Odessa Brock vs. River Styx - #1 Contender Match for the Hardcore Championship

Styx was just started to get her wind  back when she felt a pair of strong but desperate arms wrap around her legs, pulling them together tight and driving her forward. She looked down and saw Odessa clinging to her for dear life, trying hard to bring this fight back to floor and probably wanting to go for another choke. She'd gotten good mileage out of them before, and there was a very good chance the next one would be enough to seal the deal. Even Styx had to admit that.

"No, no-" She fought back, hopped a few steps back to try and keep her balance, but Odessa grip was solid the end was inevitable. She tripped up, falling  hard on her ass, but she managed to keep her upper body erect after she fell. Styx was sitting up, but with Odessa quickly crawling over, that wouldn't last long.

The crowd was in an uproar, thinking the end was near and their hero was close to taking down the big, bald, bad girl. Disappointing them was a good enough reason for Styx to win all by itself, and she set to it by any means possible. She reached out as Odessa crawled forward, pressing her open hand into the black beauty's face. Styx curled her fingers and quickly dragged them down, trying to give her some incentive to back off with a good, old-fashioned eye rake.

Odessa was desperate at this point, knowing that if she wanted a chance at winning this fight, for herself and for the fans, she had to act, and act immediately. She threw all of her body weight forward against Styx's lower legs, leaning against her heavily, and, thankfully, it worked according to plan. The bald woman toppled over onto the tiled floor, giving Odessa some hope for a victory here today at Yummy Mart.

Odessa crawled forward and got on top of Styx. She would reach out with both hands, trying to push Styx down from her seated position, forcing her shoulders towards the floor. Before Odessa actually could do anything, her brutal opponent got even more brutal with her next move. She shaped her hand into a claw and placed it against Odessa's face. Less than a second later, pain was sizzling in white-hot streaks down Odessa's face, from her brow to her nose. "Gyyyyh..." she almost whimpered, as she had only barely been able to get her eyes closed before the raking. Her eyelids and the flesh of her cheeks still felt the sting of Styx's clawing.

"I...have had...just about enough of you," Odessa would growl at her foe, opening her bleary eyes, then cocking back and throwing a punch aimed right for Styx's chin, trying once again to floor the bald brawler.

Styx, as it so happened, had a small habit of biting her nails to trim them. Never liked keeping them long and pointy. So they weren't quite the deadly little daggers they could have been, but even so, they were still enough to do a little number on Odessa's face and leave her seeing red. In every sense of the phrase.

Styx started to rise up, scrambling to her feet, but she'd only made it up to a squat before a harsh punch flashed across her face. It couldn't be easy for Odessa to see, but she could apparently do it well enough to land one hell of a right cross on her chin. "Fuck-"

The blow snapped Styx's head and rattled her senses, but she managed to keep from keeling over all the way. She was on two feet. She'd mananged to stand. But she was reeling now, dizzy as the blood loss started to get to her and the crowd's roar pounded into her skull, and she barely had presence of mind to get her arms up in defense. Just needed a moment to collect herself, and then...

Odessa had been pushed to her limits before, but not quite like this. The last time she had been at the point of utter and total collapse at the end of a fight was when she fought her friend Karina in a sauna match. But that had been very different. It had been a satisfied tired, a pleasurable sense of complete exhaustion which made her want to soak in the tub and cuddle up with her opponent.

She would not be cuddling up to River Styx any time soon. The woman was a monster, who truly had no boundaries when it came to what she would do to try to hurt her opponent. She would have put a hundred staples in Odessa's legs, if the Englishwoman had given her the opportunity. She would have clawed Odessa's eyes right out of their sockets.

At this point, Odessa could only keep going on pure inertia. As her opponent got up onto her feet, the ebony beauty would do so, as well, wobbling a little bit, wiping at her eye with one hand so that she could try to clear her vision. Seeing Styx put up her arms defensively, Odessa decided to try one last burst of offense to try to take her foe out. She would launch herself forward, trying to put her weight against Styx and throw her back into the metal gate that separated them from the audience. Once she had pushed Styx back, she would start swinging at her head, punch after punch, desperately trying to fell the barbarian.

Odessa was a better wrestler than Styx. For all the shit she liked to talk out loud, she was humble enough to admit that to herself. She had far more in ring experience, she carried herself in more a traditional manner, and she even dressed the part. You could probably count all the wrestlers who wore leotards in the AFW on one hand, and Odessa was near the top of that list. Even more than that, she was tough. Surprisingly tough. Amazingly tough. Styx knew she had the weight advantage between the two of them, but it honestly didn't feel that way, most of the time. She'd made a career out of muscling around smaller women, and they always - always - crumbled when she poured the pressure on

But not this one. Styx had reached into her bag of tricks and thrown everything she had to throw at this bitch, and she just kept coming. It was surreal. Every she had thrown at this woman, every scrap and scratch, every blow, and somehow she was still getting up and throwing these hard, fierce punches.

