Hitting the Gym!

The best place to situate a Gym was in a residential district! Most people would come by on their way to or from work. Superheroes were no exception! However because of the differences in Super Heroes the Super Hero foundation stepped in helping any institution that wanted to service Super Heroes!

MEGA-MUSCLES Super Workouts! was no different from any other Gym except that it catered to a specific clientele, most notably Super Heroes and had a modest entry fee, for anyone that could produce a Superhero Foundation Identification card. The facilities were equipped for those with super strength, super agility and super stamina, including those with not as super features.

Walking in Roy produced his SFID and the cash for a week-long pass. It was all he could afford with what was left of his allowance money! Though he had a promise to keep. He'd also managed to fill up his bike on what was left as well, so he wouldn't be immobilized until he worked up another few bucks for allowance!
He would move into the changing room and discard his riding gear into a rental locker and come back out to the exercise floor in his workout outfit. A white muscle shirt and a pair of athletic shorts, perfect for exertion and exercise! Now all the intrepid would-be-hero needed was for his newest workout partner to show her face and they could get down to business! He had quite the workout planned, and it was mostly planned around her mobility level. He'd sat down and taken the time to figure out the best path to work through the Gym with maximum effect.

Roy was curious as to how strong Dia really was, and how strong she would become!

By the time Roy was in the locker room and getting changed, Dia had arrived as well and gone through the same process, having entered her own locker room by the time he emerged newly dressed and prepared for a hard day of exercise and exertion. It would be a bit of wait time before Dia would finally emerge from her own locker room and call out to him in greeting.

"Oh, hi..." she spoke up with a small hip-height wave of her hand and a warm smile. She'd taken to wearing a loose-fitting cotton shirt with sleeves long enough to cover her arms as she usually did and a body length long enough to fall down around her hips. Under that was a pair of black yoga pants with some basic socks and sneakers on her feet. She was rather glad that her legs hadn't undergone the same mutation that her arms had. It meant that she could choose her footwear!

Roy smiled and waved greatly when Dia exited the locker room she'd changed in. She looked so different in work out clothing. It was kind of a relief to see that she could dress down like this and not always wear something so formal and good looking, then again when you felt you looked different from everyone else, being as sharply dressed as Diamante was, must have been a must. Roy would give her a good look head to toe, before looking at one of the charts on the walls for people with super strength.

The machines were set up in Work Out Circuits. You did a number of reps on a machine before moving to the next and starting that way. They would go in a big horse shoe around the room, from the top the place looking like several successively smaller 3 leafed clovers stacked on top of each for all the circuits. The larger the circuit the more it took out of you and the more muscles groups it worked.

Roy pointed the the center most stack of horse shoes, "Lets start this one." It was the low super strength circuit. Roy had just acquired a new skill to try. He wanted to test it out with Dia. "Or do you think we should start with the regular circuit?" He pointed to the set of horse shoe courses to the their left. Really though he was here to help Dia, so what she wanted to do was what mattered.

Dia took in the workout area slowly, examining the machines from afar with the hopes that they were reinforced to manage the sort of weight she was about to inflict upon them. Since this was an area created with heroes in mind, it was likely that they were made to absorb a lot of stress so she was probably worrying for nothing.

"Let's start with standard strength... please..." Dia requested timidly. Though she was classified as possessing above average strength, all of her abnormally high lifting capacity was put toward just making her body move normally so it was currently balanced out to make her appear perfectly normal in strength.

Alright, that sounded like what Roy had expected, though he'd wished she would have said that they at least try out the low super strength section. But he was really here for her, and having a work-out-buddy made exercise that much more fun.

Roy moved to the normal section, but as opposed to starting on the closest horse shoe of about five upper body machines he skipped it and went for the second horse-shoe made up of nine machines,all of which were lower body machines. It was Dia's mobility they wanted to work on, and strengthening her legs and waist were the best bet for that!

Roy moved over to the first machine a leg curl machine and loading it up with about twenty pounds. It was a good warm up. They would skip stretches and go right into a light workout before stepping up and really going for the strain. "Okay start with Eighteen of these. After you're done with this we'll move directly into the leg extension machine. I'll spot and give pointers." Roy instructed, making sure everything was set for Dia to sit and start right away.

