PhDoom vs. Big Barda - Comic Book Women

"Cheap...shot."

Barda fell to her knees, glaring Doom's way as the pain spread through her body. She was pissed, but she couldn't be too mad at Doom, could she? It wasn't like she did anything illegal. It was a legit move, even a smart one for someone her size. That's how you take down a tree, after all - start at the legs and work your way up.

Doom wasn't one to wait long, either. She moved in like a hungry jungle cat, body tense, aching for the next move. For a moment, Barda feared she might swing the hammer right into her face. It was wide open, and she wouldn't put such a move past her, not by a long shot. Fortunately, Doom wasn't quite that crazy...but she wasn't far off, either.

Instead, she snapped the hammer in Barda's throat, cracking it on her wind pipe. Barda fell forward as a cacophony of chokes and gasp puffed out of her lips, trying desperately to get in a full breath and not even able to care where Doom was or what the tiny terror was doing.

“Doom prefers 'efficient' to 'cheap,' slattern. Vocabulary is important,” Doom muttered with a grin, as she loomed over her opponent. More than a bit smaller than Barda, Doom figured that she should take any chance she could get to loom, whenever such an opportunity became available.

More to Doom's liking, however, was the fact that her strategy was beginning to work. She knew that it would take time and effort to wear down an opponent as large as Barda, but it was time that Doom was more than willing to put into the effort. By the same token, though, Doom knew how dangerous it would be to let Barda get some breathing room; Barda's proven a couple of times over, already that those muscles weren't just for show.

Doubled over as she was, the cosplayer wasn't presenting a full range of targets. Thinking quickly, Doom opted for a fairly easy option: to start working over the larger girl's torso, and hopefully diminish some of her opponent's sure-to-be-considerable core strength. Stepping in, giving the hammer a solid, underhand swing with both arms, Doom tried to plant the head of it into Barda's side, aiming just below her ribs.

"Don't use words you can't spell." Barda was making with the jokes, but this was actually a much more dire situation than she wanted to let on. She knew that hardcore matches could get rough, that was a given, but she hadn't expected Doom to crank it up all the way to eleven quite so quickly. The reality of the situation was settling in. For all Doom's silliness, she was a serious competitor with a very real desire to win, and she wasn't above getting her hands bloody, if that's what it took.

This realization was driven home - literally - but the business end of the sledgehammer crashing into Barda's stomach as Doom launched an underhand swing, thankfully missing the ribs but unthankfully landing right in her stomach. She felt her organs bounce about as the wind was driven clean out of her in one wheezing gasp, and the unmerciful blow spread its pain throughout.

Falling down to her knees and clutching her stomach, she erupted into a fit of wheezes and coughs, sputtering and spitting at Doom's feet.

Doom could feel every bit of the impact between the sledgehammer in her hands and the impact of rough metal against Barda's body. The weezing sound of Barda's voice was music to Doom's ears, the brawler taking a second to savor the sound as her opponent finally dropped to the mat. Doom turned her attention to the audience, watching their glares of disapproval as they watched the cosplayer dropped to the ringside floor. Those that had been watching closely were booing and jeering, now, their faces contorted into severely focused glaring.

It was clear that Barda was what the AFW crowds wanted out of a wrestler: buxom, muscular, fun. Which made Doom's current course of action all the more satisfying. If Doom were capable of admitting such things, she admitted to herself that she would perhaps admit that Barda had actually been fun to talk to. At least having something to talk about, compared to the number of rabbit and cowgirl themed strippers Doom had been forced to share rings with, before now. But, Doom knew that her opponents were far from “fun,” and deserved no interaction other than pain.

Watching Barda's reaction to her last shot, Doom knew she couldn't rest too much on her laurels, as much as she wanted to appreciate her own work. Shifting her grip on the hammer, Doom stepped in on Barda once again. This time, as she crowded the muscular young cosplayer, Doom held off on the hammer strike. Taking a firm grip on the handle of the hammer, Doom instead struck forward with her leg, delivering a focused snap-kick to Barda's already-damaged midsection. The jeers of the crowd filled Doom's ears, and served to drive the tips of her thick workboots home. Perhaps it was a bit reckless, but Doom threw all of herself into the strike, relishing the advantage she was managing to hold.

This was a bad situation, no doubt. Bad and getting worse by the second. Much, much worse. It was amazing what difference a few minutes and a sledgehammer could make - not long ago, she thought she'd had this match firmly in hand, and now it was slipping into Doom's weasely little fingers.

Barda made a mental note: No. More. Hardcore Matches. Period.

It was tempting to just give and stop the pain, let Doom run away with the match. But her pride as a comic fan, as a DC fan prevented it. Would Wonder Woman give up? Would Batman? Would any of her heroes, except for maybe Guy Gardner, depending on who was writing? No. They would soldier on. And so would she.

As Doom neared her and came forward, Barda came forward as well, trying to neutralize the kick by grabbing the bitter brawler in a tight hug around the waist, squeezing her tight and leaning forward.

As she stalked her opponent, Doom mentally resolved to never have anything but hardcore matches, ever again. Here she'd been, all this time, demolishing opponents with her arms and legs like a sucker. Still, the brawler knew she couldn't let up on her larger, more muscular opponent. Stepping inward to close the distance as quickly as she could, Doom was caught off-guard as Barda stepped up in turn, and leaned into her with a tight squeeze.

