AV 15 Entropy Title Match: Julia Rogers (C) Vs. Alaina Sanders (C)

Alaina no sooner had risen to her feet than she felt the tremendous force of Julia's overhead kick connected to her face, right below her right eye! Alaina's head whipped back, spittle flying as she staggered but stayed up! The crowd cheered her somehow remaining vertical, however Alaina was far from all right. She was totally dazed, complete with blurry vision, soon to be a black eye, and the sheer force of the kick essentially left her out on her feet!

Alaina staggered about on wobbly legs, bringing her hands up to her face as she very slowly gathered herself. She knew she was in a match, but the shock of trying to figure out what hit her had managed to over-ride her ring senses. She was a standing, barely moving target ripe for the taking for a high flying wrestler like Julia.

At this juncture of the match, Alaina was in a bad spot that she worked hard not to find herself in. It seemed as if all her efforts and hard fighting in this match were in vain.

Julia felt and heard the stiff smack of her boot right against the face of her opponent. The Overhead Kick had landed right on the button, drawing a loud burst of cheers from the audience both at the impact of the kick, and at the cowgirl’s acrobatic display. But as Julia looked up to see the result of her work, she saw that Alaina was still on her feet! “What the..?!” she exclaimed in surprise. However, though her foe wasn’t down, she did seem heavily dazed. It looked like she was barely even able to keep a vertical base. And while Julia could appreciate Alaina’s apparent stubbornness, that didn’t mean she had any intention of tolerating it.

Rather than pick herself up, the masked blonde rolled along the mat until she went under the bottom rope, then pulled herself to stand on the apron facing Alaina’s back. She took a moment to breathe and get herself aligned properly. But once she had the right positioning, the luchadora grabbed the top rope and leapt on top of it, then sprang off of it to launch herself right at Alaina! She spun sideways through the air and swung her right boot around, aiming to bring it crashing into the back of the Amazon’s skull with her signature Pistol Whip! If her first attempt to take the bigger down didn’t work, this more than likely would...

Alaina felt like she just got clubbed in the head with a baseball bat as Julia's pistol whip connected right on the mark! "Arrrrgh!" Alaina shouted as she hit the mat like a ton of bricks! She kicked the mat weakly a couple times as she cradled her head, and laid on her back. She knew Julia hit her, but damn she really didn't know what hit her! "W-what the...... how..?"

Alaina was down and apparently out. She was barely moving now and moaning in agony. Her torso was on fire and her head throbbed. Her arms and legs were worn out. Alaina appeared to be entirely spent at this juncture of the match. She did her best... and all it got her was getting laid out, and laying on the mat like a defeated woman.

Once again Julia’s boot hit a bullseye, this time blasting Alaina right in the back of the head! And finally, the Amazon collapsed to the mat Julia was panting in near-exhaustion right by her foe, but it looked like she very well might’ve just put Alaina away! All that was needed was a three count. And the crowd was roaring in anticipation as the masked blonde crawled over the bigger girl’s chest, laying across it while reaching out to hook a leg.

“Ya put up a good fight. But it’s over now.” she said, then shut her eyes and raised a hand up to count along with the ref, who by then had just knelt down by Alaina’s head to start the count.

“ONE...!”

Alaina felt Julia lay across her chest and hook her leg and could barely move as the first count came!

Alaina struggled and tried to thrust her way out of the pin! "Its not over until you are the one laying on the mat being counted out!" Alaina said defiantly, with more energy than she actually had in her. She thrust up and tried moving her shoulder.... to no avail!

"Two!"

Alaina thrust up yet again, still trapped underneath Julia! "No no no no no!" Alaina shouted as the referee's hand was coming down again for the third time! Alaina kicked her legs up with everything she had and thrust her right arm up to break the count at 2.9, almost 3! However, almost wasn't going to put Alaina away.

No, Alaina managed to buy herself another moment in the ring. She wasn't going to let Julia take that title... her title... that easily!

The cowgirl felt her opponent struggling and bucking beneath her, but it didn’t seem she had enough to escape the pin, even despite her defiant words. The two count came and went, and Julia felt like a firework that was about to burst as soon as the final count was made. But just when it seemed certain that’s what was going to happen, Alaina jolted up again, barely breaking the pin and leaving Julia stunned in the process! None of the shock she was feeling was hidden even remotely. How? How could Alaina have so much fight in her? Just what was Julia going to have to do to finish her off?

Well, the sight of a nearby turnbuckle gave her an idea.

Grunting in pain as she picked herself up, Julia moved over to the corner, then grabbed onto the top rope. She glanced back, initially just to measure Alaina’s positioning. But that’s when a thought hit her like a runaway train. She saw her fellow trainee lying on her back, fighting against the intense pain that was plaguing her. Julia’s mind recalled the vicious beatdown Alaina had received at the hands of Brittany Luuve; she remembered Alaina fighting Gwendolyn DuPont Bettencourt with everything she had, only to have victory stolen from her; she remembered the Amazon’s hellacious war with Kei at SummerSplash; and many others. For the longest time now, it seemed, Julia had been harboring bitterness and anger toward Alaina. Why? Because she’d set out on a mission to capture the Entropy Championship and bring respect back to the division, and it had felt like every step of the way Alaina had just been trying to get in the way of that aspiration.