"Are... are you sure this is a good idea?" Dia looked worriedly at the machine. The poor contraption had no idea what was in store for it if she actually went through with this. Apparently Roy was equally as clueless or perhaps he just wanted to laugh at the results when she sat down.

Roy stopped cold in his tracks and looked at Diamante dumbfounded, his eyes wide for a moment before shaking his head and walking around the machine he'd selected for her to start on. "Ruby City has One Hundred thirty eight gyms and exercise centers." He started holding up his hands and pooling a quicksilver into them, the pool beginning to form one big block over the seat of the sitting leg curl machine.

"Of those, only fifty three, accommodate Superheros." He continued starting to activate his Tensile Strength, holding the Now forming Block of what was left of his quicksilver over the seat a good two feet off of it. "Of those Fifty-three Only Eight accommodate dis-proportional super heroes. Those weighing more for their size or having larger size for their weight." Roy continued as the block finally formed weighing a whopping two hundred thirty pounds.

He released it and the block of solid Copper-like material landed right on the seat of the Curl machine with a loud thump, the ground near the two would pass the vibration onto them. "This is one of those Eight. A super-hero called Blackhole works out here, he's five-two and he weighs nearly three tonnes."

Roy had exerted his power drawing out as much as he could while maintaining his Tensile strength, quite a feat, but then again showing off to Dia was worth the effort to gain her trust and raise her confidence a little.

He'd done his research.

Placing his hands on the block Mister Mercury worked on breaking down the liquid metal and reabsorbing it as quickly as possible to clear a seat for Phalanx and patting the well worn pad as a welcome. "I think it'll hold your weight."

"That's... not really what I mean..." Dia noted quietly as she shifted to take a seat in the machine. She held her legs up over the padded bar meant to resist the movement of her legs downward until she was comfortably seated in the sturdy metal contraption. By the time she'd come that far she was already beginning to wince with heavy exertion, finally letting her legs drop. Though she tried to let them down gently, they still compressed the bar down fast enough to cause the counterweight to smack the top loudly as the twenty pounds placed to test her ability to curl her legs against resistance was hardly enough to balance out the weight of her legs and feet.

With her demonstration complete, Dia looked to him with pursed, concerned lips. How was she supposed to use this equipment?

Aha... that's what she was worried about! Roy mentally smacked himself in the back of the head, "Sorry." He quickly apologized for jumping to conclusions about what she was afraid of. Well now it was time for him to get to work. He'd quickly start adding Plates to the curl machine, at forty-five pounds each He would only need to add a few of the plates to counter the weight of her legs. He'd forgotten that though the machine had leverage against the user he'd not accounted for the sheer weight difference of the intended user.

When he noticed her legs get pulled up into the upright position he stopped. "There we go!" he responded giving her the thumbs up and stepping back for her to work. He was getting a workout shucking weights for her training, he'd need to change his calculations on all the other machines they'd worked on as well for her mass.

And Jumping Jacks were now out of the question, though he'd been looking forward to them.

Things appeared to be going according to plan once the weights were in place and her legs lifted up into the proper position without her needing to hold them up so as not to break the machine. That was certainly a relief.

Once he stepped back, Dia got to work bending her legs downward against the resistance the machine was giving her. Given the fact that she technically already had unusual strength compared to the average human, this particular workout was incredibly easy for her. She didn't have to support her weight, so she could put all of her muscle into simply bending her legs time and again. It was kind of relaxing, actually.

Roy watched as she started working out. Most people enjoyed a good workout, letting loose all the pent up energy, but Roy knew this wasn't the case for Dia. However it seemed that she was still enjoying all of her workout! That pleased him on a significant level. He would would also count out her reps as she went.

As she got close to the end of her repetitions, Roy did a quick check on the next leg machine, and began to load it for Dia, this one was a leg press, but as opposed to pushing up and away from them, the user pushed a board across rails, a cable would pull up the weight on the other end. He would load it taking the weight of her legs into account.