Doom couldn't help but let out a low groan of pain, as Barda's firm, solid arms wrapped tight around her waist. “Insolent- what-” Doom stammered, as Barda caught hold of her. “Damn you, you uppity fangirl wench!” As surprised as she was at the counter-offensive, however, Doom still held that hammer. Doom resolved that, ring crew be damned, that hammer was coming home with her, tonight.

Taking the handle in both hands, once again, Doom lifted the hammer high, before bringing it down with her full strength, trying to crack the thing across Barda's shoulder blades. Then, as long as she was able to get away with that move, Barda would bring it down again and again, punishing the insolent cosplayer as much as she could, until finally earning her freedom.

This wasn't a good idea. Barda knew that. She just couldn't think up anything better.

The mistake for this match was clear as daylight - she should had came in with a weapon and held onto it for dear life. If this were a regular matchup, she could have simply overpowered Doom and been done with it. But here? She was paying the price for not giving the match type proper respect. It was going to be a long, painful lesson.

She managed to hurt Doom with the squeeze, but it wasn't enough to bring her down - the brawler kept her footing. What was worse, she managed to make a couterattack, slamming the hammer down on Barda's back once. Twice. Three times. The third time was the charm, and Barda slid down her legs as the pain blazed across her back, falling flat before the Marauding Marvelite.

Doom let out a loud, rasping sigh, as she felt Barda's muscular arms loosening their vice-grip around her waist, and relented with the hammer strikes to the cosplayer's well-muscled-yet-battered back. Seeing Barda go down like this filled Doom with enthusiasm; she'd been waiting this entire match to see the larger woman start going down, and it seemed Doom's measured efforts to make that happen were finally bearing fruit. Doom allowed herself a brief moment to get some air back in her lungs, replenishing what the cosplayer had been able to squeeze out of her.

She could hear the disdain of the fans, as she'd brought the hammer down on her foe's back, again and again. That, coupled with the low-blow from just moments ago, had firmly set the AFW fans against her. Which was, of course, where Doom always wanted that cloying clutch of perverts. Hammer firmly in hands, she raised it to the air, flexing her every lean muscle for the crowd to see, and let out a blood-curdling shout. “All. Will kneel,” she said, practically beaming at the audience's hatred, “before Doom.”

Feeling Barda clinging to Doom's legs, the brawler knew she couldn't rest on her (considerable, Doom had to humbly admit) laurels for much longer. She had the edge, at the moment, and there was no way she could take that for granted. Barda was strong, motivated, and likely more than a little angry at the moment. Seeing the cosplayer on the mat, however, spurred Doom onward. From the first moment she'd caught an AFW match, this was the exact scenario she'd imagined, and Barda was giving it to her. Now, she just had to capitalize.

Taking the hammer in both hands, Doom drove it downward, aiming a blow squarely at Barda's back, straight at the cosplayer's shoulder blades, putting her body weight behind the strike. Doom hoped to do enough damage to her opponent to give her an easier time breaking free of any remaining grip Barda might have on her legs, and eventually begin getting creative, again.

In pain. Back hurting. Breathing heavy. Bludgeoned and beaten before a deranged True Believer with a sledgehammer and a serious axe to grind.

Somehow, when Barda signed up for the AFW, she didn't imagine her career reaching this point.

She was trying to think of a play here, but it wasn't coming to her - she could do all sorts of things to Doom, but all of them involved standing back up, and she just wasn't in a condition to do that. This match was starting to go into a more extreme place than what she wanted, what she could have ever dreamed. Doom may have been the smaller wrestler, but she was unquestionably more wily and spry. Barda just couldn't keep up.

The point was driven home by another fierce blow to her back, dropping Barda all the way down, flat on her chest. She croaked and tried to push up, managing a few inches before her body gave way and she fell again. It just was not happening, plain as that. "Enough..."

“Enough?” Doom asked, breaking into a malicious chuckle. She stepped over Barda's arms, putting a couple steps' distance between herself and the powerful-yet-prone cosplayer. “Doom is the arbiter of what qualifies as 'enough,' girl. Unless you wish to crawl back up to that mat and start tapping, eh?”

The crowd seemed livid, at this point, with Doom's unsportsmanlike conduct, and her seeming glee at inflicting pain. Which wasn't entirely unfair, Doom realized, as she looked down on Barda. The bitter punk knew that she couldn't give Barda much breathing room, quite yet, but it was hard not to take a moment to admire her own handiwork. This was exactly the kind of competition that Doom had come to AFW hoping to find. And while Barda had been giving her a challenge, Doom was having a hard time recalling the last moment in which she felt quite so fulfilled.

Taking one more step towards the audience barricade, Doom looked again to the audience, saw some fans on their feet to voice their disapproval. A wicked grin on Doom's face, the former grad student, former MMA fighter and current scourge of the AFW fanbase, seemed to take a quick swing at two fanboys in the front row, raising the sledgehammer with sudden, shocking menace. When they flinched, Doom held back on her strike, and instead grabbed the giant styrofoam cup of soda from the fan's hand. Backing towards Barda, Doom let out a loud, cackling laugh as the audience's disdain grew louder and louder with each step.

Here, Doom turned her attention back to her opponent, in full. Doom stepped forward, attempting to plant a strong stomping strike to Barda's back, aiming for the same spot she'd just been targeting with the hammer that she still clutched in her off hand. “So, are you done playing pretend, then, you quivering little quim? Are you ready to call it quits?” With those words, Doom shook the cup, dumping its contents down towards the prone Barda.