Aisha vs. Abattoir - Two Days Notice

Taking a match with forty-eight hours to prepare was insane for a normal wrestler, but Abattoir's preparation for a match largely consisted of pacing in a dark room, writing on the walls, and repeatedly pressing the flats of her thumbs against her eyes until she saw a cornucopia of bright colors.

So here she was, taking up River Styx's spot in a match that the bald brawler had needed to miss due to Avalanche commitments. It was a street fight, which suited her just fine, and so a bundle of fluorescent lighttubes rested idly over one shoulder as she marched down the ramp. The fans knew her well enough to boo as soon as the opening beats of "Hate or Glory" kicked in, but there was a swell of murmurs at the glistening weaponry. It wasn't often somebody showed up with this kind of damage-dealing capacity - the crowd was more used to terrifyingly elaborate sex toys than something that could slice flesh with remarkable speed.

The steady upgrade to Abattoir's wardrobe wasn't helping either. Her coat was studded along its seams with tiny chrome spikes, white sigils in Enochian racing up and down its sleeves, and a Leviathan Cross was emblazoned across the front of her top, its upper fringe reaching up between her breasts and coming to a rest over her heart.

There were already a few weapons strewn around the ring and the ringside area. The usual suspects, mostly. Kendo sticks, chairs, a table or two...well, that'd save her the effort of digging around under the ring.

Abattoir set the lighttubes up in the corner, leaving them propped up like a stark white Chekhov's gun, and dropped her coat to a waiting official. Above the mask, her eyes rapid-fired between focused and unfocused for a moment, and then she dropped into a relaxed ready stance. Time to see what she was up against.

In the back, Aisha was hanging around in the gorilla position with her dancers, waiting to be called out for the entrance. She could hear her opponent’s theme playing, sounding like something you’d hear in some dank, dark club filled with people who wore all black pretty much every day of their lives and didn't get enough sunlight. Not her style.

She ignored it as best as she could and focused on the match. This was a street fight, and that wasn’t by accident. She'd requested it. In her entire wrestling career, she’d never lost this sort of match. Not once. Ever. They were her speciality, had been ever since she stepped into a wrestling ring. It was getting back to her roots - bloody, brutal, bare bones fighting. How could she lose?

She couldn’t. Damn sure not now. She’d lost two matches before this, and this was the time to turn everything around. Starting with whoever-the-fuck Abattoir was.

Her music began, a sharp contrast to what had been playing a moment before, and Aisha strutted out with her two backup dancers right behind her. The crowd got to their feet, swaying along to the beat, knowing what was coming and already getting hyped for it.

Heeeey, everybody it’s Aisha!
Don’t you worry, she’s gonna be her for ya!
Save the world, because you only got one!
Here we go, yo, come on!

Aisha and the dancers moved with perfect timing, swinging their hips about and gyrating around the stage, putting even more energy into the routine than usual. The beat hyped her up and got her blood boiling, making her ready for the fight. She brought the microphone to her lips, began to sing, and poured her soul into every word.

♫”Before the sunrise, I close my eyes
Hope to see your smile again, and I
I never knew, until I met ya
I can be a special somebody.”♫

Aisha strutted down the ramp with her girls right behind her, shaking and shimmying with every foot fall. The fans reached out, eager to touch her as she passed, and she flashed smile their way. They were still with. Even after everything she’d been through, they remained at her side. Had to love that.

♫”Have you ever needed love
Until you can’t even breathe?
Have you ever wanted love
Till the world just fell apart?”♫

She stopped in front of the ring and ran her hands up and down her body, accenting every word with a subtle thrust and twist, dancing and letting the rhythm flow through her. Her girls slid away as she rolled under the bottom rope and quickly popped up to her feet in the center of the ring.

♫”Y tu, gotta have you
You’re the one man that I need beside me!
Y tu, gotta have you
I can be strong if you are beside me!♫”

She spun around on her heel and pointed towards the hard camera, closing her eyes and letting their cheers flow through her. That was the great thing about this entrance - no matter how bad she was feeling, it could always get her energized, and it certainly was accomplishing that today.

♫”Come to me, you’ll be okay
I’m-a dry your tears and hold you softly
Y tu, gotta have you
And not just have your love anymore!”♫

Aisha ended the song with her hips cocked to the side and her arms wide open, soaking up all the applause. She held the pose for a moment, before letting it all fall down and handing the microphone away. It was then - and only then - that she got a good look at her opponent for the evening, and learned that her earlier guess based on the music was dead on. Abattoir loved herself some black clothing, reminded Aisha of Makoto when she went through the whole 'Black Belt Demon' phase. Nothing to worry about, here. Just some new blood with a whacked out gimmick trying to make a name for herself on the vet.

