SS 17 Entropy Title - Valley Doll (c) vs. Alicia Welles (Total Victory Match)

The crowd had been rallying behind Valley now that the odds were coming back in her favor, but that changed when she started to press her boot down on Alicia’s throat with distinctly unValley-like aggression. That wasn’t exactly a staple of the Slamazon, arguably close to cheating, and while some of her fans kept up their fervor, other seemed more than a bit confused at the turn their heroine was taking.

As much as she cared for her fans, their opinion didn’t matter to Valley much at the moment. The only viewpoint that really counted was the referee’s, and she was getting very vocal on the subject. ”Valley, ease up! Ease up!” She gave her shoulder a shake, was summarily ignored, and then started to use the second weapon in her toolkit. ’1! 2!”

Valley would have been content to ride out the count, but that decision was made for her when Alicia punched her leg - her bruised leg. This had two effects:

One, it hurt. Not much, but the area was tender, so it made her relive the pain for a hot second.

Two, it reminded her what caused that pain in the first place. Which made her want to repay it.

Valley hopped back and gave her leg a good slap, testing the feel around the numb area. Still bad, but good enough to be useable. Good enough for what she had in mind next.

Grabbing the ropes once more, she pulled herself up the turnbuckle, getting up to the point where she had one foot on Alicia’s knee and the other on the second rope, holding the post to keep herself precariously balanced.

Deep breath.

A pause.

Valley jumped straight up, then came down and drove her heel into Alicia’s knee, drilling it with a vicious - but precise - blow.

What with the roar of the crowd and the blood pounding in her temples, both from the choke and from being hung upside down, Alicia wasn’t really aware of the ref’s count at all. As far as she knew, her options were fight her way out herself or let Valley choose. Which could be when she’d choked the redhead into a stupor or when she’d just choked Alicia out full stop. Neither scenario was particularly appealing, not to mention the age-old bone-deep instinct to fight back when you couldn’t breathe.

Hence the scrabbling at Valley’s boot, which did her no use whatsoever, and hence the punch which – somewhat surprisingly - did.

Suddenly allowed to breathe again, Alicia’s chest heaved as she refilled depleted oxygen supplies. It was an opportunity she wasn’t sure she’d have for long, not when she was still trapped and hanging upside down at Valley’s seeming lack of mercy.

Which… she had mixed and complicated feelings about. This was definitely not the situation Alicia wanted to be in… specifically… but she couldn’t deny that there was a song in her heart as Valley Doll finally started to throw everything she’d got at her.

That was just perfect and as soon as she disentangled herself from this turnbuckle, she’d-

At which point, the redhead felt Valley’s foot press against her knee. She forced her neck down – up – not sure entirely what the blonde was up to…

And realisation dawned right before Valley leapt and came back down and Alicia’s knee exploded in agony.

The big Britishwoman howled as the pain burnt up and down her leg, her upper body thrashing back and forth in a desperate attempt to do something.

What, however, she had no idea. And still, still, she was trapped, locked in place.

Valley Doll weighed, at least count, 134 pounds. Not much Alicia could probably squat more one-legged.

But when she had gravity backing her up? When all that weight was being focused on a single point? A very vulnerable point? And when she had bit of a mean streak. She could do great and terrible things. Alicia would probably agree, if she weren’t so busy screaming her lungs out.

It wasn’t pleasant for Valley, either. Her thought process had been on inflicting maximum damage, with everything else a distant concern, and that included landing. She came down hard on her back after she landed the hit, aggravating her ribs and forcing out a shriek, one that got lost over Alicia’s howls. Worth it, though. And she wasn’t finished.

After pushing up to her feet, Valley stomped across the ring, hammering her aching leg into the canvas with each step to force more feeling back into it. By the time she reached the other side, it was still hurting, but in good enough shape to run, even do a decent jump. Exactly what needed.

Valley turned around, placed her back against the turnbuckle, and after a hot second to read herself, she took off like a bullet from a gun. Bounding across the ring, she forced her body to push past the pain and work, closing in on Alicia quick with fast, bold strides. When she was close enough, she jumped up shot her legs out, and hit Alicia with a dropkick.

Aimed at her knee.

The situation she was in was not one Alicia had been trained to deal with, nor was it one she had any experience in how to escape. The blood was rushing to her head, making it hard to think even without Valley choking her. And being upside was further aggravating the pain in the knee Valley had just stomped, with Alicia’s own weight pulling on the joint.

