Party Hard vs. Novae - Starstruck

Valerie blinked up at the ceiling, letting the pain run through her as she winced with each labored breath. Belle’s extended grounding and pounding session had truly done a number on her, working her away to the point where she wasn’t too much better than her opponent, who’d been active twice as long. If Novae had a weakness, that was it: neither she nor Tatiana were that good in the endurance department. Their whole strategy revolved around avoiding damage, and she’d gone and taken a heaping helping of it.

Hissing, she tried to sit up, and got about half way before gravity claimed her again. Frustrated, she growled and looked Belle’s way, only to see the brunette crawling towards Kaylee, finally going for the tag. The sight drew a sigh out of her, but she knew what she had to do. Tatiana would have to handle her, and-

Oh. Oh, no.

Valerie looked over to see that, for whatever reason, her sister wasn’t even standing up. She was on the apron, gripping the rope as she nursed her back. Had something happened after the Penalty Kick? Whatever the case, she wasn’t ready to be tagged in just yet. And Belle was too close to Kaylee, now. Even if Valerie made a go at her, she wouldn’t be able to slow the stronger woman down by much. All she had were bad options and worse options.

So she went with the best bad option she could think of and rolled to the ropes, where she gripped the bottom one and stared to pull her way back up to her feet. She would need to survive against Kaylee for a little while, and either find an opening to get her down, or tag in Tatiana once she was properly recovered. Either way, it was guaranteed to be an unpleasant time.

Belle clapped her hand down into Kaylee's palm before collapsing herself against the ropes. "Did as much as I could." She would work herself back onto the apron after she had a moment to rest.

"Fresh as a Day-ze!" She hopped the ropes, smirking smugly across the ring at Valerie. She slipped her hands behind her back, putting on a rather adorable, innocent face as she circled the woman at a distance like a vulture. "Not looking so hot, huh?" She made a sudden feint forward, leaping short but bobbing back, just messing with her, trying to spook her. Ordinarily Kaylee wasn't like this. She tended to be a pretty good sport, for the most part. Enjoying having a fun match in the ring and showing off for the crowd. For Novae though, they got none of that.

She casually bounced from foot to foot. She wanted to dig into this woman so bad, but she didn't want to do it until she got some satisfaction from talking to her. "I bet you thought this was gonna be a cake walk huh? That just cause we're a bunch of celebs, you were just going to do your flippy stuff all over us, huh?" She held up a finger, wagging it from side to side as she tutted. "Maybe you should go back to the circus as part of the freak show and leave the feats of acrobatics to a real show-woman, like me~!" She leaned back, throwing her arms wide. She held up the V sign as the crowd went wild.

Could she get this woman angry enough to charge her? That was the real question. She didn't want to contend with her hugging the ropes.  She half turned, wagging her backside at Valerie to give it a taunting smack before blowing the woman a kiss. Boy was she trying hard to piss this lady off.

Valerie was getting extremely pissed off.

She’d expected Kaylee to come in after her when she heard the slap, and hit her with a heavy onslaught, a storm she would have to survive. In a way, that was what happened, only the onslaught wasn’t with fists or kicks. No, this was a storm of words. Irritating words. Taunting words. The woman just talked, talked, talked, like some chattering hen. Did she ever shut up?

Valerie’s fist tightened, teeth gritted, as she endured the verbal jab and stood up. She was still rocked from Belle’s bashing, but maybe she wasn’t too bad off. Enough to give this woman something of a fight while Tatiana recouped.

Besides, she had wanted to tear into Kaylee since she first heard the woman’s voice. Now that she was so close and open, the temptation was too much for even her to pass up, particularly after that crack about the surface. She wanted - no, needed to shut her up.

She chewed her lip for a moment, then pushed hard off the ropes and made a mad dash towards Kaylee, swinging out with a wild punch towards her face the moment she was close enough. Strikes were more of her sister’s game, but maybe...

