4986/One night at the gym

One night at the gym
Date of Scene:	02 February 2021
Location:	Gymnasium - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Training and Meetup at Titans Tower
Cast of Characters:	Heather Danielson, Irina-As17, Caitlin Fairchild

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Heather Danielson has posed:
    In the Titans gymnasium, Heather finds herself in workout clothes... which means sports bra and biking spandex shorts. She stands facing off against IRina, and Heather is at least covered in sweat. Off to one side, she has about a dozen turkey sandwiches waiting. There were more, but as she exerts herself, she needs more and more food.
    "Okay. One more time. Show me your fastest combo and let's see if I can even spot it coming, let alone defend against it." She says to Irina as the two of them are slowly circling one another on the training mat.

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 lowered herself a fair bit, tensing her body and groaning as she strains her muscles. Still she seemed upset, unsatisfied, she felt she wasn't doing enough to put it quite simply. Her growth was slow and pushing herself, pushing her body, to the extremes, was something she felt was needed. She blurs forwards to a normal human's eyes, appearing next to Heather and giving her a quick chop to the side. She almost slides around, doing quick hops and short slides with much grace, that get her in and out of Heather's range while applying multiple strikes.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The door to the gym slides open to admit Caitlin. She's dressed much like Heather; calf-length leggings in sky blue with white slashes, and a modest grenadine-colored athletic top that exposes an inch of skin above her waistline.

"Oh, hey guys," Caitlin says, and waves a smile at the two women. A box is under her arm and she moves to the refrigerator in the corner to start stocking it with reusable bottles pulled from the crate. Heather of course she knows, but Irina's a new face. "Hi, are you new?" she inquires at an opportune moment. "I'm Caitlin. Fairchild," she clarifies. "Welcome to the Tower."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Taking three, four, five strikes from Irina before she can even react, and try to sweep an arm about to flail, semi-ineffctually at Irina, Heather mutters, "God I hate fighting folks who are this fast." And yeah. The damage from the first strike is fully healed even as the fifth one lands. It really is difficult to leave much lasting harm on Heather's body.
    She waves a hand towards Caitlin, recognizing her voice, "Irina, Caitlin. Caitlin, Irina. She is a guest I invited to help test her limits."
    And then she advances once more, trying to catch IRina off guard with -her- fastest series of attacks. Trying and most likely failing.

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 is overtaken by her social issues the moment she notices another person, a strike catches her right in the face and she crumples on the mat with a faint chittering noise. She stays that way for a while before slowly opening her eyes and wobbling to her feet with more raccoon sounds being made. "Ah- Uh- Hello. Uh- yes. That is me." She says with a very strained voice, since as usual she wasn't sure how to react.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
There's a moment of alarmed concern when Irina takes that hit. Caitlin winces reflexively and almost drops the crate on a bench. "Oh my gosh, are you okay?" The question comes automatically but she sits back in relief at the sight of Irina sitting up, before actually entering the ring. "Sorry, I didn't mean to distract you," Caitlin apologizes sincerely. "I'm just coming in for my workout and thought I'd stock the fridge." She gestures vaguely at the crate and returns to the task at hand once she's sure no one's going to start bleeding. "How do you like the Tower so far, Irina?"

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Wincing, Heather steps forward and holds a hand out towards Irina, "Sorry!" She offers as she crouches down. "I didn't think I'd actually hit you. If I did, I'd have pulled my punch. I didn't mean to hurt you!" Sometimes Heather is just too soft-hearted.
    She shakes her head and glances to Caitlin, "You, Ms. Fairchild, are a lifesaver and a saint. It's like you KNOW I was getting famished."

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 shifted around very nervously, going stiff through the conversation. "Though, about being one of you. I don't think that is the case." She says with a vague shake of her head. "This place is nice. It feels familiar, but more...casual." She squints one of her eyes while thinking back to her 'home', though opts not to give any context to them. "I don't have much data on you." She changes tone abruptly, seeming very curious as she squints at and approaches Caitlin a bit. "How powerful is she?" She then asks, turning to Heather.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin retrives three canisters from the fridge and walks them over to Heather and Irina. "I'm ... pretty strong?" Caitlin hedges, and shrugs at Irina. "The machinery is kind of hard to calibrate, but it's mostly me and Donna and Kara pushing the upper end of the magna-harness."

