Feel the Burn (Safia)

[Rhea Hartman]

“Okypete, you are going to hurt yourself.”

Rhea paused next to the low black bench where Dylan Okypete, a young firefighter with biceps the size of his skull, was straining to push a ludicrously loaded barbell off of his chest. His face was the color of raw hamburger and he was making a sound like a slow tire leak. As she watched, the bar wobbled up a few inches.

“How many forty-fives have you got on there? Are you trying to rep this?” Rhea caught the bar and pulled it onto its resting rungs before he crushed his chest. “You haven't even got anyone spotting you.” She pushed her sweaty hair back from her face and looked around the small white-walled town gym. Indeed Skylar, Dylan's much more reasonable workout partner, was nowhere to be seen.

“Skylar couldn't make it,” Dylan wheezed resentfully from the bench. The junior firefighter had yet to best her in boxing or forgive her for it. “Piss off. I'm doing fine.”

“You're going to tear something,” Rhea said as she grabbed an iron disk in each hand and slid them off the ends of the bar. “Saved me a trip to the weight stacks, though.” She kicked the underside of the bench with a smile as she continued on her way. “Chin up, Okypete. You'd be better off doing planks anyway.”

She waved one of the weights at her own gym partner, Clarice, as she passed the treadmills and threaded her way back to the lifting cage. A heavily laden barbell already rested on the shoulder-height rungs, and she added Dylan's forty-fives to the ends before squaring up underneath it. With a grunt, she lifted the bar onto the back of her shoulders, adjusted her feet, and sank into a series of squats.

Burning crept alternately up the fronts and backs of her legs as she worked. This was her last exercise of the day, and her t-shirt already had a dark V of sweat down the back. She continued increasing the weight and decreasing the repetitions until her skin glistened, her movements were slow and labored, and the bar looked ready to bend for the load on it. No pain, no gain.

[Safia Chatterjee]

Safia had always been one more for speed than strength. She wasn't a weakling by any means, but she'd developed a workout routine that worked around a high amount of reps with low to medium weight, so she didn't get too bulky. Granted, she'd always been a thin girl, so she wasn't sure she would be able to build up a lot of muscle mass anyway.

That didn't mean she didn't workout intensely, though. Safia hadn't been at the gym too long yet today, but she'd already hit a couple machines, which she preferred over free weights if only because it was safer to use without a partner, and she was too proud and stubborn to train with anyone but herself (which, granted, wasn't the best idea, but... She was stubborn).

The young woman was just thinking about doing a quick jog on a treadmill for a nice cardio break when a figure caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. At first she, admittedly, had thought it was a man - she rarely saw women so tall and built. So when she did a double-take and saw the woman start squatting a bar that was probably a couple times Safia's own weight, she couldn't help but stare.

And stare.

This was the sort of person the dragon girl admired above all else. Powerful women, not afraid to show the world what they could do. This stranger was the epitome of perfection, and Safia had to get to know her if it was the last thing she did. Ooh, look at that form...!

The treadmill could wait. Safia flipped her long braid over her shoulder and meandered over to where the woman was squatting, eyes wide with almost child-like wonder. She waited until the woman was done with the set she was working on before she uttered,"How much are you lifting? That was amazing." Perhaps not the best, most common way of starting a conversation with someone, but it was a good place to start. "Sorry, I... I couldn't help but notice. I wish I was that strong." Safia bit her lip dreamily.

[Rhea Hartman]

Being mistaken for a man was something that happened to Rhea more than she'd like. Her heavy muscle tone, naturally small breasts and barrel chest created a strangely gendered optical illusion that could make it difficult to tell exactly what you were looking at. Below the waist a double helping of hips, thighs and butt resolved the matter beyond a doubt, but it was nevertheless a topic of some annoyance to Rhea when she was forced to shop for blouses in the men's section.

With a gasp and a clang, Rhea finally dropped the bar onto it's rungs. "Huh?" she panted, draping her arms over the barbell and looking over at Safia. She had registered the girl's presence but had assumed she was simply waiting to use the lifting cage. "Oh, thanks," she said, blinking sweat out of her eyes. She was pleased, but the way the girl was ogling her thighs was a little wrong-footing. Most gym-going young women aimed for the nebulous, slender-but-fit concept of "toned," which was something Rhea had exceeded a long time ago. Even she hadn't really gotten into lifting until she joined the Marines, though she had always been an athlete and powerfully built.

The girl in front of her certainly had the elusive 'toned' down to an art form. "I've got two forty on the bar now," she said as she looked over the tall, lanky young woman. She gave a sweaty grin. "Want to try it?"

[Safia Chatterjee]

Safia was all googly-eyed over the woman's masculine upper body. While she despised men, she did find them aesthetically pleasing, and a woman with such proportions was like a dream come true for the young woman. It didn't hurt that she had gorgeous thighs to go along with it all.

