Hana Fujioka vs. Army Rodriguez ~Big Guy, Bigger Girl~

Oh. Right. Army and his sister were boxers. Hana would have been cursing herself for not remembering such an important detail, but Army's flurry of blows wasn't giving her much time for regrets.

Her head snapped from side to side as she fists pounded against her face, then the third shot landed on her chest. Of course Army would attack there, the Amazon's chest still weaker and hurting from their earlier chop off. She stumbled back, wincing and grunting in pain, one hand shooting up to hold her face while the other clutched at her chest.

Hana wasn't sure how to deal with something like this, how to deal with a boxer, and not a wrestler. It was frustrating, the way he was dancing around her. If she hadn't been having so much fun fighting him, she would have been annoyed by that cocky smile of his, but as things were, she could only look at this as another challenge to overcome.

Besides. She was confident that he wouldn't be smiling for too much longer.

Hana decided to bring the fight back to him instead of waiting for him to dance back in. With a guttural roar, she lunged back towards Army, and brought her own arm up, swinging her fist straight towards his face. A bit blunt and to the point, but she wasn't known for being too fancy, and she just had to try and keep the pressure on.

Army remembered how much he hated his Dad for making him take dancing lessons when he was a kid. Always seemed so out of place, didn't see why boxing training had to take him out to the ballroom floor. He swore, it was just a reason for his Mom to blush and show pictures to her girlfriends at the hospital.

But that was before his first matches, and the first time that overpowering wasn't an option. Proper footwork was essential in times like those. And a time like this.

He dropped his guard for half a second as he retreated, beckoning her forward. "Come on, big girl, try and keep up.¡Vamos!" He couldn't quite match Carmen's skill with the step, but he was good enough for just about anyone his own size. Hana included. "Don't tell me they don't know how to dance on this side of the ocean."

No surprise, but Hana wasn't happy to just sit around and let him hop around her. She brought the fight to him and swung out with a blow of her own, and not a half bad one, either. It was a powerful strike, and it would have even thrown Army for a loop if it hit.

But it didn't.

Army ducked under it, moved back in, swayed to the side and threw two quick jabs into her stomach to soften her up, right before he popped back up and ended the combo with a right cross to the face. The last one had some real power behind it - he'd be at this all day if he just jabbed her to death. Hana would need the big guns before she went down.

Stupid. Hana knew she should have known better. She wasn't even sure why she had just charged back in like that. Usually she was smarter about such things. Maybe she was still rattled from the punches, or maybe she had underestimated Army's skill, but whatever the reason, it was clear that she was being punished for it now.

She grunted as the two swift jabs nailed her stomach, one right after the other in rapid succession, the Amazonian wrestler starting to double over. Her eyes started to grow wide, amazed at just how fast Army was, despite his size. If he had relented in his blows, she might have taken a moment to compliment him on it, but she didn't get that chance.

In came Army's right cross, clobbering Hana right in her face. Her head violently snapped backwards, and she began to stagger away from Army, blinking her eyes several times as her vision started to cloud. Army was strong. She had known that, but now he was in his element, leaving Hana dazed as she staggered away from him. His punches were no joke, and she most certainly wasn't wearing a smile on her face anymore.

The crowd was booing Army again, and it wasn't just because of the recent heel heat he'd been drawing. He could hear the 'wrestle, wrestle' chant starting to build up, and it was the same kind of crap he and Carmen dealt with everytime they fell back on their old skills. It was a wrestling match, and people wanted to see more wrestling.

But they could sit and spin. They weren't in here, they didn't have to take on the giant. Fighting Hana was hard enough without tying a hand behind his back. Army needed every advantage he could get.

He moved in again as Hana staggered back, and all the familiar feelings started to come in. He didn't even have to think about. Hours and hours of drills did the thinking for him, and his body executed.

He threw a fake right cross towards her face, trying to throw her off after the last blow, and came in with a left hook instead, looking to give her eardrum a pounding. Army stayed close and worked in the danger zone, following up with an immediate uppercut and sinking it as deep into those brick-walls abs as he could manage.

Hana recovered from her daze, just enough to see Army's fist flying towards her face. She let her arms fly up in front of her, desperate to shield herself from the attack. She was tough, but not tough enough to keep eating punches like this.

But it was a trap, and Hana had fallen for it. As her arms came up, Army's left arm flew around, slamming into the side of her head, causing it to jerk violently to the side. She could feel her eardrums ringing from the blow, but there was no time to feel the pain from it, no time to try and recover from the attack.

His uppercut swung towards her, his fist flying straight and true, as it rammed into her abs, driving into her midsection. Hana's eyes grew wider, and a choked cry emerged from her lips, as the air was forced from her body. She was shocked at the power of Army's blow, at just how much strength he could manage with his punches. The crowd gasped, as Hana began to stumble backwards, driven away from the uppercut, until she finally fell back, collapsing against the ropes. She hung there against them, her arms draped over the top of them, her breath ragged, and more then a little unsteady.

She was in trouble now, and if she had a clear enough mind, she would have made a mental note to figure out how to fight a boxer after the match.

