Drinks Debut! - Drake Mallory vs Ninjette

Huh. She wasn’t tapping. Props to the gal, that was further than most guys had gotten at this point. So she had that going for her, at least.

Not for lack of trying on Drake’s side. She was on the slim side, so really cranking her between his thighs wasn’t coming as easy as it usually did. More of a squeeze than a crunch. Didn’t mean it wasn’t painful, though, if her face was anything to go by.

That didn’t stop Kozue from holding on, wiggling about and shaking the hold on her arm to some success. Drake grew a funny little smirk at the sight of her. Couldn’t remember the last time he saw a woman with quite so much fight in her.

“Bit of a rottweiler, ain’t ya?”

He kept the hold on her arm where it was but tightened his legs as best as he was able. A submission wouldn’t count for anything, of course, but putting her out would make his job all the easier. That would go a lot smoother if she just let it happen.

“Oi. Not to shove it in your face or nothin’, but if ya take a kip, ya won’ feel it when I putcha through that fuckin’ table. Fair trade, right?”

Even though he was a bit too tipsy when he was signing his contract to read properly read a word of it, he knew he was going to have to fight a few girls here and there. He could do it, but it wasn’t his preference. Not how he was raised. But hey, if Kozue wanted a fight, he was never one to disappoint a lady.

Except the one, of course.

No, Kozue was not tapping. Not that it would’ve mattered if she did, of course, but regardless, she wasn’t going to give this guy anymore satisfaction than she absolutely had to. She was already getting more pissed off than she wanted to in a match like this, and she was rapidly reaching the point where her sole goal was to bash Mallory’s face around the ring.

Calm, Kozue. Keep it calm. She had better things to worry about at the moment. Before she could get to that point, she needed to do something about her breathing problems. Spots were starting to form in her vision, and she knew that, unless something major changed, there would be a nap in her near future.

No ropes to save her. No count. She had to get creative.

The best thing she could think to do at the moment was to put her flexibility to use and take advantage of the way this hold was sort of loose with her body. She squirmed to the side, maneuvering as best she could with his weight. Once she had her legs out, she started to swinging them as hard as she could towards his back, looking to hit his spine, shoulder, head, anything, hoping it would give him a good reason to let her go.

Drake wasn’t entirely sure what this ninja chick was planning as she started wrestling around in the hold, turning them both sideways in her nonstop fussing.

Kind of a moot point, though. His head was working in perpetual slow motion. If she had a plan for this, he wouldn’t have seen it coming unless he was locked in a room with it written on a piece of paper step-by-step and a week to himself to read half of it. Nah, if it was coming, just let it come. Didn’t really care for overthinking this slick shite.

Now, it’s wasn’t as if he was fully aware of Kozue underestimating him early on, but it seems he was guilty of a similar crime right about now. He was expecting something quick. Something unexpected. Something clever. And while her actions certainly were all of those things, “power” wasn’t really something he’d been betting on either. Not with this woman. But that’s what he got. One hit got him just below his shoulder, another close to the base of his neck, which probably could have put him out like a light before he knew it. He had a feeling this woman had some flexibility to her. He struggled a bit right along with her, trying to keep her tight on the hold as she jerked around and got a little bit looser and looser with each strike, right up until...

Jackpot. Her foot tapped him right on the vertebrae, sending a pain like a hot poker in his back, followed by the most uncomfortable tingle up and down his back that jerked his whole body. Not something he wanted to risk feeling again.

Drake’s body sprung into action the next moment, unwrapping his legs and rolling a bit off to the side. He put one hand to his back before going to stand back up. That was a bit more difficult of a task than usual, given the state of his newly arranged spinal cord.

Getting woozy, lights getting dim, starting to think Mallory was kind of cute. None of these were good signs for Kozue’s continued mental health, and a strong indicator that she needed to get out of this hold with all due haste. It was a long shot, she knew - better wrestlers than her had tapped out and napped to it, and Mallory had it locked in like a pro. But fewer were more stubborn than her, more vicious than her, and just plain more of a pain-in-the-ass than her. All points in her favor.

