Trinity Cordova vs. Artemis Michelle Armstrong - Bad Actors

Rules: The time limit for the match is one hour. Both contestants will attempt to gain the greatest combined number of pinfalls, submissions, or knockouts within the allotted time. Points will be tallied at the end of the match by the designated offical. If a contestant is unable to continue, the match will end and points will then be tallied. Hardcore rules apply. Weapons are provided beneath the ring and are free to use by both contestants.

Victory Conditions: The contestant with the greatest combined number of pinfalls, submissions, or knockouts will be declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the match will enter sudden death and the next point will decide the victor.

There was a good energy in the arena tonight. Some high hopes for the new talent and a returning figure, a bit of bloodlust in the air, and a whole hour to see both of those problems satisfied. A thick fog of anticipation hung in the air that would probably have the average fighter in a nervous wreck backstage. Drumming up strategies, doing some last minute stretches, trying to muster up whatever confidence he or she could.

Artemis, on the other hand, just kept humming to herself as she tied up the last lace of her boot. It was about time she was called back into the arena. She’d been waiting a long time to start throwing punches with a good audience and some proper lighting for once. Even had a new theme to go with it. The old one had run its course and gotten her in good with her Japanese fanbase, now she had to focus more on building her image. Really consolidating her image as the battle-hardened heroine of valor that, for many people, was nigh inseparable from the woman off-camera. In that case, she couldn’t have asked for a better match than the gauntlet that awaited her behind that curtain.

The top brass asked for her specifically and pitched the idea to her behind a pair of closed doors. They had some new talent in they wanted to put through the ringer, but we're having trouble finding willing women around Artemis’ size. Most were either too experienced, a bit far into the game to consider a newcomer worth their time, or too easy-going, ones more interested in having fun and sex to handle the kind of match they had in mind.

Artemis had been looking to catch some big game after her relative absence from the ring. Between the king of the hill match in the countryside and the heavyweight match that followed in the sauna, it had been a while since she’d stepped back into the arena. She needed something that would catch a lot of eye, and tonight definitely promised that.

“Honestly? An Iron Woman match?” Yeah, that. Her agent had been repeating in her ear for what felt like the tenth time now the conditions of tonight’s match. Rob was usually antsy, but considering he’d been kept in the dark, it was at least easy to tell why this time.

“Yup.” She replied into the phone, keeping it tucked against her shoulder

“But also a hardcore match?”

“Right.”

“So an Iron Woman match with hardcore rules?”

She sighed and placed a hand on her hip, looking sidelong to the phone at her ear. “You know how you keep bringing up those same words? Like again and again? Really getting on my nerves now.”

She could hear him breathe through his nose. “I just get the feeling your not being as worried as you should be.”

Artemis rolled her eyes, looking at the mirror hung on the wall for a last-minute check on her complexion. Nothing off, from what she could tell. Still as radiant as ever. “Well, who am I up against?”

The ruffling of a couple papers could be heard on his end. Must have been at the office when he heard about tonight. “Uh, one Trinity Cordova.” Artemis quirked an eyebrow at the mirror. Sounded like a model she knew. “Hasn’t been here long. Pretty much just got here, but she hasn’t been slouching around either. She’s been in a couple matches, but the most relevant to you is probably her first one. She debuted against the former hardcore champion. In a hardcore match. And won. So…”

“So she’s good?”

“She might be.”

Artemis smiled. “Cool.” She turned away from the mirror, just in time to see one of the stagehands giving her a thumbs-up. It was showtime. “Thanks for the heads up, Rob. Gonna be watching tonight?”

“I’ll look it over later. Pull it from the archives when I get the chance.”

“Freeloader.” She said as she hung up the phone.

Artemis Michelle Armstrong:

Theme Song:

A heavy guitar wailed across the arena, sending tremors up and down the surrounding crowd. At the sound of the trumpet, the massive figure of Artemis Armstrong stepped out from behind the curtain. A warm reception awaited the heavyweight actress as she walked proudly down the ramp, the operatic theme steadily building around her. She shot a pair of fingers out to both sides of the audience, wearing as big and confident a grin as her face would allow. Reaching the edge of the ring, she reached up to the middle rope, raising herself off the ground before climbing through the middle and top rope and into the ring. She made her way over to the turnbuckle, putting one foot after the other on the middle rung and rising up for the crowd, pumping her fist in the air before flexing the other arm and giving it a few solid pats.

She hopped down after a couple moments of playing things up, making sure the crowd was nice and energized as she made her way over to her corner. The stage was set. Just fell to her opponent now to make sure she lived up to all the hype.

