Tag Elimination: The Valkyries Vs. Blaise Cameron, Amy Poford & Mariko Ishii

Divine had been wise to try to get back as close to the ropes as possible. But Mariko wasn’t about to let her get far, and her explosive double knee drop stopped the Valkyrie right in her tracks. But that was only the beginning. Now Mariko finally had her opening to get the retribution she craved, and she was hellbent on making the absolute most of it.

The vengeful beauty shifted herself over Divine to sit on her lower back, then moved to grab the Brazilian’s arms so she could pull them back over her legs to apply a camel clutch. And from there, she’d also add yet another level of torment to her hold by coiling her arms around Divine’s head and neck to apply the tightest and most constricting sleeper hold this girl would ever have the misfortune of experiencing. If she could get the dual hold locked in, Mariko would pull back as hard as she could, maximizing the pain being inflicted on Divine’s back while simultaneously looking like she was trying to rip the girl’s head right off her shoulders!

“You’re finished, bitch! I’m going to end you!” Mariko would say, with every bit of her hatred and rage coming across perfectly clearly in her voice.

So close, yet so very far. Even after the knee drop landed, Divine was still trying to reach for the  ropes, as if her arms might magicallys stretch out and save her from the pain she knew was coming. Sadly, that wasn't to be. There was only pain. So, so much pain.

"No, God, wait-" She screamed as Mariko put her in the camel clutch, thinking that would be bad enough - and it would be. But as Mariko's slender yet deceptively solid arms circled around her throat, she realized that it wasn't nearly that simple.

Divine struggled. She struggled like crazy. She thrashed, she kicked her legs, she shoke her head, searching for even the teeniest, tiniest bit of give in Mariko's inexorable hold. There wasn't any to be found, and she couldn't decide what was worse - the pain or the constriction her throat, being completely unable to breath.

She could hear Mako screaming at her to do something and the referee asking if she gave up, but their voices sounded like they were miles away and getting further by the second. There was only one way out of this, and as the spots began to form in her eyes, Divine went for it.

She tapped out.

No matter how much Divine struggled in her grasp, Mariko didn’t let up even slightly for a single second. She continued to mercilessly bend the Brazilian’s spine as far as she could bend it, and squeezed her neck as tightly as she could. It had been a rough road getting to this point, but Mariko now knew she finally had the Valkyrie right where she wanted her, with seemingly no route of escape to be found.

Well, there was a way out. And it wasn’t long before Divine took it, and Mariko felt the trapped Valkyrie tapping out. The ref immediately waved over to the announce table to signal them to make the first elimination in this match official in Mariko, Blaise and Amy’s favor! The unlikely team now had a 3-2 advantage over the Valkyries, giving their odds in this war a big boost. However, there was just one problem: Mariko wasn’t finished torturing Divine.

Even after the submission, the Japanese beauty still refused to release or even ease up on her hold! “What’s the matter? Don’t feel like fighting anymore? Well too bad!” she said while continuing to choke and bend Divine. She clearly didn’t even care if she inflicted a severe injury on her foe! She simply wanted to do everything in her power to hurt this woman as much as humanly possible.

"Mariko!" The referee shook her shoulders, trying to get her to release Divine before permanent damage was done. "Let her go!"

Stone didn't like Divine. She was stuck up, lazy, a bitch, and even though she would never admit it, she was alway s the one taking the last soda out of the fridge. The two of them rarely went a day without arguing about something, and there were times when Stone felt like kicking her in the face. Once, she even did it.

But, through it all, Divine was a fellow Valkyrie. So, when the referee called for the first elimination and Mariko kept on choking her, looking like she had no intention of stopping for antyhing, Stone didn't need an order from Mako to get in the ring. Her response was automatic.

She hopped over the ropes, pushed the referee out of the way, and came at Mariko from behind with a quick kick, booting her in the back of the skull with her heel. That should get her attention. "You're fighting me, now."[/b][/b]

Not even the ref’s efforts were enough to budge Mariko or make her even consider releasing Divine. Finally, this bitch was getting nothing less than she deserved, and Mariko wanted to keep administering that punishment for as long as she possibly could. Unfortunately, there was another, much larger Valkyrie who wasn’t going to stand by and let that happen.

Suddenly, a heel smashed right into the back of Mariko’s skull, drawing a sharp cry from her lips and forcing her stumble forward, releasing Divine and falling off of her in the process. Stone’s words fell on deaf ears. All Mariko could hear was a loud ringing in her aching head. Maybe it was a combined effect of the kick with the vicious knee strike she’d eaten from Divine earlier. Or, maybe Stone’s strike had just been that strong on its own.