So she went to work. Kicking and kicking and kicking. Not the most technical of reversals, but what it lacked in finesse, it made up for in determination. She hammered him and kept hammering, working even as her strength started to fade and her muscles relaxed and-

He let go.

Kozue gasped and rolled away, desperate to fill her lung with air. She was free, but it was a limited kind of freedom as her body tried to recover from the hurting that had been put on it. It was so tempting to just lay down there and have a little cough session, but that wasn’t a luxury she could afford. Mallory would be on her, any second now.

Kozue gripped the apron’s skirt and started to pull herself up, minding the glass as she rose. Looking to make some space between them, she tried to crawl her way back into the ring, hoping to take the high ground over her foe.

Slippery. Kozue was a very slippery woman. Suppose he should note that the next time he got a good grip on her, but it would probably drop from his mind all the same. He was perfectly fine right now with just getting the kinks out of his back and letting his opponent do whatever she needed to do.

He glanced over his back and noticed her heading back into the ring out of the corner of his eye, trying to get away from this unforgiving ground and back on the canvas no doubt. He was of a similar mind but didn’t really appreciate the head start. Not when he had her so close. Guess he could try and fix that.

Since he was already on all fours, Drake took another glance underneath the ring. Reaching out two hands, he grabbed a bottle in each and pulled back out, seeing them in the light. Harbin the right, Guinness in the left. Hm. Much as he’d love to support the old country…

He cracked the neck of the Harbin against the ground, not wanting to waste time on the cap. He took a couple of quick, yet heavy gulps from the open bottle as he did so, careful not to cut his lips on the edges, before throwing back under the apron as he stood up. He made a quick scan for Kozue before gripping the neck and throwing the Guinness at her back. Or front. Whichever. It was all kinda blurring together for him.

Only after that would he follow her through the bottom rope and move to rise to his feet. Bit of a waste, but the other drink at least helped numb the pain still very much stabbing him in the back. Probably gonna need plenty more of that actually before all was said and done here.

Annoying. Mallory was a very annoying man. That was becoming more and more apparent as this fight went on. Kozue was having a hard time getting a handle on just why that was, too. She’d been prepared to just write him off as some dumbass drunk...and, okay, that title definitely fit, but he didn’t seem to be just that. Triangle chokes didn’t just appear out of thin air. She was guessing her had some MMA background going on, though she couldn’t imagine a guy like this getting too far in those ranks. Army, maybe? Would they put up with this shit?

Questions for another time. Now, her primary concern was recovering. Mallory wasn’t immediately coming after her, so that was a plus, but she knew better than to rest on her laurels. She needed to get up. She needed to get back into the fight. She needed to...duck.

She’d turned around when she heard the sound of clattering bottles outside of the ring, and found herself looking at another bottle flying her way. ”Fuck!” She ducked down just in time to avoid getting beaned in the head by the damned thing, but as one might imagine, it did nothing to brighten her mood. She was pissed before, she was more pissed now, and she wanted his head on a platter.

When he came through the bottom of the ropes, Kozue was right there to meet him. She was too winded to do anything fancy at the moment, so she decided to keep it simple: she just rushed over to him, raised her foot, and started stomping away, hammering his head into the mat with a furious frequency, accompanying each blow with another word. ”Stupid! Fucking! Jackass!”

Yeah, that was one knockback from getting crunked straight out of the gate. Speed really took a hit. Drake himself hadn’t really noticed until he tried crawling into the ring, going way slower than he needed to catch Ms. Ninja. Hopefully, the bottle slowed her down a bit, at least.

That wasn’t to say he had much of a plan going in. He just knew that he had to be close to her to do some damage, so close to her he was going to be. He was just about to get to his knees when he noticed a shadow casting over him. He craned his neck, looking up and seeing-

Pain. Just pain.

“What’d I do?! What’d I do?!” Guess the bottle missed.

