Abattoir vs. Alicia Wells vs. Liberty - Here Comes The Pain

A razor elbow hitting home was the second-most comfortingly familiar sensation Abattoir had felt all match, right behind the familiar thrill of wild, glorious combat.  She'd landed so hard that the scissors around her thoroughly-abused ribs slackened a bit, giving her room to breathe, and in the second following the strike, Alicia grabbed at her wrist, clearly not interested in being hit again.

With the benefit of hindsight, both of those things should have warned her not to do what she did next.

The nak muay jerked back with her arm, trying to get it free to throw another elbow, and this had the unintended effect of pulling herself directly into a triangle choke.  This was bad.  If the crushing vice around her midsection had been painful, having the exact same pressure around her neck (assisted, frustratingly, by her captured arm) was a thousand times worse.  Abattoir thrashed, trying to force her free arm in and pry Alicia's legs apart for a second, and for a moment it looked like she was about to simply berserk out and try to strike her way out of the hold.

However, it was right about here that the black spots of apoxia started to show up in her vision - a sure sign that the flow of blood to her brain was steadily decreasing - and, as the sounds of the arena faded behind the soothing rhythm of her heartbeat in her ears, Abattoir found herself calming down a bit.  She pulled her arm back, first of all; Alicia's legs were much too strong to force apart without any leverage, and the absolute last thing she wanted was to have the counter backfire and end up in a Dead Orchard or something similar right in the middle of the ring.  Instead, and stretched that hand out towards the edge of the ring.  It might've seemed like she was going for a rope break - a ridiculous idea in a hardcore match - but the sudden swell of noise from the crowd would've alerted Alicia even if she couldn't spot the heavy, wicked staple gun laying on the mat close to them.  It was the kind of weapon nobody wanted used on them.  Given what AFW had seen her accomplish with glass and thumbtacks, it paled the mind to think of what Abattoir might do with it.

Closer now her hand inched.  Closer and closer.  Any second, there was a world of pain waiting for--no, wait, her fingertips brushed the handle, and then stopped altogether.  Abattoir narrowed her eyes (it didn't do much, since the world seemed to be on the other end of a tunnel at the moment) and reached for the staple gun again.  Barely brushed it.  It was too far away by millimeters.

She blinked once, twice, then five times in rapid succession.  "....Oh."  It was kind of absently surprised, as if she'd realized she'd left the lights on back home.

With that, Abattoir went limp.  She hadn't tapped, so it'd still be necessary to pin her, but that was looking fairly academic at the moment.

Liberty wasn’t quite unconscious, but she wasn’t quite conscious, either. When Abattoir hit her with the trashcan lid, it was like her entire world was scrambled. She could think, she could process stimuli, she could understand things, but her brain was having trouble putting together cogents thoughts. There was just pain. So much pain in her brain.

She snapped out of it a minute or so later, coming back to her senses with her head next to a small pool of her own blood. ”Whazzat?” She muttered, blinking rapidly. Judging from the way the crowd was still roaring, she hadn’t been pinned, thank God, so where were her two soon-to-be wrecked opponents?

”Oy…” She hissed and pushed up to her knees, rubbing the blood off her forehead in the process and getting some of it out of her eye. The referee didn’t seem to concerned, and Liberty found out why a second later, when she turned around and saw Alicia and Abattoir practically having a UFC match in the middle of the three way. One that her fellow hardcore wrestler seemed to be losing, as Alicia moved from a scissorhold to something that looked a lot more devastating.

As cathartic as it would’ve been to watch Abattoir get knocked out after she’d nearly done the same to Liberty, the former hardcore champion kind of wanted to, you know, win. She needed to break that up.

Liberty took a slight detour and rolled under the bottom rope, landing on the floor outside. She reached down and picked up a fire extinguisher, then snuck around ringside, getting close to the fracas. As soon as she was near enough, she popped up, switched it on, aimed the nozzle at Alicia, and gave her a hard blast of CO2 - it wouldn’t do too much real damage, but it would feel like she’d just stepped out into a snowstorm and give her some incentive to let go.

