Liberty/Abattoir II - Hell On Earth

It felt like she was fighting in a swimming pool. Abattoir had to physically fight the air itself, thick with heat and steadily draining what little energy she had left. The distance-closer was practically sluggish compared to her usual reflexes.

Even so, precision and timing won the day, and she was still faster on the draw than Liberty, who slumped to her knee a second later. Abattoir froze in place for a second, her brain locking up - follow up normally, or...? No. Time was a factor now, even more so than before.

....Even so, it was difficult not to get lost in the reverie of the moment. There was something heady and glorious and almost chivalric about it all.

She took a step back. Sweat was glistening on her skin now, thanks to the inferno around them, dripping down her face and stinging as it mingled with her wounds. Abattoir waited just until the point where Liberty got a leg under herself and started to rise, and then she hit the ropes.

The Nail came out at half-speed, but it was still more than enough to do the job if it connected.

”Get up. Liberty rasped with her ragged voice, sounding less and less human each time she spoke. ”Come on, come on…”

Breathing was hard for Liberty, with D every inhale coming out hoarse and harsh, working against the edges of her stamina. Moving was a pain, and when she fell to a knee, there was a heavy sensation bearing down on her shoulders. Liberty has never been a small woman, but her size wasn't a hindrance on her ability to fight. She'd always been able to get around easily enough.

Not today, though. Not like this. She pressed a hand against her bloodied knee, started to rise, and that was the moment that Abattoir went into action. She was moving back against the ropes, starting to spin, looking to finish her off with the same move that had lit a fuse in this match - her finisher, the Nail. And Liberty couldn’t rise nearly fast enough to dodge it.

But she didn’t have to rise at all, really. Instead of getting all the way back up, Liberty dove forward and turned her body into a human bowling ball, rolling right into Abattoir’s legs. It was a sloppy inelegant move, but style was the furthest thing from her mind. She only had three priorities: survive, fight, win. Anything and everything that pushed those three objectives was acceptable.

There had never been a point in Abattoir's career where she hadn't thrown the Nail like she was trying to crush a cinderblock with it.  It was very much an all-or-nothing kind of move, with every ounce of momentum she could muster going into a single point on the thrown forearm.

That turned out to be her undoing on this particular occasion.

She was almost fully rotated into the Nail when Liberty dove for her legs, hitting her right in the side of the knee.  It would've been enough to knock her down on its own, but Abattoir had put so much momentum into the attack that it was more like a head-on car crash than a rolling tackle.  The nak muay actually lifted off the ground, turning a half-flip from the impact before landing on her shoulders.  It was sudden, awkward, and painful - not to mention it left her not totally sure which way was up - but considering the impact could've torn her MCL or worse, she'd actually gotten off comparatively lucky.

Not that Abattoir had time to dwell on this.  She hit the mat and twisted in place, momentarily disoriented to the point of total bewilderment.  Everything had suddenly inverted, and the ruthlessness of her finishing instinct had come back around to bite her in the ass.  

God, everything ached.  The consuming heat of the flames around them burned even hotter against her various cuts, as if her blood was boiling.  What a way to go that'd be.  Granted, she wouldn't have to worry about that if she didn't figure out where Liberty had gotten off to, and fast.

Despite the liberal/fuck authority/rebel rebel rebel vibe that Liberty prided herself on exuding, she didn't make a habit of messing with drugs. Nothing much beyond the mild stuff. A little alcohol. A cigarette here and there. A dash of pot for flavor. Limited experiences.

So she had very little idea of what it was like to be tripping balls. But, if she had to guess, it was something like she was going through right now. Everything was hazy, spinning, wild and out of control as she tumbled from her low tackle. Through it all, she tried to push two thoughts to the forefront, make them shine through the foggy haze.

Find Abattoir. Break Abattoir.

She tried to roll over to her chest, failed, then put more effort into it and managed to get over, putting her in a good spot to see Abattoir wasn’t doing much better. She couldn’t let the nak muay get her balance back, but she didn’t have the time to get back to her feet, either. They were going to be staying low for this next little bit.

Liberty crawled forward, wading through the few remaining tacks that were embedded in flesh, and scrambled over to Abattoir. She pulled her fearsome foe back and tried to force her way on top of the smaller woman, for now just trying to straddle and pin her down, using her wieght to her advantage. Nothing more complex than that.

She could worry about her next move when she reached that point. One painful step at a time.