Between all that and the stomp, it wasn’t very surprising that she’d made no progress towards freedom in the space of time she was given. Certainly, she wasn’t aware of the injury Valley had done herself and wouldn’t have cared much, because why would she care?

Doing her best to push past the howling storm of pain that was her kneecap, Alicia started to pull herself back up again, desperately aware that she needed to untangle her ankles and now.

She almost made it. She was halfway towards sitting up when Valley’s boot slammed into her knee again, this time nearly inverting the joint.

If before Alicia had howled like a wounded animal, the noise she made this time was an unmistakeable scream as Valley’s dropkick threatened to cause critical damage to her kneecap.

As the redhead’s noise subsided to a mere whimper, leaving her large form hanging almost limp in the trap Valley had caught her in, the referee interspersed herself between the two women.

”Enough, Valley Doll,” Her tone was surprisingly firm, ”Get her out of there.”

You could almost see the crowd reflexively shy away when Valley made contact with her target, wincing in unison. It was just the sight of the blow that drew them away, but the sound of Alicia’s wailing, the sheer agony.

It might not have seemed like it, but in a way, Valley meant this hellish and heelish assault as a compliment. Her entire career, she’d worked a mostly straightforward. Where most of her colleagues like to dip on the wild side every now and then, she tried to stay the good girl. It sort of came with the territory when you were wearing several hearts on your outfit.

But Alicia was the first opponent that had managed to put her in such a place. Not even Natasha Han, probably the best submission wrestler in the AFW around the time they had their Iron Man match, had brought this out of her. That meant something.

It also meant that she was on track to win this round, and had a good path to winning the whole thing. She hit the floor once more after her dropkick, rose as quickly as she could as the damage took its toll, looking to pile on some more damage…

...before the referee put a stop to it.

Valley looked at her with a blank stare - not angry, not sad, not anything. It was the look of a woman who was realizing where she was and what she was doing, letting the weight of the situation come over. She wrinkled her nose, shook her head, then nodded and reached through the ropes to undo Alicia’s ankles. After a few irritating seconds, she got them uncrossed and let Alicia flop to the floor.

Satisfied for the moment, Valley backed away as the referee gave her opponent a quick look over. She stayed close, ready to pounce the moment that window opened again.

There was no real reaction from the redhead as Valley undid the knotted ankles holding her in the turnbuckle. She just lay there, hands covering her face, neither resisting nor assisting. It wasn’t until she started to drop that she moved at all.

It was something of a testament to Alicia that she managed to turn her fall into an at least loosely controlled descent, bracing herself with her hands to avoid just flopping on her neck and head. That didn’t mean it was anything like a pretty landing, the big redhead more or less just collapsing to the mat, only to curl into a loose ball around her abused knee joint.

Now it was her turn to have the referee crouch down besides her.

”Alicia, can you keep going?”

And that was the question, wasn’t it? She hadn’t even tried to put any weight on her knee yet and she already knew it was going to suck on an epic scale when she did.

She’d finally got Valley going all out. But was it worth risking injuring her knee?

Yes. Yes, it was.

Not entirely trusting her voice, she just nodded, fixing her eyes on Valley – who had backed up far enough for Alicia to stand but not far enough by any standards. Alicia had a fairly good idea what was coming.

Still…

Aware she really didn’t want to test that knee, Alicia was forced to rely on the ropes and her good leg as she started to pull herself towards something loosely resembling standing. And the referee was clearing the way, so Valley could be on her at any second…

The crowd actually seemed surprised when Alicia raised herself up, as if they were thinking she might actually stay down longer, maybe even give up - or hoping, at least, clearly not knowing how tenacious this woman was. Their noise was muddled now, and Valley, who’d been listening to wrestling crowds before she knew her ABCs, couldn’t get a good read on them. Did they still want her to win? Was Alicia their new hero? Was Valley experiencing some change?

Interesting questions, flittering about the periphery of her mind. She’d answer them. Later. After she’d secured the title she’d been working for her entire life.

She held back and waited for her opponent to rise, giving her the minimum of breathing room. The referee, whose blood pressure had almost certainly risen a bit from the start of this match, glanced between them, sighed, then backed off and let the match continue.

Valley stared straight at Alicia, then looked down, eying that knee. She’d be going for it. Alicia knew she was going for it. But knowing something was coming meant little if you didn’t have the means to avoid it. So how well could Alicia defend that leg?

