Swinging her leg over her bike, Rainbow Dash checked her watch. She had gotten out of her second last final test—ever, it was Thursday afternoon, and there was just one more on Friday to go—and was ready for what was certainly not a date (she could tell it wasn't a date, because Spicy had said so, a lot).
Having changed into a new outfit Rarity had selected (shorts, a sports bra, and a tank top to match) at school, Rainbow Dash was ready for whatever Spicy could throw at her. She took the stairs up to Spicy's shop two at a time, and almost ran right into Spicy Hot. "Hi!"
Caught off-guard, Spicy Hot backed up a step and eyed Rainbow Dash up and down. "Anyone would think you're ready to go to a gym." His eyes traced over her almost completely flat chest, and he found himself making a mental note to have her wear whatever was doing that to her again.
"Well, duh. We are going to a—" Her mouth working a bit quicker than her brain, Rainbow Dash caught up to the conversation and closed her mouth. "Are you ready?"
Spicy just gestured down to his t-shirt and shorts. "Yeah. Just let me grab my bag, and we can go."
"Bag? But doesn't the gym have all the stuff you need?" Rainbow Dash turned and started making her way back down the stairs. She hadn't failed to notice the appreciative look in Spicy's eyes when he had openly checked her out. Rainbow Dash made herself a promise to thank Rarity.
Grabbing his bag from his apartment, Spicy rolled his eyes at Rainbow Dash's back. "Look, some of us can't run twenty miles in a few seconds, and hardly raise a sweat. I warned them about you, you know. They're going to try to actually push you hard."
"Wait, I thought you were going to be showing me around?" Rainbow Dash waited at the bottom of the stairs for Spicy.
"Yeah. I'll show you around, but if you want to actually get some use out of this, you have to get someone who knows what they're doing to build a work-out plan." When he got to the bottom of the stairs, Spicy Hot reached out to Rainbow Dash, and finding her leaning toward him, pulled her closer.
The possessive strength in Spicy's arm, wrapped around her, almost had Rainbow Dash swoon. Instead, she leaned into him. "W-Work-out plan? But don't we just get the heaviest weights and see what we can lift?"
Spicy inhaled the masculine scent that Rainbow Dash was wearing, and let out a sigh. "This is totally a date, isn't it?" He couldn't keep up the charade anymore, and had finally caved in.
Rainbow Dash looked at Spicy Hot, and tried to gauge what his emotions were—resignation seemed to dominate. "Yeah. What's so wrong about that?"
"You're a girl, for one. It's a pretty big one. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm gay." Spicy looked back at Rainbow Dash, and caught himself gazing into her eyes for a few moments. "What if I just wake up one day and this kink I have going now is over?"
"That's a stupid way of looking at it. For a start, I actually like wearing this stuff, it's more comfortable than a lot of the girly things, and I think Rarity might have a whole other thing going with wanting to shop for guy things." Rainbow Dash looked into Spicy's eyes, and could see more emotion and desire there than she knew what to do with. "You mean to tell me, if I let you have your way and dress more like a guy, you will like me less?"
"But I'm gay!" The words suddenly choked Spicy. He realized exactly what he sounded like, and from the grin on Rainbow Dash's face, he knew he looked startled at his own revelation. "I'm also, apparently, an idiot."
"Don't worry. I still like you despite that." Rainbow Dash punched Spicy Hot—lightly—in the shoulder.
"Remind me to kiss you, a lot." To prove his point, Spicy pressed his lips to Rainbow Dash's cheek. It felt good—right. He let the girl go and reassessed how he felt about the whole thing. "I'll just get my car, and—"
"Get on my bike." Rainbow Dash reached into her backpack and pulled out the spare helmet she had packed for this exact moment. "It's only fair. You gave me a lift, now I can give you one."
Unsure, Spicy nonetheless pulled the helmet on and followed Rainbow Dash to her bike. He watched how she swung her leg over the big bike, and did the same. "Where do I put my bag?" In answer, Rainbow Dash took hold of his arms and pulled them around her waist.
