ArchivedLogs:Bad Workout

Bad Workout
Dramatis Personae Lorna, Noah Ringe, Sage, Trib	2014-02-25 Trib takes Noah to a gym. It goes about as you'd expect.
Location <NYC> Foswell's Gym - Hell's Kitchen
Foswell's Gym is not the /fanciest/ of gyms, catering more to the boxing crowd than the Zumba dancers and their ilk, although there's plenty of signage encouraging non-boxing people to take advantage of their amenities. Located on the edge of Midtown and Clinton, it's almost a Hell's Kitchen landmark. Particularly since the owner, former boxer 'Foggy' Nelson, is one of the very few in the area who doesn't do business with Wilson Fisk. As a result, many of the locals come here to train alongside the boxers. The layout is relatively simple; a large room with a boxing ring in the middle. To the right of the entrance, a pair of doors lead to modest locker rooms and shower facilities. On one side of the gym are a line of punching bags, both heavy and speed, as well as a row of butterfly weight machines. On the other, weight benches line up in front of a rack containing weights from 5 to 100 pounds as well as dumbells with similar range. Towards the back, a glass wall looks onto a room padded with heavy canvas where often self-defense classes can be seen taking place. Next to that room, a door with the words OWNER/MANAGER marks the office beyond. Trib loves coming to Foswell's Gym. It's really the kind of place a serious boxer /should/ be working out in. It's almost a Zen sort of place, when the rhythm is just right. It's not tonight, though, for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that tonight, Trib has coaxed Noah out of his hidey hole, to tag along with the explicit instructions that screeching was /not okay/. So here the boxer is, dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants, and a sleeveless grey sweat shirt. His hands are taped up, and he's grinning a bit as he addresses the other man. "See, Franz, boxin' is a fuckin' /art/. You gotta approach it with fuckin' power /an/ finesse." He dances in place, and shadow-boxes at the giant insectoid playfully. "If you do it sweet enough, you can fuckin' win without even knockin' the other guy out." Said insectoid 'Franz' is a whole other breed of conspicuous compared to the others that are currently using the facility, and already pulls plenty of stares and muttering. A few people have already left, but peer in from outside, as if waiting for something interesting to happen (from relative safety). He's currently partially sitting against his heels back and to one side from Trib, massive spined tail curled around his clawed feet in tightly, as he sits in the strong florescent lighting that makes him stick out even more glaringly in this place. He hasn't screeched, since Trib asked so nicely, but is having a little bit of navigation issues: and therefore is staying low, and moving carefully, which probably reads as shyness or being tentative. To the conversation, Noah makes a sort of chalkboardy sound with his teeth, and flops his tail once, which makes a crunching sound on the floor. "I just wanna know how strong I am, before they call cops all over us," Noah comments dryly, and a bit loudly, as if making sure the whole room can hear him (although this is just his normal volume). He seems to take the boxing at him with either a lot of patience, or a lack of awareness-- generally it's hard to tell if Noah notices things, since he doesn't make expressions. Lorna has finally convinced Sage to go shopping. She must have been fairly sure she wouldn't get Sage into a Barney's or some other high-end department store. So instead they've been prowling the out of the way boutiques and Lorna's phone says there's supposed to be a great one nearby here. But when they walk by the big glass windows at the front of the gym, Lorna slows and stops, staring it at the goings on. "Um," she says, reaching out to touch Sage's elbow. "Hang on. That just looks like... a scene waiting to happen. Do you mind if we hang out for a minute?" Lorna turns and steps closer to the window to get herself out of foot traffic. Her dark green hair is pulled back and tucked under a slouchy gray knit hat. She's also wearing a black pea coat, a gray cable-knit sweater, and form-fitting jeans with black walking boots. And what a hard sell it was. Sage doesn't like shopping. She only goes out to eat and fulfil her weekly 'out of mansion' hours she's keeping to. If she could live like that, she'd never leave. "I do not mind.". Sage goes up to the window, glancing inside, before pausing. It only takes her a second to scan all