Certain parts of Abattoir's fighting style came naturally.  If she had to strike it out, for example, everything just kinda flowed from instinct and experience, adjusting itself on the fly.  Everything else, however, followed a sort of flowchart - 'if x, then y'.  It was a little less reactive and, despite all her best efforts and tireless practice, she had to consciously think about it instead of just doing it.

Case in point, as she got halfway up on her knees and Liberty crashed against her, bringing her back to the mat, her first instinct was 'pull guard'.  This proved to be impossible - Liberty was on top of one leg, making it way more difficult than it was worth to get it loose.  She was pinned in place for the moment.

Thus foiled, Abattoir rolled onto her side and started trying to shrimp up, or in other words to get her hips and legs free by pulling them up to her chest, as the other girl shoved her back down against the mat.  It was easier said than done.  Liberty was bigger and heavier and gravity was on her side.  The reality of the situation, though, was that if Abattoir didn't do something she was going to get brass knuckled into oblivion and that was the absolute last thing she wanted right now.

One arm (the one on the bottom) came up to protect her face, covering it like the world's least adequate shield.  It wasn't going to do a ton of good, but it was better than nothing.  The other arm, meanwhile, was frantically trying to catch Liberty's wrist and keep her from drawing it back to clobber her.  Striking from the bottom wasn't an option (there was no way to get power behind it, even if she threw short elbows), and she wasn't totally confident in her ability to, say, choke the brawler out from underneath.

That left one choice.  Escape.  Survive.

"Ngh..."

Abattoir licked a smear of blood off her upper lip, gaze wrenched into an expression of intense concentration, as she worked on squirming her way loose.  She was probably going to get punched a whole hell of a lot in the next few seconds, and the fact that there wasn't a lot she could do about it if she wanted to break loose was not a realization that sat well with her.

Mind raging, blood racing, Liberty mounted Abattoir like a lioness over her future kill. She had it all: the bared fangs, the reddened eyes, the powerful muscles stretching out her skin, and the sounds her mouth made were certainly inhuman. It was outward proof at the inward process, as she devolved to lower functions and let them have free reign over her body.

”Stay still, stay still, stay the fuck-” She’d just begun to rear back when her wrist was snagged, locking down one of her arms, Abattoir wrapping a tight grip around it. Liberty was the stronger woman overall, here. She could’ve pulled free. Maybe. Possibly. If she had enough time.

But, at this point, any second where she wasn’t pummeling Abattoir into a fine paste would be a wasted second. One arm was fine. One arm was plenty for what she had in mind, now.

With a loud, wild bark Liberty raised her brass-knuckled fist and began to rain down hell on Abattoir.

She tried to give a few head shots, but the arm in her way made it difficult, and she wound up smacking the that a lot more than she would’ve liked, not getting the elusive knockout that she craved. That was fine, though. There were plenty of other targets to choose from.

She brought her fist down into Abattoir’s chest, throwing a good shots before the nak muay managed to escape, squirming out from underneath her. Liberty had a quick roar, filled with fury and annoyance, then moved forward to grab the ropes, trying to pull herself back to her feet.

Up, up, up. She could still stand, it just wouldn’t be easy. It would be well-worth the effort when she stomped Abattoir into the mat, though.

Even with the defensive measures she'd taken, Abattoir was fairly sure she'd be mottled with bruises for the next week or so.

Without those measures she would almost definitely be unconscious now, as Liberty clearly knew how to throw hammerfists. Her arms managed to deflect most of the blows, but one or two got through and (brass knuckles and all) crashed against her jaw, bouncing her head off the mat and sending her vision swimming. Even then, it wasn't like taking a blow on your arms suddenly negated all of the pain it caused; the nak muay felt like her forearm bones were about to crack and that whole arm had basically gone numb from the barrage of metal-assisted strikes. She was pretty sure one of the headshots had loosened some of her teeth. It was a dire fucking situation.

Despite this, she was doing a halfway decent job on the hip escape and had managed to get most of the way out from under her opponent before Liberty started body-snatching. A series of blows slammed right into her sternum as she clawed her way loose, wracking her whole body with spasms and an overpowering urge to cough. She suppressed it, just barely, long enough to get free of Liberty's grasp and claw her way forward to get some distance between them.

She rolled over and managed to make it all the way up to her knees before a violent cough finally overtook her. Abattoir shook in place for a moment, winced in agony from the sheer force of coughing with her damaged ribs, and then - to the combined hype and dismay of the crowd - spat out a fine mist of blood through her teeth, like some kind of scarlet Triple H.