She felt her cheeks instantly blush as the stranger's attention was drawn to her. Like a stupid schoolgirl, she folded her hands together in front of her and looked down with a nervous smile. "No need to thank me," she said with the same dreamy tone to her voice. "The pleasure's mine." Was that weird to say? Maybe. Probably. Oh well, too late now.

Safia wouldn't admit to the fact that she liked to keep her figure thin and 'toned' due to societal standards of beauty, but the fact was, she was more influenced by that sort of culture than she thought. That sort of pressure was part of what she hated about the culture she lived in. "Two forty!?" she repeated, eyes going wide. "That's... That's twice my weight." Safia laughed as the woman asked if she wanted to try. "I'm... I'm afraid I would break my back, and probably every bone in my body, if I tried to do that much," she said sheepishly, toying with her braid. "I tend to, um, go for high reps rather than heavy weights." Obviously. Look at her. "Oh, gosh, I'm rude. I'm Safia, by the way," she added belatedly, offering her own slightly sweaty hand. "I'm, um, I'm sorry for interrupting your workout. I thought maybe I could, um, get some tips or something, if you wouldn't mind." Her dumb, sheepish smile wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

[Rhea Hartman]

"Rhea," the woman replied in a bemused tone, holding out a more than slightly sweaty hand in return. She wondered if the girl was always this bashful. "Hey, high reps are the most important part of strength training. You build heavy weights on top of it." She jerked her head towards the corner where Dylan Okypete was doing something with the leg press that had turned his face the color of meat again. "Or you end up like that moron. Dylan!" she suddenly hollered. "Yur gonna snap your hamstrings. Knock the weight down. Sorry," she added to Safia. "He's a coworker. Bless his heart he's trying, but he still thinks big muscles are the goal of weight training."

She slid her arms off of the squat bar, picked up her water bottle, and took a seat on a nearby stool. Her legs did not want to stand anymore. She sighed as she stretched them out and took a long drink. "Tips?" Rhea asked curiously. She was still trying to figure out exactly what this eager, blushing girl's deal was. "What did you have in mind?"

[Safia Chatterjee]

Rhea. The name of a goddess. Or so Safia thought, as she tried not to gawk too much as they shook hands. She didn't even notice the sweat; if she had, she wouldn't have minded. "Y-yeah, that's true," Safia stammered, mentally cursing herself for being so awkward. "I just, ah, I guess I haven't figured out how to up the weights yet." That was dumb. She sounded dumb. Ughhh. Thankfully, the woman seemed to get distracted with a guy nearby, whom Safia's gaze darted to with narrow eyes. What an idiot. "Men," she snorted with a small smirk. "Coworker? What, um, what is it that you do?" she asked curiously, her voice going more wondrous again when her attention went back to Rhea. She made no comment about the 'big muscles' thing, but her sneering towards the moronic man probably said enough.

Safia skittered to the side a bit as the larger woman moved, not wanting to get in the way. She tried to keep her sight occupied with other things, but in reality, she had a hard time looking away from Rhea's muscles. "Oh, um, I..." What did she want tips on? Suddenly her brain went black. "Well, I, ah, my biggest strength, I think, is speed, but I'd like to get stronger too. I guess I, um, I'm just afraid of bulking up too much and slowing myself down... If that makes sense." She rubbed her arm with the opposite hand. "Is there a type of workout that helps both, um, speed and strength?"

[Rhea Hartman]

She tweaked an eyebrow at the 'don't know how to increase weights' comment, since it seemed pretty straightforward. You put more weights on the bar. But she let it slide and instead replied, "We work together at the fire department, but that's just on the side," Rhea said as she relaxed against the cool metal of the weight cage. Her legs were still screaming. "Most of the time I'm a police officer." She noticed the scoff and tipped her head towards Dylan. "Do you know him?"

The girl was definitely staring. Rhea was no stranger to ogling, but it didn't usually come from teenage girls. She thought about dropping one of the many variants of "eyes up here" that she kept in her back pocket, but she suspected that Safia might leap out a window from embarrassment. So, again, she let it slide. "Bulking up only slows you down if you do it wrong or if you're a long distance runner," she said with a shrug. "But boxing is pretty good. It's my specialty, anyway. Not running speed, but you've got to be quick on your feet."

[Safia Chatterjee]

Yep, dumb dumb dumb. Safia was going to smack herself later for getting so tongue-tied that she could only spout nonsense and idiocy. "The fire department?" she said, trying to hide her internal squeeing. If that was on the side, what - "Oh, wow," she breathed, clasping her hands together in front of her. "You're a police officer and a firefighter?" How much more perfect could one person get? "That's... That's so impressive, wow. I would love to do just one of those things." Now she had a new goal!! "Huh?" she blinked, glancing over at 'Dylan'. "Oh, no, um... Just seems a bit dim if you keep reminding him not to do things that will hurt himself and he keeps doing it anyway." Like most men.