the faces in there. "That man, he is the one who helped me solve the dream situation. I do not recognize anyone else.". And then Sage pays attention to 'Franz'. "Oh, that must be the scene you were speaking of.". Sage is dressed in an XS hoodie, sweat pants, and boots, with ATHENA on her face. No wonder Lorna took her out shopping. Trib snorts at Noah's wish, and tips his head to one side. "Dude. You fuckin' tore down a fuckin' wall like it was made of fuckin' gingerbread. How much stronger you fuckin' need to be?" He doesn't wait for an answer, already clapping a hand against the chitinous hide to help direct the other man towards the weight benches. "What you want to fuckin' start with? Four hundred? Six?" He returns a glare from a group of dissatisfied boxers who've congregated by the heavy bags. "Hey, if you're cruisin' me, sunshine, that's against the fuckin' gym rules. Keep it in your pants, an' your eyes in your fuckin' head." He ignores the finger the other man gives him in reply, gently (for Trib) steering Noah towards the goal. At the clap of hand, Trib will actually feel the slight mutation shift under his palm, as Noah's mutant nature reacts to it. "Bah, I'm plenty strong, just want to know HOW strong. And you can read the amounts!" Noah announces, seeming to be entirely uninterested in anyone else that's present or what cheerful bird signals they are flapping. "Wish they'd turn up the music more," Noah adds, of the general gym music, and directly hops up onto a weigh bench, tail suddenly whipped out as automatic counterbalance, and striking a pile of weights with a loud slamming sound, as if ringing a gong: let the weight games begin. "No idea. ...aw, I'm gonna mess up this nice little bench," Noah observes, as if torn between amusement and dismay, squeezing his hands on the sides of the bench he's hopped onto. There's likely more than one employee that's trying to figure out how to get rid of them, by this point, but the obvious mutant seems entirely focused on the bench itself and his buddy Trib. Lorna's eyes go wide when Noah accidentally bumps the stack of weights. When it becomes clear the hundreds of pounds of iron isn't going to right itself, her hand shoots out in a clear pantomime of holding something up. She braces herself against the glass with her other hand, apparently not worried about appearances, because she is obviously the reason the tower is currently suspended at a 45 degree angle. "Sage," Lorna says through gritted teeth. "Could you open the door for me?" Lorna steps in the direction of the door, but it seems holding nearly a half ton of weight takes a lot of her concentration. "If this delays clothing shopping, yes.". Sage's humor is emotionless, as she grabs the door. "Do you believe we will need to step in? These people are boxers, yes, but I believe we could handle them if it came to blows, which I hope it does not.". Sage is eying the boxers just incase, spotting weaknesses, limps, anything physical she can notice. "Well, yeah I can read 'em," Trib says, narrowing his eyes at Noah. "I ain't /that/ fuckin' dumb." He doesn't seem bothered, though. Until the weight rack is struck, and he makes a surprised sort of grunt, moving as if he might catch it. But...it doesn't need catching, since it hangs there. The big man blinks at the spectacle, then glances over at the annoyed-looking boxers -- who look even /more/ annoyed at this display. "Hey, it ain't fuckin' /me/," he says, placing a meaty hand against his chest. defensively. "Probably you racist fucks. Pissed off that Magnet-oh sumbitch." And, /that/ little factoid delivered, Trib steps carefully out of the way, in case the weights decide to start flying around. "I'll buy 'em a new one if you do," he assures Noah, eyeing first the weights, and then the boxers muttering darkly among themselves. "They ain't /that/ much money." "I /can't/ read them," Noah reminds Trib, picking up on Trib's tone more than the eye narrowing. "I guess I'm fucking dumb?" he adds starkly, but laughs a little bit, his annoyance a joke, evidently. He turns partially towards the weights, with simple curiosity. "They're floating?" Noah questions, interested, and abruptly does what he usually does with such questions: he hops forwards off the bench, and shoves at the top weights that are being held, to see what happens. Will they fall? It's an interesting situation to the armored mutant. He didn't just a lot of pressure, but enough to have made normal weights tumble to the floor, if they were normally stacked, instead of at 45 degrees. Lorna takes a deep breath, stands up straight and