Styx's back hit the metal gate and made the fans near it move away, rightfully fearing it might fall on them. It was already creaking and groaning from the onslaught that Odessa was unleasing, straining with each punch that slammed into Styx's guard. It was an all-out, balls-to-the-wall, desperate grasp for victory, and it was working. For the first time in a long time, she was genuinely overwhelmed.

There was just one more trump card left to play. One last trick.

Styx dropped one hand of her guard and wound up taking a hook right in the mouth for it, jolting her head to the side. It hurt. Hurt like crazy. But she was able to keep her wits about her, long enough to start reaching to her side. She took a punch on her left, slamming into what remained of her defenses, and she let the force carry her away. She stumbled away from Odessa, sliding along the gate, and all the while her hand was slipping into her pants pocket and wrapping around an old, familiar friend.

Styx gripped the brass knuckles tight, brought them out of her pocket, and swung hard back towards Odessa, pouring some of the last vestiges of her stamina into a heinous hook, aimed directly for those tortured ribs.

Odessa had not been satisfied with the way this match was going, for all sorts of reasons. But foremost among them was the simple fact that she felt as though she were very clearly losing this fight. She managed to gain the upper hand on her foe every now and then, but for the most part it seemed that Styx had controlled the tempo of the fight, and all Odessa had been able to do was react. Odessa felt herself getting weaker, growing fatigued, and felt the injuries to multiple areas of her body piling up. She couldn't tell just how much this war of attrition was affecting Styx. Despite the blood on the back of the woman's head, she didn't seem to slow down at all.

But all of that changed when Odessa threw herself into Styx, sandwiching the bald woman between her own body and the metal grate, and started hammering away at her with punch after punch after punch. Styx seemed to give ground. Her body seemed to shrink, and crumple a little. She couldn't fight back—she just had to keep her guard up and let Odessa pummel her.

It felt good. It felt very good.

Odessa was still running on inertia, as she kept on punching, and punching. She knew that, once she stopped, she was not going to be able to start fighting again. She needed to knock her opponent out here. And, when her thunderous right hook slammed into Styx's face, Odessa thought that she just might be able to do it. Styx stumbled, slid along the grate, which creaked and squeaked under the pressure, threatening to collapse.

But it didn't collapse, not yet, and neither did Styx.

Odessa moved after her opponent and threw another hook, a haymaker, as hard as she could, aiming it for Styx's face. But as she did, she saw her opponent's arm moving outward towards her. Earlier in the match, Odessa might have been able to twist around and deflect it, or otherwise mitigate the damage. But not now. She braced herself. The brass knuckles slammed into her ribs, and Odessa yelled in agony as she felt a dozen tiny fractures come into being in those bones. It was like a million fiery hot pins were all stabbing into her torso at once. It was too much for Odessa. The blow killed all of her momentum.

She fell to her knees, seething and growling, clutching at her ribs with both arms as she breathed shallowly. She needed to breathe heavily to regain her strength, but doing so hurt too much with her fractured ribs. Odessa started to feel a fog coming over her.

It was hard to be sure over the rattling cage and the crowd's roaring, but Styx was sure she heard Odessa's ribs cracking when she landed that harsh blow with the knuckles. She sure as fuck felt it. The sensation was unmistakeable, nothing quite like it. For that split-second where Styx's fist was pressed against Odessa's body, she could sense the bones giving away and cracking on impact. There was give where there shouldn't be give. And if that wasn't enough to tell her what she wanted to know, Odessa's banshee wail was more than adequate to fill the blanks.

Styx let out a sigh as Odessa screamed, one that was filled with relief, anguish, anger, and satisfaction. Truly beautiful.

She wanted to gloat. Wanted to take a moment to lord all this over Odessa while she was on her knees. But Styx's hubris was overrode by her desperation. As much as she doubted the black beauty had another rally left in her, taunting her was too risky to chance. Better to just end it now and be done with the mess, and she knew just the way to do it. "Mine."

With Odessa kneeling before her, she reached down and grabbed her head, then pulled it between her legs in a classic position. The audience's boos reached deafening levels, but Styx paid them little mind - they knew what was coming and they'd hate her for it, but she couldn't have possibly gave less of a shit.