Trinity Cordova:

Theme:

Trinity would be lying if she said that she had not enjoyed her time at the AFW so far. She had recently came out with a 1-1 record. Given that her win was a hardcore match, receiving the information that she was in another hardcore match should make her happy. Though this match was more than just a hardcore match. It was Iron Woman Hardcore match. The only way it could have gotten any more extreme was if it also included barbed wire and a cage.

Trinity was backstage preparing for her match. This was her most important match yet. Most fighters get 3 honeymoon fights before the world made their decision on whether Trinity was worth their time. Winning here would give her a 2-1 score and would give her a great start to her career. She hadn’t been given any information about who she was fighting this time. She had asked, but everyone had kept silent. She couldn’t help but feel like she was being set up for something. Something not good. The silence about her opponent, the extreme ruleset. Was Liberty going to come make a comeback?

It didn’t matter. Whoever it was, Trinity would crush them. Making a final check of her attire, she was ready. Making her way towards the ramp entrance way. No retreating now. She would begin her walk out to the ring, here theme blaring out over the speakers. As she made her way down the ramp she began to get that feeling that Liberty got when the first met. The woman standing in the ring seemed tall. Even by Trinity’s standards. Could she actually be taller? Getting closer and closer to the ring, it did seem to be the case. This woman was taller than her. Finally climbing up and into the ring, It dawned on her just what she was up against. This woman looked both taller and heavier than her.

“Clearly this is a trap. I must have pissed someone off if I am stuck with you for an hour” Trinity mentioned, eyeing up her opponent. For once brute force wasn’t going to win. She was going to have to become the underdog and get creative. “Still, no need to rude I guess. My name is Trinity. I am the woman who is going to be pounding you into the next century today”

A bit bold yes, but Trinity was confident somewhat. “So tell me, What experience do you have when it comes to hardcore matches? Please… please don’t tell me you are one of those perverted titanesses who love groping smaller girls. Or even worse… a submissionist” She cringed at that thought, memories of her fight with Tina playing very clearly in her mind. Making her way to the center of the ring and smirked “We are going to be here for the long haul, might as well make yourself comfortable”

Artemis wasn’t sure what she was going to have to make of her opponent as she waited for whoever she was to appear. Anyone who went toe-to-toe with a hardcore champion, kicked them at their own game, then came back asking for more had to be anything but a lightweight, right? What about the attitude? Probably not sunny side up, but hopefully something she could work with. If she was going to be stuck in this ring for an hour, she’d rather it be with someone who she couldn’t just punt like a football and, even if she could, could muster a bit of charisma about it.

The answers to her questions would come to her in the form of heavy dubstep beats and a tall, burly silhouette striding out from behind the curtain. She stepped from her corner the moment the lights flashed on, moving along the back ropes to line herself up with her opponent as she descended the ramp. The closer she got, the better things came into focus. Tall. Stern. Pretty dense. Looked like she was ready to tear shit apart. Yeah, this was more or less what she was expecting from a hardcore fighter.

It wasn’t until Trinity stepped into the ring, however, that Artemis started getting the full picture. There was some serious bulk behind that skin, the kind that didn’t come from just bodybuilding. Didn’t like that look in her eye either. Now she got why this newcomer was such a big deal to management now. Of course, for Artemis, it was kinda hard to be intimidated by someone so impressive when you were looking down at them. It was a blessing, really, that they were starting to find people more her size. Made these wins like this actually mean something.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She said, placing a hand on her hip. She was liking the looks of this already. Confident, tough, talkative. All of the things that would go over well on a highlight reel. “Oh?” She said with a quirk of her brow. “How did you guess? Heh heh heh.~” She said raising her hands, clutching her fingers and slowly licking her lips as she took a couple, bold steps towards Trinity. Then stopped. “Gotcha!” She brought her hands down and shot a couple finger guns. She gave a few chuckles, the referee coughed. “Seriously though, experience? Yeah. Right here.” She flexed her right arm out, giving it a couple pats as a few whistles popped in from the crowd. “What about you? Have you been doing this kind of thing long? I don’t think you made it this far, this quick by just sitting around.”

She made her way to the center of the ring after Trinity, the clear size gap between them becoming evident as they stood chest to chest. “Name’s Artemis, by the by. Artemis Michelle Armstrong.” She made sure to give a couple beats between each name, dropping some hints just in case she had a fan in her presence. She put a hand on her hip and offered her other out to the hardcore maven. “You call me Art, if you want. It’s easier than shouting the full thing when I’ve got you beat.”

