Seasonal Yuletide Christmas Bash Extravaganza!

For a few seconds, Abattoir was floating in a blissful dream world. You really can only endure so much pain before it starts to kind of blur together, and combined with her semiconscious state, lying there on the floor after Jessica clocked her was kind of like settling into a nice warm bath. Visions of other fights danced in her head, hazy daguerreotypes of herself kneeing jobbers in the head and leaping off ladders onto tables and rolling around in the congealed cemetery runoff of the slaughtered nations and shouting to the world that the end was nigh before hanging herself off a bridge and--

Thud. The shot to the chest was what started to wake her back up - there was no way it wouldn't, from the way it bounced her head off the floor. The nak muay blinked again, blearily. That'd been a kick most people would prefer to avoid; Jessica was a big girl and the big shitkicker boots didn't exactly cushion the impact. It felt like her chest had been caved in, and the only reason she knew it wasn't was because she was still breathing (albeit not without difficulty).

As the other girl stepped up to her, Abattoir was already reaching, trying to grab onto whatever was nearby and drag herself back upright. She was dazed from the last few minutes, though, and had chosen Jessica as her support to do so. Probably a bad idea.

It was clear that the masked girl was in a bad way, but the Violent Violet wasn't walking so sprightly herself. The kick had worked, sure, but the shockwaves rocked her leg. She felt like a cymbal as she shook and tried to remain upright. Abattoir made the mistake of using her as help to get up. Jessica would try to do her best to show her that this attempt was sheer folly.

The Violent Violet bent over and helped Abattoir in her own way. The masked girl would get up of course, but under Jessica's influence and not her own. She would try to grab her taut shoulders and erect her completely before dragging her the scant few steps to the metal barricade that usually separated the fans from the wrestlers. The brave ones who remained close were going to get a very personal view if Jessica could pull what she wanted off.

Provided she made it there, she would grab Abattoir's head and bash it against the barricade. First once, then a few more times. Then faster. Then stronger. Then hopefully Jessica would see lots and lots of red as if she weren't seeing the red already.

Abattoir was beginning to decide that Christmas was way more fun than she'd given it credit for.

Lucidity was steadily returning to her as Jessica dragged her upright, pulling her over towards the guardrail. The nak muay had just enough time to brace herself, and then she collided head-on with the metal, sending starburst explosions through her field of vision. Over and over again - three, four, five times the Violent Violet smashed her against the barricade, splattering any fans brave enough to remain in the front row with blood and staggering Abattoir badly.

On reflex, she grabbed the top of the barricade around smash five or six, holding on so she couldn't be pulled back anymore, and then threw an oblique kick at the side of Jessica's knee. It was a short thrust kick - not a lot of room to give it power and perhaps not as much chance of staggering the bigger girl as she'd like, but it was either give it a shot or get smashed.

"Oh god, I think I've got some in my mouth," wailed a disgusted and newly blood-splashed guy in the front row.

Christmas colors were traditionally red and green in western countries, but Jessica was content with nothing but red. She got it in spades as the slamming of Abattoir's head bore fruits she thought she could only dream of. The blood that splattered on her red wrestling one piece was hardly noticeable, but Jessica hazarded to guess that Abattoir would have no problems finding it.

Then the holiday mirth stopped. Abattoir found it in her to hold on to the damn rail to avoid getting her head bashed once again, much to Jessica's chagrin. Jessica pushed harder as she thought she could overpower her and concentrated all her force on slamming Abattoir's head until she was lights out.

What she should have concentrated on was defending herself. A short kick caught the side of Jessica's knee. There was always something loathsome about those sorts of kicks, the way they made a girl stagger and made a girl hurt. Jessica winced hard as she reached down to grab it.

They were basically just swinging wildly now - all pretense of holiday-themed plunder had gone out the window and both participants were mauling each other with imprecise, crushing blows left and right.

The shot to the knee had done exactly what it'd been meant to do, and Jessica was not only staggering, but (much more importantly) not slamming Abattoir's head into the guardrail anymore. The nak muay shook her head violently, clearing some of the cobwebs, and then stole the chair from the audience member who'd been splattered with her blood. He would return home later that night as a sadder but wiser man, understanding the perils of front-row seating and also hoping AFW maintained a rigid hepatitis testing program for its employees.

Abattoir twisted in place and pushed herself off the guardrail, and as she did she turned around with a big chairshot. The impromptu weapon wasn't even closed; she was basically just using an unfolded chair as a bludgeoning weapon. This was fine, as any concept of style points had probably gone out the window right around the time the two girls had begun collectively bleeding enough to keep the Red Cross supplied for a few years.

Jessica looked up just in time to see that she could do nothing about the situation. Her stinging knee would be the least of her problems as the chair collided with the side of her head. It was unfolded and provided a nice one-two punch as the sitting part connected with her face and the backrest part connected with the back of her head. Spit and blood flew as she turned her head and went down to the ground.

To make matters worse her knee twisted a bit as she turned and hit the floor. Jessica hardly noticed it, what with the considerable pain making her head feel like it was erupting. The hard cement floor was not the best bed she had ever had in her life which was lucky as she barely hung on to consciousness.

