Silver Ace vs. Abattoir

Plenty of life in Silver Ace, it seemed. It would have been a supreme disappointment if that'd been it right there, and so for once, the feeling of her knee strike catching nothing but air was satisfying, in a way.

The feeling of Ace sweeping her leg out from under her a second later was less welcome, and Abattoir crashed to the mat. She breathed out sharply - the sound was obvious through her mask - and rolled over onto her front, pushing herself up. Exciting as it was to pass the momentum back and forth, she preferred it when it was on her side.

Rather than scramble away and give Ace a chance to pursue her, Abattoir threw herself forward, trying to grapple the other girl while they were still on the mat. Not exactly the most strategic move, but she was caught up in the excitement of the scramble. Tactics could come later.

Ace let out a laugh, tripping Abattoir to her butt as she started to get back up, keeping an eye on the girl. Good thing too, as she was able to get her arms up when she leaped at her, meeting her partway, the two crouching fighters grappling, pushing against each other.

"What are you, a wrestler or a catfighter!? I'm not going to be reduced to rolling on the mat just because you got mad that I tripped you!"

Ace yelled, swinging her head forward, trying to smash it against Abattoirs!

There was a few mad seconds of scrambling. Abattoir had managed to get ahold of an arm and was about to work on sweeping Ace into an americana when the admonishment about grappling caused her to blink and look up in surprise. What was even more surprising was the headbutt that slammed into her forehead a second later. The world exploded into a delightful shade of soft white, and Abattoir reeled back in place for a moment of delirium.

Her response, when the arena cleared back up an instant later, was very telling. Saying something like "Please don't denigrate my ground game by comparing it to the sorry excuses for 'athletes' that our division tends to highlight" would have been very polite and gotten her point across effectively. Instead, the nak muay braced herself, leaned her entire body back, and returned the favor with a headbutt of her own.

It was not the soundest idea, strategically speaking, and they were both bound to lose a couple brain cells from this whole exchange, but Abattoir was maybe just a tiny bit offended by Ace's comparison, and she intended to make her displeasure very obvious indeed.

"GAH!"

Ace yelled, staggering back a bit as Abattoir returned the headbutt, proving that nobody won with a headbutt. Her head throbbing, almost certain that strike was hard enough to crack her face paint.

Rubbing her head, Ace threw a kick out. It was more of a random kick, just something to try and keep Abattoir to keep her away while she recovered.

There was actually the faint, deep purple hints of a tiny spreading bruise at the top of Abattoir's forehead when she pulled back.  They'd come together with terrific force, not once but twice, and her ears were ringing from the sheer impact.  It was fucking awesome.  She hadn't felt this alive in months.

A kick cracked against her arm - it was a wild strike, clearly thrown more in an attempt to keep her off than anything else.  Abattoir ate the glancing blow, grimacing at the spike of pain in her bicep, and caught Ace's ankle before she could withdraw it, then rose to her feet and dragged her opponent upright by the leg.

Dead eyes stared at Ace over the mask, betraying a distant hint of some vestigial emotion resembling amusement, as the nak muay held onto that ankle.  "Now what were you going to do with this?" they seemed to ask.

Ace hobbled, trying to stay upright as her vision cleared. Her face paint covered up any bruising, but that was still going to be sore the next day.

Still, she grinned. This masked girl, Abattoir, was starting to be more fun than she initially expected.

"How about this!?"

She leaped up, swinging her free leg up, aiming to smack it into the side of Abattoir's head with an Enziguri!

Usually, standard procedure in a situation like this was to sweep the leg and then go hog wild with stomping the living hell out of whoever you were fighting. Abattoir paused a second before doing so, and her reward came swiftly - and directly to the side of her head. She had just enough time for her eyes to widen slightly with surprise, and then the enziguri crashed into her and the world spun.

The crowd popped big for Ace's show of determination; not that Abattoir noticed, since she was busy staggering over to the ropes and leaning hard on the top rope to support herself. She shook her head once, twice, three times, blinking rapidly, and the cobwebs started to quickly clear out.

Yeah, coming back had been a great idea. Not many other places she could have this kind of fun.

Her counter kick dropped Ace back onto the mat, though she quickly scrambled up to her feet.

Seeing Abattoir on the ropes, she charged at her, throwing her arm out to try and clothesline her masked opponent over the ropes and to the floor below!

Abattoir reeled, but not for long. She'd been getting hit in the head since childhood; it was going to take more than an (admittedly well-executed) enziguri to knock her out. Even River Styx had only managed to do it after about twenty minutes of pounding her face into a concrete floor.

As such, she was very lucid indeed by the time she looked up and saw Ace charging straight for her, clearly going for a big clothesline. On the spur of the moment, Abattoir ducked low and tried to bring her shoulder up for a big back body drop to the outside!

It was hastily executed, though, and she was holding onto a rope. There was plenty of opportunity for Ace to control her descent and land feet-first on the apron if she had the wherewithal to do it.

One second Ace was about to force her opponent over the ropes, the next she was being lifted high over the ropes, sliding across her opponents shoulders over the top rope.

Scrambling, Ace grabbed the top rope with both hands, managing to adjust herself to land feet first on the ring apron, giving a brief sigh of relief.

Now behind Abattoir, Ace threw her arm, smashing her forearm in between the girls shoulders.