Ecce Vicit Agonista

It was generally pretty easy, if Abattoir was in the arena, to find her.  Typically you just had to look for sigils on the walls.  The more superstitious of the custodial staff tended to be nervous about going near them or erasing them, and so seeing some kind of intricate occult graffiti usually meant Abattoir was lurking in a nearby room (assuming she wasn't out in the ring).  Approaching her once she'd been found, well, that was a little more of a risky proposition.  She wasn't a particularly pleasant conversation partner - alternating frequently between 'cryptic and unnerving' and 'uncomfortably aggressive' - and given the things she'd done in the past, it was not entirely unreasonable to worry a little about one's safety around her.

Today, strangely enough, it was less risky than usual to draw near.  Or, well, maybe it was as risky as ever, but in a totally different way.  It wasn't clear.

This was because Abattoir was exceptionally agitated for once, and she hadn't stopped pacing this particular stretch of hallway like a caged tiger for almost an hour now.  Her hood was up and her coat was billowing behind her, limiting her expression to a pair of dead, scarlet eyes as she stalked back and forth, chewing maniacally at her lips under the mask.  At her side, the nak muay's fists clenched and unclenched intermittently.  It was like a whole series of nervous tics manifesting themselves at once.

The truth was that, despite her usual stoicism, the last few months had been exceptionally stressful.  Considering Abattoir was not the kind of person to be stressed out by 'normal' problems, that said a lot.  The whole WAR situation had left her eminently frustrated, feeling as if she was torn between two critical parts of herself that could no longer be reconciled.  For the first time in a long, long while, Abattoir was lost - she didn't know what to do, and this left her feeling a little more vulnerable than usual (which is to say, at all).

So when the metallic clatter of falling pipes echoed from around the corner, she froze to listen for a half-second and then, with alarming celerity, stalked straight for the wall.  Already one of those 'be ready to fight at all times' types, Abattoir's anxiety had left her a little more paranoid than usual, and she would be damned if she'd get caught in an ambush this obvious.

Pushing up against the corner, she reached around it and grabbed firmly for the approaching figure.

This was it. The moment of truth. Finally, after what felt like months of trying to get Abattoir in a position alone, she had her chance. It was a dangerous proposition going after the Nak Muay but it had to be done! She was going to expose the truth behind the mask and expose Abattoir for who she really was.

The plan was perfect and as she waited patiently near the corner for her chance to strike, her heart raced. Abattoir was dangerous, but she was ready. If she caught Abattoir off guard...

*clank* *clank*

"Eh? Oh, sh- urrrk !?"

She was caught! All her plans foiled as she stared down the fierce eyed masked woman. Without the element of surprise, she would be done for!

Thinking quickly, she brought the weapon she clutched in one hand to bear on Abbatoir, shoving the fuzzy ended metal rod right into Abattoir's gas mask.

"Madison Heights! Friction's roving reporter! I've finally got you now! You're not backing away from this interview!"

Madison put on her brightest smile she could through the nerves as Abattoir clutched her. Her green eyes were fierce and defiant. Even more so when the camera man swooped around the corner and focused on the pair.

"I have so many questions for you! I hope you're ready!"

Madison would probably never know how close she came to taking an elbow in the jaw.

Fortunately, Abattoir was a firm believer in knowing what she was hitting before she hit it, and so although she dragged the reporter around the corner and was entirely ready to start throwing roundhouses, Madison's very vocal surprise ended up startling her so badly she blinked and stumbled back, releasing the handful of blouse. The microphone in her face definitely didn't help matters; she'd been expecting to fight, not...this, not for the paparazzi to suddenly show up for interrogations.

The nak muay placed a hand on the wall to steady herself, spotted the cameraman rounding the corner, and at last, allowed herself to relax a little. Okay. Cool. She was technically still being ambushed, but it wasn't the kind she needed to worry about. She could afford to let her guard down a little.

"Uh."

That wasn't to say she was feeling particularly eloquent, considering the circumstances.

"....What?"

Madison perked up quickly. She went right to work.

"Abattoir, you've been in the league for some time now, but you're still quite the mystery! All the fans around the world want to know what makes you tick. What drives you. Who's the Abattoir behind the mask!"

Madison spoke but had yet to get to her question. We'll get to that soon, but first, how about some current events? You've been involved in some unsavory business as of late with WAR. With that, what exactly do you intend for our lovely roster?"

This was a lot to take in at once.  Probably better to focus on the most obvious question.

Abattoir shook her head in annoyance, pacing away from Madison, and then after a couple twitches, seemed to formulate something resembling a coherent answer.  "You know what deluge means?"  She peered back over her shoulder at the reporter, finally starting to visibly relax a little.  "'A righteous downpour'," she quoted.  "'An inundation, a swallowing-up of the land.'  There's a deluge coming, and I was sent back to find the ones who'll survive it."

The nak muay glanced over at the sigil on the wall - an angular labyrinth of interlocking Enochian symbols.