The nak muay's legs were shaky as she put one, then the other, underneath her. Trembling from the amount of effort she had to exert just to get upright, Abattoir shoved her way up to her feet. She nearly collapsed a second into the attempt, but managed to wobble her way to a standstill and directed that unsteady momentum into turning around - a wise idea, because if she knew Liberty, the former champ would almost certainly be both upright and charging at her.

Abattoir took a single breath, and focused. Things had kind of devolved. They'd gone from fighting to just kind of trying to murder each other in the middle of an inferno, which admittedly was fun as hell, but things were coming to an end. There was just enough left in her for about another thirty seconds, and then Abattoir was fairly sure she was going to just straight-up pass out, regardless of whether or not it was Liberty's doing.

She'd have to be precise. The calm eye in the raging storm. Otherwise, well, at least her defeat would probably look cool.

As Liberty rose back to her feet and stood as tall as she could reasonably stand with all the damage she’d incurred, she tried to look out into the audience. Through the flames, she could see the crowd going apeshit. Some of them running out, not wanting to witness this bloodbath any further. Some leaning forward, unable to turn their gazes away. Their eyes seemed to glow through the flames and the lights flickered above the rafters, casting queers shadows throughout the ring.

It was surreal. Liberty wasn’t religious, not even close, but if there really was such a thing as hell, this had to be close to what it looked like. Surrounded on all sides by demons, a writhing psychotic horde. And there, at the center of it all, in the middle of the inferno Liberty fought with the most hellish of them all.

Liberty rarely got this metaphorical with her thoughts, damn sure not in the middle of a fight. Maybe a sign that her consciousness would be slipping soon, and she should hurry this up.

She turned around to see Abattoir standing not too far away, spitting out blood, as if there wasn’t already enough splattered on the canvas. Internal bleeding? Busted teeth. No way to tell, and it hardly mattered. It just meant she’d be that much easier to crush.

Deep breath. Focus. One more charge.

Liberty threw her hair, arched her back, and threw her everything into a head on charge, storming around the ring. It wasn’t a perfect sprint, she stumbled a couple of times along the way, but she just pushed herself up and kept on moving. She was a runaway freight train, dangerous and out-of-control, but with enough force to annihilate everything in its path.

And there was Abattoir. Right in her path.

This was it.  The next three seconds would determine whether she brushed the heavens or crashed and burned.

Air-starved and on the verge of collapsing, Abattoir held it together.  She was a candle in the wind - flickering, wavering, but still somehow burning, if only for the moment.  The storm was bearing down on her fast - Liberty charged at her from across the ring, looming with terrible magnificence, and it was either counter or be annihilated.  Closer now.  Closer.  They were maybe a meter away from impact...

Focus.  You're the judge of souls.  The scythe outstretched.  Hit her when she's closest.  Now--

Abattoir released the breath she'd been holding in and, in a final burst of motion, countered.

She darted forward and to the side, ducking her head off the line.  It was shaky and anything but fluid, but it was enough to take her under Liberty's right arm and let her pivot all the way around.  She hooked the arm with a half nelson and found herself pulled off her feet by Liberty's momentum, swinging around.  The nak muay gritted her teeth and dropped her weight, bringing herself back to the mat, then snagged the other girl around the waist with her free arm and tried to heave her upwards for the storm cradle driver.

It was the last ounce of energy she had in her.  Everything from here on out was happening on its own.

One more charge. Just one more. Every bit of energy Liberty had, dedicated to a final death run.

She charged straight towards Abattoir, spewing gutteral obscenities every step of the way. Things looked good. She had the plan to just run the bitch over and leave her laying - not the best way to end the match, but she’d take it. Abattoir was coming towards her, looking like she was ready to meet her doom.

Then, all of the sudden, she was gone. She could feel the nak muay’s arm slithering up her own, getting her in a half nelson, but if she thought that was enough to hold Liberty for more than two seconds, she was wrong.

In the next second, everything went bad.

Liberty gasped as she was lifted up in the beginnings of a move she didn’t recognize. It was a weird, strange position, hoisted up like she was being offered as a sacrifice to some arcane god - which, knowing Abattoir, might not have been too far from the truth.

Distressing situation. Strange moves typically meant that something painful was about to happe, but in this position there wasn’t much Liberty could do about it. ”-the fuck, what the fuck, what-”