AV 16: Jessica Wright vs. Alicia Wells

Jessica had a bevy of experience that she could tap into at any time. It was what made her so feared, so dangerous. Girls from Tokyo to Iowa and back knew what terrible fruits almost a decade of in-ring experience could bring to bear. Quite a few of her reactions were so engrained that even Jessica herself was not aware of them. When Jessica got punched, she had a tendency to try and pop right back up. It didn't matter how much damage she had taken, or what stage of the match she was in. When her hulking frame went down, she was going to do everything she possibly could to right the ship.

Similarly, when she recognized that an attack was coming in, she put her guard up. Some part of her recognized that a kick was coming and her hands shot upwards to protect her head. She did not know which part of her brain sussed out that the attack would be aimed at her cranium, but she was very grateful for that instinct which had gotten lodged into her brain. It was probably the only thing between her and oblivion, to tell the truth.

The kick came in, and came in hard. Alicia's compact leg slammed into her with the force of an asteroid colliding with the earth. Spittle flew from her mouth as the violet-haired woman fell to the floor, her whole body numb from the tremendous force of the blow.

Jessica tried to get up, but couldn't. Getting kicked in the head incredibly hard would do that to nearly everyone.

Jessica was clearly a strong woman. A glance was enough to show that, even to someone not as experienced in judging such things as Alicia (or Jessica herself). Having had the wind knocked out of her and then immediately going to get back up, well, that wasn’t to be sneezed at.

Particularly as she retained the ring sense to recognise she was under attack and react.

Jessica got her arms up. Well and truly, she got her arms up, her hands fully in between her vulnerable head and the incoming meteor of Alicia’s foot.

It also did her very little good.

Alicia’s kick blasted through her guard like a hot knife through butter, turning her head and putting the other wrestler right back down. This time, there was a rather more definitive quality to it than her first hit.

And it was also far, far more satisfying than her first hit.

On a side note, the answer to Alicia’s question was ‘no’, Jessica wasn’t going to be so fast to get up after that hit to the head.

Now she just wanted to make sure Jessica stayed down for a bit. The purple-haired wrestler was trying to get back up, and Alicia didn’t like that at all. Lips peeling back from her teeth in a nasty snarl, the redhead took a running step forward and went to blast a second kick right into the soft spot between Jessica’s lower ribs and her hips.

That ought to take a bit more of the fight out of the Violent Violet. Then she could look into twisting those strong limbs up a bit – if she could wreck a leg, that’d leave Jessica’s power game weakened considerably.

Jessica was swimming, in a sense. Her head was not very good at interpreting the signals that were coming her way. The roar of the crowd was not the sharp noise that it should have been, the lights far above her were washed out and seemed massive, and even the white canvas below her seemed imprecise. Like it was too hard, or something. Just as Jessica seemed to be gathering herself, and preparing to get up, something terrible happened.

A cannonball slammed into her side, and the air was ripped from her lungs. Jessica clutched her side and groaned, and rolled over a few times. Her pretty face was contorted with the massive pain that was plaguing that entire side of the body. When she got slammed, the pain spread out and dulled itself. But all of Alicia's power was concentrated in her foot, and jesus christ did she bring a lot of force.

Jessica grit her teeth and stopped rolling when she was face down. She planted her hand on the mat. It was mostly for show, as there was very little chance she was getting up.

And the second kick (or third hit) was even more satisfying than the one before. This might become habit forming if she wasn’t careful.

This one didn’t just drop Jessica back to the mat, it actually sent her rolling away and clutching at her abused side. That wasn’t a fun place to be kicked, that was for sure, and Alicia hadn’t been pulling the power she put into the hit either.

It didn’t look like Jessica was actually trying to get up, the hand being planted more for show than actual support, but Alicia still clearly felt that was a step too far. At least, that was probably the best way to interpret the redhead planting a vicious stomp to the small of her opponent’s back.

Well, that or she was just enjoying her chance for some payback and to humble the arrogant woman she was fighting.

Either way, Jessica was flat on her face which was a good thing but did limit Alicia’s own options for offence aimed at her legs. So, where next?

