Prinnys and personal problems (w/ Bluemouse)

"Hmph!" Adrian responded, turning her back to Taylor to try and hide the smile on her face. No need to resort to mocking her as well, although it was difficult not to laugh at Taylor's prat fall. "Serves you right," the cosplayer huffed "now since my ride doesn't arrive here for another hour I guess I'll just have to actually do some training." She said out loud, walking towards the treadmills.

...And then the girl just walked away.

If she was going to spray paint Taylor's face green with her face, the least she could do was stick around rub it in and let Taylor try to avenge her face. All thoughts of apologies were washed out of her mind by a river of green rage. She watched the girl climb onto a treadmill. Her eye twitched.

After pulling herself back up to her feet, she started for the bathroom to clean herself up, but stopped. She tried again and stopped again. Part of her just wanted to be back to her natural colors, but a significant part of her didn't want to give this crazy girl the satisfaction of her actually having to clean up. But then, she didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing her walk around all green. For a moment Taylor was frozen in place by indecision.

"Rrrr!" She growled, frustrated, and booted her stupid medicine ball away, hurting her sore foot some more in the process. She took a moment to calm herself and keep from flipping out and trying to kill the ball or the girl, and then marched off to the treadmills herself.

She climbed onto one right next to Adrian. Maybe her competitive side had staged a coup and taken over her brain while it was at war with itself, but Taylor had a strong urge to show this girl up. She started up the treadmill and matched the girl's pace. Then she bumped the 'up' arrow a couple times and set her pace just a little higher than the girls.

She knew it was a bad idea. She knew that. Her legs were already unsteady and half-spent from her workout so far, she probably wasn't going to be out-sprinting someone, and she was certainly not a distance runner. Even with a treadmill she could never convince her body to slow down enough to be able to maintain a steady pace over a long distance. She always ended up going too fast, just like what she was in danger of doing here.

Although it had been interrupted by someone who shall not be named, the long break had served it's purpose as Adrian felt absolutely fine on the treadmill, at a fairly reasonable speed to try and build up stamina, until she saw a faint bit of green out of the corner of her eye. One that set her treadmill just a teensy bit higher than Adrian, a challenge of speed. Oh I'll show you, Adrian thought, slamming the up button twice, not about to let Taylor out-perform her, not at least while she still had the mist on her face.

Taylor settled into a rhythm. She felt fine at that pace, she could have a conversation pretty easily if she had to. Her lungs felt fine. It was just that her legs... didn't. High intensity leg exercises followed by running had a way of leading to someone flipping horrifically off the end of a treadmill.

But Taylor wasn't just anybody. She wasn't going to lose. She couldn't lose, she was in too deep to turn back now. She looked down with contempt as Adrian increased her pace over Taylor's. For a brief moment, common sense put up a fight but it was quickly overwhelmed. She poked the up arrow a few more times to bring her pace just a little higher than Adrian's again.

"So hi, how's it going?" Taylor asked Adrian, figuring that if she got the girl talking she might be able to expose how quickly she got out of breath. "I'm Taylor, you probably don't know me since I haven't been in any Pokemon games. Not yet. And, um, did you want to take off your super-sweet early-nineties vest? Usually I just run vestless."

Adrian looked back as she jogged on the treadmill, it would have probably been a better idea to lose the extra weight... the clothes... first but it was nothing to worry about, her breathing may start to get ragged if she went faster but her legs were fine. Then she heard a few clicks, it seems Taylor was trying to challenge her, and start a conversation. Two could play at that game.

"Well it's been pretty boring so far," the cosplayer responded as she added a few more clicks to her treadmill's run speed "Adrian Kytes, nice to meet you." She said with a sickly sweet smile, a few droplets of green still on her lips. "It's not like the vest makes any differance, stamina building is stamina building." she said as a few beads of sweat dropped down her forehead, really starting to regret the extra heat the vest brought, not that she was gonna let Taylor know that.

"Well then I guess there's nothing to worry about, is there."

Taylor did her best to keep a relaxed stride and good form. Their speed was now safely above a casual jog, and she felt good, was breathing well, she just wished her damn legs would just settle down and get to work. It hurt, her legs burned like crazy, but they still moved so she could just push through it.

"Isn't Adrian like, a dude's name? Well I guess I'm not one to talk. But my name rocks. You might as well be 'Albert'." She bumped her speed up some more to barely exceed Adrian's and did her best to avoid showing any signs of fatigue. "So are you in the Kawaii league? Aren't you a little big for that?"

Adrian eventually settled into her stride at the slightly increased speed, everything was fine, her legs were going on strong, her breathing was still good, just a little bit of sweat from wearing to many clothes. "Hey, if it's your name it's your name. It's more neutral than anything else." She said, slightly annoyed. First her weight now her name? Taylor was just asking for her vision to go a different colour again now.

"Hah? The Kwaii league? No way, I'm in with the big boys, girls, you know what I mean." She laughed, even though she slightly stumbled over her words a bit "managed to beat one of the top ten a few days back so yeah, feeling pretty good about it. Title can't be that far away." She said with a small smirk, bumping up her speed to something significantly higher than Taylor's, forcing her to run it instead of jog but she could take it, at least for a while.

Taylor's temper came close to boiling when Adrian boasted about the title. There was no way in hell that this little nobody was going to come in and get a shot at the title before her, and be so non-freaking-chalant about it. Didn't matter, anyway, if she got a shot at the title that'd mean Akashi, and Akashi would annihilate this little geek.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the soft beeping of the neighboring treadmill as Adrian brought her speed up to a flat-out run. Taylor cringed inside, and hoped she didn't let it show. She reached down, her finger hesitating over the button to at least match Adrian's speed. She took a deep breath and raised her speed again.

Her legs felt like they were filling up with cement. Pointy cement. She grit her teeth together, and after a while she couldn't help but reach down and smack her hip flexors with her knuckles to try to massage them back into working order. It didn't work.

She glanced over at Adrian to see how she was doing. There was no way she could keep this pace up for too long. All Taylor had to do was hang on for long enough and then she could do a little gloating and hobble off to collapse in the shower. She wasn't sure if she'd make it, though, she felt herself starting to lag a little behind the treadmill.

"Gah..." She said under her breath. Shit. Hopefully Adrian didn't hear.

Okay perhaps turning a contest of stamina into a sprint was not the best decision made in the last 5 minutes, she could feel her legs starting to ache and she couldn't help but pant as she ran, trying to resist all temptation to up the speed again to try and really show Taylor what she was capable of, but she had to admit: For a schoolyard bully Taylor was doing a good job keeping up with her.

Too bad she wouldn't allow herself to be beaten at this, or even let Taylor have any indication that she was doing well, other than the panting, the panting was to lull her into a false sense of security while she just continued on, even if her lungs did feel like they were caught in one of Rebecca's strongest bearhugs and her legs felt like they were cramping up. Just get her to fall off the end Adrian she thought with a sense of determination then you can hammer the down button all you like.

Taylor was wilting quickly. She held onto the rail on the treadmill with one hand and used it to support a little of her weight. She wasn't going to last. Sure, she was at her target heart rate, but the cement in her legs was solidifying. It was no use. She couldn't win. But she could not lose. She did what any determined competitor would do. She reached over and planted her finger firmly on the 'up' button of Adrian's treadmill.

If she wasn't going to win, she could at least take Adrian down with her. Damn this girl and Taylor's lack of foresight! Why couldn't this have happened before she burnt out her legs?