Forgotten People

Chapter 9 – Practice and Recreation

The next day some of the other events were taking place, but the 100m Sprinting and the Weight-Lifting was not scheduled for that day, so Alec, Hamish and Rainbow Dash decided to have a day of relaxing to get ready for the next day. However, Dash revoked the ‘relax’ rule when she was caught by Alec sneaking out to go and practice from her house. She had invited Alec to stay with her and he accepted.

“Where are you going? I thought you were gonna stay here today?” Alec asked, getting more used to his new Pegasus body. Dash’s face went into a ‘busted’ look.

“Alright, you caught me. I just need to practice for tomorrow! I relax a little every now and then, but right now…”

“…You have the urge to get some exercise. Yeah, I get that feeling sometimes. Oh, what the heck, I’ll come with you.” Alec said with a smile.

“Thanks Alec! I do need someone to race, and your speed almost matches up with mine.” She complimented.

“On hoof running, yeah. But flying? You’d probably mop the floor with me!” Dash laughed at his joke and began to head out to the practice tracks with him. There was one thing that was still bugging her though.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” she asked in an interested manner as they passed Sugarcube Corner.

“Sure, what is it?” Alec responded eagerly.

“What is life like back in your world? Are you different over there? Is the world different over there?” Alec knew this question would come up eventually, so he had no choice but to answer it.

“Well, if you compare my world to Equestria, I’d have to say that my world is a bit more futuristic, if you know what I mean, no offence.” He quickly added. Dash understood and let him continue.

“We have quite a bit of stuff on Earth that you don’t have here. For example, Internet Access, Xbox’s and PS3’s, iPod’s, TV’s, you get the picture. A lot more advanced stuff. I do miss my Xbox though.”

“What’s an Xbox?” Dash asked in a confused tone. “Is it a gadget of some sort?”

“Well, it’s a game console. You can play games with your friends on it, chat with friends, watch videos, play music, and search the internet. Hamish and I always used to play this game called Call of Duty together, it’s really fun.”

“Seems like you’ve got everything figured out over there!” she said enthusiastically, “I’d like to go there someday.”

“Maybe Dash, maybe.” A few minutes later they arrived at the tracks and there was no-one else there, so the whole practice court was all theirs. They put their kit bags down and got out two bottles of water for later. Alec had secretly stashed two cans of Strawberry Soda too, but Dash didn’t know about this.

“So, you want a race?” Dash asked eagerly. Alec rolled his eyes.

“No, I want a potato!” Dash laughed again and signalled him over to the starting point. “Before we start, a quick question. What was your time on the sprint?”

“Um…I think it was 10.67 seconds.” Rainbow replied.

“OK, that’s what you need to try and beat. My time was 10.83s, so we’re pretty evenly matched. My iPod has a stopwatch on it, so I’ll use it to see what times you can get. I’ll go down to the other end of the track and measure your time.” Rainbow Dash nodded in the affirmative and positioned herself ready. Alec opened the stopwatch app and raised his hoof.

“Ready?” Dash got down.

“Set?” Dash raised her flank.

“Go!” In a blaze Rainbow sprinted down the 100m Track. She was certainly going a lot quicker than in the event, and within a few mere seconds she crossed the line.

“10.42 seconds! Wow, you beat it on the first try!” Alec said amazed and Rainbow caught her breath.

“Well, you know, that’s just me!” she said arrogantly. Alec didn’t really care about it, but he gave the stopwatch to her and told her which button to press. When she got it, Alec trotted up to the start line and prepared to race.

“Ready? Set? GO!” Alec started running down the track as quickly as possible, his sandy mane whistled through the breeze. As he crossed the finish line, Dash recorded his time.

“10.67 seconds, so you got my time from the Olympics. That’s pretty good!” she praised. Alec caught his breath and took the iPod and reset the stopwatch to go again. After about two hours of solid racing, they both decided to take a break and have a snack, so they sat on the side line of the track with a bottle of water and a sandwich. The weather was still sunny, a not a cloud could be seen in the sky. However, Alec was starting to cough a little making Dash worried.

“You okay?” she asked anxiously.

“Yeah, I need to get something.” He said reaching for his bag and pulling out a blue L-shaped piece of plastic. He put it in his mouth, squeezed it and inhailed. He held his breath for 10 seconds and breathed out again slowly. Dash was, once again, curious.

“What is that? Medicine?”

“Sort of, it’s called Ventolin. It’s a good drug that is given to people with asthma.” Dash obviously knew what asthma was over in Equestria, but the medicine for it had not been invented yet. And now she was staring at the cure for it! But Dash had one more question on her mind, an important one to her.