She finally found the strength to avert her eyes from the woman and stare at a random weight on the floor, feeling self-conscious all over again. Safia definitely would have been mortified had Rhea said anything. "Yeah... I'm afraid I would do it wrong," she said meekly, risking a glance up. "I'm just not sure how much I can trust instructions I find on the internet." And she wasn't sure how to go about asking the self-defense trainer, if he even knew. "I've done a little bit of boxing," she replied, glancing at the woman's arms that were probably as big around as Safia's thighs. "I just want to be strong and fast enough to defend myself if I have to," she announced, lifting her chin up. "And I'm only really strong when I do this." She raised her arm and let some obsidian-colored scales pop to the surface of her hands and arms.

[Rhea Hartman]

"He is that," Rhea admitted with a laugh. "But not a bad guy."

Instructions you find on the Internet. Kids these days. "Ask any weight trainer, it's not hard," she said with another slurp on her water bottle. "Or Josef down at Muller's Self Defense. He knows his stuff." She tipped her bottle in deference to the girl's comment. "Good for you. Everybody should be able to."

The scales caught her by surprise. "Oh, you're a shifter are you?" the woman asked with curiosity. "Well that's a nice trick." She gnawed on the spigot of her water bottle for a moment before peeling herself off of her sweaty stool with an audible smacking sound. "I'm done for the day, but I can show you a little bit on the punching bag if you want."

[Safia Chatterjee]

Not a bad guy. So she said. Well, Safia took her word for it, but she also had confidence that this was the kind of woman that wouldn't take shit from anybody, so she was certain Rhea could take down any 'bad guy' that tried to do anything to her. Safia wished she was that strong.

Safia was smart enough not to trust the stuff she read online (most of the time), but that was also why she hadn't really gotten anywhere. "Oh, I know Josef," she said, an image of the man coming to mind. "Well, I train at his place, at least. I haven't really talked to him much though. Next time I'm there, I will!" She was encouraged by the woman's words. And Josef, she had determined, wasn't a 'bad guy' (and also someone she wouldn't want to tangle with). Safia beamed at the woman's compliment, flushing with pride.

Showing her scales, she realized, had been a risk, but fortunately the woman seemed familiar with meta-humans. "Do you have an ability too?" she asked. "There's, um, there's more to it than just the scales, but they're really the best for making me tougher." Of course, the tail and claws came in handy too, but she didn't want anyone else nearby to notice that she was a shifter. "Oh, would you?" Safia breathed, eyes going alight with happiness. "If you wouldn't mind, I would love that." She shifted out of the way as Rhea stood, feeling tiny in comparison to the heavily muscled woman. "I, um, I'm on the self-defense team at my school, so I know a little bit, but not as much as I would like." Wherever the woman went, Safia would follow like an obedient puppy.

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea locked her fingers and stretched her arms out over her head. "You should. He's a great guy, good friend of mine." Josef was a much better teacher than she was, and he was paid to do this sort of thing. And hopefully he wouldn't leave the girl quite so dumbfounded.

"Yup. I'm a suppressor," the woman said as she gathered up her slimy towel. "So nothing as flashy as shifting," she added with a small smile. "But I worked as a recruiter at Hammel for a while." She pointed her water bottle through a set of double doors. “C'mon then, bags are in that room.”

Peculiar though the girl might be, Rhea was more than happy to offer any assistance she could to athletic young women. Something about the girl's bearing reminded her of herself as she'd been when she was young, before she learned that there are a lot better ways to spend your time than looking for fights. She pushed open the doors to the familiar smell of boxing leather and let the young woman in first. “All right,” she said as she let her towel fall to the ground with a splat, “why don't you show me what you've got? The bag on the left there is the best one.”

[Safia Chatterjee]

Safia nodded quietly, planning on giving the guy a shot, but only because Rhea was suggesting it and she already respected the older woman’s advice. “I’ll ask him the next time I go in,” she promised.

“Oh… That’s cool,” she replied when Rhea mentioned her ability. “Maybe not as flashy, but… I bet that’s really useful. Especially for a recruiter in case you had to get anyone… I don’t know, dangerous or unpredictable or with no control over their abilities.” And the boxer, based on her appearance, looked like she could beat practically anyone if it came to a physical fight, so… Safia was even more awed. She nodded and trailed after her, trying not to stare too much at the woman’s muscles flex and pull as she walked.

