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

Before her feet were firmly beneath her where they belonged, Amy felt her wrists being secured from behind again. Amy immediately tore from side to side in a wild escape attempt. She wasn't asking for much- she only needed one hand; she could do a lot with just one hand. But once she was pulled back into a kneeling position and she felt the knee at her back, her best defense became a bit tongue.

It didn’t help that much. “AAAGH!” Stone pulled Amy against her knee while yanking back on Amy’s arms, threatening to rip them off. But as Amy’s chest jutted further and further out, Amy started to wonder if that wouldn’t be worth getting that fucking knee to stop grinding into her spine.

Stone winced at Amy's blood-curdling scream of agony - she could empathize, knew how much this had to hurt. Also, her voice was quite high-picted, and it left her ears ringing.

But she didn't let up. Not even a little. She was seeing this through.

"Give up, Amy." She gripped the wrists tighter, pulled back harder, leaned further in. Anything and everything to increase the pain. "It can all be over in a moment, all you have to do is say the words." She craned her neck even closer. "You're not winning this."

Psychological warfare.Only one way to find out how effective it might be.

So reasonable. Even through the haze of pain, some part of Amy marveled at how measured Stone’s voice always sounded; professorial, almost, full of authority, without the savage snarling quality that Amy thought all bikers' voices had, as Mako had led her to believe.

It was kind of a shock to hear such an intelligent voice say something so stupid. Amy shut her eyes, hoping it would help her not cry out again. “You know I’m not gonna give up, right?” she gasped incredulously. I mean, right? Stone had to realize that none of them- not Blaise, not Mariko, and not Amy- came into the fight in any mood to submit, so why’d she even bother? I mean, sure, this hurt like hell, and it was hard to think of an escape through that pain, but AAAAA"AAAAH! FUCK!”

Damnit. Amy mounted another escape attempt, but it was futile. Stone quickly and expertly counteracted any lateral movement by tugging on her opposite hand; Amy was completely and thoroughly trapped. To make matters worse, now Stone had her pulled so taut against her knee that Amy couldn’t even breathe without feeling a twinge of agony.

So you can imagine how painful it would be for Amy to tilt her head back in her position. But she wanted to look Stone in the face, so she did it anyway, gritting her teeth against the surge of protests erupting from all up and down her back. She opened one eye. “Maybe I won't. But that’s not a reason not to fight.” Then she closed it again. “You’re bleeding.”

Yeah, Stone knew that Amy wasn't going to give up. She expected that much. Mariko hadn’t given up, either, and the little spitfire she was fighting now certainly wasn’t any weaker in spirit or mind. Body? That remained to be tested. Either way, it salved her conscious just to give her the option. She had enough burdens on her shoulders.

”Doesn’t matter if you do.” She gave Amy one final definitive squeeze on the wrists, emphasizing her point. ”It’ll end the same way.”

Stone ignored the audience’s clapping, tuning out their chatter as they began to chant Amy’s name and rally behind her. She had to snuff that flame out. Now. Before it grew into something more.

”Up.” She commanded, then started to force. She stood, taking the knee out of Amy’s spine, but making her get up along with her, putting even more strain on her chest. When she was up enough, Stone let go of the stretch without a single warning, then reached forward and tried to wrap her arm around her smaller opponent’s neck, looking to put her in a tight sleeperhold.

The knee retreated from her back, and Amy gave an involuntary sigh of relief. But her arms stayed secured behind her, which wasn’t really a surprise. Amy needed to be able to move around to be dangerous, and it had already been proven that Amy couldn’t power out of Stone’s grip. So when Stone decided to get up, Amy was coming along for the ride whether she wanted to or not. She winced from the strain as she was slowly forced up from down on two knees, to one knee, then finally back up to her feet.

Sorry; one foot. Her bent leg remained curled up against her hip as she transitioned from kneeling to fully-upright. In a swift and sudden motion, she threw her torso forward while simultaneously shooting her cocked leg behind her, kicking high in hopes that her heel would catch Stone deep in the stomach and create some much needed breathing room.

This was a lot more like it. Stone wasn’t typically a submission-oriented sort of wrestler, but as a soldier she'd picked up a great many things, and one of them was how to apply a proper sleeperhold. She wrapped Amy up tight and tried to lock the hold in, knowing it would be over in less than a minute.

Getting to that point was going to be a bit more difficult than Stone first realized, though, because Amy’s will seemed to be inversely proportionally to her bodyweight and size. She struggled to lock in the hold as they rose, but before she had the chance, her lithe opponent made a quick, annoying successful, escape attempt.

”Guh!” Spittle flew from Stone’s mouth as she was struck hard in the stomach, and she was forced to let go of Amy for the moment. But it would be a short moment, if she could help it.

There wasn’t any time to celebrate her arms’ emancipation, not even for a quick shoulder stretch. Even if it would have felt really good. Like, really, really- alright, enough; focus.

Instead, the moment her arms and leg returned to her, she whipped around to face her captor, ignoring the aches in her upper body. It took less than a second for her to assess distances, weigh options, then finally make her move, which took the form of a brief step backward, followed by reckless flying knee into the gut of the bigger blonde woman.

It was, indeed, a short moment, as Stone was recovered in a second, rough and ready to renew her attack on Amy. The only problem was that, with Amy, a second was quite a long time to be inactive. All sorts of nasty things could happen in that span. Like, say, a knee in the stomach.

It had a decent amount considering Amy's size, but what really took Stone off-guard was the sheer alacrity of the attack. How quick it came, and the razor-sharp precision it was delivered with. This time, she was the one driven into the corner while the crowd cheered, and she'd need more than a moment to recuperate.

An A+ knee; right on target, buried nice and deep into a less-than-ready gut. Solid momentum behind the blow, too; Amy could hit the ground moving with minimal wasted energy, which was good, because even a target as big as Stone was gonna stumble from that. How far though?

Didn’t matter. Amy barely touched the ground before she gave chase to her backpedaling opponent. Judging from the rate of her stagger, Stone looked like she was gonna get all the way to the corner; nice! Amy slowed her pursuit until Stone’s back was against the post. Then she sprung forward with an agile hop, a bodily enhancement to her right cross into Stone’s oft-targeted midsection.

"Get up..."

Stone mumbled, more to herself than anyone as she tried to shake off Amy's hit. She was okay, she just had to take a moment to recover before-

Amy's fist sunk deep into Stone's stoamch, slipping past her iron abs and getting farther than she'd expected would be possible. It bent her forward and stopped her from drawing in more breath, breath she definitely needed. Reflexes kicked in, instinct took over, and Stone brought her arms up in defense, fully expecting there would be more to come in the next few seconds.