Hammer and Tongs

Good moves. Good footwork. Good just about everything.

Army kept his eyes trained on Alicia as he moved in low and got ready for the strike, sliding along. She was doing the same, keeping him in synch, and for a moment, the two of them moved in unison, her guard staying tight…

He didn’t think he’d manage to get a blow past it, and ultimately, he didn’t. But the beauty of his hook was that he didn’t need to - he’d put serious power into it, enough that it hit his target even if it really didn’t. Her pained gasp told the whole story.

She was moving back, stumbling some, and giving Army a rare window to work with. The way she was moving, though, he’d need to sidestep to come at her from the right ankle, waste time. There was probably some slick, quick manuevre that would work like a charm in this situation, but Army’d never been taught it.

So, he did what he always did in such situations, whenever he wasn’t sure what to do: he moved forward.

Or, in this case, he moved forward very, very hard. A shoulder block.

He brought his arm down, turned to the side, and ran straight into Alicia, trying to slam his shouder into hers to knock her off her feet - or at least keep pushing her back. Simple, crude, effective. His kind of move.

It had probably been a moment of beauty there, actually. The two of them moving in unison, every step he took matched by one of hers, her arms mirroring his as she sought to block the incoming blow. And she succeeded. It just hadn’t mattered. Alicia’s arms weren’t weak by any standards, even if they were not as punishingly strong as her legs. But, compared to Army’s, they just did not measure up. A straight block was never going to work and, seduced by the hail of relatively weak blows he’d thrown at her before, she’d been lured into trying just that.

Her ribs were currently regretting it. And Alicia was left off-balance for that crucial second as she registered the shock of the punch, trying to regain her footing.

Her opponent was far too smart to leave her to it. Before her feet settled themselves, he launched his body into hers like a battering ram. Even fully set, it was even odds that Alicia would have kept her footing. As it was, well, she didn’t stand a chance at all. As soon as he slammed into her, Alicia began toppling backwards, his shoulder slamming into her chest and knocking her over.

Army might have made a slight mistake there though. Battered or not, the redhead didn’t have any intention of just letting him go.

Acting on pure instinct as she began to fall, Alicia grabbed at his shoulders, doing her very best to get a grip that’d allow her to yank him down to the mats with her. She was going down, but if she could take him with her she might still be able to get this to work in her favour.

And if she could pull him down into her guard, well…

Was it wrong that Army got this much enjoyment from slamming his shoulders into women? Maybe. Definitely not the first thing most guys would want to do with someone with Alicia's body. He had to admit, he did feel a little bad sometimes, going against women, hammering them across the ring. Whenever he did, though, he tried to remember that there were plenty of women in the AFW who could - and had - beat him. That was easier than ever to do in this instance. The grip of Alicia's thighs was still fresh in his mind. And his ribs. And maybe his liver, too.

Alicia was a dangerous, wild woman. She’d be getting everything he had to offer.

On that note, he’d have been content to nail her with something the moment Alicia went down. Stomps, probably. He never got the chance, though, as she grabbed him and pulled him over as she toppled, making the whole thing nastier than it had to be.

He was going down, and she was bringing him with her. Army wasn’t the smartest member of the Rodriguez clan by any measure, but he knew damn well that the legs were something to avoid - he could do good work on the ground, impose his will through superior weight, just not when they were involved. The further he stayed away from Alicia's lower body, the better.

With that in mind, he reached out as they tumbled, swung an elbow at her face. It wouldn’t be able to hurt her all that much, but he was looking for a little stun time just enough window for him to roll away before she could wrap him up.

Alicia, as a number of her opponents had either known or intuited, had her basis in kickboxing of course but also mixed martial arts. Yes, she was a striker; yes, her most infamous hold on the ground was not exactly a staple of MMA. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t fully capable of rolling with pretty much anyone she cared to take to the ground. And, in a choice between her being on her back and Army standing over her as against Army and her both being on the ground, her chances were infinitely better in scenario B.

And, more importantly, that was just how Alicia was. This wasn’t a spar, and she wasn’t giving Army any opportunities. He was going to have to take them and she knew bone deep that was exactly how he’d want it. Because that was how she liked it too.

So, down they both went, with a thump of impact that would have drawn every eye in the gym if it hadn’t been empty. As it was, they were the only witnesses and they were otherwise occupied.

The shock lasted for a beat, then Alicia’s long legs snapped up, looking automatically to find their way around Army’s waist. But he’d learnt his lessons from before and she found her head was snapped back with an elbow before she could lock down. And with that, Army was rolling away, trying to put some space between them.

Oh no he didn’t. Baring her teeth in a vicious snarl, Alicia went for the arm – if she could control that, he might roll himself neatly into an armbar. If not, well, she had other options.

Army wouldn’t go as far as to say he was afraid of Alicia’s legs, but that was mostly because he didn’t want to tie the word to him.Fear was an accurate enough way to describe it, really, and you could see that in the panic that came across his face when he felt them starting to coil. He could only imagine a mouse felt this way when it triggered a mousetrap, right before the jaws rose up and came down on it.

But this mouse was slick. He managed to escape the trap, by the skin of his teeth. Thought he was home free.

Then he felt her grab his arm, the same one she’d blasted twice already. Nope. Not that lucky.

He didn’t know what she was trying to do it, but he could be reasonably sure it involved a lot of pain and he wanted no part of it. He tried to pull his arm away, but before he had the chance, her legs were coming up, circling around his bicep, and he realized what was about to go down.

An armbar. Suddenly, the scissorhold didn’t seem so bad.

A tad frantic, he reached over and tried to push at her legs as they came it, a last ditch attempt to get free before she could seal him.