His head crashed against the floor before he could get a proper read on just what came down on him, but holy shit did it feel pissed. Sound pissed, too. For such a small woman, Kozue could really pack a wallop when she wanted to. The first one was bad enough. All of the others knocked him senseless, knocked them back into him, then knocked them straight out again. Any more of the this was going to earn him some brain damage. Some more brain damage, rather.

He covered his head and tried to get at least one eye on her from below, look for opening maybe, but he didn’t see one. Nothing obvious at least.

Kozue Kaburagi was not in a good mood.

Granted, she rarely was these days. It kind of seemed like, ever since she joined Tension, the world liked to give her two shitty days for every good one, and it was hardcore stuck on maintaining that ratio. Where this day would fit into the spectrum would largely depend on how she was standing after this match, and so far the prospects appeared mixed.

She had Mallory down, and damn, was she getting a kick out of stomping his skull into paste. It was hard to place a finger on exactly why this guy pissed her off so much - aside from the way he kept through glass bottles at her - but whatever the reason, it was enough for her to give him the full wrath and not the watered-down, cheap stuff.

Not that she could do all that much with her stomping while he had his arms up like that, protecting his skull. Kind of annoying, that. But..

An idea dawned on her and she went for it without a second thought, she reached down, grabbed his arm and pulled it between her legs as she sat down on his back and kneeled, attempting to pull him into a seated Fujiwara armbar.

Jesus, he swore her stomps were getting heavier with each one. He was getting used to them at least. Dealing with the shock and working out for how much power this woman could really pack. His brain was still getting very thoroughly rattled, but there was an opening. Could he grab her leg and reverse this on her if he was fast enough?

Drake was doomed to have that question forever left unanswered. Kozue stopped, but only because she saw an infinitely better way to go about this. In the blink of an eye, his arm was yanked from his head and before he could even catch a glimpse of her she was already on his back. His arm was wrenched upright, pulling at the muscles and tendons all the way down past his shoulder.

He tapped. On her shin.

The referee quirked an eyebrow at him. Wasn’t a conscious decision, clearly, given the speed of it and the fact that his cerebellum was numbed beyond belief. It was just a reflex. From a combination of things. The shouts of an angry woman - a very angry woman - and a nasty submission hold put together to set off his danger signals worse than any amount of gunfire ever could.

Immediately after his gut reaction, the official was at least nice enough to squat down and throw him a little reminder of the rules.  Growing an innocent, boyish grin, he craned his head to the side, stealing a glance at Kozue and silently praying she was just ignoring the whole thing. Even he was feeling a little embarrassed now. He wanted out of this hold. Right now.

He messed around with his position a bit and tried experimenting with the first thing that came to mind. Suppose standing up wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Kozue was far from the heaviest woman around, but being so close to the ropes made that plan difficult. Brute force was probably his best option. He slapped his hand down and tried pushing his way towards the center of the ring. Once he had some room, maybe then some options would open up.

Kozue wouldn’t have called herself a submission artist by any stretch of the imagination, but she liked putting them on from time to time. Good way to grind damage out. Work on a limb, take away his options, even the playing field. Mallory probably had more power in this one arm than she had in both of hers combined, so the sense was there.

It also gave her time to relax, catch her breath, and most importantly, think. Think about where she was going from here and why Mallory was pissing her off more than just about any guy she’d ever faced, save the A+ asshole that was Killer King. It wasn’t just the whole thing with him throwing bottles at her, but his whole demeanor, the random way he acted, and…

Wait.

Was he tapping?

Yup, sure enough, those were taps she felt on her shin, not that they mattered a damn with this match type. She looked over her shoulder and down to see him smiling up at her with a big, dumb, goofy grin, and her response was an even-eyed glare, one that couldn’t have conveyed her feelings better if she’d written ‘really’ on her forehead. In answer, she just tugged on his arm harder, giving it a nice jolt before she started turning up the pressure.

In Mallory’s defense, though, the man was a trooper, and he kept soldiering on, heading towards the center of the ring. What he was hoping to accomplish, she couldn't even guess, but more power to him.