Sweat began to drip down the scarlet haired girl's forehead as she pushed through her workout, she was currently giving the heavy bag a beating of a lifetime. She didn't even wait to throw on her gloves, only wrapped up her hands. Every powerful punch she through helped her blow off small amounts of rage at a time, and she was full of it. The meeting earlier with Gray didn't go as she planned. She knew the boy for years and yet he couldn't tell her a thing, she saw how run down and overworked he looked and she couldn't do a thing about it-that's what was really getting to her. She continued throwing combination after combination, she could feel the burn in her core almost like her stomach was on fire. Her anger was enough to make her ignore the pain and growing exhaustion, she powered through, trying to make herself simmer down after the heated argument with one of her closest friends. Her bruised up knuckles began to swell again and bleed, she cooled it.
"I don't know who I should take more pity on, you or the bag?" Erza twisted her body around to come face to face with Gildarts, her semi mentor from before. "The bag I suppose." She answered, she did go overkill on the object, it still didn't stop swaying. He examined her bruised up and bloody right fist, "Anger issues much?" The scarlet haired girl rolled her eyes, instantly regretting punching that wall. Her hand would take weeks to heal and she was certain her knuckles were already fractured, or at least badly bruised.
"Your form could be better." He said bluntly.
"Excuse me?"
"Did I stutter little girl?" He crossed his arms. Erza felt her left eye twitch several times.
"I don't think you know who you're talking to." Gildarts let out an obnoxiously loud laugh at her claim. This ticked her off even more, "Got anything better to do old man than to bother someone?" She wiped some sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. "I was actually considering helping you out but I guess not." Erza rolled her eyes at his tone, she didn't need a trainer. "No thanks, I don't need it."
"I almost nailed you last time, I think you kinda do." The scarlet haired teen twitched again, flashbacks of the sparring match resurfaced in her mind. She then remembered of her goal of challenging the male division in the underground and dominating over Sting Euicliffe. Despite fighting guys and being victorious before, she knew that her goal was almost unreachable. But there was no shame in trying, she looked up at the guy's dark eyes and realized he was probably her ticket to success. "Fine, what do you got to offer?"
"Well first off." He uncrossed his arms, "Stop beatin on that damn hand of yours." Erza rolled her eyes at his tone. 'Obviously' She said in her mind, she stretched out her fingers and winced as a sharp pain exploded throughout her entire hand, her knuckles gave off a numbness feeling and she knew she messed up...big time.
"Second...where the heck are your gloves?" She gritted her teeth at the question and pointed to her black gym bag, the male sighed and put a hand over his face as if he just found his teenage daughter spent half her night out drinking. "Well they sure as hell are not doin you any good sitting in a bag." He scolded, she rolled her eyes and grabbed them out of her bag to make him quit nagging her. She slipped them on and tried not to wince as they grazed over her injured knuckles.
"And third, I want to train you. You seem like a punk but I'm sure you got some skill." Erza felt her left eye begin to twitch again, 'Did this old man just call me a punk?' She thought to herself, baffled. She knew the man wasn't intending on being condescending but she still felt more irritated with every passing second. "Oh I know I got skill." She shot out the words faster than she could mentally process them. Gildarts raised an eyebrow, "I almost nailed you in under five minutes last time, and didn't you say your experience was only from street fights?"
Erza tightened the elastic on her ponytail, "No that's what you said."
"Then what sort of experience do you got?" He inquired. Erza decided to let it all out since a bunch of people already knew this about her anyway, "I'm the champion of the female division in the underground." Gildarts gaped, he used to fight in neighboring businesses years ago before going pro and then becoming a trainer. He didn't keep up with the it anymore, but he did hear of a new champion by the name of Titania and long scarlet hair. He just didn't think a kid could get the best of all those female fighters, and to his dismay, he was wrong. 'Guess you really can't judge a book by its cover'
"Underground fighting huh. If you're already the champion then what's your new goal?" He asked, still baffled by the position this girl held. Erza got tired of the ponytail cutting off circulation to her brain, she took it out and parted her hair in the middle, tying it in a low side ponytail with her now long middle parted bangs left loose. SHe answered, "Well I want to dominate the boys division, making me truly the best of the best." Gildarts looked at her as if she had fluff for brains, 'Chick's crazy'
He knew her goal was almost unreachable, but she was the champion of the female division despite being only a kid. So maybe it could be done. He sighed and reached a decision, "Seems like I got my work cut out for me." He knew this would be his most interesting student yet. He turned around and waved his hand as a gesture for the scarlet haired fighter to follow behind. "So what are we doing? New combos? Technique? Sparring again?" Gildarts shook his head, "No no and no." He answered bluntly. Erza raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Then what..?"