Kaylee sucked in her lips, giving them a small pop as she observed Vale working herself off the ropes. She straightened up, arms cutely folded behind her back as she swayed from heel to toe, waiting. Her lips parted in a growing grin as the woman charged, letting her boots plant themselves on the ground as she readied herself, swaying gently. As Valerie came in hot, she dipped deftly to the side, kicking a boot out to try and just trip the woman, nothing more. Humiliation seemed to be the name of the game now, Kaylee wasn't violent by nature but she could be incredibly vindictive. Would would have thought the woman making her living on the interweb would be such a troll?

She would take a few hops back, intentionally being as cutesy as she could. "Was it something I said?" Canting her head to the side she pouted, batting her eyelashes. "It's okay to use your words. Even if Valerie only speak like this. It okay to talk about fee-fees. We share, we heal. It good." If she grinned any harder it would fall off her face, no doubt. She was swaying again, letting her skirts poof from one side to the other.

"You know, if this doesn't work out for you, I could always offer you a job. Our current housekeeper is nice and all, but I think you'd like much nicer in one of those cute little maid outfits. What do you say? I'm sure you'll make more money from me than you will losing in Friction." She looks rather thoughtful for a moment. "Though, You'd have to not steal anything from me this time. Would that be too much to ask? You seem to have a track record here."

Tatiana worked her way up, just in time to see Valerie come charging forward like a bull against a matador, with just about as much success. Heck, even worse than that, because the bull didn’t trip and fall after the charge most of the time.

That was what happened here, and it wasn’t a happy sight to see. Her sister tumbled over and flopped to the floor, facedown, hurting. The worst part? Tatiana knew that, while Kaylee was dealing the damage, this was still largely her fault.

In truth, Valerie wasn’t hurting that much from the fall. Her pride was taking more damage than anything. Some in the crowd laughed, thoroughly on Kaylee’s side, and while Novae did have some support, they were starting to get drowned out. Add Kaylee’s endless taunting digging into her ear like a knife, and well…

Rage. Yes, rage.

She smacked her fist against the floor and pushed her way back up. ”You are an incredibly idiotic woman, do you know that?” With flushed cheeks, she came at Kaylee and made another shot, ducking low to try and tackle her to the ground. If she could just get the chatterbox on the floor and start locking in the holds, she could start turning this around. Not to mention, she wouldn’t be so chatty if her arm was getting dislocated.

Kaylee had slowly zig-zagged herself a distance away from Valerie, making a fun little game of prancing about the ring extra girlie to rub salt in the wounds. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, which is what really mattered. The systematic destruction of Novae. The amount of joy she was taking from this was a bit much. Belle had finally gotten back to her feet on her side of the ropes. More or less hanging off the top most one. She was shaking her head, groaning at Kaylee. Not only was this incredibly pooor sportsmanship, but sooner or later she was going to get caught. She could ask Valerie how that worked out.

"I didn't know that actually. Hm. What is your metric for that again?" She smiled innocently. "Because I think you are leaving out being a successful young business woman in t- Whoop!" She stepped in towards Valerie, popping herself up into the air, legs kicking out to either side as she leapfrogged the charging woman. It hadn't bit a normal leapfrog though, she had tucked herself forward, legs coming down to clamp around Valerie as she passed. Her weight when down opposite the other woman's charge, legs tucking back as she rolled forward to catch under Valerie's arms in an attempt to miraculously flip the charging woman into a momentum based powerbomb. If she managed that, she would hook her arms around Valerie's legs to hold her in a pinning position.

As Valerie came barreling towards Kaylee, she was already imagining the hurt that she would pile on to the irritating woman. She more determined that ever to get her into a submission hold, and now she was strongly considering the kneebar. Something that could hurt her in a big way, in a quick way, in an excruciating way.

But she needed to get her down first, and that was proving trickier than she would like.

She came in fast, moving quick enough to catch most women...but not Belle. The imp of a woman just leaped up and avoided her charge with ease. Not only that, but she managed to turn it around with aplomb, hooking Valerie and flipping her over with - and it pained her to admit this - a masterfully executed flip powerbomb.