Well, she needed to keep her momentum up. Dropping down to her knees behind Jessica, Alicia went to grab one of the WAR member’s feet. Going to wrap one arm around the calf so she could grab her own bicep with that hand, the redhead was looking for an ankle lock: simple, effective and a good way to undermine Jessica’s vertical base early in the match.

Focus now. This is important. This is a goddamn Avalanche match and so far you have done nothing but get your ass kicked. Get up, get moving. Do something do anything. The voice was coming from inside her head, but they were his father's words. When she was first learning her trade, her father tolerated very little from the young Jessica. One of the things he found most loathsome was staying down. Whenever Jessica stayed down so as to avoid punishment at the hands of her brothers, her wrestling partners, her dad would come over there and start wrecking her himself.

And right now, Alicia was doing a very good impression of him. The Violent Violet was on the verge of gathering herself to the point of bringing herself to her two feet again, when a stomp slammed into her back and ensured that she would stay down for a little bit longer. Bad news wrought bad news, and Jessica felt her foot being grabbed and her lower leg being contorted into a painful ankle lock.

The Violent Violet grimaced and thrashed a little bit. Pain erupted up and down her leg. The crowd, for their part, absolutely loved the fact that Jessica was getting her comeuppance for the first time in a long long time. Jessica's nostrils flared and her mind raced. Even the noise from the audience could not drown out her father's voice in her head, and Jessica reckoned that it was high time to listen to it.

Without much thought or precision, Jessica started going at her opponent with her free leg. Sure, she could not bring the precision and technique that Alicia could bring, but what she lacked in know-how she more than made up for in sheer power. The donkey kicks flew backwards one after the other, hoping to land wherever they would meet the least resistance.

In her brief time at Friction, Alicia had seen plenty of wrestlers in plenty of matches who’d be wasting their time making speeches right now. If they were in her shoes. That never had been her style and, as soon as she’d put Jessica down, she went to work to keep her there.

A bit more noise would have been nice, given the way Jessica had been throwing insults around before, but she’d bet that’d come later.

And the longer she could work this ankle over, the easier the rest of the match would be.

At first, Alicia thought she’d got it settled; she was even starting to think about the next stage of her hold, how she could take it and make it even worse.

Then Jessica started kicking back. Literally.

Alicia took the first kick stoically – it hurt and not a little, but she could take that pain, probably longer than Jessica could take the wrenching at her ankle. To make that point, the redhead twisted harder, looking to get as much damage done as she could. The second kick made her think though. It wasn’t any worse than the first one but it came quickly after and it certainly wasn’t something she could ignore.

If Jessica got lucky and caught her in the head, that’d be a problem.

The first two kicks had hit her on the arm and then just below, respectively. The third took her in the shoulder and, with a pained grunt, Alicia decided enough was enough. She’d been thinking about transitioning to a knee bar but no, Jessica was just too fresh. Some more tenderising was needed.

She let the ankle lock go with one last twist and scooted backwards, eager to be the first to her feet.

Jessica kicked backwards. It was all she could do. Like an animal in a trap, she had been forced to lower herself into thrashing about and kicking so as to break free of a captor's clutches. Alicia must have expected her to be a little lamb, but Jessica was a lion, and one does not tame a lion so simply. The first kick landed on hard flesh, and that forced Alicia to twist the hold harder, but Jessica persisted. After three solid hits she was finally free of Alicia's clutches, and very much thankful for it. At this point in the match, adrenaline had all but taken over, but there was not enough adrenaline in the world to cover for the pain that was currently shooting through her ankle.

That did not matter though. The Violent Violet gritted her teeth, and stood up. So far, she had done nothing but find herself in a ton of pain, and that was no where even close to sustainable if she wanted to last for two minutes, let alone win. And Jessica very much intended to win. Teeth bared from a mixture of pain and malintent, she found herself in her wrestling stance and desperately scrying for any chink in Alicia's armor.

