Regina huffed angrily, watching the woman strut around the floor like some sort of preening peacock. She obviously was one of those consultants that thought she was better than all of the workers just because she thought she some modicum of power over them. Peon analyst. She snorted. If only the woman actually knew the truth. She could kill her before she could even scream for help. She was no damn peon.

She flew through the files on her desk, using her anger to guide her work. The files were more domestic files, but it didn't matter. Even if this wasn't her real job she was damn good at it and she was going to shove it in that blonde idiot's face.

Regina got through more files that day than she ever had before and she knew that she hadn't missed a single word in any of those files even though she had sped through them. Anger made her hyper vigilant, always had. It was one of things that made her so damn good at her real job.

She practically ran from work she walked out of the building so fast, heels clacking on the marble in a staccato rhythm. She was extremely tense again and she needed to work it out. She wasn't about to go home again and try the same method as the night before. No, that would be like letting the blonde idiot win somehow. She took a deep breath as she got into her car and decided immediately what she was going to do. She turned her car towards the gym she frequented.

The space was clean and mostly empty. There were only a few people lifting weights and a few more running on the treadmills. She went to the locker rooms flicked open her locker and changed quickly. Regina taped up her hand expertly and exited back to the gym floor once again. She looked over the patrons again. Anyone of them would do.

She walked towards the big space of open mats in the corner of the gym and waited. A man stopped his weight lifting and walked over, smiling. He motioned to the mats and lifted an eyebrow. Regina nodded and stepped up on the mats.

This corner of the gym was exactly why she had joined this gym out of all the ones in the area. It was frequented by people experienced in hand to hand combat. And everyone was almost always waiting for a fight. Someone approached the mats and whoever wanted to challenge them could. Fighting went on for as long as the people sparring wanted. It had been a godsend to Regina when she'd been forced here. Spars with pansies in other gyms weren't enough for her. She needed to keep her skills up. A few halfhearted jabs weren't going to do that.

"How far you wanna go?" The man asked stepping up across from her.

"Blood on the mat."

"Lady needs to blow off some steam."

Regina leveled her eyes at him. He cringed back just a little at her look.

"You have no idea."

"Well then, shall we?"

Regina was lunging forward in the next second. The man responded admirably. He almost blocked Regina's punch. Almost. She landed a hard punch to his solar plexus. He doubled over gasping for breath. Regina didn't let up, though. She grabbed his back and drove her knee up into his stomach. The gasps turned into strangled wheezes.

Regina's muscles started to unclench just the tiniest bit. She pushed the man down on the floor and pinned him down, his arms under her legs and most of her weight resting on his chest. She almost felt a little bad for him gasping like a fish under her.

She reared back to deal the final punch, sure that it would leave him spitting out blood and thus ending the match. He twisted at the last second, though, and managed to dislodge her from his chest. Regina scrambled up before he could pin her to the ground. She looked him over again. Well, perhaps he wasn't quite as hopeless as she had thought. Perhaps she'd got the jump on him.

He sized her up again, taking in her small form differently. He may not have taken this seriously before but it seemed like he was going to now. Good. That's what Regina needed. Beating him easily would have released only part of the tension she was feeling. A real fight and all of the frustration from that idiot Miss White would be gone and maybe this time actually stay gone.

The man lunged forward while she was seemingly slightly distracted. Regina saw the move coming even if she had been half in her head thinking about the blonde idiot. She stepped out of the way and swung her leg up, kicking the man squarely in the ass. He just managed not to fall on his face, but Regina took advantage of his loss of balance to sweep him off his feet.

He shot up this time before she could pin him. He was a quick learner it seemed. Regina smiled and darted forward. She got in so close she could feel him breathing and brought her elbow up to his face. He managed to pull his nose out of the way and Regina's elbow hit his jaw. She reveled in the grunt of pain he released. This was what she had trained for her whole life. The hand to hand combat lessons from the time she could walk had drilled this into her, the need to win, the desperate, primal need to take her opponent down so she could live another day. Her childhood had not been a bright one, but by god was this a part that she had always enjoyed, the thrill of the chase and the conquering of prey.

Regina darted back again out of his range. Well. He would be expecting her to try to knock him down and pin him now. If he was good he'd see the close attacks coming again too. What to do now?

He took her by surprise, stepping into her range again. Her fist flew out to take advantage of a rather stupid move, but his fist hit first. She hadn't even seen it coming. Regina refused to let out a grunt of pain as her head snapped to the side. He'd managed to catch the side of her face. Nothing that would bleed but she bet that the side of her eye would be bruised if the whole thing wasn't black by morning. That would be fun to explain at work, but then again most people knew not to ask questions of her other than strictly work based questions.

She saw red. Oh, he'd managed to hit her. It had been quite a while since anyone who wasn't fighting her all out to kill her had managed that. It had been a while since anyone had hit her period. After that knife wound in Kosovo she'd trained twice as hard and had become practically untouchable.

She stepped back just enough to be out of his reach. The next second her leg came up. She kicked almost straight up and her foot landed just under his chin. He went down like a ten pound sack of potatoes. He groaned loudly from the mat and spit out a mouth full of blood. The man blinked for a few seconds before sitting up.

"You're a firecracker." He looked up and down again, this time much different than the sizing up he'd been doing during the fight. "Want to get a drink after this?"

Regina looked him up and down in the same way. He was handsome enough. The tension from the tiff with Miss White was gone now that her opponent had thrown in the towel, but a little more tension relief couldn't hurt. It wasn't like she didn't have the time. It was Friday after all. She smiled at the man.

"That sounds like a lovely idea." She offered a hand up to the man who took it and pulled himself to his feet.

"Meet back out here after we're done changing?" he asked smiling back at her.

She laid a hand on his arm. "Sounds like a plan."

They walked each other to the locker rooms and went inside to clean up.