Higurashi Dojo-Taylor Parker & Julia Rogers vs. Jessica Wright & River Styx

Styx walked right into a hail storm. She wasn't even sure what the punches were. Hooks, crosses, uppercuts, whatever. It was all just a blinding flash of motion to her eyes, hitting her like drum beats. It drove her two steps away, and the final blow was enough to jerk Styx's head to the side, putting her back against the ropes with a stifled grunt and a hardened grimace.

The crowd was going wild, and she could understand why even if she didn't like the facts. Taylor hit hard. Taylor hit fast. The best combination of the two Styx could think of at the moment. Maybe she was a tank, but that was high-grade artillery she'd been hit with, and she'd go down if she kept on taking it. The loud-mouthed New Yorker might need a little while to get it done, but it would happen.

Unless she got lucky, hitting Taylor with punches was just not going to work. She had to mix things up - it might mean taking more of those machine gun strikes, but that was going to happen no matter what she did. Styx would make her pay for them.

She gathered her bearings and bounced off the ropes for a speed boost, coming after Taylor with a mad dash. As soon as she was close enough, she brought her leg up and aimed the heel at the center of her opponent's chest, looking to plant it there with a Big Boot.

After bulldozing the much bigger River Styx back into the ropes, Taylor backed up to the middle of the ring. She had an irresistible swagger, a confident bounce as she moved, and while she waited for River to come back she raised her fist in the air, her royal blue eyes locked unflinchingly on her opponent.

She bounced on the balls of her feet, in a stance like a kickboxer with her hands down near her waist, her eyes locked on the human tank in front of her with a predator grin. Predictable as ever, River charged straight at her and threw a big kick. When would they ever learn?

She sprung in and to the side, just avoiding the kick and landing at River's right, and while the noise in the arena swelled to a deafening roar she unloaded more blinding punches on the big thug. She twice hammered at the taller girl's face with her lead right hook before a lightning bolt straight left, and then jumped, wrapped an arm around River's thick neck and swung her body across before falling back to try to plant her on the top of her head with a big swinging DDT.

"You can't wrestle!" Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. "You can't wrestle!" Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp.

Taylor had stopped talking, but some of the audience members immediately picked up the slack, giving their own little critique on Styx as she missed their hero by a country mile. They cheered when a hook cracked her along the cheek, they cheered when a straight jolted her head back, and when Taylor jumped up and drilled Styx's head into the canvas with a DDT, they reached a fever pitch. The end was near. They could sense it.

But when Styx stayed on top of Taylor and started to lift her up, the cheers stopped.

Taking that DDT wasn't exactly a fun experience for Styx's skull, but it was worth it. She'd wrapped her arms around Taylor as they came down, and now she had her trapped, held tight as she poured on the pressure. No more dodging, no more counters, no more smart-ass comments.

Styx stood up and turned towards her side's turnbuckle, taking aim. "Go Higu Dojo!" She growled as she took off towards the corner at ramming speed and smashed Taylor's back into it, sandwiching the pigtailed punk between her body and the pads.

"Aaagh!"

Taylor's success after her DDT was short-lived, and River quickly crushed all the air out of her.

"Gh...chk..."

While Akashi's standard hello bearhug was brutal enough on the spine, there was no love in River's embrace. Taylor struggled to breathe, and her body strained to keep from being crushed into a pulp. She clenched her fists and tried to use her elbows to push River's arms down, but then they were moving and a moment later Taylor was pulverized against the turnbuckles.

"Hnnnng! Agh!"

Taylor could hardly even cry out in pain. Her fingers curled into claws and her reddened face twisted in pain. Her hands shot out to grab for River's hair, anything to work with, but her claw-fingers only scrabbled against the thug's stubbly dome.

Shit.

From the moment she finally managed to tag Taylor into the match, Julia had rolled under the rope and laid on the apron while gasping for air. She’d fought as hard as she could against Jessica and River, but now it was up to her mentor to take over where she’d left off.

She heard several crashes and impacts from various moves as the action kept going in the ring, before finally reaching up to grab the rope and ever so slowly drag her self back up to her feet. And as soon as the cowgirl stood, she saw Taylor getting driven right into one of the corners, and winced at the sight before calling out to her.

“C’mon, Taylor! You got this!” she shouted out in encouragement, then started clapping her hands above her head, and soon the crowd was picking up on it too as they stayed rallied behind the blonde!

"Clap all you want!" Styx yelled out to the crowd while she kept Taylor pinned against the turnbuckle, shouting right next to the blonde's ear and not caring one bit. In just one night, she'd endured enough of Taylor Parker's squawking to last anyone a lifetime. This was fair payback.

"Hey!" The referee moved in behind them. "This is not a hardcore match! Off the ropes!" She started throwing up her hands. "One!" Styx ignored the fingers grazing over her head and brought her shoulders down to Taylor's stomach, staying pressed against her to keep up the position. She stretched her right leg out behind her, forcing the referee to jump out of the way. "Watch it! Two!" Styx would take the fight out of the corner when she had to, no way was she getting a DQ when the match was going her way. But she was willing to push it to the last second.

She grabbed the ropes on both sides of the corner, got a tight grip,  and backed away from Taylor to get some space. Their bodies had only stopped touching for a half a second before Styx pushed with her legs while she yanked on the ropes, jerking forward with explosive power and driving her shoulder deep into her opponent's toned stomach.

Taylor struggled in the corner until she could had some room to breathe. She was in the middle of drawing a deep breath when River's meaty shoulder slammed into her belly and folded her in half, shoving her back so that she was sitting on the middle turnbuckle.

"GUUGH!" She fell limp, her upper body laying flat against River's back, while she struggled to breathe. She felt every last ounce of her nearly hundred pound weight disadvantage.

Her mouth gaped and her head bowed, her red-streaked blonde pigtails dangling down onto River's back.

"Mm... Moo."

"Moo?" That was a new one. Styx paused for a second as Taylor laid across her back, then shook her head. "Fat joke. Cute."

"3!" The referee tugged at her shirt. "4! I'll count you out, Styx!"

She had an annoyed grunt and finally pullled away from the ropes, but Taylor was coming along with her. Styx wrapped her arms around the New Yorker's waist and lifted her up, just like before. This time, though, she wouldn't be staying up there for long.

She turned around, jumped up, and slammed Taylor down with an earth-shattering spinebuster, falling along with her to really hammer the move. Styx grabbed ahold of her legs as soon as it connected and pushed forward, looking for a pinfall.

Taylor gasped in a breath and struggled to get upright, but again Styx was ragdolling her around. With Taylor at River's mercy, given the tremendous size difference, it was difficult to see how they even ended up in the same ring. Had one just started watching, Taylor would appear hopelessly outmatched.

Her crash landing did little to dispel the notion. She hit the mat so hard the whole ring shuddered. "HAAGH!" A ragged cry escaped her, forced out by River's hulking body crushing down on top of her. She heard the inevitable slap of the referee's hand, and the one count...

And she kicked hard, enough to get a shoulder up, though River's stifling weight was still on her. "Get the fuck outta here," she rasped under her breath. "Go fuck yourself."

She kicked her legs up to snag River by the neck, and tried to pull her down to the mat to scissor her airways shut.

Jessica pounded the corner with her fist. This was supposed to be a reprieve, a break, but Jessica simply couldn't. The DDT reversal was nice as was the battering. But River had taken a few hits too. The crowd got into it for a second before River shut them up. Jessica was breathing harder than she was when she was actually in the ring wrestling and it felt awful.

"Come on, come on..." she muttered, praying for a pin.