Valley would find out.

Up went her hands, as she slid into a more traditional kickboxing stance than she usually wrestled with. Her own leg wasn’t in the best of shape, but it was good enough to at least support her other leg for some decent kicks, and that was order of the day.

She took a step and lashed out, shoot her good leg out low with a snap kick aimed at her knee. Like wolf snapping at its prey, judging the reaction before she committed to anything big.

Watching Alicia rise was probably painful in its own right. She was having to be very ginger, very careful with the damaged knee, not wanting to put any weight on it until she had to do so.

When she did, it was a revelation in anguish. Alicia’s lips, already pinched tightly together, pressed closer to hide the way she was biting the lower one.

This was going to be… difficult. But at no point did she even consider just throwing in the towel. She could still do this, it was just going to be…

Interesting. A word which, as her mother said, covered a multitude of sins.

At least Valley was waiting. It wouldn’t make any difference to the state of her knee but Alicia preferred to be standing for this.

If she was done, and she wasn’t saying that she was, then she wasn’t going down without letting Valley know she’d been in the fight of her life.

And, if her knee was feeling it, she was willing to bet that so were Valley’s ribs.

Moving like she’d been through a day-long workout, the redhead managed to get her own kickboxing stance up and – to an approving roar from the crowd – beckoned the blonde on.

As they said in her home country, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.

Valley clearly fancied her chances and moved in, more cautiously than before. And, as was easily predictable, went for the knee she’d just worked over.

Probably a feint but she couldn’t afford to risk it.

Shifting her balance to lean her weight against the ropes, Alicia pulled her wounded leg back and took the pressure off it enough to get her good leg up to block.

Then she threw a crisp right hook back at Valley. Her ribs, to be specific.

Valley was forgetting something. It was a small thing, and frankly it was easy to forget when it came to Alicia Wells. The woman had amazing legs, definitely the best pair in the league, even with more and more women showing up with gifted gams. They drew your attention from the outset, and she was constantly either kicking the snot out of you with them or squeezing it out.

It was so easy to focus on them and forget that the Scissor Queen had two other perfectly useable limbs to work with. They weren’t her main attraction, but she could swing them well enough to do damage. Particularly when they went to the right target.

Valley hissed when her kick only succeeding in hitting the wrong leg, but she didn’t have the time to be disappointed. Alicia’s punch crashed into her ribs, and with all the damage that had already been done, it felt like taking a ball-peen hammer to the bones.

Valley cried out and spun about, grasping her aching chest as she reeled from the blow. The pain was a fire raging in her chest, and every time she took a hit or a fall or just breathed too deep, gasoline was poured on it. She did her best to move past it, knowing she needed to keep the pressure on, but that wasn’t the easiest task.

She did have options, though, even now. With her back turned, seemingly vulnerable, she tried to take Alicia off guard with one of the more unorthodox moves in her toolkit: she stepped back and shot her leg out low behind her, attempting to drive her heel into Alicia’s knee with a mule kick.

It was pained, but a smirk of satisfaction still curled Alicia’s lips as she felt her fist smack home as intended.

Yes, she was in fact still in the game. If – big if – she could keep Valley away from her leg until it was a little less vulnerable, she’d be set. And, even if not, she had a one point lead so the worst that could happen was Valley tied them up.

Which, in many ways, was what Alicia might have wanted all along. Just not quite like this.

Now she’d sent Valley for a quick retreat, it was tempting to push forward and the redhead wanted to, because that way Valley would be forced to react to what she was doing. But she forced herself to hold back. At the moment, only the ropes let her do much beyond standing and she really didn’t want to get caught with all her weight on one leg and unable to kick or defend her legs.

This wasn’t ideal and she half-expected the referee to tell her to clear the ropes, but it was workable.

Also, while Valley was slowed, the speed gap between them had widened if anything. There was ‘aggressive’ and there was ‘stupid’ and chasing the woman twice her speed if not more was definitely in the latter category.

So she shuffled around a bit but stayed close to the relatively safety of the corner and ropes.

Just as well because they were probably the only things that kept her upright as the mule kick drove Valley’s foot into her good knee.

If the blonde had hit her other knee or if she’d had all her weight on that leg with no other support, Alicia would have been back on the mat already.

As it was, she staggered against the ropes, wavering as she tried to compensate, but she was still upright.

Just.