The move dropped her hard on her back, rocking her, and she found herself pinned right away. The referee didn’t waste a second, dropping down beside them for the count.

”1…!”

”Businesswoman?”  That word managed to light a fire in Valerie.

”2…!”

She kicked out right as the referee hit the mat a second time, rolling off onto her belly for the escape. She wasn’t in any position to retaliate, but she could look Kaylee’s way with searing content. ”You are a fad, a delusional fad.” She pressed her palm on the mat and began the process of pushing. ”Cultural flotsam.”

She had managed to land the flip bomb, she was worked for a moment there. So proud of herself tonight between her hit and runs earlier from ringside to now, picking apart this woman horrible copy-cat woman. She was savoring every moment of it, even going so far as to nuzzle her cheek against Valerie's thigh, the uncovered one, while she was attempting to pin her. Oh how THAT would drive her wild. As the other blond kicked out, she rolled backwards with the momentum, tumbling back up to her feet with practiced ease. She wasted no time, stepping in on Valerie. "Couldn't hear you without teeth, say again?!" She decided to try giving the woman a taste of their team's own medicine and deliver one of Tatiana's penalty kicks to the sister's face.

Belle was not please with this, at all. This match had gotten way out of hand. Was it even wrestling at this point? Her most recent match had spiraled out of control, not unlike this one. Her palms pressed firmly to her face, not normally squeamish but finding this incredibly hard to watch. It was only a matter of time before Valerie over extended her again and got herself eliminated. Then what?  They both would know Valerie would be watching back stage. Would she do this to Tatiana too? Would she be made to participate in it? She really didn't want to think about it.

Valerie could recover from this. As nasty a tumble as that had been, she could still recover if she just had a few moments. Luckily for her, Kaylee seemed physically incapable of shutting up for more than three seconds. She figured she would have a few seconds to recover and get her bearings while the bitch blabbed away.

That was the idea, anyway. The plan. Few things could ruin a plan like a boot to the face.

Despite what Kaylee said, the blow wasn’t enough to knock any teeth out, but it did loosen a few of them, and ensure Valerie would be visiting the dentist at some point in the near future. She laid flat on the floor, hissing as she grasped her mouth, her head swimming.

On the apron, Tatiana was growing more and more restless by the second. As much as she liked Belle and to a lessening extent Kaylee, she was growing tired of seeing them beating around her sister. She’d recovered enough from the lungblower, she could get back in there, if only Valerie could reach her…

It wouldn’t do much tangible good, but Tatiana began to stomp her feet, rallying their fans to clap along. If she couldn’t help Valerie’s body, she could at least help her spirits. ”Come on, Val!”

Kaylee circled Valerie slowly, giving the woman a stiff kick in the side. She spoke in a low hushed tone, glaring down at the woman beneath her. "Why are you even here, huh? I wish you could see yourself right now." Kaylee backed away slowly from view before breaking into a run. To the far end of the ring she flew, bounding against the ropes with a shout, the crowd cheering along with her. She came back, diving over Valerie into a forward cartwheel, as she bounded towards the other ropes. She came at them upside down, her back hitting the ropes to one again springboard her away. This time she kicked off the ground with her momentum, delivering a standing moonsault back down at Valerie, intending to again hook her legs and go for a pinfall. "A first class ticket to send you back to the hole you crawled from. Cheers~!"

While the crowd was eating this up, Belle found herself less and less pleased. As Tatiana tried to cheer on her sister of hundreds of people doing just the opposite, drowning the poor girl out in a sea of praise for Kaylee's antics. She found herself cheering in her head for Valerie, not to succeed, but to stay down and let this end. The woman was tenacious, which she could sympathize with but Kaylee was actively trying to dismantle her. Was it really worth it at this point? She knew if the roles had been reversed, she wouldn't give up either, sighing for both Valerie and herself as being lost causes. She slapped the ropes, yelling out to Kaylee, hand outstretched. If the blond wouldn't put her down, she would. "Put me back in!"