She’d nearly had him. Could have sworn she’d felt his skin brush hers as he’d rolled out, just at the last moment. But he wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid her grabbing his arm and there Alicia had her consolation prize. She moved her lower body around and up, getting one limb either side of his as she shifted to lie at right angles to the big man she was fighting. He clearly had an idea of what she was going for but his resistance was… Well…

Pathetic.

No, pushing at her legs with his off hand from that angle wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

Actually, it was a mistake. Alicia didn’t know what Army’s grappling experience was like, but what he needed to do was interlock his hands and prevent her from doing what she was about to do – yank his arm back so that his hand was nestled between her breasts and his elbow bent backwards on the fulcrum of her wide hips. Once she’d done that, all she had to do was arc up into the hold and the natural process of hyperextension would do the rest.

The crushing grip of her thighs around his bicep, ‘chewing’ the inner muscles of her legs against his arm like she’d done to Dmitri, was merely the icing on the cake really. Even if she’d tried that on a trainer and got a scream of submission out of the woman.

The redhead didn’t expect him to submit, she actively was hoping he wouldn’t. But the more damage she could inflict on his arm, the easier it would be for her to set up her end game. And, in many ways, the easier it would be for her to stop him pummelling her.

Was the armbar better or worse than getting squeezed in Alicia’s bodyscissors. The verdict was still out. For the record, both of them were excruciating experiences, but the armbar felt like something he could endure for longer, less torture on the vital organs. And he could breath, that was a big plus.

On the negative side, though, she was targeting one of his two best weapons. And it didn’t mean he was out of the woods with her, either. God, this woman loved squeezing stuff between her thighs.

He let out a long groan as she started to grind away at his arm, digging into raw muscle and crushing down on bones and tendons, gnawing away at his limb so hard he knew there’d be a weird impression there when she let go. If she let go. She could probably do this for a while. He had no interest in finding out just how long, either.

”Gah, shit!” He put up some token resistance, but it was more out of reflex than anything, learning quickly that he couldn’t power out. Boxing didn’t teach much about escaping an armbar, and while he’d progressed far in his wrestling ability, submission holds were still a blind spot.

He did have an idea. Maybe not a good idea. Risky. But no less risky than letting her rip his damn arm off.

While turning his arm around in the hold, Army tried to roll back on his shoulder, hoping to flip things over, and...well, he didn’t think much past that part, honest. He was just trying to stay mobile, hope for a chance to slip out with his bones still intact.

Question asked and answered – however good Army was as a boxer and Alicia’s ribs were telling her he could box very well indeed, he didn’t seem to be on her level as a grappler. Well, that gave her some ideas.

Meantime, she was just going to focus on ripping his arm apart in all sorts of ways. It wouldn’t be as overall debilitating as a dead leg but a dead arm on a boxer? Yeah, she liked her chances then. So the redhead kept the pressure on hard, cranking his elbow to just this side of damaging the joint, doing her best to bruise and batter the upper arm with her thick legs as she did.

It didn’t seem like he was going to tap, his free arm tugging futilely at various bits of her hold but with no luck at all. And, after the grappling part of the last match had been solidly dominated by Army, this felt very good indeed. For someone who prided herself on having both a solid striking game and a ground game nearly to match, finding out she’d been nearly trounced by a boxer who couldn’t get out of an armbar rankled.

Alicia crossed her ankles a bit high and really crushed his bicep.

At that point, Army tried something. He probably felt he had to before he either needed to tap or something snapped in his arm. The boxer went to roll up on his shoulders and, when it became clear that he was going to go all the way over and take her with him, the British amazon dropped the armbar in favour of transitioning to another hold. She kept her grip on his arm and swarmed over onto his back, going to hook his legs with her own and crank his abused limb with a nice, simple hammerlock.

If she had her way, his arm would be absolutely useless once she was done.

Against all odds, Army actually managed to do what he planned on doing without fucking it up in spectacular fashion. You’d have to look fast to see the smile on Army’s face as he rolled over, but it was there - his arm would be hurting like hell for a while, and she’d damn sure be punishing him for the rest of the match, but he could still hold onto some confidence. This was doable.

That confidence began to fade, however, when he realized that she wasn’t letting his arm go. No, she was holding on it like she owned it. All she did was transition into something else. Something also painful as fuck, and with the added bonus of putting his own legs on lockdown.

”No, nope, nuh-uh.” He could feel her legs start to work around his own, like twin pythons coming on their poor, unsuspecting victims, and he wanted no part of it. As if by pure instinct, Army brought his legs and tucked them underneath his body, fighting hard to keep from from doing whatever painful thing she was trying to do. Not a foolproof plan, but he’d go with it.

She’d still have the hammerlock, but this was something he could work with, at least.

The redhead hadn’t actually been going for anything much with her legs. She could have tried for the bodyscissors but it wasn’t a great position given her feet would be trapped between him and the ground, largely negating her ability to really squeeze. She could probably have wrangled it but didn’t feel the need. Instead, she’d been looking to hook her legs around his, keep her tight to his back.

So, well, what he did with his legs was a bit of a nuisance but it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things just yet. She’d still got his arm. She was still on his back and he was still on his front on the mat,

Wary of Army trying to get to his feet, Alicia focused on working the hammerlock, doing her best to crank his arm as far up his back as she could manage. Again, she didn’t think she’d be able to get a submission like this once he tried fighting back, but she could really hurt his shoulder and elbow like this.

So she did her best to do just that. And then, after one particularly vicious twist, she went to roll them both onto their sides where he wouldn’t so easily be able to get his feet under him.