“One more question about your life, if that’s okay?” she asked nicely. Alec nodded. “Well…um…do you have a girlfriend?” Alec face dropped, this was a part of his life that he had never brought up recently, except to Hamish.

“I did, but we broke up. She was Australian, long blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, slim posture, about the same height as my human body, and a gorgeous face. The thing was, we lived on opposite sides of the world and didn’t see each other that often. So when she decided to break up, I was really upset.” He finished his soliloquy as a tear sparkled in his eye. Dash felt very sorry for him and put her hoof on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She said in comfort.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” Alec said wiping away the tear. “I really wish that we could’ve stayed together though, it’s such a shame.”

“Hey, you’re a nice guy, you’ll find someone else you fancy!” Dash comforted, wrapping her other hoof around his chest into a hug.

“Or maybe, the one I fancy is sitting right next to me.” Alec thought in his head.

“Maybe the one I fancy is right next to me.” Dash thought in her head.

***

At about 2.00pm, Hamish met the two Pegasi in the Town Square to have a drink. Hamish was discussing what he had in mind for what he wanted to accomplish in the games.

“So, if I can lift 200kg, then I want to set myself a challenge. I’m gonna lift the 200kg weight 10 times, then add 1kg on and lift it again 10 times. When I can’t lift anymore weight, then I’ll know what my limit is. What have you two been doing?” he asked.

“We’ve been practicing our racing at the practice tracks. We’ve beaten our records from the actual races, and now my fastest time is 9.74 seconds and Dash’s is 9.32 seconds.” Alec said in an impressed tone. However, something else caught Hamish’s eye.

“What are you looking at?” Rainbow asked Hamish. His eyes were squinted in rage. They turned round to see what was going on. Behind them, a red teenage dragon was threatening to drop a smaller purple dragon off the roof of the Town Hall!

“So Spike, you see what happens when you ditch real dragons and hang out with namby-pamby ponies?” he said, loosening his grip.

“Come on Garble, just let me go away!” Spike cried in fear, the drop was quite high.

“Oh, I remember, if you can survive a belly-flop into lava, why don’t you try gravel?” Garble sneered, loosening his grip again and, inevitably, letting Spike go. At once Hamish sprang up from his chair and rushed straight to the Hall, his arms outstretched. Spike kept on falling and falling, nearing the ground. Spike closed his eyes and waited for the crunch.

But it didn’t come.

He opened his eyes to see that Hamish had just caught him before he hit the ground. Spike breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped down from Hamish’s big hands.

“Thanks Hamish.” He said thankfully.

“Where’s Garble?” he said cracking his knuckles. The teenage dragon hovered down to him.

“So who’s this then? It sure is ugly.” He said with a smirk. Hamish was enraged at his sarky attitude.

“¡Animale!” he screamed out in Spanish as he sprang at Garble and knocked him square in the face. The red dragon stumbled back, his face full of rage. He sprang at Hamish and managed to get him into a tight head-lock.

“Come on, let’s hear that snap…” Garble smirked to himself. Hamish tried to struggle free, but the dragon’s superior strength managed to hold him. As his grip tightened around his neck, Hamish’s rage increased. He whipped his leg into the dragon’s back and managed to send him flying. Garble landed with a crunch on his arm.

“You…killed him!” he said out.

“Eh, he’ll be fine in two hours.” Hamish said while clicking his fingers back into place. The punch from the start of the fight had dislocated some of his fingers. He had got bored of being in the Town, so he went back to Twilight’s house to sleep, because he liked to have midday naps. The other two Pegasi trailed behind him, unable to comprehend the incident that just occured. Everypony else paid no attention to Hamish, they just stared at the dragon, their mouths gaping open.

***

“Alec?” Dash asked once more. It was around 9:00pm and Alec was heading to bed.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“I…just wanted to say good luck tomorrow. You know, in your race.” Alec smiled at her.

“Thanks Dash. You too.” He replied. Alec drifted off into his room and shortly after fell asleep. Rainbow Dash stayed awake for a little longer as she gazed over Ponyville from her Cloud-Home. Her mind was full of confused feelings and emotions. She had never felt any of these before.

“Normally I can control my thoughts, but now they’re all so confusing and hidden. What does it mean?” she whispered to herself. Her head turned to the stadium where a crowd of ponies were leaving the stadium.

“That’ll be us tomorrow. Let’s forget Ace and Guilda for now and enjoy ourselves. We’ll figure out what to do when the finals come in a week or so.”