"Alright. Switch off." Roy called, the exercise program was that she did a few reps on each machine and kept working her way around the machines as they went, starting over so that no muscles got over fatigued. It would also help build Dia's endurance. Which was the end goal.

"A-alright..." Dia responded once she was ordered to stop her current exercise to begin a new one. There was a brief moment of hesitation before, with a sharp grunt of effort, Dia shifted her weight to the side and stepped out of the machine to slowly begin making her way toward the leg press to take a seat there.

On this machine, however, Dia was doing most of the pushing, including moving her own legs. The error in her trainer's calculations was immediately becoming apparent as she strained with all her strength, but couldn't get the board to do much more than jiggle as her muscles quivered with effort.

Roy was quick to adjust the weight for Dia, peeling weights off so that she could actually move the machine. He'd not taken into account the motion of the machine against or with gravity which was why he'd had issues with the first machine. He'd have to take that into account for the next machine.

"Alright just tell me when you're good." He actually wanted the machine weighted lightly so she wouldn't have to use too much effort to move them, again they were still in the warm up section of their workout.

As he removed weights, Dia continued to push her feet into the machine, not using nearly as much effort as she had at first, but certainly giving it a good try. With a few weights off she began to make some leeway and then was able to push her legs outward normally with enough resistance to actually make using the machine a workout.

"Th-thanks..." she huffed lightly as she got to work. It was now likely obvious that machines where the weight of her body came into play would need to be weighted heavier than those that didn't. It would likely require a bit of trial and error, but they'd get the hang of it eventually.

Roy was counting out her reps and starting to adjust the next machine a hip flexion machine. He'd get this one right since her weight didn't come into play at all there was no way that he had to add too much more.

A work out pair came out of the Gym. They were normal people as far as anyone could tell. Roy hadn't even noticed the pair a man and woman enter. They did their warm-up and started talking in a low tone before looking over Roy and Diamante and motioning to them before talking between themselves and motioning again.

Roy was concerned that they were saying things about Dia so he stood up and looked at the pair, placing his hands on his hips and called across the gym at them. "Do you have something to say?" He asked in a stern tone. He wasn't going to let anyone bully his friends from afar.

The man raised his hands. "Woah! Easy there sport!" He had a full beard and was ripped, from head to toe, he had short shorts and a tank top tucked into them. He was obviously older maybe in his mid-thirties. Some might describe him as a DILF.

His partner the woman was equally built with short blonde hair and a halter top and short shorts. "We were just saying you two look special. We know how good working out can be, but my friend here was thinking that maybe we should... have a competition." She invited.

As an athlete, a little friendly competition wasn't bad. "What kind of competition?" Roy asked looking between the two.

"Who can lift the most. Who can climb the rope fastest." The man pointed at the rope to the ceiling.

Roy looked at the rope then to Dia, she was just starting. "Well..." He responded, unsure.

The woman pipped up. "I noticed your friend is just starting out, this is just for fun. No bets, but you look like you can hold your own. But we want to include your friend too. Maybe we could make this a monthly event?" She insists.

"Alright." Roy relents. "Come on Dia it'll be fun, it's always good to test yourself as a baseline."

"Alright first we're going to do is the Roof, climb." The man pointed again to the rope. "Maybe your friend should go first."

Dia stopped her exercises as she noticed Mr. Wulf call out to a pair of gym buffs in what sounded like an extremely confrontational tone. She hadn't even noticed them until now, turning her head to watch the ensuing conversation take place. She remained silent, letting him speak for her until it came time that he agreed to the couple's proposal and she was volunteered to go first on the uh... the rope climb? Dia immediately looked incredibly skeptical even as she slowly turned and stood tall from the exercise machine she'd been using, her chest heaving slowly as she took in deep breaths from the exertion she'd already been put through. She slowly lumbered her way over to the rope before looking up at the top. Was this reinforced well like all the other equipment? Roy wasn't protesting her attempting to climb, so she could only assume that it was okay for her to put her full weight on it, even though she already knew full well that she wouldn't get much farther than dangling from the rope like heavy fruit on a vine.

