Blue Imugi vs. Armando 'Army' Rodriguez - Thunder and Lightning

Damn it, damn it, damn it. He’d had her. All that effort he took just to capture Imugi, all the pain he had to endure just to reach a point where he was momentarily in control of things, and he’d managed to fuck it up in record time. Now things were starting to get back to right where they had been before, with this speed demoness tearing him apart piece by piece. Worse now, because she was being kind of vindictive about it.

If he could just get to his own two feet, regain his base, he could-

He looked up, just in time to see the kick coming straight towards his face and utter one syllable to voice his opinion on the matter. ”Shit.”

Army had never taken a baseball bat to the face, but he had to imagine it couldn’t have hurt much worse than Imugi’s kick. It hit square on the nose, and his smell was immediately filled with a coppery scent - busted or broken. So he had that to look forward to.

He went down to his back and laid there for a moment, hissing and stunned. As much as he hated to admit, he knew what he needed to do, so he went about doing it - without delay, he started to roll away, trying to get under the ropes and retreat to the outside of the ring.

“Jerkass!”

She was feeling a bit better, to say the least. Her opponent may have kicked the hornets nest, but they all had to return to the hive eventually. Couldn’t run on spite all day, but it was good she was getting it out of her system. Well, good for her at least, less so for Army as her kick sent echoes across the arena. There honestly wasn’t much else on her mind. Except for one thing.

Imugi was subtly reminded of the fact that elephants were afraid of mice. When she first heard about it over lunch, she thought it was some sort of inside joke among her peers. This big, twenty-ton goliath of an animal being spooked by something that must have looked like an ant to it. Something it could have easily flattened with its weight alone. It just sounded so silly it was hard for her to take seriously.

Now, as she got up on one knee, noticing Army rolling away to the outside of the ring, she was starting to really get a grasp on that phenomenon. A round of jeers followed.

“Ah ha! He’s running!”

“Hey, ain’t this Tension? Where’s the man at?”

“What’s the matter? She doesn't bite!”

That last one wasn’t entirely true, but she was a bit too steamed to correct them. Normally, Imugi would just shake them off. If they were getting too rambunctious, maybe a shake a fist or two and tell them to pipe down. Fans could be toxic. She understood that better than a lot of people. But she was still in a sour mood, so…

Imugi merely walked over to the ropes, held up both her thumbs, then, with a huge frown towards Armando, pumped them down.

“BOOOO!” The rest of the stadium followed suit.

Ah. The Dreaded Imugi Choir of a Thousand and One Insults. Only the biggest of poopheads earned this punishment.

Rolling, rolling, rolling…

Fast as Imugi was, she didn’t seem able to catch Army before he could make his escape, plopping down to the mat outside. Not the most graceful of landings, but he did it, and it worked just the way he wanted to. He was given a short, but much needed reprieve.

Well, a physical reprieve. Mentally, he still have to deal with around ten thousand people giving him shit. So there was that.

He stood up and shook it off near Felina, and took a moment to glare her way as he rose. She didn’t seem fazed by it - she didn’t seem fazed by much of anything today - but she did helpfully point up, directing his attention to Imugi, who was leaning over the ropes to…

Oh. Nice.

She was booing him, the entire crowd was, and it seemed like he’d graduated to the level of unanimous hate. They seemed pretty determined to put the jerkass label on him, at this point. So, screw it. Might as well work with that.

”Yeah, okay…” He pointed to the audience, looked like he was about to say something, then spun about and shot his arm under the ropes, trying to grab Imugi by the ankle and yank her outside.

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

What? He’s a poophead.

Under normal circumstances, Imugi would have probably gotten a chuckle out of the whole situation. It wasn’t funny to see a guy like Armando him rolling away just because he was big. It was funny because he was big and good. He’d fallen into the trap many men fell into plenty of times: underestimating her. That was what ended things before they could even get started.

But Army didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He had some killer strikes that could have torn right into her if she were a pace slower. He didn’t fall to pieces or lose his cojones just because he was getting kicked around both verbally and physically. He fought back, he kept himself focused, and he was going to show everyone what was what. All the things she liked in a man.

Too bad he went and pissed her off. If he thought everything the former idol was throwing at him now was rough, he was in for a rude awakening. She was about to ready another volley of the Imugi Choir when she felt something tug on her leg.

The next thing she knew, she was horizontal on the ring floor, all before sailing out of the ring in an instant and landing hard on the unforgiving solid ground. Her hands shot to the back of her head as she closed her eyes shut, kicking her feet about and rolling from side to side.

“You stupid dumbass moron idiot numbnuts piece of garbage-!”

Not in the best mood right now.

Honestly, Army didn’t mind the boos anymore. They were like white nose, human vuvuzelas that he could tune out at will. They could rant and scream and holler, but since they’d do the same thing even if he was being squeaky clean, how was that incentive for him to play nice?

Felina’s admonishing glare wasn’t doing much, either. She might not have liked the methods, but she couldn’t argue against the result - she had Imugi on the floor, aching, right where he wanted her.

”1!”

The referee came over, leaned over the ropes, and called the count out as Army neared his prey, but he didn’t pay her much mind. He was winning. He was in control. He had no intention of letting it go again. Not without putting her through some real hell first.

He reached down as she went into a storm of muttered curses and grabbed by the shoulders, roughly lifting her up and lacing his fingers behind her head to secure a full nelson. Nothing serious, just enough to keep her stabilized while he transported her. ”Yeah, yeah, don’t get pissy.” He muttered as he stood, lifting her off the ground as he rose and letting her dangle. ”You’d be doing the same damn thing if you could.”

Wow. Big and presumptuous. Such a poophead.

