Players:
Summary: Shelly and Erik meet and talk late in the evening in the gym.
Date: July 14, 2009
Late Night at the Gym
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Weight Room
All the weight machines are powered by hydraulics, you set the weight you want and your bench-pressing that many pounds, or even tons in some super strong students' cases. Punching bags, stair machines, bicycles, treadmills, weights, and anything found in your standard gym can be found here.
It's late at night. There really aren't a lot of people in the gym this time of night. But since Shelly never sleeps, she actually does most of her training at night. She's dressed in a blue workout tank top and a pair of black gym pants. Nothing super fancy, really. The newest student, who showed up almost exactly when classes ended, has an mp3 player clipped on and is just finishing up some warmup stretching at the moment and is looking about to see which piece of equipment she wants to use first this evening.
Apparently she isn't the only one who wants some late night exercise, and Erik is coming in from the outside to take advantage of /his/ lengthened endurance, which makes him need to sleep a lot less. He comes in dressed in his own workout clothes, a red underarmor shirt and a black pair of sweatpants, cracking his neck as he comes.
Shelly tilts her head when she hears the door open and looks over at the older man. The tall teenager straightens up. "Well, this is a bit of a surprise. Usually don't get a lot of company in here at this time of day," she comments to the man. Considering they're pretty much the only two there at this time. "Though I don't think we've met yet. Name's Shelly," she greets the guy. She knows the guy is too old to be a student. That much is pretty obvious.
Erik looks a little bit surprised as well to find that there is someone else in here. "Well hello." He says with a chuckle. "My name is Leif Anderson, I'm the Government and Politics Professor here at the school. You must be new?" He offers, holding his hand out to her.
"Shelly Walker, and yeah. Just got here when classes were ending. Technically an incoming sophmore, I suppose," Shelly explains, taking the man's hand and giving it a fairly firm shake. "Was just going to get my workout started, if you wanted a spotter or anything Mister Anderson," Shelly offers to the man.
Erik chuckles. "Well a good time to join the school, when there aren't any classes going on." He laughs and nods. "Sure, I would take a spotter." He says mildly, looking the girl once over but not commenting on appearances. He has been here a while after all.
It's pretty obvious the girl spends some time at the gym at a glance, though there's no obvious sign that says she has super strength or anything like that. "Alright. What do you want to start with, and how much?" she asks casually. Shelly does grin at Erik's comment about the timing. "Yeah. Lets me get used to the place a bit quicker. Though I've been to the city a couple times now, and both times the people I was with got jumped by some of the local problems in town. It's a far cry from Utah, I'll give it that much".
Erik chuckles. "I was going to start at about 400 pounds." Erik says as he moves to get the weight set up, and grins. "The city is great, although yes, having been to Utah there is nothing like it there." He laughs and then moves to sit on the bench.
Moving into a spot position behind the bench, Shelly nods to him. "Yeah. Salt Lake City, as far as a large city goes…eh. Most other states have it pretty well trumped. And you get a little sick of hearing about the lake," she adds casually. "You can do all your's first, and then we'll swap," she suggests. "I usually go for reps," she explains to the guy. "You from around here initially?" she asks.
Erik grins a little bit. "Well, I hope you enjoy New York city, Miss Walker." He nods. "I'll do 3 sets of 10 reps, and then we'll switch?" He offers before he nods again. "Born in New York City, raised lots of places before I returned to New York around 11 or 12."
"Well, if I can get down there without running into the, as some of the others around here have called them, D-List Supervillains, I'll enjoy some of the sights I'm sure," the girl says as she spots the man. "Sounds good on the sets," Shelly adds. "Traveled a lot as a kid? Military family or something like that, if I can ask?"
"My mother was not mentally well. She was an Empath, and…all the strong emotions she had surrounded with herself made her not stable. She was a paranoid schizophrenic, constantly moving us around." Erik explains with a sigh as he begins to work on the exercises, doing the 400 pounds with decent ease.
Shelly winces. "I'm sorry to hear that," Shelly responds, watching to see how the man does with this particular weight. She decides the best course of action is to not push the matter any, and concentrates on the task on hand. She seems to pick up on that this is probably a fairly easy weight for the man, or at the very least he can do more. "What do you want next? 450 or 475?" she asks, assuming he wants a heavier weight for his next set.
Erik does pretty well with the 400, although he seems surprised that he is doing so well, and chuckles as he finishes 10. "450, and then 500." Erik says with a smile. "My mother has been dead since 2001, I have learned to let go; it's alright."
Shelly sets the weight to 450 with a nod. "Alright," Shelly says in response to both. "So, you got into politics and government. How'd you get interested in that?" Shelly asks. "Can't say I'm too much into politics myself, but that's probably because the television at night just repeats the same thing over and over. It gets boring pretty fast".
"I'm a lawyer." Erik explains, woofing a little bit at the increased weight. "It feels good to be able to do this again, although God I used to be able to do so much more. I'm trained as an attorney, so it was natural to teach the subjects involving law.
"Makes sense then. I wanted to play tennis myself, honestly. Didn't spend as much time as I should have studying," Shelly says in agreement, spotting to make sure he doesn't drop the weight on his chest. "You going to try for ten at 500, or less reps on that one?" she asks. "And what happened? Got hurt or something that weakened you? Or just stopped coming to the gym?" One does lose strength if they stop training.
"Yeah, want to keep it even all the way through." He says as he moves to help put the extra weights on. "I got kind of…reset in my powers, it's hard to explain." He says as he gets back down to it. "It isn't fully my strength, after all."