If Jessica could not find one, she was sure as hell going to make one. The Violent Violet charged forward, ready to bash the redhead to smithereens. She now recognized that she could not out box Alicia, but she might be able to outsmart her a little bit. One jab flew forward, followed by another. They came in fast and hard of course, but Jessica wanted a distraction more than she wanted to actually hit Alicia. The punches were meant to get Alicia's guard up, so she would not see the low sweep that would get her off of her feet...

Across from Jessica, Alicia had made it to her feet a heartbeat earlier, probably because she wasn’t struggling with a twisted ankle. But it wasn’t fast enough to make a difference and she still found herself blocking a whole hailstorm of punches aimed at her upper body.

Her lip twisted a bit.

She could handle this. It might be tempting to let the sheer number of blows bother her but she knew better and, sure enough, she was able to block almost all the shots. Jessica put a lot of power into her hits but she was going straight at Alicia’s guard. The British kickboxer was more than able to keep parrying them away, not pitting strength against strength, and would have probably done that for a while longer before things changed for the worse.

For most people, the sweep would have been a bad choice. Alicia had a solid base, in the same way that an oak tree was hard to push over. The redhead’s wide hips, muscular legs and experience combined to make it really, really hard to knock her pins out from under her, particularly when she was in a defensive stance anyway. And she was, thanks to the punches Jessica had just thrown at her face.

On the other hand, it was fair to see Jessica Wright as anything but ‘most people’. Her kicks might lack Alicia’s superb execution and she might be a tier lower in terms of sheer power but, well, that was still a question of the top 95% against the top 90%. And, focusing on the punches she couldn’t exactly ignore, Alicia missed something she really shouldn’t have.

Specifically, the first thing she noticed was when her feet were knocked out from under her. On the plus side, Jessica’s last punch missed by a mile as the redhead fell backwards.

On the bad side, she was now on the mat and it was her turn to desperately scramble to get away and back up before Jessica capitalised.

Jessica allowed herself to smile. She knew that this was one of the biggest matches of her career, and she should take this deadly seriously. But still, so far, it had been her only break. Lesser women would have gone down to the punches, let alone the sweep, meaning that Alicia was no joke. She knew that. Of course Jessica knew that. She had just spent the past few moments getting pummeled by the redhead, and the Violent Violet had very little intention of letting that happen again.

So the purple haired woman stopped smiling and adopted a serious face, reflecting the very serious mood she was feeling. Not one to sit back and rest on her laurels, the Violent Violet pressed ever forward. The boos of the crowd did not matter to her, nor did the fact that they had already picked who they wanted to win. She knew that they were never going to pick her, no matter what she did, so at least she could take joy in shutting them up.

The Violent Violet took two steps forward and then hurled herself into the air. Alicia was part of the new school, more interested in MMA style fighting. Jessica was very much old school, raised on matches from the 80's and big hair. She stuck her elbow out and aimed for the redhead's neck.

Jessica very rarely took to the air, reckoning that she could do a lot more damage with her feet planted. But even when she was airborne she could do a lot of damage, because when she came down, she came down hard. The thick-thighed girl was going to find that out in short order.

Alicia knew she was in a bad spot suddenly. Not unspeakably so but it was never a good idea to be on the mat while the other fighter was on her feet.

She either needed to get Jessica down with her on her own terms or she needed to get back to her feet. And she needed to do it quickly.

Being on her back was only a good idea if Jessica was going to be stupid enough to throw herself bodily into Alicia’s guard. Alicia was not banking on that happening; like the Violent Violet or not, she’d been in enough matches that surely she wasn’t going to make that mistake.

On top of that, it was just plain harder to move or get up from a prone position on her back.

So, really, it made a lot of sense to roll over onto all fours as she prepared to scramble to her feet.

It was just a transition from there to getting up, not somewhere she intended to stay for long because Alicia fundamentally disliked taking her eyes off someone like Jessica.

For good reason, as it turned out.

She was on her hands and knees when she took the Violent Violet’s elbow to the nape of her neck, with all Jessica’s weight and momentum behind it. The redhead simply crumpled with a cry of pain, her strong limbs going momentarily slack with the impact.

And now she had Jessica more or less on top of her, on her back in a way that foretold no good whatsoever. Though, to be fair, Alicia was only just starting to think about that.