Alicia liked to think she’d seen the realisation of her mistake dawn in Abattoir’s eyes as the triangle choke locked shut around her neck and shoulder. She probably hadn’t, the nak muay’s eyes being about as expressionless as a dark still pond, but hey. She could dream. Still, thanks to Abattoir’s misstep, it was simplicity itself to yank the other wrestler down into the embrace of her legs, Alicia hooking one ankle behind the knee with practiced ease.

Game over.

From there, it was just a question of riding out the struggles until the compression of the arteries put Abattoir out like everyone else who ran afoul of a half-way decent practitioner of the hold.

The warning was the upswing in the crowd’s cheering, almost certainly not for her. They’d been booing Alicia pretty solidly throughout, maybe because she’d been disdaining weapons and maybe because they’d taken a dislike to her after her first match. Maybe also because she was on the verge of cutting this match short before any of them had really beaten the hell out of each other. Her first thought was that Liberty was on her way but then she caught sight of what Abattoir was reaching almost desperately for.

Oh Hell no.

Seriously, she knew she was in a hardcore match but a staple gun?

Alicia’s heart missed a beat as Abattoir’s fingers brushed the handle. Determined not to risk it, she arched her back into the hold, forcing the other wrestler’s neck back at a wicked angle even as the pressure she was applying rose still further. But it seemed she was worrying about nothing. The weapon was just a fraction out of reach and Alicia breathed a sigh of relief.

She’d got this. She’d knocked enough girls – and boys – out that she could see the signs already. That smirk widened a little, frighteningly so as Abattoir blinked. Then gasped. And then all the tension went out of her, like someone’d flicked a light switch. KO. Perfect.

As the watching ref dropped down, Alicia eased the hold a touch but remained wary for tricks. But, as the girl picked up Abattoir’s arm and let it flop to the mat for the first time, it seemed she had this in the bag.

That seemed a little easy. Which just went to show that the universe loved its sense of irony.

Because it was almost instantly followed by her being engulfed in a plume of freezing cold, enough to tear a surprised shriek from the kickboxer – she unlocked her choke and rolled away instinctively as fast as she could, wondering where that had come from, already beginning to push herself towards a standing position.

Staple guns, bags of nails, damn cold guns?

She was actually starting to wonder if this was any fun.

The crowd gave a nice roar as the fire extinguisher did its work and snuffed out the submission hold, ‘saving’ Abattoir. As Alicia and the referee went into a blind panic and rolled away from the plume, it was tempting to just sit back and watching the theatrics along with the audience, really get the most out of her little prank.

Liberty knew better, though. She could watch the replay to her heart’s content when she nursing her wounds at home. As the nearly knocked out Abattoir would likely agree, Alicia was a dangerous woman, and the former champion didn’t fancy getting trapped in those thighs. Maybe she could fight her way out of it, maybe she couldn’t. Best not to find out.

With a devilish smile across her face, Liberty sat the fire extinguisher aside and made her way back in the ring, staying low and stealthy. Sleathy-ish. As much as a woman of her fram could.

She came in behind Alicia while the scissor specialist was still busy getting up and figuring out what just happened. The element of surprise wasn’t something a wrestler like her often enjoyed. She was going to cherish it.

When Liberty was close enough, she wrapped her arms around Alicia’s waist from behind and pulled her close, pressing her chest against the kickboxer’s hardened back in a tight embrace. For a second it looked like Liberty was going for a reverse bearhug, but that sort of thing wasn’t really her bag - she had strong arms, but not nearly enough to get the same effect as Alicia’s thighs. No, she had something a bit more direct and immediate in mind.