Nestling Spicy Hot's bag against her belly, Rainbow Dash leaned forward on the bike. "Grip tighter. Hug me like you're riding me."
"Is that an invitation?" As Spicy spoke, he shoved his hips forward and pulled Rainbow Dash's rump firmly into his crotch. "Because we could skip the workout, and I'll take you upstairs and really work you out." The revelation about his stance on girls had helped Spicy work out a lot of his problems, many had fallen to ash, but when he thought of actual sex with Rainbow Dash, there was only one place he had any intention of involving himself with.
"Tempting, but I wanna find out if this friend of yours can slow this Rainboom down." Despite her words, Rainbow Dash was sorely tempted to take Spicy up on his offer. He was pressed to her back from shoulders to rump, and he even squeezed her hips with his thighs. Ending the conversation by turning the key of her bike, Rainbow Dash pulled her own helmet on, and didn't delay taking off.
Spicy clung a little tighter, which put him somewhere between "second skin" and "limpet" in the range of closeness. When they approached the first intersection, he tapped on Rainbow's left hip.
Getting the idea, Rainbow Dash put on her indicator and, when the intersection was reached, she turned the bike and leaned into the corner. The gymnasium wasn't far, and when she felt Spicy tap her belly twice as they passed the place, she knew it was time to find a park—possibly the best thing about taking a motorbike.
When Rainbow Dash turned the engine off, Spicy looked left and right. "You can park here?" He put his feet down and felt footpath under them.
Rainbow Dash pulled off her helmet and laughed. "Yeah. Laws here are awesome. They kinda prefer us not to take up actual parking." Looking back over her shoulder, Rainbow Dash smirked a little. "Much as having you there is totally awesome, I can't actually get off without you moving."
Spicy laughed and pulled back from Rainbow Dash's body, separating them from a closer embrace than motorbikes normally imposed. "It wasn't that bad. I think I see why you like riding." He pulled his helmet off, and ran his free hand through his hair.
Watching as Rainbow Dash fitted some kind of lock to her bike, Spicy Hot headed to the gymnasium's entrance. He stopped and looked around for his usual trainer, and spotted him. Spicy frequently enjoyed looking at hot guys, and Short Track was hot. Smoking hot. And straight as a die. His skin was a slightly off shade of white, and his hair was stormy gray, and he had the kind of body a professional athlete would dream of having.
"Whoa, you were right about one thing." Rainbow Dash stopped beside Spicy, her head tracking his gaze to Short. "Where's your trainer-friend?"
"Spicy Ouut!" Short Track sported a little of his Scandinavian accent, despite having grown up in America. He left the paperwork he had been bent over, and looked from Spicy Hot to Rainbow Dash. "This is her?"
"Short Track, Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash, this is Short Track. He's the best torturer—I mean fitness trainer—they have here." Doing introductions, Spicy Hot gestured between Rainbow and Short. "He even thinks he has something for you to run on."
"Pleased to meet you. I'd like to try you on a treadmill, but if what Spicy said is right, that won't keep up." Short Track led the way first to the change room. "But I think I have a bike you won't destroy."
"I wanna try weights, too. Spicy said you could work out what I need to do with those." Rainbow Dash watched Spicy Hot walk into the change rooms, apparently to stow his bag. "Hey, can I put my bag in there too?"
Fishing around in his pocket, Short Track pulled out a key with a "visitor" tag on it. "Ladies change room is on the right." He waited patiently until both his subjects had returned. "Spicy, you'll be working on your legs again today, I want you on a treadmill at a full run for as long as you can hold it."
Rainbow Dash watched Spicy's face fall. "And what about me?"
"Get on a treadmill beside Spicy, let's see how you do." Short Track had had a hard time accepting what Spicy had told him as true, but he owed it to his friend (and customer) to humor him. He led the way to the treadmills, gestured for both of them to get on the nearest ones. "On you get. Basic function to start with. It will build you up from a fast walk to a sprint."
Spicy Hot knew exactly what his program needed to be. It was one of the harder ones, and he knew he would be feeling like a wrung-out dishrag by the end of it. He tapped the buttons and felt the treadmill come to life, lifting its front and rolling the deck under his feet. "Just don't break their gear, Rainbow."