Not that Imugi wouldn’t have done the same thing. He was dead right about that part. But that idea that she couldn’t do it now? That she couldn't drag him around and keep him on the flat on the floor? Oh yeah. She was going to show him a thing or two before this night was over.

Not right now, though. That was evidently out of the question, as all she could do was writhe about on the floor and keep clutching the back of her head, feeling for bruises. Again, never a good idea in her mind to stay on the ground, especially since they were outside of the ring now, but her mind wasn’t exactly up to the task. She needed to get up and she needed it to happen now.

Although, it seemed as if Army was willing to oblige, just not in the way she would have liked. He plucked her right off the ground and held her up by her arms. She felt her shoulders grate as she bared her teeth and let out a long hiss. Being crushed by those muscular arms would have been bad in itself. Then he started moving, bobbing her around with each weighty step, her own weight only adding to the pain surging through her arms.

Imugi started pushing back, yanking herself left and right and coiling her spine in every direction possible, trying to find some way to slip free. The longer it went on the harder she fought it. She wanted out.

“Let go let go let go let go let go let go let go let go let go let go let go let go-!”

Imugi kicked her legs about this way and that, not even caring what she hit. She thrashed about in his grasp, wriggling her entire body and jerking her head back and forth, not even caring what she hit. Just fine with being a wily blue ball of bad attitude.

”2! 3!”

Army swore the referee was counting a bit faster than she needed to, as if she were trying to make things that much more difficult for him. It was already enough of a pain to hold onto Imugi like this. He would’ve thought that the full nelson would take some energy out of her, sap some of those seemingly infinite reserves she was working with, but nope. He lifted her up, hung her out to dry, and it only seemed to make her that much more cantankerous.

Imugi went into a struggling fit, kicking around, thrashing this way and that, and even with the massive size and strength difference between them, it was a chore just to keep her in check. ”Jesus, you are a fucking Chupacabra!”

One of her kicks hit him in the shin, right on the bone, and that was about the limit of bullshit he was prepared to take. ”You want out? Fine!”

Army lifted her up high, high, as high as he could go, then jumped and kicked his legs out, falling flat on his butt. It wouldn’t be a fun landing for him, but it would be worse for her, as he drove Imugi’s tailbone into the floor with a sitout full nelson atomic drop - or the Bubba Bomb, as it was better known.

Did she expect Army to let her go? No, not really. Not if he valued his life beyond the next couple seconds. But she imagined the more of a fuss she put up, the less he’d want to keep holding onto her, since he seemed more than capable of doing that for a while.

Being this close to his body, Imugi could at least tell that he wasn't liking this at all. His muscles flexed involuntarily and the occasional grunt It was all hopefully building up to the point where Armando would have had more than enough of her resistance. Couldn’t guess what a “chapalupa” was though.

And to her credit, Imugi did get what she was asked for. Except that Army was putting his own spin on things. At first she wasn’t entirely sure what he was going for. Lifting her higher despite what his words promised. Then she pieced it together, albiet too late to do anything about it.

The sound she made was somewhere between a cry and what she assumed would be her death rattle some years from now. It felt as though her petite little tush had been thoroughly split in half from the bottom up. Her head cocked back and her legs flopped into the air before falling down in front of her. Her body went limp for a moment, feeling the shock to her system and the pain in her spine taper off second by second.

The funny thing? Imugi was definitely Army’s type, if he had to nail down anything specific. She had a lot of things in common with his last girlfriend, Amy. Similar size, similar build, similar fighting style. Both were tiny, but tough enough to beat the shit out of guys twice their size. Both were undeniably hot, despite not being made in the traditional AFW mold. If he were in the audience watching her dismantle some helpless dumbass, he’d have been getting a kick out of all this.

But no, he was on the receiving end. Enjoying it much less on this side, which was why he felt the need to go to extreme measures. Like, for instance, planting her on the floor, ass-first.

It wasn’t a happy landing for his tush, but judging from the way she was writhing about and her scream of the damned, Imugi had enjoyed it far less. It left her laid out between his legs, and if they were in the ring, he would’ve gone for a cover.

”6!”

But yeah, that. Instead, he got to his feet and reached down, scraping Imugi up off the floor. He lifted her up with ease, rolled her body into the ring, and followed soon after. Tempting as it was to just let her lose by countout, there was no way he was letting it end like that after all they’d been through. When he beat Imugi, he was doing it in a way that left no arguments to be made.

Aside from not being able to sit down for a while, Imugi didn’t really have much of an understanding for how things were going to work from here on. Her senses were going haywire and the shock to her system was just now beginning to taper away. All she could do was sit like an impudent child that had just gotten through one of the harshest scoldings of her life. Not the best look for her right now.

It wasn’t like she was down and out. She’d taken her fair share of bad spills in the past, with opponents nowhere near as gentle and with no rules or referee there to save her. If she could come back from all of that, she could come back from this. It was only a matter of time. She knew that much for sure.

But it wasn’t changing the fact Her opponent had the upper hand for the moment, and while she didn’t believe in fate, it did seem fair to say that Mr. Rodriguez was in control of hers at the moment. Which is why it came across as somewhat of a surprise when Army rolled her, however roughly, back into the ring. Respectable? Foolhardy? People could have whatever opinions they wanted. For Imugi, though she couldn’t really show it right now, it was at least sweet to know that Army hadn’t gotten sick of her just yet.

After she got a couple of rolls of her own toward the center of the ring, Imugi arched her back off the ground as her lower back stung against the contact. She turned onto her stomach before running a down to her rear, inspecting for damage and, honestly just trying to do anything to minimize the pain. Her other fist banged against the canvas, more of a reflex than anything against the sensation trailing up and down her spine.