Regardless, Mariko grit her teeth and moved a hand over the back of her head, then reached the other out to the ropes to try to pull herself up. She felt dizzy, and keeping her balance was not too easy at the moment. But as she started to turn and saw a slightly blurry giant staring her down, Mariko knew balance was the least of her problems right now...

Stone liked to think of herself as the more fairly minded, competitive Valkyrie, and if she'd been facing Mariko straight up, she would have been perfectly fine with taking her head on.

But she wasn't. Her team was at a disadvantage, and while she was confident in her abilities, giving them leeway would just be insultingly stupid. Blaise had already proven he was a match for her in a straight fight, and Amy had more than held her own against Mako. They needed to even this up, at lesat.

She moved after Mariko, giving Divine a quick check as she passed by - she'd put a surprisingly good fight, more than Stone expected, but she was clearly done. It was all the Brazilian could do just to roll out of the ring and flop to the floor, laying on her back while she tried to catch her breath. Just another reminder that, even wounded, Stone couldn't afford to play games with this woman.

When Mariko turned to face her, Stone reached out and caught her in a clinch, pulling the smaller woman in tight and getting her off the ropes. She took a single step back, then jolted forward and rammed her knee into Mariko's stomach, hitting with a much harder, more damaging version of the attack Divine had used on her just a few minutes ago, targeting the same area with superior force.

Being at a strength disadvantage wasn’t a notion that intimidated Mariko. After all, she’d learned how to use most of the holds she knew by applying them to Yamato in spars over the years. Even though he wasn’t exactly a giant, he was considerably heavier and stronger than her. Yet at the same time, size had played an important factor in more than one of her matches. When Ryan Knight had trapped her in a hold at Showdown, he was too heavy to drag with her to the ropes, and she had to tap. And of course there was her recent, less than pleasant bout with Killer King.

Stone was neither of them, but in a way she might be more dangerous right now than either. Stone was more ruthless than Ryan, and smarter than King. That combination didn’t bode well for Mariko. Especially considering her current condition. And seemingly as if to emphasize that fact, Stone moved in to grab Mariko and pulled her away from the ropes, and the dazed beauty gasped out as a knee brutally drove itself up into her stomach!

“GAH!!” Mariko’s body jolted at the intense impact as an expression of agony formed on her pretty face. And if Stone released her, she’d likely flop down to her hands and knees gasping and coughing profusely in a desperate attempt to regain all the wind that had just been blown right out of her. Either way, what had already been a dangerous situation had only become even more so now.

Stone started to reach down after the knee connected, expecting Mariko to be totally floored by her attack, completely laid out. That turned out not to be the case. While the Japanese native was hardly in the best of shapes, she was still getting up. Still fighting. Slowly, no doubt, but she as doing it, and if Stone gave her enough time, she would likely get back to her feet and jump right into the action. Unfortunately for Team BAM, however, Stone had no intention of letting that happen.

”It'll be over soon.” She grabbed a handful of Mariko’s lustrous hair and yanked it upwards. ”Just stay down after I drop you.”

She pulled Mariko’s head under her arm and locked in a tight front facelock, clamping down hard and making sure she had nowhere to go. She draped Mariko’s arm over her shoulder, pulled her away from the ropes, then lifted her up and over with a quick jolt of her back, slamming her down with a snap suplex to the center of the ring.

Mariko yelped as her hair was yanked up by the powerful giant, bringing her right back up to her feet. And immediately after a muscular arm coiled itself tightly around her neck. Clearly Stone was determined to keep the pressure up on Mariko to keep her from recovering. Ruthless and smart, just as she’d thought. But that didn’t mean Mariko was going to stop fighting.

“Let go!” she barked through grit teeth, balling her right hand into a fist and slamming it repeatedly into the giant’s highly toned abs in hopes of freeing herself. But whatever it did, it wasn’t enough to stop what was coming next. And suddenly Mariko’s body quickly flipped forward and crashed back down onto the mat.

“Agh! Fuck!” she cried out while arching her back and moving a hand to nurse her aching back.

Stone did let go, just like Mariko asked, but only [i]after[/b] she’d hammered into the mat with her powerful suplex. She quickly spun around on her knees and got a good look at her handiwork, watching for half a second while the beautiful woman writhed about. Effect, definitely. Now she just had to see if her advice was taken to heart.

Stone reached over, grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted them up - just a bit, barely even a foot off the canvas - then slammed them down on the mat. She pressed hard, threw her weight into it, trying to keep Mariko’s shoulder to the mat while the referee dropped for the count.

”1…”!