puts her shoulders back as she enters the boxer's den. Her arm is still outstretched as she approaches the stack, and as she gets closer, her control over the weights increases. The stack jiggles and clanks when Noah pushes at it, but actually starts right itself as Lorna says calmly, "Please don't do that. They're actually pretty heavy..." Lorna nods at Trib, and the base of the stack coming back to rest near his foot. "Watch your foot, guy," she says with a weak smile, and then sets it up with a sigh of relief. Sage walks in after Lorna, eying the boxers, everyone of them. She's looking for the staff member, and her feet are already in a defense stance, though her arms are at her side, as she turns to Trib. She recognizes him. Who knows if he recognizes her. "Are you and your friend facing any problems?". Sage says this as robotically as usual. /That/ might remind Trib. "Hey, don't fuckin' /touch/ 'em," Trib says as Noah moves to do just that. His frown for this act is mighty, indeed, and he folds his arms across his chest. He looks like he might be about to deliver a blistering lecture on touching strange floating items, but there are women approaching and speaking. The boxer's expression flattens a bit as he notes the woman with the outstretched arm, his gaze falling on the wisps of green that escape her hat. Then his attention shifts to Sage, and he makes a grunting note of recognition. "You're the chick from the center," he declares, then glances over at the group of boxers. "Nothin' I can't handle," he answers the question. "Those guys are a bunch of fuckin' pussies." His eyebrows lift as Lorna sets the weights back down, and he grunts once, shortly. "Fuckin' impressive." From across the gym, a voice rises with pointed inflection. "Fuckin' /freaks/. Goddamned mutants are fuckin' ruinin' /every/ fuckin' place." The arrival of two new people, particularly one that's speaking as if she's the one holding the weights, disorients the black spined mutant, who jerks back away from the weights, in a half-spring back onto his weight bench, talons on feet automatically gripping the bench's edges harshly. He monitors the women, and then the 'pussies', and 'forgets' Trib's commentary about the screeching. "Ruined?" Noah mutters, although it's easily loud enough for those nearby him to hear, it's more quiet than his usual. "I'll show 'em /ruined/," he growls. Unpredictably, the crouched suddenly leaps off the bench, directly at the group of boxers, and unleashes one of his screams. An unholy shriek. It's not just a scream intending to just be used to echo, it's deliberately meant to terrify, at top wailing volume, and vibrates horribly off the gym mirrors and metal. He gapes his jaws wide, his jaw unnaturally hinging, the long fangs many inches in uneven rows, the shriek tilting higher and eerie, arching bony black tail and claws lifted up and out in a very, very practiced display to horrify. Lorna scrambles back and away from Noah's terrifying display, even as a dozen weighted iron plates fly into a defensive orbit around her. These seem to require little to no effort on her part as she crouches, ready for anything. She winces as the boxers shout and cringe away from Noah. They fall over themselves to get away from him, several winding up in a small pile. "For god's sake, don't fucking /provoke/ him, you morons," Lorna says firmly. The weights circle her lazily, ready to intercept any kind of offensive move. "Fuck off, lady, who the fuck asked /you/?" one of the boxers calls from the anonymity of the dog pile. "You insulted this person for no reason, and got his version of a 'go fuck yourself'. What did you /think/ would happen?" Lorna scoffs at the men, and straightens from her defensive crouch, though she doesn't release the weights. The group's previous bravado looks to be waning fast in light of the clearly unfair fight before them. "Sage," Lorna asks. "You know this guy right? Can you get him and his friend out the back? I'll cover you." "We met once for about less than two minutes.". Sage is a quick corrector, waving a hand towards them running towards the back. "Oh, and fuck you, you bigots.". A small flash of a grin, EMOTION! She's been working on that. Sage grabs the door, opening it. "Will your friend fit? I personally do not care if you destroy the wall, it is not my building.". "Fuckin' /hell/," Trib growls, immediately following Noah across the gym. "Franz, come the fuck back here!" He doesn't sound very happy to be made to chase the other man, and indeed, his expression is super dark as he moves to head off the bigger mutant, taking