She felt a pang of nervousness as they entered the other room, afraid now that they were here that she might end up making a fool of herself. Still, Safia nodded meekly as Rhea asked for a demonstration. “Um, o-okay,” she stammered slightly, setting down her own things as she stepped towards the bag that the other woman had indicated. Taking a deep breath, Safia swung her fist out and connected to the bag, though it barely budged it at all. Determined to at least not look like a fool, the dragon girl jabbed repeatedly with swift hits, but it was clear that she lacked a lot of strength in his upper torso. Eventually, Safia let her scales burst out over the skin of her right hand and forearm and elbowed into the device, causing it to move a little more. She was panting a little when she finished. “… How was that?” she asked, voice edged with nerves.

[Rhea Hartman]

"Yup," Rhea agreed succinctly. "It was good for a lot of the kids with really nasty side effects." She wiped her forehead off with a wrist. "Take those away for a while, let them calm down while we talk everything out and get them over here." She cast another eye over the girl. "Handy for police work as well."

Safia's staring was starting to get a little unsettling. Rhea was muscular and proud of it, but she wasn't a body builder with bulging biceps and ropey veins. Nor was her ass hanging out of her pants, so she deemed it time for a friendly, gentle redirection. "If you want to get stronger, keep your eyes on the bag," she said, nodding to the row of punching bags. "Just lookin' at me isn't gonna help, I can promise you that," she said with a smile.

The motion of the bag didn't concern Rhea--a well-weighted punching bag wasn't supposed to move. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully as the girl swung away at it. She suffered, as expected, from the most common problem in boxing, and that was expecting all of your strength to come from the arms.

"Not bad," Rhea said encouragingly as she moved around to the bag next to Safia. She had stripped down to a tank top, and Safia could see several deep scars and what looked like a boxing championship tattoo on her right arm. "Though if you really want to mess people up, just go after them with those," pointing to the ends of Safia's fingers. "'Course, that's if you want to go to prison," she added with a grin.

Rhea dropped into a boxing stance in front of her own bag. She was terrible at explaining this sort of thing, but hopefully Safia would be able to learn from watching. Should be right up the little voyeur's alley. "You don't have much upper arm strength, but a real punch doesn't need it. A punch is supposed to come from your legs, and your arm just finishes it." Rhea demonstrated one in slow motion--beginning with a rotation in the hips, the movement followed through her torso, shoulders, and finally finished with an extension to the punching bag. She did this one more time slightly faster, and then three punches in a swift staccato that made the bag's chain rattle, though like Safia's hers didn't move much. "Got it?"

[Safia Chatterjee]

Safia really didn’t mean to stare. It just… Happened. She so rarely met a woman as built as Rhea, she couldn’t help it! Still, when the older woman gently prodded her away from it, Safia’s face turned beet red and she dropped her gaze, burning with shame. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, feeling bad. “I didn’t mean to stare.” She liked to think she had good self-control in certain things, but damn! Give her an attractive girl and Safia went dumb.

She couldn’t help but perk up a little from the praise, though. That was better than she feared, that Rhea would tell her that her stance was all wrong and her limbs were too sporadic. “Thanks,” she murmured, blushing again. Safia was making a point not to stare at the older woman again, but she did notice her arm, and was tempted to ask about the wounds; maybe some other time. “Oh, uh, yeah,” she replied with a laugh, holding up her claw-tipped fingers. “I’ve only threatened people with these. I wouldn’t use them unless I didn’t have any other choice,” she promised. Unless her temper got out of control… Which did happen sometimes. Safia was working on that.

She watched attentively as Rhea got in front of her own punching bag, nodding along with what the woman was saying. She was well aware that she lacked upper-body strength, so that comment didn’t offend her, and she was all for getting some tips in how to make her hits stronger. “I think I’ve heard that before…” she said slowly. “But I haven’t really put it into practice.” Her eyes traced along the path of movement up the woman’s body, and Safia bit her lip. It was like watching an artist. “Okay… I think I get it,” she nodded, looking back to her punching bag. Safia went slowly through the new movement a couple times before doing once with a burst of speed, traveling from her hip to her shoulder and into her fist. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but at least she had a feel for how it was supposed to be. “That felt a lot different,” she commented, smiling brightly. “Thank you!” Safia looked a little shyly up at the taller woman. “How can I repay you for your help?”

[Rhea Hartman]

Safia was clearly so ashamed that Rhea felt a little bad for calling her out on it. "It's alright," she said kindly. "It happens to everybody." She had fallen prey to it herself a number of times, at least until she got used to seeing half-naked men everywhere.

"Well that's good," she added at the comment about Safia's claws. She had wondered a little bit--the girl seemed like the kind who would pick fights. The fact that she was threatening people with them wasn't great either, but Rhea didn't worry that much. She'd grow out of it.

Rhea watched Safia's next round of punches with approval. "Better. Definitely better. Keep at it and you'll find the arm strength doesn't hold you back much at all." She flicked her sweaty punching bag with a fingernail and laughed. "Don't worry about it. It's good to see someone like you in here." She rolled her shoulders and cast another look at the bags. "Have you sparred before?"