As an alarm goes off in a dark bedroom, a large hand flies out from under the warm covers to silence the blaring ringer. Pushing himself up from out of bed, Lance rubs his eyes as he adjusts to the darkness of his room.
Lance lets out a slight groan as he stretches and lets out a big yawn. Wondering what time it is, he then reaches over to grab his phone off the nightstand before checking the time. Looking down at his phone, it shows that it is around six in the morning.
'Definitely not a morning person anymore.'
Chuckling at the difference in sleep preference between now and before he was Lance. He sets his phone down and swings his legs over the bed as he gets up and does some light stretching before hitting the shower.
After a refreshing shower and getting dressed in some appropriate athletic clothes, Lance steps out from his room to see Annie coming from out the kitchen with a protein shake along with some disbelief written on her face.
"Y-you actually got up?!"
"Yeah, you said we'd leave at seven?"
"I know what I said you oaf. I'm just shocked you crawled out of bed. Considering we can barely coax you out before eleven in the morning on a typical day."
"Yeah, yeah, let's just get a move on."
Grabbing his shoes from the rack near the door, Lance turns back to look at Annie as she chugs her protein shake and follows him outside.
As they step out of the door, Lance realizes, that this is his first time stepping out of their family home. Having been forced to rest by his mom, he hadn't realized that he'd been stuck indoors for days. A sudden curiosity strikes Lance as he thinks back to how secretive, or maybe purposefully elusive, his mom and Annie had been when answering about where exactly they moved to. Almost as if worried he would be mad at the answer he heard.
Walking down the short little steps in front of their house and out the front gate, the city so far seems normal, albeit a little small compared to Osaka where he lived before, and maybe a little cooler than what is traditional in Japan during the summer.
Looking around the area, he sees a decent sized metropolitan area a bit of a ways from their house. It looks like Lance's family themselves, live in a quiet neighborhood just a little outside the city.
"He, An, where is this again."
"A-Asahikawa."
"Oh! No wonder its cooler than I thought I'd be."
"Y-you're not...mad?"
"Why would you even think that?"
"You always said you hated the cold and seemed furious we moved to here."
"Sigh, I'm gonna get mad, if you and mom keep reacting like that to my every change. I am not a bomb that goes off at every little thing. Getting hit by that car gave me some different perspective. Have some faith in me, please An."
"Alright. I'm sorry... oaf."
"And there it is."
Letting out a resigned sigh as Annie gives a victorious chuckle, the two siblings make their way through the breezy city enjoying the crisp morning air and clear blue sky.
"How far is this gym from the house."
"About a 15 to 20 minute walk, why?"
"Just curious."
Making small talk, the siblings walk through the neighborhood then moving into some kind of small market district. Taking in the sights and getting a lay of the land, Lance looks like a cornered animal swiveling his head around constantly drawing heavy laughter and some light teasing out of Annie.
They soon arrive to the outskirts of the city itself where the gym sits. This gym, appearance wise, is on the humbler side with a drab, concrete grey exterior that is in the process of being repainted to cover some of the graffiti that has been sprayed onto the walls. An old, weather sign hangs above a fog glass door: North Star Training Center.
Annie just struts past Lance as he takes in the sight of the gym.
"Come on, we gotta get you registered."
Snapping out of his thoughts, Lance follows Annie inside having to duck as he does so. The interior of the gym matches the exterior, a small reception area with a single desk for gym patrons to check in with most of the space dedicated to actual gym space.
This gritty gym atmosphere feels reminiscent and inspired by the gyms of the 80s and 90s that become popular during the golden age of American body building. Lots of space for both machine and free weights, a 50 meter track at the back of the space and a door on the left side of the area leading to what is most likely the locker rooms. Simple, clean, efficient.
Looking over to the desk, Lance sees a small, from Lance's point of view, girl with curly brown hair and wide green eyes staring at Lance as if he was a mythical creature made reality.
"A-Annie, who is this?"
"Hmm? Oh, this is my oaf of a twin. Lance meet Lyra. She's the daughter of the gym owner and the same age as us. She'll be trying out for the volleyball team with me."
"T-twin?!"
"Nice to meet you Lyra."
"O-oh, yes. Please don't be offended, but, um, how tall are you?"
"It's quite alright, I'm 7'2"."
"Holy sh-"
"As much I love to listen to people gawk at my oaf of a brothers height, we're here to get him a membership."
Realizing her lack of professionalism, Lyra clears her throat and throws on a practiced smile as she begin to clack away at the old desktop computer in front of her. Asking a couple of basic registration questions to Lance about his name, age, etc. It takes around five minutes before everything gets finished.
"Alrighty, last thing I need you to do is sign this waiver here and you're good to go!"
Picking up a pen and signing his signature, Lance and Annie thank Lyra as they move past the reception area towards the gym proper.
Lance speaks as they begin to walk, "It was nice that the waiver was in english."
"Hmm, oh yeah, Lyra's dad spent some time in Canada and her mom is an from there. They try to cater to english speaking clientele when possible."
"That's convenient."
Upon crossing the threshold into the gym proper, the system pops up a small little screen startling Lance slightly.
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>Popup Quest: Summer Gains!<
By the end of summer achieve the following physical attributes:
Speed: D-
Acceleration: D-
Strength: A+
Endurance: A
Vertical: B
Reward: Level One Specialized Upgrade Ticket x2
- Bonuses will be given if completed preemptively!
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'Okay, so there goes taking it easy to start and slowly getting used to this body.'
Lance, upon seeing the popup quest, remains fixed in place, drumming his fingers against his arm as his mind fires away before a loud, annoyed voice screams into his ear.
"HEY, OAF! EARTH TO OAF!"
"Huh? What are you yelling in my damn ear for?"
"ME?! You're the one who stopped like a deer in the headlights!"
"I was thinking."
"I know, I could see the steam. You should thank this dear sister of yours for saving you."
"Ah, do you ever not have something stupid to quip back with!"
"Hmph, you stupid oaf."
"Sigh..."
Exasperated once again by his sisters relentless teasing, Lance trudges over to the corner of the gym to warm himself up for their workout. Annie, acquiescing and easing her teasing for now, follows behind and begins her own warm up.
"Oaf, we are hitting legs today."
"Okay."
Finishing up their warmup, the twins move over towards a squat rack as they perform a twelve rep set with no weight on the bar to get ready for the lift. Lance during this process, finds another annoyance with his height, initially struggling due to his longer range of motion because of his long legs. However, by the end of the twelve reps, he gets his center of gravity and appropriate ROM somewhat down.
"Alright, we are going five sets of six to eight reps at around 80-85% of our one rep max... oaf, are you even listening?"
Lance, thinking about ways to meet the system's quota is brought from his thoughts, "Hm? Oh, yeah, I was just trying to remember what my one rep max was."
"I remember the last time I worked out with you, when we did this you'd do 265 lbs."
Shrugging his shoulder Lance agrees having no better starting point, "Alright, I'll start there then."