The choice of flavors are offered to the other two women: chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. Caitlin nods at a complex looking piece of steel machinery that looks like it'd be more at home in an industrial park, aside from the squat rack and bench press built into it.

"And it's Caitlin, Heather, golly," she asides to the blonde, and smiles ruefully. "We're all friends here."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Stepping back from Irina, Heather shrugs her shoulders before saying to Caitlin, "Sure, but the joke is funnier with formal names." she states before sticking out her tongue.
    But then she looks back to Irina and gestures to Caitlin, "She's strong enough to make me feel like a Kindergartner. She is also durable enough that I could hit her full force and she -might- feel it." she adds. "I'm still trying to talk her into joining up with my modeling agent too."

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 rubbed her chin, taking a strawberry one and seeming to enjoy it a bit too much with how chittery she got with it. However she eventually focuses her full attention on Caitlin, having drained the canister exceedingly fast. "I wish for her to fight me." She approaches Caitlin with a very fixated and intense look, staring her in the eyes, seeming to have switched to a different 'mode'. "You must severely strain and stress my body, for that I require a very severe fight." She blinks, seeming to snap out of it for a moment and shaking her head a little, like she had to physically force herself to. "I've yet to test those machines too, though."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Ahh..." Caitlin lifts her hands to waist level, palms out, and leans back a little from Irina. A concerned glance is shot at Heather. "Um... I don't think that's a great idea," Caitlin says. "Garth and I got into an arm wrestling match and I broke his wrist. The machines, though, they're great," she offers, and gestures at them. Most of the gym equipment runs on heavy pulleys concealed under the floor, presumably to test the strength of people who can squat five tons with little effort. "The magna-harness is for extreme strength training. It'll go up past a hundred tons. You've got to be careful though, it can be dangerous if you turn it up past what you're ready for."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Shaking her head, Heather sighs, "Irina here wishes to push herself to her limits, and the way she prefers to do so is to fight the most powerful people she can find. I am still not sure how feasible this is." She steps over and selects a sandwich before taking a bite. Then she gestures about, "I mean, holding back is a thing, right?" she asks Caitlin.

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 snaps towards Caitlin again, chittering. "Yes! That is perfect." She looks down for a moment, eyes moving about as she recalls her long sessions of instructions. "Yes...the opportunity for an extreme level of power exposure without risk of loss or capture." She repeats to herself, before looking back up to Caitlin, then she seems to take a disappointed expression as she realizes something. "But...you, hero types, you never take it seriously. I think I won't be able to get the level of stress I need from you." She says with a soft sigh. In truth, the assignments she had been given were to trigger survival-levels of adaptative stress within her immature genes. "I would like to try the machine though."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"It's the whole reason for the gym," Caitlin says, and nods agreement with Heather before looking back at Irina. "We train pretty hard here, don't get me wrong. Accidents happen. I'm just really leery about sparring with people out of my weight class," she apologizes. "I would just be too worried I might accidentally hurt you. But there are a lot of people who might be game for it," she suggests as a consolation. "Nightwing, if you see him around. Or Robin. Gar might be an interesting guy to train with. He's a metamorph. Er--shapeshifter," she clarifies.

Heather Danielson has posed:
    Nodding her head, Heather approaches Irina, "How fast do you recover from injury? How tough -are- you? Caitlin here is on the upper end of ludicrous levels of strength. She could crush battle tanks with her hands and shrug off fire from the same tank. I might be able to tip a tank over, and would be blown to pieces by such attacks."

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 grew serious, her black-outlined eyes frowning a bit. "To push yourself and evolve requires risk and it requires situations that are far beyond your ordinary." She says, sounding as if she was repeating someone very carefully. "In order to excel I can't just take the ones that are around my level, I need to push above and make my body catch up to that level." She continues, much in the same way. She adds the final part then. "The body knows when it is outmatched, what it is facing, and recognizes the need to overcome that obstacle and evolve to survive." She takes a deep breath and relaxes, having recalled everything with accuracy. "That is what I must do. I require fights not just easy spars. Losing extremely hard and surviving is the victory I seek."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"If--" Caitlin smiles apologetically. "If you'll take a little free advice, that's a really dangerous way to train," she says as diplomatically as possible. "Even for someone like me or Heather. Just because I /can/ bounce back doesn't mean it's fun or healthy. I got shot in the pelvis a couple years ago and it took a month for the bone to fuse. I spent the entire time in bed. I could barely walk. I lost so much momentum at the gym it took me months to get it all back."

"We're all kind of fitness nuts here, so this is something we spend a lot of time sorting out," she explains to Irina. "Testing yourself to the absolute limit too many times has a way of wearing you down."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    "Caitlin.." begins Heather, "Nothing about Irina here strikes me as being normal. Irina.." She says, turning to regard the other woman. "Tell me, you aren't like me. Someone who lived a normal life and then got powers by accident, right? You were 'designed' to be what you are, weren't you?" she asks as she reaches a hand to -try- to place it on Irina's shoulder. "You strike me as someone who is trying to figure out the world with the innocence of a child."

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 blinks a few times, her throat produces some conflictive chittering noises with some worried grunts. She looks at the hand, then Heather, then breathes much more quickly than normal since the woman was getting dangerously close to the truth. She runs through her mind in a furious flash all her instructions and directives, was this fine? Was this too much? What was the protocol she needed to use to respond to this. It was like she was almost having a panic attack, which wasn't far off.

"I cannot answer that." She squeaks out finally, when it looked like she was about to hyperventilate herself unconscious. She groans, she wanted to say more, very visibly, but she starts to talk several times and stops herself, resulting in some strange babbling while she stared at the floor for an uncomfortable amount of time. Slowly a hand points at Caitlin. "Yes that is good, would be, I think. When the body puts itself back together it grows, it becomes stronger to shield itself from what injured it in the first place." She says once more, with measured accuracy on each word, carefully memorized from repetition.

"That is correct, though, I am not normal as I have come to realize since I've come into contact with the outside world." She smiles, seeming to become excited for a moment. "But it is fine. This is a required step but it will accomplish enormous things that will save the world and rid it forever, of all villany."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Well, abnormal's something we do well around here," Caitlin says, and flashes an encouraging dimple-cheeked smile. "We've got a fair amount of experience with, um.... people in your situation," she says quite delicately. Apparently she put a few things together from Heather's guarded inquiries but she's polite enough not to voice them explicitly.

"Listen, I do need to get to my workout. It was nice meeting you, Irina," she bids the girl. "If you ever want to talk or anything, I'm always around. While you're here, though, I'd recommend you relax. Nowhere's safer than Titans' Tower," she says, and grins again. "Sometimes it's nice to be low-key."

Cait flashes a smile at Heather. "Help yourself to more Snacky Shakes," she says, and wiggles a thumb at the fridge. "There's always more where those came from."

Heather Danielson has posed:
    SNACKY SHAKE! Heather totally yoinks one and cracks it open. She slugs down a large gulp and gives a relieved sigh afterwards. Then she nods and looks to Irina, "Yes. We are safe here. You are safe here. I will keep working out with you. I know I'm not the best, most dangerous, most powerful. But I am willing." Yeah. Heather has still been feeling a bit less than useful. Her strength is one of her signature things, and of those who are stronger than normal... hers is about the lowest level of them.
    It's become something of an emotional issue for her. Her ability to heal from nearly anything is useful. Painful but useful. She's using fight training with Irina to try to improve -her- combat skills too. "So, shall we?" She asks Irina, "If I'm enough for you that is."

Irina-As17 has posed:
Irina-AS17 smiles to the woman, nodding a few times. "I am not worried about safety, I just do not want to mess anything up. But thank you." She says with a reassuring squeak at the end. She does slip another snacky shake into her hands and starts absolutely inhaling it at unnatural speeds of drinking. "Yes, this training is good despite not being optimal." She replies after discarding the canister. She stands up and slides back over towards Heather, curling down into what was more or less her fighting stance, a spring-ready position that helped her rely on her agility.