"Do you know what it feels like being crippled? Losing that fundamental part of your life that you used daily and now having to live after missing it? Dreaming about getting it back but having to conform to your new miserable existence?"
When Leo was done with his launch, he went to Barbara's gym, an old place inherited from her parents. An old-looking place in the most dangerous part of New York, built out of brick and mortar and with some of its older equipment already having its paint peeling off. A nice place that had become a cheap place from a clear lack of money invested in it. When a machine that broke was fixed if it was cheap enough, but in most cases abandoned as the pile of junk on the back of the building grew a little more each year.
"Strawberry! Nice to see you alive!" Barbara yelled, giving him a big bear hug and basically choking the boy between her big tits and muscular arms.
The girl was huge, two meters tall and built like a brick house. Muscles upon muscle, biceps the size of Leo's head, a set of abs that could be used as a washboard, legs like columns of solid steel, and a big set of breasts. The only place where some fat was allowed to stay as the rest was 100% lean beef. Dressed only with some sneakers, black yoga pants, and a white tank top, she was modest with lightly tanned skin from exercising outside. Green eyes, red hair tied in a ponytail, if she had freckles one could confuse her for Leo's big sister. A dynamic that she adopted in her childhood by the fact of being two years older than him.
"Glad to see you are fine, Barb," the boy said, happy that the hug didn't trigger his erection. Even in that case, he was lucky that the place was completely empty.
Barbara let him in and showed the state of her old gym that still had a few-decades-old wooden floor. "Can't say the same about my gym. The windows blew up, and the whole place got filled with debris. The equipment, the walls, and the roof are fine, and I need to clean the whole thing, and we are out of water, so we are closed for today," she explained and grabbed back her broom as there were still a lot of glass shards to collect.
"Need help with that?" Leo offered without thinking twice, forgetting why he came here in the first place.
"Sure, grab a broom and get to it," she answered and let out a sigh of relief.
He stopped for a second, remembering what he should have said. "Wait, there is something I must say to you. I-" Leo began to say before getting interrupted.
"He got merged with a cute alien girl that is helping him with his other job! Nice to meet you, I am Nigredo!" The alien said, coming out of his shoulders as a tiny tendril with her face on it.
CRACK.
Barbara broke the broom in half on her leg to make an improvised pointy wooden stick to stab Nigredo as a reflex. "Ah! Fuck! That scared the shit out of me," she yelled, stopping as the creature didn't seem hostile.
"Finally a proper reaction to seeing you. Sorry for your broom," Leo apologized.
The Amazonian woman looked at her hands and shook her head. "Sorry, it's the teeth. They trigger fight or flight," she muttered, more annoyed by having to get a new broom handle than anything else.
"Understandable, so. . . we came here to train with you. You see, my darling and I become stronger if we fight. I analyzed the data, and with the adrenaline from the combat, I can upgrade his body," Nigredo explained with multiple tendrils pointing to different parts of his body, giving the implication she was upgrading stuff like, for example, his crotch.
Leo added as he would come here no matter what. "Well, also to help if you need, since Sarah and Mila are so busy," he added.
"Band stuff? Even now?" Barbara asked, squinting her eyes.
"You know her. She is really dedicated to her career," Leo said, not finding anything suspicious about it.
The woman was silent for a second before Leo broke it. "Anyway, we can clean first, then if you want we can do some sparring," he suggested as they could clean the whole place in one hour or two tops.
Barbara shook her head. "Nah. Let's do it now. I already got into fighting mode, also . . . darling? You two are dating?" She asked with a curious tone before doing anything else.
"And fucking. Even Sarah joined the fun," Nigredo dropped the bomb with a smug fanged smile.
Leo blushed. "It is a little bit complicated," he added, trying not to go into the whole explanation that this was not a poly or open relationship but more like. . . yeah, a harem.
"It is not. Want to fuck? He is up for it," the alien explained, lucky for him, Nigredo was there to make the long story short.
Barbara took a deep breath and closed her eyes, calming herself before doing something stupid again. "Okay, that is. . . a lot to take. Now I really need some exercise to clear my mind. Get in the ring," she finally said and got inside the old boxing ring, taking off her shoes and cracking her knuckles.
"Right away!" Leo yelled and then rushed in there, a little bit scared that she was angry with him. Honestly, he couldn't get any reading from the muscle head.
("She is not angry at me, right?") Leo asked Nigredo while she turned into a pair of black sport shorts and a white tank top to match a little more with the environment. As with Sarah, they were going to do it raw without protection.
She chuckled inside his mind. ("From what I saw in your memories, you would clearly know if she was angry at something.") The alien answered.