The treadmill under Rainbow Dash's feet started to move, and it was just a walk. Beside her, she could see Spicy being pushed into a jog, then a run, and finally to a hard, sprinting pace. Sprinting pace for a normal person, maybe. She kept up with her own treadmill as it wound up from a walk, to a jog, to a run, and then to a sprint. Though she could feel her body working, Rainbow knew that a little faster, and she would go beyond what a normal human (or even an abnormal one) could handle. "This the best you got?"
Short raised one eyebrow. The treadmill had more room for speed, and with the girl barely showing a sign of effort being exerted, he had little compunction in turning the thing to maximum. Before his eyes—as the fastest program kicked in—Rainbow Dash's hair lengthened, and her ears seemed to slide up the side of her head, but the most impressive part of her transformation was her wings. "What is—"
It felt like a walk again. Rainbow Dash was barely working, though she knew the treadmill was going faster than what Spicy was. All the little red lights on the board were lit, and she was having a great time. "Normally, when I'm running like this, I am at my destination before I can blink. This is pretty cool."
"You are one of those girls." Short Track had to lift his jaw up. "You could go faster?" His eyes were glued to the readout on the treadmill, where it showed the energy burned. "How much do you eat?"
"Huh? A fair bit, I guess." Rainbow Dash hadn't thought of it before. When she was hungry, she ate. "I guess I have been eating more lately. Is it related to this?"
"This,"—Short gestured at the pace Rainbow Dash was setting on the treadmill—"has to come from somewhere."
"Pfft, that's magic!" Rainbow Dash's self-satisfied grin wavered a little at the skeptical look on Short's face.
"And where does the magic come from?"
"Friendship?" More hopeful than definitive, Rainbow Dash knew her answer wasn't a good one.
Tapping the commands on the treadmill to slow Rainbow Dash down, Short shook his head. "If you're eating more is what powers this, you need to eat more if you're going to do more." He hated the things himself, but Short knew this was the perfect situation for them. Opening the drink cabinet at the front of the gym, he pulled out two bottles of sports drink.
"So those can give me the energy I need?" Rainbow Dash took one of the bottles and opened it. She sniffed the drink once and then started to drink. Surprising herself at how thirsty she was, she downed the whole bottle.
"I thought so. Let me guess, you only do this in short bursts?" Short Track gestured back at the treadmill. "Have you ever run like that for an hour or more?"
Shaking her head, Rainbow Dash knew the word that was going to come up, and it annoyed her that she hadn't already thought of it. Sport was practically her game, and she had completely neglected…
"Stamina training it is. But you aren't allowed on a treadmill without one of these beside you." Leading the way back to the treadmill, Short Track gestured for Rainbow Dash to get back on, and jammed the second sports drink into the cup holder at the front. "If you feel faint, or nauseous, you drink it. And I want you eating big on gym days."
Rainbow Dash started moving with the treadmill, letting Short handle the settings. "Days? Wait a minute! How often do—"
"Do you want to be able to run like this for hours on end?" Looking Rainbow Dash in the eyes, Short Track saw a fire ignite there.
"Heck-yeah!" Rainbow Dash was up to a run again, and her legs flicked supernaturally fast over the surface of the treadmill. It felt so good to just run like she used to, to feel actual strain on her body.
Short Track could see the drive of an athlete in Rainbow Dash, and he was as excited as she was to be able to train her. That he had inadvertently hooked a new major customer for the gym hadn't even crossed his mind. "At least twice a week. A third day if you want to do weights, too."
At first the idea worried Rainbow Dash. School had taken up so much of her day for so long, that she didn't realize it was over at first. Then it clicked. "Yeah. I can probably do that. Three a week?"
"At least. I'll try to find a faster treadmill, too." Enthusiasm was driving Short Track, and he realized it was boiling off the girl in waves. A glance at Spicy Hot revealed him running his grueling course easier than Short had seen him do it before. "We'll work that out later. Give me ten more minutes on there."