I snarked back. Twilight attempted the classic ‘innocent whistling’ but Celestia’s growing grin told me the white Alicorn was on to her former student.

“Apologies, Ranma, my…secretary must have lost the memo,” Twilight was now sweating bullets.

“Funny how that happens, isn’t it?” Twilight remarked nervously. She probably didn’t want Celestia to know she had been hungover all morning. I decided to take mercy on Twilight.

“I was probably just out the door so early this morning Twilight didn’t have a chance to tell me,” This was a lie, of course. Starlight, Spike, and I had been helping Twilight suffer through her hangover for two hours before I left to see Rainbow. Twilight mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ to me.

“Is that so…” Twilight and I both knew Celestia was old enough to not be duped by our petty schemes. But for our own sakes, the effort had to be made! “If it was so difficult for Twilight to track you down afterwards, perhaps you need a tracking spell placed on you, Ranma?”

“If it is convenient for Twilight to do so, then I will gladly take on this burden!” And now I was just hamming it up. Twilight looked mortified, but Celestia started giggling.

“I think we’ll get along just fine, Ranma,” Celestia assured, “Now, let’s get you started on your citizenship.”

“Do I have to sign up twice, since I have two forms?” I asked.

“It’s very rare, but not entirely unheard of for shapeshifters such as Changelings and some of the more magically aligned breeds of Dragons to wish to become citizens of Equestria. Because you are limited to just your male and female forms, it’s a much simpler matter. When you submit your citizenship documentation to Mayor Mare you will also need to present a picture of your male and female self,” Celestia explained.

“You can thank me for that! I didn’t want anyone else going through the bureaucratic nightmare I went through after ascending. Even after my coronation it was still six months until I was ‘officially’ recognized as a princess due to the law treating my ascension as if it were some kind of shapeshifting and not a one-time transformation. Getting a sex change done would’ve been easier and those are nearly impossible!” Twilight huffed.

“She’s still a bit bitter over that,” Celestia said unnecessarily.

“What’s this about sex changes being nearly impossible?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from mountains of paperwork.

“It’s only ever been done successfully once in all of Pony history. Research into it all but stopped because the price for failing the ritual was…messy,” Twilight shuddered.

“Quite right, although with Ranma’s unique ‘curse’, maybe research could be reopened?” Celestia noted.

“I’d be happy to help if I can,” I replied readily, “I will draw the line at dissection, however.”

“You drive a hard bargain, but I think we can accommodate your unreasonable demands,” Celestia smirked.

“Alright, well, I’ll fill out the paper work and have those pictures at Town Hall ASAP, but for the moment, I’m quite sweaty and I’m sure I stink, so if it pleases your Highness, I would like to take a shower,” I gave an exaggerated bow and almost toppled over, still not used to the extra weight on my chest.

“You may take your leave,” Celestia used her most imperious voice with a gleeful twinkle in her eyes, “Speaking of leaves, I must go myself. A princess’ work is never done, after all.”

Twilight said her farewells to her mentor and Celestia teleported away, presumably back to Canterlot.

By most metrics it had been a good day. I got to listen to Twilight swear off alcohol for what Spike claimed was the 14^th time. I got to test the current limits of my new body and spend time with both Rainbow and Fluttershy. I even got to make what I thought was a favorable impression to Princess Celestia, even if my heart would always belong to the Lunar Republic. So I was content to take my warm, but not hot, shower and head off to bed.

The next day I’d get my first batch of clothes from Rarity. I also had an early morning jog with Rainbow planned. But that was still in the future. At that moment, I managed the astonishing feat of falling asleep almost immediately. I was just hoping no one would notice I had skipped dinner.

"What I'm doing is wrong. I know it's wrong. But I'm going to keep doing it anyway because I hate myself."