"Well... a-alright..." she acquiesced quietly, quickly reaching up to gouge her clawed fingers into the rope, which would be the only way she'd be able to get a good enough grip to hang on with her smoothly exoskeletal hands. With her preparations made, Dia entrusted her full weight to the rope as she leapt up a bit and attempted to wrap her feet around the rope beneath her as she'd done so many times in gym class before her unfortunate mutation.

Well this was going well. Roy thought as Dia hadn't backed down from the Challenge! She was ready to give it her all! Even if he wasn't sure that she could make it up the rope at all given the way her body was. She was giving it her all without whining or complaining even though she had every right to!

And then she tried her luck at the rope, as she gave a hop and reached up to the rope and put all her weight on it. The rope... didn't like that as there was a momentary whine before a loud snappy! As the bolt on the bracket and the rope separated. With the rope harmlessly falling down around Dia!

What wasn't harmless was the bolt that seperated under the weight of Diamante's reinforced body and shot off like a bullet ricocheting around the gym, off the reinforced glass and metal machines!

Roy's eyes tried to keep on it but at the last second he lost it. But it found him! Sending the boy over as it hit him square in the chest knocking Roy to the ground, stunned and a little puzzled. It'd bounced enough times to not break skin or bones, thanks in part to his sub-dermal armor.

However it'd cleared the athlete's lungs of oxygen causing him to gasp from the ground as he looked up at the bracket on the ceiling trying really hard to catch his breath!

Dia's eyes went wide as she heard the immense strain on the rope and support above, realizing that of all the things reinforced to support great weights this rope wasn't one of them. Her realization came a second too late, however, as the entire thing snapped above her. With her feet on the rope rather than on the ground, she could only make a clumsy attempt to land back on her feet with so little warning, instead touching back to the ground awkwardly, stumbling and falling back onto her rear end with a loud thump.

Her entire face turned red from embarrassment, hanging her head low in shame at just what she'd done until she heard the pained gasps of her companion attempting to regain his breath after a hard hit. She was quick to climb up onto her hands and knees to hover over him with an expression of deep concern.

"Are you okay?! Are you hurt?!" she inquired in a panic, checking over his body frantically in search of anything that could be considered a wound.

Oh this was embarrassing. He'd been knocked on his ass by a stray bolt! He couldn't hardly breath and it felt like he was going to die, his eyes slightly watered, and worse Dia who had fallen on her butt was coming over to help him out! Not the other way around! He should have been the one to help Diamante up!

Though as Roy caught his breath the feeling of dying subsided and the feeling of 'Oh that's gonna be a huge bruise tomorrow' took over with his hand rubbing the center of his chest, letting out a monster groan.

Composing himself he looked up at Phalanx who looked wracked with guilt. "No I'm..." Roy winced and grunted with pain as he started to sit up and slowly pushed himself to his feet and turned to Diamante and held out a hand, steadying his stance, he might not be able to lift her onto her feet just yet but he could help her stand up. "I'm fine."

There was almost an audible D'aww from the onlooking pair of workout friends.

It became obvious where he was injured as he began to rub at his chest and Dia was only just about to personally lift his shirt to give him a close inspection when he groaned painfully and forced himself up and onto his feet. Rather than accept his unspoken offer of assistance, Dia rose up under her own power, her larger than average hands and arms making the rise back onto her feet rather easy.

"There's no need to push yourself. Are you alright? Lift up your shirt so we can make sure you're not too injured," Dia commanded with stern concern. "If you got hit too hard in the chest it can really mess up your heart, you know..."

DIa had seen right through Roy's bravado as she stood up on her own and instantly went back to worrying about his safety. Something that made Roy feel uncomfortable. Still with all the injuries in football he'd seen from bad tackles she had a good point and outside of the emberassment of being helped while he was trying to help her, there was no reason that he shouldn't listen to his work out partner.

"Alright." Roy responded looking at the rope on the ground for a moment before looking back to Dia. He would pull off his work out shirt and display his silken pale skin for her, the purity of it marred only by a palm sized blue dot in his the middle of his chest. "I think that my powers absorbed most of the impact." He wasn't too worried but he needed to alieviate his friends concerns, taking two fingers and putting them up to his neck and breathing slowly, starting to feel his pulse. It was regular as far as he could tell.