”Damn girl,” She snickered and bounced on her heels. She started backing off towards her corner, taking care not too trip over all the crap around the ring. ”This is a match, not some shitty-ass rave. Trying way, way too damn hard.”

Abattoir cocked her head to the side, like Jason Voorhees watching a pair of banging camp counselors, and was briefly very grateful that the mask concealed the expression on her face.

There had been a mention that she was up against Aisha, but this meant about as much as saying she was up against Mickey Mouse because she had absolutely no idea who that was or why it merited....this. A full song-and-dance routine? Seriously? This was like the polar opposite of everything she was aligned with - the side of the AFW she'd always distanced herself from. God, if this kept up they'd be putting her in matches with, like, baby oil or stripping or sex toys, like Styx had joked about--

....Styx.

....Oh god. It was a prank. Styx was pranking her. She'd pawned off the match and now Abattoir was left with this parody of a wrestler.

Abattoir sighed through the mask - a harsh noise amplified just a little over the thrum of the crowd - and picked up the Singapore cane, idly twirling it in a lazy one-handed circle like a walking stick as she leaned back in the corner. Now it was all about clothing, apparently. Her patience, which had never been good, was going to be seriously tried tonight. Well, Styx or no Styx, she was going to accomplish what she'd been sent back to do.

Stepping forward, the nak muay tested the weight of her cane. Her eyes wandered across the ring, finally coming to rest on Aisha a full minute or so after the other woman had started talking to her. Time to evangelize.

"You're better than this," she said, resting the cane over her shoulders. Her affect was detached, seeming almost disinterested from an outside perspective. "You don't need--" The cane waved, taking in the stage and ramp and all the dancers and pyro. "--all of that. It's weighing you down."

Somewhere, thousands and miles away and hundreds of feet in the air, there was a plane heading for Mongolia. It was a quiet plane for the most part, with many of its passengers settling in for a good night’s sleep on the way. There was one notable occupant still awake, however, with her face glued to a glowing TV screen above her.

All of the sudden, everyone in the immediate area was awoken by the sound of loud, raucous, unrestrained laughter, as River Styx had the funniest minute of her entire life.

Meanwhile, back on the ground, in the middle of the Friction ring, Aisha wasn’t laughing at all. In fact, she wasn’t doing much of anything, including wrestling, which she’d come here to do. She just stood and watched as the seconds ticked by, waiting while her opponent just looked around for a whole minute. Aisha paced from side to side, and she was just about to pounce when Abattoir confirmed that, yes, she was capable of making speech. The diva didn’t like what came out of her mouth, though.

”Tch, bitch.” She scoffed and took a step back with her hands on her hips. ”You come out here looking like you’re fresh off a Star Wars convention, and you talk shit about my style, the way I get down? Please, check yourself. Like you need all that shit on your face.”

She waved Abattoir off and bent down, grabbing a nearby police baton. She gave it a whirl around her fingers, smiling at all the pleasant memories it brought back. ”Save your breath, new blood. Gonna need it to make excuses after I’m done kicking your ass all over this ring.”

The referee just stood between them, nervously shifting her eyes about. ”...um…”

Abattoir had a mandate. Make sure they're ready. She wasn't totally sure who had mandated this, or what they were supposed to be ready for, but at least in theory, there was supposed to be a noble goal to all the beatings. She was sent back for a reason. She had to work toward it.

Despite this, under the seemingly diabolical obsession, she was still the same Abattoir, with a very short temper and a deep, abiding love of extraordinary displays of violence. And as Aisha snapped back at her, the old familiar rush bubbled back to the surface.

Well...maybe the mandate could wait a few minutes.

"A'ight."

Her skirt and the various straps flapped in the sudden breeze as Abattoir charged forward, Singapore cane brandished at her side like a sword. It hoisted into a familiar striking position - and then she threw it instead, heaving the hunk of wood at Aisha like a javelin. The second it left her fingers, she spun into a low dropkick, aimed right for the diva's knee. It was a fast ploy, one that worked on the principles of distraction.

Finally, finally, finally, some action!

The referee barely had time to jump out of the way as Abattoir came charging forward, and Aisha ran full tilt to meet her, rushing across the ring as the crowd cheered her on. She raised the police baton as she neared, eager to clash with the singapore cane and feel the impact, and she got what she wanted. Just not in the way she expected.

"Shit!" The police baton was good for defense as well as smacking people upside the head, and that was exactly what she used it for - a quick swipe, and the flying cane was batted out towards the audience, probably striking some poor guy in the head. Aisha didn't get the chance to look, though. She had far more pressing concerns.