Styx reached over Odessa's back and grabbed her waist, getting a tight hold on it. With a deep breath to summon what was left of her wavering reserves, she lifted her up on her shoulders for the start of her finishing move, the Fallen Angel. It was a powerbomb, nothing too complicated, but she always added one twist that made it different from the way it was typically done: Styx always threw her opponent into something. Whether it be the turnbuckle or or a steelchair or just tossing them out of the ring to the floor, she went that extra step that few wrestlers had the guts to try, and this time would be no different.

She held Odessa up for a moment, getting her balance just right before she turned around to face the audience. With a feral roar that didn't sound like anything that should come from a human's mouth, she plowed forward and slammed Odessa into the gate wth all the power and force she could muster, trying to bring it down around them as they crashed.

Odessa had been counting on Styx taunting her. She had been expecting it, was of course mentally prepared for it, but was also hoping for it because it would have given her an extra ten or fifteen seconds to try to recover. Her ribs weren't going to stop hurting, but the pain would recede in a little while. If Odessa could fight through it, she still felt as though she had one more rally left in her.

But she wasn't going to get the chance. Despite the crowd's protests, Styx moved quickly to finish Odessa off, pushing the ebony beauty's head between her legs, then grabbed her around the waist and flipped her upwards. Odessa was foggy right now, but she was still conscious enough to know what sort of move her opponent was setting her up for. She groaned. Styx started to throw her forward, roaring as she did. Odessa realized she wasn't just being brought down onto the floor.

She gurgled in pain as her back smashed into the metal gate. For an instant, they seemed to hang there, Styx diagonal, halfway to the floor, propping Odessa up against the gate on her shoulders. But that was for only the briefest instant. In less than a second, the gate, not constructed to take that hard of a hit with that much weight behind it, bent, then buckled, coming out of the sliding track it was on in the ceiling and clattering down onto the floor. Audience members scattered wildly, clearing some space as the wrestlers came down, Odessa on the bottom, her back hurting, her chest hurting, her leg hurting...she hissed and huffed, trying to endure the pain as stoically as she could.

Somewhere between the moment where Odessa made contact with the gate and it began to fall all around them, it occurred to River Styx that trying to powerbomb her like this wasn't the smartest idea of her wrestling career. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea in her hazy, blood-starved, addled mind, but now that she was actually executing it, the repercussions became painfully obvious. Like, for instance, the mass of metal that was currently crumbling down on both of their bodies. Oh, sure, it would be worse for Odessa. But not by nearly as much as Styx would like.

Styx shrieked - maybe the first time she'd made that noise in her entire life - as they crashed through and the gate collapsed on top of them, creating a wrestler sandwich with metal for the bread. Styx grunted as bar after bar crashed into her shoulders, and it went on for about twice as long as she thought it would. When the dust cleared, she was a moaning, groaning, bruised mess on the floor. Every little movement hurt, and to make matters just that much more annoying, the blood from the wound on the back of her head was dripping into her eye. And it stung. Like a bitch, did it sting.

But all of it, all the pain, was completely worth it. Because Styx was on top of Odessa. She'd moved forward after the crash, and her body was currently right over her in an awkward, sprawled position. Which meant...

"Ref!" She bellowed, loud enough to send an echo throughout the mall. "Count!"

The referee was a little sheepish, moving out of the stall with a cautious look as she nursed her battered back, but when she saw the potential pinfall, she immediately put some pep in her step. Very glad for this to be over, most likely.

She made her way over to the crashed gate, slide around it, and dropped down on the floor to start the count.

"1...!"

Odessa couldn't move. The pain was starting to overwhelm her, and, even if she could power through it, she had both the heavy Styx and the almost equally heavy remains of the metal gate crushing down on top of her. Odessa's ribs were throbbing, now, searing her midsection from the inside with white-hot pain. She kept letting out a low, pained growl—it was the only way to let off just a little bit of the stress that all the pain was causing her.

On top of her ribs, every other part of her body hurt, too. Her arms were aching. Her leg was still protesting the introduction of those sharp, tiny little metal staples into the meat of her thigh. Her head was spinning, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open and keep from passing out.

Even with all of that going against her, she might have been able to stand. But not when she was being pinned down by three hundred, maybe four hundred combined pounds of metal and woman.

She struggled. She tried to, anyway. But Styx was pinning her down, and the barbaric bald woman seemed to just have that much more energy as the fight came to its inevitable endgame. Odessa would do her best to fight through the pain and thrash about as wildly as she could, but she didn't think it was going to be enough.