Mi Hermana y Yo

Carmen nodded and followed his eyes to the clock. About eighty pushups.

"Don't worry," She kept her tone calm and placid, though there was an ominous tone underneath it all. "I'll get them all before we're through." Carmen stood up and raised her arms high, then pulled them down by the elbows, extending her shoulders to get all the kinks out. She was still just a bit sore from getting slammed around in her last match, but it was nothing some adequate preparation wouldn't fix.

"For now, just stretch a bit, limber up, and we'll talk while you go at it." She took a few steps back and leaned on the ropes, giving him space. "Tell me about your experience fighting women. You and Amy've fought, right? Who else?"

“Women? I don’t have too much experience. I don’t think I’ve fought any women until I got here, except for Amy.” Nathan thought about it as he stretched out his shoulders. “But here I’ve had two matches so far. One was with a girl named Cherise, who was a submissions specialist. We grappled, and she got a pin on me. The other took place in the women's dorms, and it was less of a match and more…” Nathan shuddered. “It was more like she wanted to eat me. Luckily somebody somewhere pulled a fire alarm, and the match was canceled.”

Nathan switched shoulders. "I heard what Amy told you about my history, and she got the gist of it right. I won every regional tournament I entered, and I went to Reno twice for youth nationals, but I never got higher than top eight. And the Boxing Club open tourney was intercollegiate, but anyone not part of a club didn't really know what they were doing." It may have sounded like bragging, but Nathan wasn't looking to impress Carmen. She was clearly looking to get a sense of his experience, and Nathan just wanted her to have as complete a picture as he could offer.

'The women's dorms'. It took Carmen a moment to process what Nathan was talking about, but it clicked soon enough. She'd almost forgotten the strange setup Sex Wars had with everyone living under the same roofs and fighting on a campus and...just weird stuff like that. Needless to say, she was glad not to be around for that. She didn't even want to think about how she'd react to some boy challenging her to a fight when she was in the middle of a shower. Blood would spill.

She nodded along as he listed off his achievements, humbly laying them out. It was a decent history, one that would have made most boxers envious. Most crashed and burned long before they ever got as far as Nathan had.

"That's good. We probably won't introduce anything to you today that you've never done before, but I do intend to go a bit harder than you might be used to." She looked him over, getting a better feel for his body than the last time they met now that he wasn't covered in the coat. "You've obviously kept your body in decent shape. What's your routine? Walk me through it, step by step."

Nathan switched to stretching out his quads. He grabbed his left foot behind him and held a rope for balance. "I don't do anything special. I swim for half an hour every morning, followed by a half an hour of free weights at the Tension gym- shoulders and arms one day, legs and back the next." That was the best benefit about being with the AFW so far that he could see- the free, unlimited, and always open gym membership. "I fit in some high jump burpees, squats, and push-ups between the swimming and the weights. I also play basketball for a few hours with the locals whenever I get a chance, comes to about three times a week." It was usually the best part of his week. He was going to miss those hours when he started picking up matches. He switched legs and cocked his head. "I've been eating a lot more fish since coming to Japan, and a lot fewer burgers, so I'm sure that's helped me stay in shape. So yeah- lots of cardio, and a bunch of exercises to help my ball game."

Carmen rubbed her chin and mulled it over a  moment before she spoke. "That's not bad. But." She pushed off the ropes and started to circle around him, looking him over from a few different angles. "We're going to have to step it up if you're serious about getting back into competitiion. We're talking sparring matches, drills, more time around the bags, training videos - the works. Ideally, I'd like - like - for you to start training here instead of the Tension gym. There's a fee here, but the tradeoff would be having a work area that's more specialized to your needs. No waiting to use the ring, sharing equipment with less people, and you'll always have someone to work with. Just a thought, but if you want to work with me longer term, it will make things easier."

Carmen crouched by her bag and took out the tape. She started to wrap up her fists, carefully circling it around to make sure she covered as much as she could. "Tell me about your style. Your potential style. If we get past your hangup and you and me have a match, how are you coming at me?"