But only now, seeing her opponent-- no, her friend in agonizing pain yet still fighting against her with all she had, did Julia start to genuinely understand all of this from Alaina’s side. The Amazon wasn’t just trying to butt in the way of Julia’s goals and dreams. Alaina was trying to finish a fight she’d been fighting from the day she first stepped foot into an AFW ring. And Julia had disrespected that hard-fought effort. The thought made her feel horrible inside. However, even though this war with Alaina had given her a whole new respect for the girl, she knew she couldn’t come this far only to stop fighting out of pity. That would be a bigger slap to Alaina’s pride than anything else she’d said or done over the last several months. No, they both had a cause to fight for. What Julia had to do now was not feel sorry for herself or Alaina, but finish the Amazon off with dignity. It was time to stop hesitating, and end this.

“I’m sorry, Alaina...” Julia muttered, then turned and ascended up to the top rope. Those in the crowd who weren’t already standing rose to their feet and watched in anticipation. On the top turnbuckle Julia stood for a second or two to compose herself. And then, the luchadora sprung into a corckscrew moonsault, twisting flawlessly through the air with grace as she aimed to deal the final blow of this fight with her famous Stardust Press!

Alaina laid there, trying to gather her strength. She was aware of her surroundings, although acting on her thoughts and impulses was incredibly difficult. She wanted to chase after Julia, and grab her from behind to german duplex her as she climbed the turnbuckle. Instead, she barely sat up before falling back to the mat with a grunt.

How could Julia be moving so fast and with such purpose? Alaina made sure to hammer her, to try to destroy her yet she kept going. It was at that moment that Alaina realized something. All the tenacity, skill, speed, determination and ring-smarts were things she loved about Julia, things she respected about Julia, and things she wanted to see more of in herself. Alaina was looking at her best friend in Friction slowly perching atop the turnbuckle. Through their efforts to regain the entropy belt from a woman who had cheated them both Alaina came to a brutal realization:

Alaina had let respect, love, and admiration for Julia become warped, simply twisted into petty jealousy. Julia's ability wasn't something to be jealous of. Julia worked her whole life to get where she was at this moment. She wasn't given anything, she earned it. She earned it just like Alaina was trying to earn the respect of the roster by facing top talent women. By trying to defeat top talent women.

Alaina saw Julia jump and she knew what was coming. Alaina was ready to show everyone that Julia wasn't the only one with life left in her. As she flew through the air gracefully, Alaina rolled to her side as quickly as she could, watching Julia land on nothing but the ring canvass!

The world seemed to move in slow motion as Julia soared through the air. Everything spun around her, and for the moment the arena had practically grown silent as the fans watched on to see what was about to happen. Was the high-flying cowgirl about to put the final nail’s in Alaina’s coffin?! Julia certainly thought so. Until....

“UGHH!!” Julia shouted out as her body crashed and burned onto the canvas! It seemed the time it had taken for the blonde to climb up to the top rope had perhaps allowed Alaina to recover too much. And as a result, both women were down! The ref glanced back and forth between them for a moment, then determined it was time to start a count for a potential double knockout!

“One...! Two...!”

As she heard the counting start, Julia realized this was all in danger of having an ending no one ever wanted to see from a match like this! So she started slowly rolling toward one of the corners, groaning in pain as she moved, hoping she could use the ropes and turnbuckles as leverage to start picking herself up so they could keep this alive and finish the match properly.

Alaina heard the thunderous impact and groan as Julia slammed against the mat! However, Alaina rolled right to the center of the ring, and didn't have any aid to get up herself!

"Three!"

Alaina rolled once more, getting to her stomach and trying to get her knees underneath her.

"Four!"

She thrust up but was still hurting so bad that she got off the mat, only to flop back down on her stomach, flat against the mat. This was not going well. Alaina looked over at Julia, slowly making some minor progress to get up to her feet. Still, minor progress was more than the zero progress Alaina had made, still being on the mat!

"Five!"

The second Julia’s hands found the ropes, she started the arduous task of pulling her battered body up off the mat. It was slow and painful, and her tired legs shook a bit underneath her. But about halfway up, she turned to put her back against the turnbuckles so she could keep an eye on Alaina as she continued trying to get back to a full vertical base, though the ref had stopped his count upon seeing that Julia was up.

Julia had been fortunate enough to be relatively close to the ropes, but Alaina hadn’t had that luxury. That meant the Amazon was likely going to be very vulnerable, even when she did finally make it all the way up. As long as Julia was ready to take the shot when the time was right, anyway.

Hoping to prepare herself for exactly that, she slipped between the top and middle rope to move onto the apron, then pointed skyward and shouted at the tope of her lungs. “COME ON!!!!” The crowd was whipped into another frenzy as the adrenalized once again started climbing up to the top rope! Slowly, one step at a time, Julia moved to position herself for yet another high risk aerial assault! Whether she ended up succeeding or not, this was bound to hurt her as well as Alaina. But as the saying goes, “No pain, no gain.”