Abattoir's dropkick hits it mark, and it sent Aisha tumbling head-over-heels towards the far enough of the ring. She recovered fast enough, though, and turned the fall into a roll, quickly bouncing back up to her feet before she could fall out of the ring. The moment both of her heels touched the ground, she jumped backwards and spun around, complete turnaround, swinging the baton towards Abattoir's head.

The dropkick hit home and Abattoir rose up immediately, leaning to one side as Aisha flipped past her from the impact of the attack. She wasn't the type of person who gave her opponents plenty of time to recover unless the situation warranted it - once she hit you, you stayed hit. As such, she was in the middle of turning to swarm Aisha when the baton came swinging right for her head.

Abattoir leaned back, slipping the shot. The breeze from the baton flying by actually fluttered one of her bangs up into the air, but if that was the most damage the move did, well, she wasn't complaining.

As Aisha followed through (holy shit, she was really committing on that swing), Abattoir channeled the momentum of her dodge and leaned into a teep - the front push kick to the chest, aimed to shove her opponent forcefully backwards and get her some space. She was reasonably confident in her ability to strike it out with an armed person, but there wasn't any reason to test that out when she could simply get enough room to grab a weapon, or better yet disarm Aisha.

Aisha had a nice, low growl after she missed the baton sweep. It wasn't so much that she came up short, but why she did, the way Abattoir dodged it. It was starting to look like this bitch had some martial arts training. The real deal, too. Always a pain in the ass.

The kick she planted in Aisha's chest confirmed her suspicions - it was crisp, it was clean, and most importantly, it was surprisingly powerful for a woman that size to be delivering. It sent Aisha stumbling back with her arms swinging, and if it weren't for the ropes, she would've fallen flat.

Instead, her back hit them and she wound up getting bounced back towards Abattoir, coming at her even harder than before. She didn't fight the momentum and decided to roll with it, using it to augment her next move. Aisha had never set foot in a martial arts class, but she'd picked up a lot over the years, and she was eager to give this little goth bitch a taste.

As she came running back, Aisha suddenly twisted around and shot her leg out in one smooth motion, aiming her heel towards Abattoir's chest. A spinning back kick, right out of Tae Kwon Do.

Abattoir was quickly beginning to understand that perhaps things were not as they had seemed. She had readily written Aisha off as all flash and no substance whatsoever, but while the impact of the ball of her foot against the other woman's breastbone was satisfyingly solid, what followed was anything but the usual wild stagger. Aisha hit the ropes in a controlled recoil, bounced off, and spun into a graceful spinning back kick. It was impressively fast and smooth - considering the dancing background, not actually that much of a surprise, but Abattoir didn't really have enough time to think that through before the impact smacked her right in the leviathan cross and sent her back against the ropes in turn.

Well. At the very least, her enemy had one dimension, which was a step up from what she'd thought.

As fun as it would've been to throw the Nail or something similar and spend the rest of the match ping-ponging each other off the ropes until someone fell unconscious, like a full-body version of Bloody Knuckles, Abattoir brought the pace back down a little. Going ham was risky now. It usually was, of course, but there had been the chance they'd literally just thrown her in against some untrained singer, in which case finishing things quickly would've been the way to go. Now, though...

Abattoir bounced in place for a second, arms up in a traditional stance, and started circling. After the initial burst of violence, it was a quick drop back down to a methodical pace. She waited, watching to see if Aisha would try something. Perhaps there was more depth to be found.

Aisha had to admit, as much as she knew this match would leave her bruised for days, a not-so-small part of her was loving it. It had been way, way too long since she'd had a good fistfight, and while she didn't mind straight grappling, a return to her roots was exactly what the doctor ordered. She didn't know who was responsible for picking opponents, but she owed him some thanks.

She brought her arms up after the kick, expecting there to be some immediate retaliation, but no - Abattoir came in slow this time. Walking. Circling. Stalking. Aisha locked eyes with her from across the ring. "It's like that, huh?"

She nodded and moved around the ring as well, staying across from her opponent at all times, keeping pace with Abattoir as they went over each other's steps. At times, Aisha would speed up a little, testing her opponent's agility, but she didn't move in for the kill. Not for a few seconds.

She gripped the handle on her police baton - or her tonfa, if you wanted to be all fancy about it. Despite not taking a lesson with the thing, she knew how to get some magic out of it. She gripped the handle tight, so the weapon's shaft ran down her forearm, and the tip of it poked out from beside her fist - perfect for striking.

Aisha suddenly darted in, teased a quick jab from the police baton, the jumped back before she could deliver. Just to see how Abattoir would react, hoping she might make an opening.