Nathan nodded. He hadn't been expecting to train for free, but, at the same time, he wasn't sure how to broach the subject. Unlike Amy, he wasn't somebody that could instantly speak his mind, so he found himself extremely grateful that Carmen mentioned the gym fee in regular conversation, saving him the trouble and the awkwardness of asking. "I agree. I think that makes the most sense. I've got a lot of ground to make up, and any sort of accelerated track will be well worth the premium."

Nathan put his naked hands up, got into an orthodox stance, and imagined Carmen as his opponent. It was surreal, to say the least. It had been so long since he'd last boxed, and here he was, in the ring with somebody he'd seen on the world stage on television. He shook his head and tried to remember how he'd go about it.

He bounced on his heels, willing his muscles to remember their training. They were about the same height, so the reach was probably about the same. He probably couldn't count on her to make mistakes- alright, wait, I should think of her as just a faceless woman, and not Carmen. He thought for a second further, then put down his hands.

"I wouldn't be. I'd stay out here, waiting for you. If you tried to wait me out, I'd hit you from long range, maybe lure you in with flicker jabs, and then hit you with  counterpunches. I've only ever won on my quickness." That sounded right; some of the words even felt familiar in his mouth. He reached up with his hands and stretched out, a smile on his face. It had been a while, and it'd be a while yet till he was back up to competition level, but he was starting to feel comfortable in the ring again.

It was a good thing Nathan was willing to pay, because, really, Carmen was in no position to hand out freebies. The gym had a huge overhead, and while she was doing well enough to keep them in the black, things were routinely on the edge. Every dime in the bucket helped. Immensely.

She watched as he got into position and started to move, taking careful notes on the way he swayed, the positions, the look in his eyes and the stress in his thighs. It was a decent form. Maybe too mechanical, but she had some ideas on fixing that.

"That's all well and good. For a man." She stood in front of him and brought her own stance up, mirroring his. "But you're up against women, now." She threw out a few quick jabs, rattling them off lightning fast. "Most of the women in Tension rely on agility and speed. Trying to beat them at their own game might just get your worn out."

Carmen moved from side and side, swaying in and out of his view. "You said that you spar with Amy? How does that typically go?"

Nathan blinked as taped fists appeared and disappeared from his vision, a poster-perfect demonstration of her point. Carmen was being very thorough, and he knew that he was very lucky for her focus and personalized analysis. But Nathan frowned. He might have been a little rusty, but Nathan DID know how to box. He had a style that worked for him, and he had fallen into that style precisely because it worked for him- a light, lanky, not-quite-powerful puncher with agile and explosive legs. Her point was valid, but it would be a pain to start from scratch, to build another style from the ground up, and he wasn't sure if becoming anything other than an outboxing counterpuncher was something he had the confidence or energy to do.

He'd have to bring it up later. For now: Amy. "We've only sparred once since we've met up again; I lost. But when we used to spar in college, it was about even between us, and that's without strikes."

Nathan lost. That was interesting. Carmen remembered Amy mentioning her victory in a sparring match, but that was before she'd actually seen him Now that she had...

Carmen ran a hand under her chin and she tried to picture it. A few things didn't seem to add up. "You say you were even in college, but she beat you here. In fact, Amy said you were a, uh...pushover." She scratched the back of her head, being a little embarrassed for Army's new friend. "So either she's gotten a lot better since then or you've gotten a lot worse - no offense. How did you lose?"

Not only would it help her target his problem areas, Carmen was genuinely curious how a girl Amy's size could be a guy Nathan's size.

Nathan took a step back. Shit. “Ah. Well." He cleared his throat. He was gonna have to lie.

“Amy's always been a fighter, but she actually is a lot better than she was back then; she mentioned picking up lessons.” Not a lie. “And I might actually be a lot worse than I used to be; she'd know that best. It’ll definitely be a while before my head’s used to taking those kinds of hits again at least.” Also not a lie.

Nathan took a deep breath. You should definitely lie. You need to lie here. "Every time Amy and I fight, though, we include a hentai win condition. The first person to score a pin, submission, KO, or orgasm wins the fight. She beat me in the gym using that last one." Yup. Good work, asshole.

Nathan voice managed to stay even throughout, but when he finished, his face was flushed. He started to do some toe touches so that he could avoid looking directly at Carmen.