"Sounds good," Shelly says, also helping with the extra weight. "Reset? That'd be hard to adjust to, I imagine. Be really weird, to say the least". She'll help spot. She hopes there isn't someone out there who resets powers, though her power would be kind of hard to reset, exactly. "You had some form of superstrength then?" she asks.
Erik nods. "Well…kind of. Because of my power I am able to channel electromagnetic energy through my body to increase my musclature and endurance, and decrease stamina and fatigue." He explains as he begins the set, which is harder being the cumulative of the other sets as well; but he does it decently well.
"That's sort of similar to what I do, but only on the edges," Shelly admits as she spots the man. She quiets up when he gets near the set, there in case he needs any help with the last rep or two, and to hand him a water bottle when he's finished.
Erik nods. "My main power." He grunts when he puts the weights back, scoots down and sits up, "Is magnetic and electromagnetic spectrum manipulation. The increased energy and endurance is just a way of using it. WHat are yours?"
Shelly starts adding weights to the bar as Erik talks for her set. "I don't sleep or get fatigued," Shelly says. "They got it labeled as Internal Energy Generation. Basically it means that I've never slept or been tired at any point in my life. It also lets me increase my strength greatly for like half a minute by bursting that energy out at once, but I haven't figured out how to control it or even summon it". The weights she's putting on have upped the weight to around 1200 pounds, give or take, though she doesn't make mention of any superstrength.
Erik raises an eyebrow as he looks at the weights, and he is willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for super strength here. "You know if you are overestimating there is no way in hell I can keep this from killing you." He says dryly.
"This is what I normally do," Shelly assures him. "And I wouldn't overestimate by more than a hundred pounds if I was completely out of it, which us combined could handle," the teenager points out. She lays down under the bench. "It's a side effect of my power". She reaches up to grab the weight and lift it up and down, each rep going at a slow but steady pace. It's obvious she's working near her maximum load. "I never fatigue, so I can take my single lift maximum and do it as long as I want, where you would only be able to do it once". She continues lifting, speaking when she has weight on the upward track only.
Erik chuckles a little bit and nods. "Well, I do have to admit to envying never fatiguing, that is quite exceptional." He grins and nods, helping to spot her. "When I enhance myself it works similarly, although the endurance is simply my body producing fatigue toxins at a much much slower rate." He watches her carefully.
Each lift does look like it takes her near her limit, but then she does it again with the same amount of effort. "It has it's uses. Meant I always got my homework in on time, for starters," Shelly comments with a smile. "Yeah. Though you have to focus on enhancing yourself a little bit. Mine just sort of is. My parents thought I was a really weird baby though, what with never napping or anything. And people tend to have odd reactions when I explain I don't have the faintest idea what a dream is like," she says between lifts. "It's helped in my training. When I was doing tennis training, I'd spend a hundred and fifty hours of practicing with meal breaks during the summer. Also helps my speed out, too," Shelly explains inbetween lifts. She's just going to do her thirty reps straight through. She isn't altering her lift at all. "Though now that the tennis career is pretty much out of the picture, wish I'd spent the time training something else in some respects".
"You would be amazed when those random talents will come in handy, they can pop up at the most unusual times and places. And to an extent fitness is fitness, plus it's not like you don't have ample time to train in something else, given the lack of sleeping." He chuckles. "And dreams are overrated in any case."
"Yeah. It's come in handy a few times," Shelly says, finally finishing the set and racking the weight. "If I find someone to start teaching me more than the basics I know of hand to hand, I want to learn that, but I imagine that'll happen more when school starts up again". Given what all the students and teachers both tend to face. "And you have no idea how many movies I've watched in the background while training. Late night television is awful". She gestures at the dumbbells. "What's next on the plate? Arm curls? Squats? I'm flexible. I'll probably be here for another few hours still. And as for dreams, yeah, seems to be a mixed bag with those, from what I'm told".
Erik nods. "I can imagine that it is helpful, yes." He chuckles. "Well, I can help get you started in basic hand to hand, I'm only about mid-level myself." He says with a laugh. "But we have lots of programs set up for martial arts and the like. I'm fine with either as well, whatever was going to be next on the list for you."
"Grab your dumbbells. We'll do upper body first," Shelly says, going over to grab some of the rather large dumbbells before walking back over. "And that'd be great. If you can help me get up to where midlevel would be, that'd be excellent. I already know basic hand to hand stuff, but as I said, that's basic," the teenager says. They really don't have to spot the other so much with these, since there isn't a ton of danger of them crushing themselves with these weights.
Erik certainly doesn't go for the same weights that she does, but he nods. "I have a program that I can give you. I'm certified about a first degree purple belt in shotokan style karate, and I've also been learning from one of the teachers here, Kitty Pryde, who knows a lot more than I do; you might look her up."
Shelly starts curling the weights up slowly as she speaks. "Alright. I didn't learn that particular style, though I at least know the basics of how to strike a person with a punch and kick, and a few maneuvers," she offers as they continue lifting. "Kitty Pryde. I'll see if I can't track her down, though I haven't seen her yet. I'm guessing shes out during the summer a lot".
Erik nods. "She has a good mix of different styles, very practical; Krav Magah, jujitsu, a bunch of others." Erik as as he begins to work on the dumbells. "She does computer classes and they like, so look for her there."
Shelly is sweating pretty hard at her lifts already, but that's to be expected given her style. "That would work. Wouldn't hurt to learn a few different angles, as I imagine the basics are the same," Shelly comments between curls. "So, what sorts of things does the training program entail?" she asks.
At this point the players had to fade the scene to general chat due to RL time and decided to fade and end the scene there.