"Do you want to check and see if I have a good heartbeat?" He asked playfully presenting his chest for Diamante to listen in on his heart. Which stung a little bit making him wince through the display of bravado. It hurt but he was still fairly sure that the non-newtonian style subcutaneous armor he sported spread the impact out so as to protect his heart and lungs leaving his skin more damaged than his innards were.

Dia only took a quick glance at her friend's chest before looking away with a light blush, only getting deeper as he egged her on and presented his chest even more readily to her. Her bashfulness, however, wasn't the issue here and she wasn't about to let it get in the way of her concern for his safety.

"I-I feel like we should still get you checked out just in case. It must have hit you pretty hard to make a bruise that large. I'm really sorry about this..." she apologized, the words blanketing both the fact that this was going to put a damper on their contest as well as the fact that she'd managed to injure her friend by being clueless and attempting something she shouldn't have.

One of their competing partners had stepped away and returned with a duffel bag, unlike a workout bag this one looked full, it was dirty and white but had a big red cross on it. "It's okay," The female partner said, "I'm a pediatrician." She opened the medicine bag and pointed to a bench and ordered. "Sit." She pulled a stethoscope from her bag and put it on her neck, which was a weird look, her workout clothes and sporting a stethoscope. It was true that all kinds of people worked out. "You're friend is right, some people develop irregular heartbeat after a big impact to the chest, it can have complications if not treated right away."

Great, now Roy was being checked out by the competition, and not only that a child doctor, if this kept up he'd be feeling even more insecure. He would sit as requested, and when the cold stethoscope was pushed to his chest he didn't complain. When he was told to breath he would breathe, when he was told to relax he would relax and be quiet.

"The rythem is okay but it sounds kinda funny, distorted." She paused, "You mentioned something about subcutaneous armor?" She was curious as that might be what caused the difference in Sound.

Roy went about explaining his ability to the child-doctor and about how he'd been inspired to put a layer of his power under his skin to act as armor. It was also explanation for Dia who had inspired it.

"Alright." Their female competitor responded putting the medical tool back in her emergency duffel and zipping it shut. "Then I think we're good to continue, but if your chest starts hurting stop immediately."

Dia stood by as the woman left and returned with a medical bag. Well that was unexpectedly convenient, both that she was a doctor and that she kept a bag full of medical tools with her at all times. Little miracles!

She waited as Mr. Wulf received his checkup, listening intently to the woman's prognosis of his situation. She breathed a low sigh of relief at the knowledge that it was probably nothing, but she'd likely keep after him to take it easy for awhile now that he'd gotten himself injured.

"Just... don't strain yourself too much... okay...?" Dia requested quietly, keeping her eyes low. She still felt pretty bad for injuring him like that even if it wasn't directly her own fault.

"Thank you. I'm sorry for the inconvenience..." she turned to speak to the female doctor.

"Now if you're all done being babied by..." The man who'd been silent the whole time piped up only to get quickly shut down as the female doctor showed she was as good at inflicting harm as healing it, when she spun around and punched her male companion in the solar plexus, causing him to double over for a second. "Come-on-Jenny..." He coughed.

"I told you to be nice to my patients." She preached slinging the bag onto her shoulder "Even the ones that ain't kiddos." She started walking to the door before stopping. "Bill pick the next event, and this time make sure everyone can complete it."

"It wasn't my fault... I didn't install the rope." He whined back shrugging his shoulders like he was being blamed for something. "I didn't know it was gonna snap..." He stopped talking as the door closed again with Jenny having left not even listening to his excuses.Leaving Bill's mouth open mid sentence. Well that wasn't very nice. "Okay..." He looked around and pointed to the ladder wall. It was essentially a climbing test. "That one next. Fastest time wins." He gave the challenge to the two of them.

Jenny returned again. Catching Bills motion from outside. "You're just going for the win ain't'cha." She playfully chided her work out partner, slapping bill on the back audibly.

Roy righted himself from the bench and returned his shirt, he didn't want to jump to accepting on Dia's behalf too quickly, so he would simply look to her with a smile and a nod if she looked to him. He felt up to it.