Gildarts pulled out a stool and placed it in front of Erza. "Sit." He said, she scoffed. "I'm no dog." He rolled his eyes, "Sit...please." She huffed and sat down. He rolled out a large dry erase board and Erza felt as if she were in class all over again, she crossed her arms and waited for what's to come. He began writing on the board in dark blue marker, it read:
'Fight or Flight response'
"You familiar with this?" He pointed to the words, she tilted her hand to gesture she knew a little bit.
"The fight or flight response is when your body releases a certain amount of ATP or adrenaline when you're in danger. Your stomach slows down digestion and other processes so you have the sudden energy boost to kick ass or run away." Erza did read up on this before but forgot the majority, she paid close attention to retain the information despite having a bored look on her face.
"There are two types, one uses the nerve system and the other uses the bloodstream." He drew two lines under the phrase he had written going in opposite directions. He labeled one Nervous system and the other Bloodstream. He continued on, "Sparked by either mental or physical changes, now I'm not gonna get technical cause this is boring. But I'm explaining this because we tend to use this energy when it isn't needed, for example when we're stressed. I want you to focus on using this energy when you're in that ring. If you tend to stress over a lot of issues you can spark this reaction and practically wreck your health."
Erza immediately thought of how much she stressed during the time when Irene went after her friends, she was stressing to the point where she couldn't eat or sleep, not to mention the constant feeling of having to throw up. Her mind then thought of Gray and the stress he might be feeling right now, she knew he was practically killing himself with the fighting, the jobs he was holding down and the stress that was weighing on him.
"Now." He said loudly, he placed the marker on the little holder on the board where the colors were. "Time for some workouts." Erza got up, she wanted to fight again instead, but he was her new mentor and working out was better than sitting on her ass.
They walked over to where all the equipment was, "Get in sit up position, your core needs to be your strongest asset, it's your foundation." He said as if she didn't already know that, she sat down and put her legs together. Gildarts picked up a twenty pound medicine ball and stood over her feet. "Everytime you go down halfway, I'm going to drop this. You are going to catch it, finish going down and come back up and throw it back to me." She nodded to show she understood, she never tried this workout before but it intrigued her and seemed easy enough.
She crossed her arms over her chest and went down halfway as instructed, she held out her hands and caught the red and black ball and went down to the floor, she shot back up and threw it back. After about twenty she really felt the burn. "Focus your breathing." Gildarts said as he dropped the ball on her again. Erza knew this was her biggest issue, she had this habit of holding in her breath as she grew tired or quickened up. She had to remember that it would only cause her to crash sooner and get her ass handed to her. She focused on her breathing and kept going, her core felt as if knives were slowly digging into her almost showing abs. She was indeed toned, but not six pack toned.
After about forty, Erza was ready to drop. The look on her reddening face was giving that away. "Twenty more let's go!" He yelled at her, she groaned and threw the ball up again despite her arms growing more and more tired. She powered on through and completed nine more, craving a shower and the comfort of her bed. After another six, she wanted to puke, her core felt like the pits of hell. Her mind was just blank as she went through the last five, she didn't even have the energy to create meaningful thoughts. She threw the last ball with all her might and he caught it. "Good job doing sixty. Tomorrow we'll get you to sixty-five or maybe seventy." Erza laid there on her back looking at him with a blank expression, her core was crying. She felt like those old people who fallen and couldn't get up.
Gildarts put the medicine ball back where it was and gave her a hand up. "Grab a drink and we'll move on the next exercise." The red head bee lined it to her gym bag and downed the whole water bottle she had packed. She walked back over to where Gildarts was and noticed he had placed small cones on the floor, distancing them. Erza groaned as she knew what this was, shuttle run.
"I wanna see how good your cardio is. Let's get started." He chuckled, clearly enjoying dogging out his new student, she rolled her eyes and took position with her one hand on the floor. "GO!" He shouted, Erza bolted back and forth about four times, practically throwing her arm on the floor at the last run. "11.5 seconds." He said giving a face that read 'Not bad.' "Given the distance." He started, "That was really impressive."
The scarlet haired underground fighter panted, she was sweating and she knew she probably smelled like absolute crap. Gildarts slipped the stopwatch in his pocket and prepared for the next workout, he chuckled again, he had intense workouts in store for the rest of the gym time that would definitely shape up the young fighter and probably leave her sore for the rest of the week.
...
Loved writing this and the idea of Gildarts as Erza's new trainer, also when I put a word in italics in the dialogue, it's as if the characters are putting emphasize on that word in case you were wondering! (: