The Wildest Dream: Ace vs Angel

”Now.”


The lights went out around the arena all at once, bathing the crowd in darkness. Hundreds of cellphones lit up and illuminated the stands, flicking about the audience broke into confused murmurs. They had a good idea what this meant in general, what sort of craziness tended to go down in a wrestling ring when the darkness took over, but they had no idea on the specifics. Who was coming after Angel and Ace?

They had their answer when the lights flickered on again and the ring was lit up: River Styx.

The former hardcore contender stood tall with her arms folded and the subtlest smirk on her face, as if she’d just accidently stumbled on this perfect little setup. And she wasn’t alone, either.

She was definitely not alone, as Abattoir was perched on the second rope opposite Styx, staring with dead-eyed nonchalance at the in-ring competitors. It wasn't totally clear where she'd been prior to the lights going out, but wherever it'd been, she'd gotten into place real fast.

This would be a cause for concern in and of itself, but much more worrying was the heavy length of chain she had draped over one shoulder. Its 'business end' swayed idly over the turnbuckle, like a promise of unpleasant things to come.

Ace and Angel, unfortunately, were boxed in between the devil and the deep blue sea.

One of the most underappreciated aspects of wrestling was the melodrama. Most of the time Jessica found it quite boring, but River promised her a fair share of good old fashioned violence, and Jessica was always down for that, ten times out of ten. When the power came back on, the screaming lights of the arena declared that Jessica was ringside, forming a lovely little triangle with River and Abattoir. With two leaps, Jessica was on the apron and then in the ring, her blue jeans proving no obstacle for her quick if ungraceful movement.

When she landed, she shook the ring and came to a rest with a baseball bat on her shoulder. She nodded at the two competitors in a manner which suggested the notion of fair play and sportsmanship that Jessica so sorely lacked.

Ace groaned, laying on the mat after dropping Angel, her mind trying to work out how to capitalize and take the older fighter down, when the lights went out.

Slowly, she sat up, the face painted fighter looking around in confusion, even looking towards Angel, as if she would know what was up. When the lights came back on, she shook her head in confusion before seeing Styx standing in the ring.

"What the hell just hap-Oh"

A the sound of a loud impact on the mat alerted her to Jessica entering the ring with a baseball bat on her shoulder, and another glace behind her showed her one of her old opponents, Abattior, on the turnbuckle, Ace and Angel surrounded by the three known bitches, realization dawning on her face as her mind cleared.

"OH.."

"Ohhhhhhh...Shit..."

She gulped, starting to nudge Angel with her foot, chuckling nervously.

"Uh...Angel...we uh....have company..."

Ace didn't have to say a word. The moment the lights went out, Angel was back on her feet, already tensing up and readying herself for whatever was about to happen.

When the lights came back on, and the Latina looked around at the three vile women that had interrupted the match, her lips grew down into a sneer, Angel looking at each one of them before settling her gaze on Styx. Of course Styx had interfered, and brought friends with her. She was probably still sore from getting beaten down by Angel at Summer Splash the year before.

Angel wasn't going to try talking her way out of things. She knew that wasn't going to happen, not with these three stooges surrounding them. She was smart enough to realize that neither she nor Ace was going to get out of this in one piece, but hell. She wasn't going to go down without a fight.

With a sudden, loud scream, she lunged towards Styx, and as she neared the bigger woman she brought her leg up, swinging one of her infamous, powerful kicks straight towards the side of the brute's body, trying to land the first blow before the goon squad could get to her and Ace first!

It had almost been a whole year, shy a week or two, since Angel and Styx met for the first time, and they had their little feud. Since then, Styx had lost to the former world champion and moved on to other things.

Someone else, in such a position, might forget all about Angel and let their beef go. Someone else might figure that their time would be better spent elsewhere, not getting kicked in the face by hot, white-haired Latinas. Someone else would let bygones be bygones.

Someone else would not be River Styx.

Styx did not forget and she certainly didn’t forgive. But she could be patient. She’d waited a good, long time for just this sort of opportunity to show the world who was the new power in the AFW, why they needed to be afraid of these three women in the ring, and nothing was going to spoil that. Certainly not the kick that was heading towards her face at terminal velocity.

She raised her hand and grabbed Angel by the ankle, stopping the blow a few inches away from colliding. Her smile was small, but satisfied, with a suitable level of cockiness. ”I missed you, too.”

With that, Styx wrapped both of her hands around the ankle, swung her around by the leg, let her go and hurled her off towards the turnbuckle near Jessica, launching her like she was nothing more than an overstuffed trash bag.

Angel's eyes grew wide as Styx caught her ankle, stopping her attack dead in it's tracks. She opened her mouth, to start to answer the biggest woman, but before she could utter a single word, Styx was already acting again, grasping her leg with both hands.

The next thing Angel knew, she was sent flying across the ring, dropping into a heap near Jessica's feet. She laid there for only a second before quickly rolling over to her stomach, groaning as she started to push up to her hands and knees. She had to get back on her feet and get standing again, but she was in a daze, and didn't even seem to notice the purple-haired woman standing just inches away from her.

Jessica owned a baseball bat, but not a baseball glove. Kind of weird how that worked. She grinned as River dealt with Angel's kick incredibly adroitly. The Violent Violet had done her research and knew exactly what one of those kicks could do, so River vitiating the kick meant that she would still be in this brawl. Or the slaughter, really. The former champion was at her feet and no clemency whatsoever appeared in Jessica's heart. This was war.

"Nice to meet you. I'm a big fan." Jessica raised the baseball bat and swung it down towards Angel. She aimed for the side of Angel's belly. She didn't want to break any ribs, at least not yet. The harsh stuff was coming later, now was the time for fun.

This brand of violence felt good. She wasn't Kelly's stooge any more and was among equals and friends now. And when Jessica was sure someone had her back, she could do anything...

Angel tried to push herself up, knowing that she was in an awful position, but out of nowhere Jessica's bat slammed into her stomach, sending the Latina from her hands and knees to sprawling onto her side, crying out as she clutched at her stomach in pain. It had been a long time since she had been attacked with a weapon like that, and she had forgotten how bad it hurt taking something like a baseball bat to her bare belly.

She lied there on her side at Jessica's feet, her eyes huge as she struggled to suck in air, trying to steady her breathing and shake off the blow. She could take this beating. She had taken beatdowns before and she could handle it. She was a tough woman. Let the bitches come after her, she could hold out against them.

She was more worried about Ace at the moment then she was for herself, though, and as she laid there, she weakly lifted her head, looking towards the girl. "A-Ace..." she groaned out, starting to fear what was coming next. She hoped that Ace would be smart and try to get away, and not try to stay and fight the trio.

Angel's plea was about to fall on deaf ears, even in the unlikely event that Ace would've chosen to save herself instead of helping her friend - the choice was about to be made for her.

Ironically, speaking of choices, Abattoir found herself unexpectedly reflecting on the one she'd made.  As she surveyed the carnage kicking off, there was a twinge of hesitation inside her - this was not really her style.  Sure, there was a part of her that enjoyed mercilessly beating on people, but it was in an altogether different context from this kind of...gangland massacre.  Considering the calling she'd returned with, could she really reconcile--

She's moving.  GO.

Muscle memory kicked in.

Just as it seemed like the former Entropy champion might get a chance to make her move, Abattoir flung herself over the edge, which in practice, was really just a leap down off the second rope.  She blitzed across the ring with murderously focused speed and threw her entire body into a massive yakuza kick at Ace's head, clearly aiming to mow her down before she could interfere in the attack.