Drinks Debut! - Drake Mallory vs Ninjette

It worked out perfectly fine. At least, that’s the assumed when the kick connected. Maybe he just got lucky, but you don’t exactly get lucky hitting a ninja with a fluke like that, right? Or maybe that’s exactly how you hit a ninja. There was a bit of sense to be found somewhere in that, but for now, Mallory was content to just cheer like an idiot.

“Yahtzee! How’d you like them apples, love?” He turned to the referee. “I can’t think of a better reason to drink than that. Oi, hand it over.”

The referee looked at him blankly for a second before tossing it a bit towards him. She didn’t want any part of the tension going on in this madhouse that somehow got mistaken for a match. Drake, on the other hand, just let out a brief, relaxing sigh before bringing the bottle to his mouth and...ah, fuck, she left the cap on.

Man, she must know her liquor if she knew how to do that. It was on tight. He reached down to his waist before he realized there was nothing but belly and firm abs. Goddamn it, why did he go shirtless? He looked left and right and down before his eyes settled on the somewhat hunched over brunette in front of him. Briskly walking towards her, he subtly raised the bottle as she spoke.

“Hold still for a sec, right?”

In a flash, without any wind up, he brought the bottle down toward Kozue’s head, wanting to break the bottle over her scalp. Not sure if this would break the thing, but might as well try, right?

Okay, some mistakes were made here, Kozue could admit that.

First mistake, biggest mistake, was thinking that being drunk somehow limited Mallory’s abilities. It didn’t, at least not enough for her tastes. Oh, it made him sluggish and sloppy and stupid, but the fucker could still hit like a Mack truck.

The ropes were probably the only thing keeping her upright at the moment, and without them, Kozue would’ve been a stumbling mess. She took her time as her vision cleared, enough for her to realize that her opponent was coming back her way. Stumbling, sure, but coming all the same.

Just another second, that was all she needed to clear her head, and then-

Kozue heard the crash before she actually felt the blow, which sounded weird at first, until she figured out the reasoning: her brain registered the pain too slow, didn’t even know it had been hit at first. But she saw the glass shatter around her, she felt the cool, wasted beer trickle over her face, and then all the pain came rushing in at once.

Kozue legs fell out from under her, she hit the mat, and rolled under the ropes to collapse on the mats outside, landing on her knees while she cradled her head.

Ah, there it went. No really, there it went. Splashing all over onto Kozue’s head as she tumbled out of the ring with the rest of the liquor permeating her hair. Drake’s moment of elation from seeing the bottle’s contents spill out in front of him was short-lived. No sooner than after he glassed the woman did she take a tumble onto the mats below. Seems as though she was running away again. His brow furrowed as he leaned over the ropes to look at her.

“Hey, where’re you going? Gimmie ma' damn drink back!”

Hurrying after the collapsed ninja, he rolled out the ring and quickly grasped her shoulders, not missing a beat. He made an attempt to pick her up and onto her feet to give the sly brunette a good talking to. That task proved a bit too much for Drake however. Her upper body was soaking wet and slid right off that soft skin of hers. Worse, his depth perception wasn’t the best at the moment. Still, he wanted that damn beer. If anything, seeing her drenched that just made him even more pissed off. It was in her, some of it soaking her top, when it should be in his stomach by now. A small and otherwise insignificant issue, but anything that involves a stiff drink immediately steadily becomes a rather large problem to the inebriated.

“Ah, fuck it” He said, with a frustrated sigh. “It's been in worse spots.”

Leaning down, he grabbed a nice and soggy clump of her hair, feeling some the juices run down and into his palm. His lips had just barely grazed one her strands when he caught a glint of something beneath the stage, reflecting the light from the flash of one of the many cameras going off around the stage.

He dropped his effort back onto the mat where it came and scurried on all fours over to the apron. Giving it a good lift, he could merely look on awestruck and frozen at the sight before him. It was as gorgeous as his wedding day. Bottles. Imports and exports as far as the eye could see. Or, at least, to the other side of the apron, but it was as far as Drake cared to see. He was almost in tears.

“O sweet and benevolent Lord above, I shall never forsake yee till the day I am delivered unto thy merciful arms.”

Drake had let his conversion to Buddhism slip his mind just as quickly as he had slipped under the stage, leaving Kozue to do...whatever she was up to. His mind was elsewhere. Halfway down a bottle, at this point most likely.

