X-Men Evolution: Rogue Evolution

A Day in the Life 3.3

"20 minutes and 34 seconds," Logan rubbed the stubble under his chin. "I just... don't understand. I stood here - watching you - run the whole mile..."

Anna slumped, more than stood, next to him on the treadmill. Her arms were braced on the machine's long plastic rods which were the only things keeping her upright. Her face and body were a running river of sweat, and her heart beat so fast she felt as if it might crack a rib from the inside out. "I'm..." she panted, "... gonna die."

"With that sort of time-" Logan rested an elbow on the console of the treadmill, and without sparing her even a glance, he consulted the tablet in his hand. " - it would just seem like you had to have stopped and walked for at least a minute. But I was here, watching you run." He scratched his beard some more. "That just doesn't seem possible - you know - on a mathematical level."

Anna dropped onto the turning vinyl of the treadmill and curled into the fetal position. Her lungs burning for air, she looked up at the bright florescent lights above and, in that moment, they looked like little angels coming down to harvest her dying soul.

"Whelp." Logan typed something into the tablet and looked down at her. "Guess that's as good of a warm-up as any."

"Warm-up?" Anna's stinging eyes rolled in the mean man's direction. "You mean, that wasn't it?"

"What? A couple of minutes on the treadmill got you down?" He smiled a long toothy grin. "Oh boy, just wait till I introduce you to 'bear crawls.'"

"Bear what?"

Logan reached down, grabbed her by her gloved hand, and pulled her up to her trembling legs with ease. "But first, push-ups!"

The remaining post-school torture session with the school's resident sadist, Logan, went just as well as it had started. After every odd 'exercise' Logan put her through, she typically ended up either bent end-over-end on the floor in a puddle of her own sweat pleading for death, or on one of the gym's many workout devices wondering how she was still alive. Every time, though, he'd just pick her back up and set her up for another round like she were a wind-up toy.

It took about a year for the torment to be over, and when it finally was done, Logan lead her through a series of stretches that were so arduous, she wondered if the 'training' was really over or if he was just leading her into the 12th circle of hell. Her favorite stretch was the one where they laid out their backs on the floor facing the ceiling. She didn't see it was a coincidence when she found out the stretch was called the 'stretching corpse pose.' A moment later Logan dropped a cool bottle of water and a funky-looking bottled drink in her hand. When she finally was able to will herself to sit up, she looked the weird bottle over and read the label.

"'Flavor-Town?'"

"Yeah." He sat down on the other side of the mat from her with his legs crossed. He cracked open the lid of his own 'Flavor-Town' brand drink and sucked down a quarter of the bottle. "It's got electrolytes and no sugar." He wiped his lip with the back of his hand and pointed at her bottle with his other. "Got you cranberry."

She looked the bottle over and found only the title was in English. The rest was in some sort Asian looking language. She popped the top and gave it a sip.

"Ugh! This tastes like-" She sniffed it. "Like dirt that a cranberry once farted on."

"It's an acquired taste." He sucked down another quarter of his drink. "And you're going to acquire it. It's good for you. Drink that whole bottle of water too. You've run through your fluids and need to replenish."

Anna sipped her water next, thankful to get the taste of that disgusting beverage out of her mouth. She looked around the room of her torture dungeon. At all the long blue mats on the floor that were now stained with her sweat, and the small bank of treadmills and stair-climbers in the corner.