"That's why I fight.  Iron sharpens iron.  People can't stay in their comfort zones, not if they want to make it through what's coming their way.  They have to be pushed, their limits have to be stretched past what they thought was possible - and those are the ones who'll rise above, while the rest sink beneath the waves and dwell forever in the splendor of the one whose name can never be repeated."

Her voice was low, measured - almost a practiced monotone, although the mention of WAR had left just the slightest little edge of agitation on it.

"If you want to know what WAR's after, I suggest you ask one of my stablemates."

Madison shuffled forward eagerly when when Abattoir paced off but stopped abruptly. She opened her mouth to speak when she was questioned but shut her mouth, smiled and nodded dutifully when Abattoir began to speak.

Once Abattoir was finished, Madison was quick to bring her mic back to her own mouth. "Well then. That's a very interesting theory. I'm sure that there's a lot of fans that approve of that approach. It would certainly make for the best kinds of matches if they were clean competition. But," Madison said raising an eyebrow."You aren't exactly known for spirited, sporting competition."

Madison nodded. "Since your team mates aren't here, I'll continue to address you personally, Miss Abattoir. Is that what you envision for the league? A place where chairs, chains and kendo sticks are the rule of law?"

Madison maintained her smile and continued. "The rumor is you don't even accept money for your contract. That you get paid in light tubes." Madison chuckled and waved it off as silliness.

"But not everyone who comes here is looking to potentially end their career every match. What do you say to that?" Madison set her brow with a serious look and pushed the microphone back towards Abattoir.

There was a hiss of annoyance at Madison's words, and Abattoir spun on her heel, knocking over one of the set boxes and sending a CRT monitor skidding across the floor, as she stormed back over to the microphone.

"If they're not here to fight then they may as well not be here," she snarled.  "Anybody who can't be bothered to give it everything they've got might as well be sticking their throat out for the knife, as far as I'm concerned."

Granted, her association with WAR clashed pretty hard with that motivation, but Abattoir was determined not to let herself get dragged into doctrinal debates, and even more determined to avoid thinking about the dishonor she'd brought upon herself by association.  Not many things kept her up at night, but the difficulty of trying to reconcile her philosophy with the company she kept was one of them.

"So I'll go anytime, and yeah, a lot of the time that means weapons.  Mutually agreed-on weapons.  You ever see me pull a lighttube on somebody when it wasn't allowed in the rules?"

She was very, very close now, practically forehead-to-forehead with Madison, and Abattoir was not waiting for an answer.

"I'll save you the trouble of watching the tape.  Never.  Not once.  So before you stand in judgment, I suggest you consider all the people I've dropped with an elbow instead of a chair, because--"

A girl in a hooded sweatshirt strolled down the hallway, hands in her pockets and her head bowed, while Madison and Abattoir had their chat. She could see Abattoir's face, at least the part that wasn't covered by that mask, and took note of her but otherwise minded her own business.

She walked by the camera man and didn't get too close to Abattoir as she passed, and the words on the back of her sweatshirt were clearly visible on the video. "GUNS RAZORS KNIVES".

Abattoir was in mid sentence when from behind her the girl suddenly slipped a length of thin chain over her head and around her neck, looped it around once, and roughly yanked her off of her feet. She quickly dragged her back around a corner and behind a stack of boxes so that the cameraman had to run to get a shot, and when did he caught the hooded girl holding the chain in one hand while violently stomping Abattoir's face in.

With the supposed 'ambush' averted, Abattoir had let herself relax, and this, ultimately, was her downfall.

One second, she was ranting wildly at Madison about the wheat and the chaff, and the next thing she knew, there was a sharp twist and the bite of cold steel at her throat and the floor was leaping up at her. The world turned upside down and when the nak muay managed to get a faint grasp on her situation, she found herself sprawled in the hallway with a hailstorm of steel-toed kicks raining down on her.

Well, this was a new development.

Granted, Abattoir's thought process was maybe not quite that calm, it was more along the lines of 'OW FUCK FUCK FUCK WHAT IS HAPPENING'. She thrashed, of course, struggling against the chain and lashing out with a wild swing or two, but she'd been caught totally off guard and the mysterious attacker had an extremely dominant position on her. All she could really do at the moment was throw arm punches and try to twist out of the chain loop.

As she tried to get loose, somewhere in the back of her mind, in the part that wasn't the 'get out and kill this person' lizard brain, she wondered if this was payback for a WAR attack. Fucking hell, her allegiances were nothing but trouble.

When her prey started to squirm too much, the hooded girl pulled the chain tight and dragged her again, this time pulling her into an awkward run and smashing her headfirst into another stack of boxes, sending them tumbling across the floor.

With Abattoir back down, the hooded girl grabbed for the hem of her black leather jacket and yanked on it, working it back and forth until she had it inside out and pulled over Abattoir's head. She pulled her chain loose and whipped the girl with it before soccer kicking her in the stomach.

She finally planted a boot on the girl's throat and leaned down over her, staring down at her while she waited for Abattoir's red eyes to focus on her.