”Cunt!”

That word, that single word, was all Kozue had to describe her mood at the moment, as she rolled out of the ring and reeled from the grievous injury Mallory had just inflicted on her. She didn’t think he’d managed to break skin with that by some miracle, but it was a bit hard to be sure, what with her brain functions being exceedingly fuzzy at the moment.

Typically, that would’ve been bad news. It meant she was wide open, that she was in position to get her shit royally fucked up. For a moment, she thought that was what would happen, too, as he grabbed her hair - a fucking pet peeve of Kozue’s - and proceeded to…

...completely ignore her in favor of getting a damn drink. Kozue wasn’t quite sure how to process that immediately. She could relate to his love of alcohol, but she’d never been so obsessed over it that she could forget about her opponent in a match. And people told her that she had a drinking problem.

Somebody should talk to Mallory about that. For now, though, she was going to exploit his vulnerability for her own personal gain.

”Yo!” She called out to get Mallory’s attention as she came running at him from the side. Whether he looked her way or not, however, the result would be the same - she was coming at him with a running side kick, aimed right at his head.

99 bottles of beer on the wall. 99 bottles of beer…

Drake had already started the song in his head as he reached out for the first brandy that caught his eye. Any semblance of the match had completely disappeared from his mind. The eager audience, the perplexed referee, his opponent for the evening, even his payment were all distant memories as far as he was concerned. Because, man, these bottles looked so full. So refreshing. He twisted the cap off, taking in a good waft of the alcohol as he held it close to his nose. It smelled exotic. He hadn't bothered to read the label. Didn’t want to. There were just so many places to start.

He firmly grasped the bottle in his hand and was about to disappear into paradise when he heard someone call out to him. A feminine voice. It sounded loud and slightly pissed off. He’d been married long enough to know not to ignore that sort of tone. He quickly snapped his head to the side, expecting a scolding, only to be met with a swift boot to the face.

“Umph!”

He fell onto his back in a heap, slightly disoriented, but still very much in the realm of the living. More importantly, he was still holding onto his drink. Drake shook his head slightly before catching the spry woman in his sights. There she was, standing between him and his riches. The worst idea she ever had. Furrowing his brows, he gave the bottle one quick swig before standing up and hurling it towards his opponent. Shame to waste a good beer, but he was slightly peeved at this point. Well, whatever. It was one out of the hundreds that had to be waiting underneath that ring. And they were all his. Yup, thats right, his. This girl can shove it.

“Alright. Here’s how we fly-boys get it done!”

Drake was a firm believer in an eye for an eye, tit-for-tat. He wanted to return her form of generosity with one of his own. Firmly planted on his two feet, he stomped over to Kozue and swung a leg out, splitting the air as he aimed right for her chest.

Kozue really enjoyed kicking Mallory in the face. So much so that she wanted to do it a few more times before the night was over. Was that wrong? Maybe. But at this point, she didn’t much care. Getting her head caved in with a beer bottle hadn’t done wonders for her mood, believe it or not.

Kozue didn’t wear boots - personal choice, liked the way the floor felt underneath her padded feet - but all the same, the impact made a satisfying crack, and the result were more than impressive. Mallory was a big dude, bigger than her by a wide margin, but the blow laid him out, and it looked like he had some sense knocked into his silly head. Still managed to hold onto the bottle, though. Kind of impressive, that.

Then he threw it at her. So much for respect.

”-the hell?” She bobbed her head to the side and let it fly by, leaving it to crash on the barricade and shatter a few feet away. More broken glass to worry about. Nice. ”You fucking serious? Throwing bottles, now?”

He was fucking serious, it seemed, and he was right back on the attack a moment later, getting up and swinging his leg her way. The guy was fast, faster than she would’ve guessed, but Kozue was still faster. She ducked under the heavy blow, whipped around behind him, and responded with a kick of her own, targeting the side of his thigh as she lashed out.

Damn. Those were nice reflexes.

She dodged that bottle like it was in slow motion. The movement wasn’t too excessive, just far enough to let it whiff past her. Nice. Real nice. Drake wished he had that kind of agility more than a few times in the past. Those legs weren't just for show, either. She ducked low under his kick and responded with another one in kind. This ninja chick was fast on it too. He’d have to do watch out for that.