Liberty planted her feet down hard, jerked back, and sent Alicia flying with a catch-and-release version of the German Suplex, trying to hurl her towards the other side of the ring with as much hangtime as she could muster. The initiative was hers, but Alicia was still the fresher woman. She’d have to work hard at evening things up.

Alicia still had absolutely no idea what hit her as she rose, first to her knees and then to a crouch, one arm swiped quickly across her face in an instinctive move to try clearing her vision. Abattoir was still where she’d left her, limp and unconscious. The referee was – if anything – in a worse state than she’d been but she at least didn’t have to worry about any further attacks. Alicia had to keep her eyes on the prize, meaning Liberty, and the crazy witch was absolutely nowhere to be seen. It was like she’d vanished entirely and-

The redhead had literally just achieved something resembling her vertical base when a pair of arms lashed around her torso from behind, yanking her back against Liberty’s chest. Disorientated from the blast of cold, the kickboxer failed to put up much of a fight – instead of just snapping her head back to try and catch the brunette in the face, she uselessly went for the arms instead as she tried to work out what the hardcore wrestler had in mind.

Except a second later she found out, along with learning what it was like to go flying, as Liberty bodily tossed her across the ring. It was a new experience for Alicia, one she had enough time to decide she didn’t like, before she crashed to the mat on her neck and shoulders. The landing sent a jolt of pain flooding through her, the big redhead arching her back and clutching at her head as she rolled on to her side. Fresher or not, that was the second time she’d been dropped on her head now, not to mention the elbow to the face not that long ago.

She needed to get up. She needed to move. Grimly, planting the hand not cradling her skull on the mat, she began the long struggle towards standing but she was going to need time that Liberty would have to be incredibly stupid to give her.

Alicia was by no means a small woman. If Liberty had to fathom a guess, she was about a dollar and two quarters, with maybe a little change on top. Much heavier than the anyone else Liberty had ever attempted this move on, but since most AFW ladies weren't much over 100 pounds when they were soaking wet, that didn't say much.

Flinging her away like that wasn't easy, and Liberty felt a sharp pain in her spine that might come back to haunt her in the coming week. But the payoff, hearing the sweet sound of Alicia’s body crashing in the middle of the ring, right before the crowd's applause? That made it all worthwhile.

”Sucks, don't-” Liberty had just started up another taunt as she began to stand, when she was once again interrupted from her revelry, this time by the blood leaking into her eye. She took a second to whipe it away and look back towards Abattoir, remembering how dangerous her other opponent could be and how much she had to be mindful of the environment. It was time they made some distance.

The referee tried to make Liberty stop for a moment, wanting to check the wound, but the former champion just brushed her aside and kept on moving. This was a hardcore match, one of the roughest Liberty’d taken in a long time. She wanted a win, needed it to make her way back to the top of the hill and reclaim her belt, and it would take a lot more than a little blood to keep that from happening.

She took a big, bold step forward, brought her boot up, and tried to plant it right in Alicia’s face, looking to kick her through the ropes and sending her tumbling outside.

Unfortunately, Liberty wasn’t stupid. Alicia had managed to get up to one knee, bracing herself with one hand, when the hardcore wrestler brushed the referee aside and came for her.

Dazed or not, she saw the kick coming but – with one hand planted on the mat and one around her head – there was absolutely nothing she could do to avoid it. On top of that, while she’d been learning and training to take that sort of move, Alicia was still comparatively inexperienced and it was taking her a moment longer than she’d been afforded to shake it off. Instead, she took the boot full to the face, the force behind Liberty’s kick sending her through the ropes to the floor with nothing she could do about it.

Alicia had been taught how to fall, both during her kickboxing and MMA training and also since she joined Friction, and taking a boot to the face wasn’t enough to knock that out of her head. Cradling her head with her arms meant that she was able to stop herself bashing her head against the floor or the security barrier beyond, but that was about all she could manage. She still took a bruising tumble otherwise, culminating in rolling to a stop in a barely stirring heap against the barrier – narrowly avoiding several of the weapons littering the area as she went.