Army couldn't help having a nostalgic sigh as his fist rocked Hana's skull and cut deep into her iron core. Was it a little wrong to feel this good about bashing someone's skill in and folding them in half? Maybe. But it did feel good. Damn, did it feel good. If it wasn't for all the Japanese people, Army might have thought he was right at home.

He could hear Carmen clapping him on as he finally put Hana on the ropes, a feat that he doubted many guys would be repeating in the AFW. She wouldn't stay there for long, though, and the problem with punching was that Hana had a lot more tools to work with while he was in boxing mode. It was fun, but he needed to switch things up before she adjusted. Luckily, he had some great ideas on how to do that.

Army reached forward and grabbed her head, sinking his fingers deep into her long, flowing mane. He pulled it forward and took the rest of her body off the ropes with it, making her stand before him. Eye to eye.

"This might be new for you, but..." He forced her arms down to her sides, wrapped his own all the way around her body, joined hands at the back and pulled her in for a crushing bear hug, squeezing her like the world's largest tube of toothepaste. Army gritted his teeth and flexed his chest, biceps, shoulders...everything, anything. He tried to get the most out of every muscle involved, knowing nothing less would do.

This was new. Hana had used the bearhug herself in the past, more times then she could count, but she could honestly say this was the first time that it had been used on her!

She grimaced, as she felt Army's arms wrapping around her, clenching tight around her body. When he began to squeeze, her head tilted back, and she couldn't stop herself from letting out a deep, throaty groan of pain, the sound echoing out into the arena. Army's punches had done a damn good number in softening her up, draining some of her massive strength away, and now he was taking full advantage of her state, keeping her trapped tight within his arms.

She pressed up close to him, her bare skin rubbing against his bare skin, her muscle body pushing against his, as he squeezed her tighter and tighter. She tried to focus herself, tried to draw on her great strength, but she was hurting, and she was hurting bad. She was in a bad spot, and everyone watching knew it, yelling and cheering for Hana to break free, while still raining their boos and jeers down upon Army.

A large part of the reason Army used this submission on Hana was because it was the only one he'd ever tried. He could do things like a Boston Crab or a Camel Clutch in theory, but he probably wouldn't be able to get nearly the same results as a tested wrestler would. Just not his area. But this? As simple as simple moves go. If Army could get his arms around it, he could crush it, and Hana wasn't an exception.

She wasn't going down easy, but she was going down. He could feel her struggle, feel her fight, but he managed to ride it down and keep the pressure up. He leaned back, lifting her off her feet by a few inches while he bore down. Tighter. Harder. Relentless.

He exhaled along with her as their breath swirled around between them, so close that he could taste her gasps on his tongue. With another woman, this might have been an intimate moment. That thought didn't escape Army. But he hadn't really looked at Hana that way for the entire match. Not that she was ugly, far from it. She was attractive, it just didn't matter to him. It didn't register. With her, it was pure competition. That was his only interest right now, and he liked it that way.

"That's my adoring public." He took a couple of steps back as the boos intensified. That Army was totally legal didn't seem to matter much. He was a heel, Hana was a face, so everything he did was bad. By default. "Come on, let me here the magic words and I'll ease up."

If Hana wasn't in so much pain, if she had been able to form a coherent thought and turn it into words, she would most likely be expressing how much she hated being trapped in the bearhug like this. She had been in a great number of submission holds over the years, but nothing, nothing had been like this. No one had ever made her feel this weak. She hated this. She hated the way Army's arms squeezed around her, compressing her body within his hold. It was awful, and with each passing second, she could feel herself growing weaker and weaker, her strength slowly being sapped away.

Another loud roar of pain emerged from her, her face scrunched up in an expression of utmost agony. She could hear the crowd cheering for her, yelling at her to escape, but...for the moment, she couldn't focus. She couldn't summon up her inner strength to bust free.

Then Army's words, his subtle demand hit her ears, and Hana felt a shiver go down her spine. She had lost matches in the past before, but she had never lost by a submission. Army was close though, so very close to making her give in.

She closed her eyes tighter, and began to bite down on her tongue, trying to stifle her cries, her wails of pain. She could withstand this. She had to withstand this. She could withstand this...right?

Something about this felt wrong to Army. It wasn't some misplaced feeling of shivalry, either. Hana was in pain, but that was expected. They were competitors, and she'd asked him to give her 100%. This was part of that package deal. If anything, letting her go out of pity would earn him a slap from Hana now and a slap from Carmen later, and he'd deserve them both.

It was just the way her body seemed to be giving and cracking and maybe even breaking as he crushed away at it, like he was threatening to do something that couldn't be undone. Army didn't have a problem messing up anyone up in a fight, but he tried to keep things from being permanent. There were lines that couldn't be crossed, and he'd been taught to respect them...as a boxer. As a wrestler, he wasn't too sure where they were. Or if Hana cared.

The clapping was growing louder as the crowd wanted her to escape, and a small part of Army was right with them. This was not the note he wanted their match to end on, but he coudn't just hand it to her, either.

"Hey. Hey." He gripped his hands even tighter to secure the hold, as he swung Hana from side to side. "We were having us a serious match, here. You really gonna let me run away with it this easy? Because I will...but I'd rather take the badass Hana Fujioka straight up, you know? Take you down with a finisher, make it look good for the customers. So if you've got anything left, She-Hulk..."