most of the worst of that scream in his face. "Let's just get the fuck out of here," he says, already reaching up to physically attempt to turn the man around. "They're just a bunch of fuckin' racist meatheads. The juice fucks with their brain, makes 'em dumber'n you or me." He nods sharply at Lorna's idea. "Yeah, c'mon, Roach," he says, uncharacteristcally using the man's preferred name. "Let's beat feet before the boys in blue come back, an' I wind up back in a fuckin' cage." He shrugs at Sage. "I figure if he does, it's Foggy's problem for lettin' dogshit like that into his place." And then he's giving Noah a tiny nudge. "C'mon. Follow the pretty lady's voice." Actually, most of what stops Franz/Roach/Noah is that Trib actually did get directly in front of him, and that was hardly what he expected. His jaws snap shut very abruptly. "Sssss," Roach snarls, tone grumpy. "It would be /no/ time to disembowel them and still have time to quickly still test the weights before anybody got here---" he argues, in a very loud way, probably for the hearing pleasure of the pile of boxers. His tone, if anything, is sulky and 'provoked.' He isn't too difficult to steer, but does kick the weight bench over when they walk past it, in a sort of tantrum way, suggesting he's probably fairly young, by the behavior. That he can flip one of the heavy benches with a kick proves he probably can't measure his lifting class very well in this gym -regardless-. But he'll follow: for now, anyway. "Let us go. I am also taken, sir.". Sage says this to Trib as he calls her pretty. "You have met my significant other.". And then she's changing the subject. "Let us go, Mr. Roach, sir.". And she's leading them out the back into the alleyway behind the gym. "I believe this is where we part. "Cool, thanks guy," Lorna says to Trib. She winces again at Noah's horrid suggestion, but apparently she assumes he's just blustering because she doesn't take it too seriously. As she backs away from the boxers slowly disentangling themselves, the weights orbiting her drift off one by one to stack themselves neatly in a likely-looking place before she finally turns and dashes out the back door, shutting it behind her. "Holy shit," she says, leaning back against the wall. The sweat on her brow shines in the light of the halogen lamp stuck above the alley door. She takes her hat off and runs frustrated fingers through her hair. "Holy shit," she says again, quietly, and then looks up. "Everybody's ok, right?" "Yeah, 'cause /that/ will make life a fuckin' /picnic/," Trib growls in response to Noah's idea. "You can't go around fuckin' cuttin' up people that act like assholes. You live in fuckin' New York. You'd be knee-fuckin'-deep in bodies before you got a block." He keeps nudging the bulky mutant out the door. He snorts at Sage's address, and rolls his eyes. "Sweetheart, I'm as queer as a goddamned /goose/. I ain't askin' you to the fuckin' prom just cause I fuckin' called you /pretty/." He inhales deeply as they emerge into the frigid air, and leans against the brick of the building. When Lorna emerges, he rolls his head to offer her a flat expression. "We're fuckin' /peachy/," he growls. "Only now I'm gonna freeze to fuckin' death, 'cause all my clothes are in the fuckin' gym." "They started it," Noah argues, with the same awesome logic of a child in a backseat over who's touching whom. But there's new information, as Noah remarks without any tact, "You're GAY?" at Trib, surprised in tone, but it's probably hard to decipher which way he feels about that. "....At least you have gym clothes on," Noah recovers with, reasonably rapidly, and looks back to the door Lorna just came through. "I'll get them," he says, a little bit too eagerly, tempted by the warmth inside, and clearly without any real fear of the boxers. "the /clothes/, not the guys," he clarifies as if well aware of what that could have been taken as, already starting to tremble and shiver at the outdoor temprature. "Whoa whoa whoa," Lorna says, a confused smile on her face as she steps into Noah's way. She is really not sure how much these guys were joking about butchery in the streets. Lorna puts a gentle hand on the mutant's armored shoulder and steers him back to the alley. "Unless one of you left some Armani gear back there, I'd say it isn't worth it." She glances up and down the alley, checking both exits and then nods at Trib. "I'm also guessing you two didn't take a fucking /cab/ here, so you must live pretty close. How about my friend and I just watch your back to get you home? This has already been one hell of a night...."