No pain, no gain! (for kerflubble)

Getting ready for her workout, Mindy finished her warm-up stretches. She flexed her knee one last time, hugging it close to her chest, before letting go and getting up from the gym mat. She looked around; the gym was still as empty as when she had walked in. It was understandable, as few people were prone to working out this early in the day, but this was the first time Mindy had the AFW gym all to herself.

The rookie moved to the shoulder press machine. She was clad in her usual gym clothes, with a white sports bra and tight black and orange shorts. As she sat down and set the machine weights, she thought of her previous workouts here. She had been coming here quite often, which had allowed her to see a number of other AFW wrestlers exercising. The variety was stunning: some of them were extremely beautiful, others looked quite scary, and then there were those who were even bigger and stronger than Mindy. Each one of them was impressive in some way, and the thought of wrestling with them one day made Mindy a bit nervous. She couldn't fall behind.

With these thoughts in her head, she paused for one second before moving the weight pin down another notch. She then started doing her presses, tensing her shoulders as she lifted just a little more than she was used to.

Rebecca Tomoko was not a morning person. Despite never getting drunk despite how much alcohol she ended up drinking whenever they went out, she still got hungover, and the land of the rising sun was not kind to those who thought it was okay to have a sleep schedule of 3 am to 12 mid-day. Especially not when the sun only rose high enough to be dead level with the bedroom window. Deciding to make the most of it, she took as much water as she could and headed for the AFW gym, she was used to using more private ones for her training but it was good to get back into the swing of things in the main complex: find out if anything major was happening as well as be within distance to run in if she was required not to mention check out the competition.

The amazon was dressed fairly modestly for once, tracksuit pants and the loosest T-shirt she could find was fine for training even if it wasn't the sort of thing she'd normally compete in, this outfit despite doing nothing to hide how big she was did cover a lot of her muscles: no need to intimidate anyone today this was going to be a nice calm training session for once.

Mindy completed one, two, three sets of presses, letting out a few short grunts as her muscles overcame the machine's weights. At the end of the third set, the first beads of sweat started rolling down her face. She made a small pause, wiping her brow with a towel before starting her next set.

Just as she made the first few presses, she heard the gym door opening, and someone walked into her field of vision. Mindy quickly recognized the woman; she had seen her in the gym a couple of times before, although she didn't know her name, and she had caught Mindy's attention by being possibly the tallest wrestler she had seen yet. Just the other day, she had been bench pressing some enormous dumbbells like it was nothing. Today, however, the amazon was wearing more concealing clothes than usual, so her impressive muscles weren't very visible; only her toned, strong arms were in plain sight.

Lost in her thoughts, Mindy caught herself looking straight at the bigger woman, trying to have a better look at her physique. Embarrassed, she quickly averted her gaze, wondering if she had been staring too hard.

Rebecca had just started to warm up, swinging her arms around and stretching out her neck when she started to feel like she was being watched. "Hmm?" She let out, turning to the woman who had been staring at her: she was no small fry herself. A lot skinnier than the amazon but tall and muscled and... dammit now she was the one staring. Shaking her head she tried to get back to stretching, slipping on a pair of fingerless padded gloves before continuing her upper body warm up, she was planning on using the heavy bags today to work on her striking but maybe she needed a more all around workout. There were very few people over 6 feet tall in AFW and fewer actually used the gym, maybe it would be good to practice with someone her size for once.

After stretching out her legs on the practice ring she moved over to the blonde, trying not to look like she had been sizing her up "Hey..." she said "Don't think I've seen you before, you new here?" She asked, trying to make conversation.

After her slip-up, Mindy held her head down low and decided to concentrate on her own workout, wanting to pretend that nothing happened; however, her rhythm slowed down after noticing that she was the one being watched now. "Oh god, she noticed me staring at her! She totally noticed!" The fact that the amazon was now moving towards her only made Mindy more nervous. Was she upset?

The short "hey" made Mindy raise her head once again, just to see the other woman right next to her. She looked even bigger up close. Mindy stopped her reps. "Ah... yes, I'm new here! My name's Mindy," she said with a nervous smile. She was pretty sure she had been noticed back then, so there was no point in acting as if she didn't do it. "Um... sorry, I didn't mean to stare at you... it's just that you have such nice muscles, I couldn't help but look at them..." Did that sound weird? She wondered how the other woman would react.

Rebecca cocked her head to the side, it was rare for her physique to be described as "nice." Impressive, imposing, cool and stuff but never nice. "...I get compliments all the time..." Rebecca tried to pass it off. It was kind of silly: the two were the biggest and strongest in the gym, the two who looked like they could take on everyone else in the joint and here they were acting like strangers in high school. "Yeah, so... nice to meet you. I'm Rebecca Tomoko." she said, stretching out her hand.

It seemed that Rebecca didn't mind Mindy's staring, and in fact was acting friendly; that was a huge relief for the rookie. Her smile got more relaxed as she got up from the machine and shook Rebecca's hand. "Nice to meet you, Rebecca." Even after standing, Mindy was still a good few inches shorter than Rebecca; looking up at someone was an unusual experience to her.

After shaking hands, Mindy felt like Rebecca still wanted something else from her. She decided to take a wild guess. "Say... since we're already here, why don't we train together?"

Rebecca had to resist all the urges to breath a sigh of relief as Mindy seemed to warm up to her, even suggesting they train together. "Sure, sounds good to train with someone about my size for once." She said, "So what's the lifting record at?" She asked, indicating the machine that the powerhouse had been using.

Mindy was happy to have Rebecca take up her offer. Talking to her like this, she wasn't nearly as intimidating. "Hmm... on this one, I usually do 8 sets of 155 pounds, which is about my body weight." She then looked back at the machine's weight pin. "Although I'm lifting a bit more today... I was thinking of pushing myself a little, now that I'm a pro wrestler and all." She then turned back to Rebecca. "So, what do you want to do? I'd really like a spar... get some more experience under my belt. If you're okay with it, of course!" Rebecca didn't know if the veteran was up for doing this with a rookie, but she hoped so; it would be her first spar against anyone other than her old training partner.

Nodding her head along with Mindy "Yeah, it's good to push yourself, never know when you're gonna need that little bit extra." Rebecca said, taking note of how much weight Mindy was moving. She didn't look like she was only 155lbs. Cecilia Northman was 3 inches shorter than her and built around the same structure, muscles and curves. She didn't look to skinny either. "A spar?" Rebecca repeated, snapping her out of her train of thought. "Sure, be good to do some one on one stuff for once. I should probably go change though. See you in about 5 minutes." She said, taking her bag and heading for the changing room.


"Okay, got my ring gear on: I'm ready."