On a personal note, Drake didn't like getting kicked in the face. He had a bad experience one night with a big happy hour crowd that had him getting stomped into the ground, and ended with the bridge of his nose broken. Lots of blood everywhere, lots of pain afterwards, lots of recovery to follow. Not his fondest memory.

So, subtly, getting booted square across the chops like that was bringing back some very unpleasant feelings. Not so subtly, it reminded him that he was still in danger. There weren’t many women in the world that could make Drake Mallory worried.

Well, he was already down on the floor. Might as well go for it. Keeping his other leg out, Drake pivoted on his bent leg, doing his best to ignore the lingering pain as he ducked low. With a strong push, he seamlessly spun into a leg sweep, aiming to take Kozue to the ground hard before she could get away.

That speed was dangerous. That was becoming very quickly apparent to him. He always thought being quick on your feet was important in a fight, but this girl took that strategy to another level. If he had any chance of coming out on top of this, he had to start from there.

...seriously, though, a fucking bottle. Kozue still could not get over that.

The more Kozue fought this guy, the less she knew what to make out of him. He wasn’t lacking for skill, he wasn’t a pushover like half of the Tension male roster and he wasn’t a dick like the other half. He was just...weird. They’d been fighting for less than five minutes, and she could already say he was about the weirdest dude she’d tangled with.

But not the weakest. She was going to have to take this a bit more seriously.

In that spirit, she was prepared to pound Drake into the floor without mercy, and reared her leg back to do just that. Unfortunately, the drunkard showed he had more of a speed game than she’d thought, or at least had enough timing to make up for the lack. Out came his leg, striking her in the knee and bringing her down where she didn’t want to be. Not on this floor, not with this glass.

Wanting to rise ASAP, she rolled over and started to push up, hoping to rise before he could capitalize. She doubted that was going to happen, but it couldn’t kill her to try.

Hey, he got her. Nice. Not that he was doubting his skills or anything, but his system was still pretty lagged. His movements had a bit of an arc to them. They were a bit floaty and hung for half a second before they shot forward. There were times when the moves he made felt like a real shot in the dark, and trying to spin around and kick a ninja’s legs out from under her was one of them.

Drake managed it though. He should have known better, though, to think Kozue was just gonna take a knee. This lass was a rowdy sort. Needed to get her to calm herself before he went for the kill.

Tempting as it was to return her kick to the face with a kick to the face, Drake didn’t really have the confidence in his accuracy for a second shot. The roll didn’t give him a chance anyway, but that was alright. She was on the ground at the moment, and that was all he was looking forward. The veteran sprung his upper body forward as he did his best to follow the kunoichi, bringing his back up from off the ground as he leaned forward and reached out. His aim was on her forearm, looking to wrench her forward and lock her between his legs with a triangle choke. Kozue may have been a bit too slender for him to really make the most of out of this. A bit too nimble, but no harm in trying, right?

Even in his drunken haze, he could still muster a familiar memory way when he was back in basic. It was after he got Roy in one of these and his name became ‘Sissyboy’ for a week. Didn’t even know a man’s voice could reach that pitch. Poor bloke. This girl didn't look like no sissy, though. She looked smart. Well, smartish. Smart enough to know that getting caught like this was a bad idea.

”Son of a fucking bitch-”

The knee, the knee, the goddamn knee.

The pain was blazing through Kozue’s bones, feeling like he either fractured something with that move or came a lot closer to it than she had any right to let him. Standing? She could do it, maybe, but it wouldn’t be much fun until she let the pain subside. Knowing Mallory, she wouldn't’ be getting that moment unless she worked hard for it. She was willing to.

She’d just started to get back up when she’d noticed that Mallory hadn't done the same yet, and she had the time to wonder why. It became immediately apparently when he reached up to seize her forearm, pulled her forward, wrapped him up in her legs, and…

Kozue croaked, a curse that got caught in her throat when he poured the pressure on and started a good squeeze, capturing her in the dreaded triangle choke. She felt back to a knee, dragged down by his weight, and gritted her teeth to keep from crying out.

It wasn’t just painful, but it was cutting off her circulation, and fast. For now, her main objective wasn’t to escape, but to stay awake and coherent enough to come up with an idea on how to escape. Harder than it sounded.