That, in case it wasn’t clear, had hurt.

It had taken a little while for Liberty to get her steam going, but she was finally starting to feel in control of this match, showing everyone why she’d still be the hardcore champion if she hadn’t given the title up. Abattoir was down, and all she had to do was mop up Alicia.

Alicia, who hadn’t used a weapon yet, she noticed. If she was going to bring knives to gunfights, more power to her. Wouldn’t stop Liberty from taking advantage.

She took a second to pump her fist, then dropped down and rolled under the bottom rope, joining Alicia on the outside. While Liberty was wary of an attack, the kickboxer looked like she didn’t know what planet she was on. Not much movement. Not much anything. She had a few moments to work, it seemed. What to do, what to do...

She bit her lip, then looked out to the crowd, making a decision. “Who wants tables?!”

The crowd roared back with their approval, and Liberty, being a woman of the people, went to work obliging them. She lifted the apron up, pulled out a wooden table from underneath the ring, and started setting it up on the floor near Alicia, making sure it was right in the middle of the aisle.

Big things were coming. Big, bad things.

Everything hurt. Her head, her neck, her body, most of her arms and legs… Mostly, it was just the dull ache that came from heavy landings; the chief problem was how thinking felt like she was doing it through a thick fog.

Even thinking of moving made things hurt more. But she forced herself to do it anyway, a low groan the vocal accompaniment as she untangled herself from the foot of the barrier. At which point, it occurred to her that things should have been hurting a lot more.

Why wasn’t Liberty trying to stomp her face in or whatever?

With another groan, Alicia managed to pull herself into a sitting position, her back against the barrier and her legs sprawled out in front of her as she took advantage of the unexpected respite. Except that let her spot just why Liberty was leaving her there.

The psycho was busily setting up a table not that far away and even someone as new to this style of match as Alicia could put two and two together here. Someone – probably Liberty meant it to be her – was going to be taking a ride through that table.

What she’d like to do is get up, sneak up on Liberty and kick her through that table face first. But no way. Standing would be about as much as she could do. She needed to – much as it really went against her instincts – take every second of recovery she could get.

But she also needed something for when Liberty was done messing around. Normally, her options would be limited. Here though. Well.

It was a hardcore match. Maybe she needed to get with the programme.

Carefully, keeping as still as possible, Alicia stretched out her hands, seeing what if anything she could get her hands on. It was hard work without looking but, after a moment, she closed her fingers on something cool and metallic. She didn’t know what it was but with any luck it was something Liberty wouldn’t like being smacked in the face with when she came for Alicia.

Either that or she’d keep mucking around until Alicia didn’t need it. Either way, the redhead bided her time.

”We want tables!” The crowd loudly demanded, along with the appropriate claps. [b]”We want tables!”[/bi]

”You’ll get tables…” Liberty muttered under her breath with a little smirk, as she went about getting things set up on the outside, propping the table up just right. There was a little more art to it than people realized. While she probably could pick up Alicia and just body slam her through the damn thing, she didn’t want to waste a table shot on just any old move. She wanted to do it with her signature, the Market Crash, an elbow off the apron. And that would take a little prep time.

She wasn’t stupid - not when it came to hardcore matches, anyway. She spared Alicia the occasional glance as she went about her work, making sure she wasn’t getting a little too peppy for her own good. She seemed out of it, and Liberty could see why. Her first three way, and a hardcore match, too. Had to be nervous. Lots of pressure. Poor little thing.

Wouldn’t stop Liberty from totally wrecking her shit, but she had some sympathy. She wasn’t a monster.

”All right, Red.” Liberty made her way over to Alicia, reached down, and got herself two big handfuls of crimson hair, pulling on it and trying to get the kickboxer back to her feet whether she felt like it or not. ’Just a little more, then you can take a nice, long nap, ‘kay?”