The Violent Violet groaned and tried to roll over on her back. That at least might make it easier to get up. At any rate, the cameras and the audience would see all the blood she was sporting on her face.

At the moment, the only sleigh bells brightening the Christmas mood were the ones constantly ringing in Abattoir's head. Wait. That was probably a concussion. Yes. Definitely a concussion.

She had Jessica down, though, and so a little bit of bruised gray matter sure as hell wasn't going to stop her from having as much fun as possible before the holiday train derailed itself. Abattoir wrenched at the sides of their little segment of the barricade, popping it loose, and in that moment it was very easy to tell the seasoned fans from people new to the show, because everybody who'd seen her match against Aisha began immediately scattering backwards into the safety of the crowd.

This would not save them forever, but it did keep the fans relatively unscathed, since Abattoir was mostly concerned with tipping the heavy barrier over onto Jessica, laying it on top of her like a big metal shroud for a corpse. She turned, glanced at the stairs - ehhh, too far - and then dashed with surprising quickness up to the apron, got a running start, and dove off the side of the ring with a double stomp aimed at the dead-center of the barricade.

The nak muay wasn't really a believer in 'signature spots', but she had to admit she was starting to develop something of an affinity for this one. Ho ho ho indeed.

The barricade limited Jessica's movement greatly, which the Violent Violet came to regret. Having that slab of metal on her meant that she couldn't dodge, and the two feet slamming the metal into her chest was a hell of a thing to dodge. Jessica let out a loud "Guh!" as all the air was ripped from her lungs. The barricade was uniform in its application of pain, and every inch of her torso, from her chest down to her knees, felt like it had been completely annihilated.

It would have been bad if she hadn't seen it coming, but because she could track Abattoir the whole way, the pain was so much worse. There was no impressive blood for the cameras, no sweet crunch of a broken bone to make the audience go ooooooh. It was just crushing, overwhelming, unshakable pain. Seeing the masked girl and knowing that it was coming and there was no way to stop it just made the situation nearly as rough mentally as it was physically.

Nearly, but not quite all the way. After a blow like that, Jessica was down. Maybe for the count. With a slow, rattled breath she began breathing again. That was a start at least, but not nearly enough to get her up and moving. She couldn't get up, and she was resigned to that. A storm was brewing, a sadistic, violent, masked storm, and the Violent Violet was left no choice but to weather it.

There was something purposeful, and indeed frantic, about the way Abattoir immediately pulled - or really, jerked the barricade off her opponent the second she was done landing from the double stomp. Those who were familiar with her matches could easily spot the occasion: it was the last big adrenaline rush. One of these usually came right towards the end of the match, heralding a thunderstorm of knees, chairs, elbows, lighttubes, and whatever the hell else was available...followed by something of a crash, which would be very pronounced in this particular situation, considering how much blood Abattoir had lost. It was all about survival for Jessica now. If she could weather the storm, victory was as good as hers.

Weathering the storm, however, was going to be much easier said that done.

The nak muay was visibly grinning under her shattered mask, drenched in gore and riddled with glass shards and thumbtacks, as she heaved the barricade off and dragged Jessica's limp form towards the ring. At the edge, she bundled the Violent Violet back onto the apron, hopped up after her, and leaned her on the top rope.

Moments later, Abattoir hopped up on Jessica's shoulders, grabbing her in a headscissors, and leaned backwards until she dangled over the top rope into the ring. Thus dripping blood, arms stretched wide like a crucifix, she was a remarkable sight. Maybe not as Christmasy as the match would've been hoping for, but that was irrelevant as Abattoir surveyed the ring, taking a moment to glance from the mass of broken glass and thumbtacks over to some of the presents, over to the barbed wire tree in the corner, and back again.

"Ylsi e vin a ipgedot saga," she murmured, sounding deliriously pleased with the match. "What do you think, Jessica? Back into the tacks? Festive enough for this thing, mm?"

A weight had been lifted off of her. She honestly couldn't recall she was in an old-fashioned slobberknocker like this one. Somewhere in the depths of her memory there was the recollection of some match where she had been this tired and this pained. At the current moment, she had a hard time finding it even though the barricade became less salient in her thoughts. Abattoir was now dragging her and Jessica was cognizant of it. Cognizant of it and completely incapable of doing anything about it.

Finally, with an umph! Jessica's body was thrown into the ring. She groaned again as she was leaned against the top rope. The masked girl was apparently speaking in tongues now, goaded on by some unseen divine force. Every muscle of Jessica's body demanded movement, demanded action, but Jessica simply couldn't. Sweat dripped off of her and off of the rope. She was so mentally tired. Tired of trying not to get killed out here, tired of all the doubts banging around her head, tired all of the fans demanding her blood. It would be so easy to just close her eyes and welcome oblivion...

But Jessica didn't. Jessica wasn't going to go out like this. Whatever Abattoir wanted to do, she had better do it fast, Jessica thought as she began forcing herself off the ropes. The process was slow and grinding and Jessica's thoughts were more aggressive than she could really be, but the desire was still there. The desire to weather this storm, the desire to kick the crap out of this annoying masked girl, the desire to not only survive, but to thrive. I'm going to win, she thought, even if it kills me.