Trinity may have had a tough and chiseled body, but the woman starting infront of her was just as good, if not better. Sure that flexing muscle was nice. So she lifted weights. Big muscles didn’t always mean anything. She had fought many a man who had large muscles but collapsed the second you hammered them. Trinity carefully observed her Artemis’s actions carefully. She almost felt like punching Artemis in the face when she went and licked her lips together. Purely a reflex reaction.

“I have been travelling around the world for the past five or so years fighting at every club, street and any other place you can think of” It wasn’t an attempt to try and intimidate the taller woman. It was just a fact. “So don’t be offended when I say a fight like this doesn’t phase me. I have been in worse” Trinity took a step forward , the distance between the two was so close now, someone could throw a hasty punch and start a war.

“So, One hour. Me and you. You better last longer than ten minutes” Trinity would notice the extended hand, putting out her own hand and grasping the hand tightly. The referee could sense something was about to go down. There was nothing this poor woman could do to break these two up when it kicked off. So she decided to start the match. The bell would ring and a clock would appear on the screen at the top of the ramp. 60 minutes counting down. Trinity bought her other hand down and grasped the otherside of Artemis’s extended hand. She would then pull and try and throw the hulking woman body first into the turnbuckle. “Surprise!”

Sheesh. A smile every now and then wouldn’t kill her.

Not that Artemis was expecting a little bag of joy to show up for this fight in particular. An Iron Woman match was a tall order in itself, something that plenty of veterans didn’t even get the chance at before they walked off that stage for the last time. A hardcore variant on top of that was just ludicrous. Not just anyone was going to be thrown into a ring like that. Whoever they were had to hard, had to be bold, had to have their eyes on the prize from the word go to even have a chance at getting through the night.

So yeah. She expected Trinity to be a hardass. Damn well looked the part too. But if she was even remotely interested in lightening the air between the two of them, her face didn’t spell it. This was a woman that eat, drank, and breathed no holds barred. She hadn’t seen her in action yet, but Artemis could already tell she was in for the longest hour of her life if she didn’t start planning things out now.

Although a ray of hope did emerge when she accepted the handshake. Handshakes meant no hard feelings right? Right. Cool. A half-smile grew on the former actress’ lips, really liking the bravado being thrown her way.

“Bet you don’t last five.”

Artemis finished that line with a smirk as the bell rang out. She went to retract her hand, but only found her arm locked in place as a second hand slapped against the back of her wrist. Before she even had a half-second to realize what Trinity was up to before she was yanked forward with a mighty pull, the bulk beneath her adversary’s tight frame becoming all the more pronounced as she did. In the face of far more strength than she was expecting, Artemis could only stumble forward, barely able to slow herself even a single pace before her body slammed into the corner, rocking the post and every rope rung attached to it on the impact. The middle buckle dug harshly into her stomach, forcing a groan from her lips as she put her hands on each of the top ropes to her sides and went to push away from the corner.

Trinity got her own way. Artemis went crashing into the turnbuckle. She could almost feel the entire ring shake. Well this got off to a good start. Trinity barged her way forward, hoping to capitalise on her previous attack, as it seemed Artemis was still in a state of recovery. “Happy start of the match!” Trinity sung out as she finished closing the gap, grabbing onto the blonde woman’s ponytail. She would pull the head back and then push it forward with all of the power that the usually taller hardcore fighter could muster, aiming to smash the females face into the uppermost turnbuckle. She was going to have to get used to not being the tallest fighter anymore.

“You having fun yet!?” She asked letting go of the woman’s hair after trying to smash her into the turnbuckle again. Looking up at the clock, Trinity almost let out a sigh, only 30 whole seconds had passed and the first minute was just coming to an end. This was going to take longer than she thought. Better buckle in for the long haul.

Right. Hardcore match. Don’t know why she didn’t see that coming.

Maybe it was just because Artemis was so used to people being intimidated the first time they stepped into her general vicinity. People doing double takes whenever she walked by on set, flubbing their lines on the first few takes, it was just part of the daily routine for her. When she came into the wrestling business, she honestly didn’t believe there would be a person alive that wouldn’t think twice about trading blows with her.

Then this woman stepped into her life and hurled her across the ring better than most makeshift catapults could. If Trinity had an ounce of doubt in herself, she didn’t show it. Not on her face, not in her movements, not even when she came up behind her and ruined Artemis’ hours of pampering with a single yank of her ponytail. A yelp escaped her lips and was shut down almost instantly with her face being rammed into the turnbuckle, shaking the post like a wet noodle. It was enough to disorient her, but the second one was the one that hurt, smacking the bridge of her nose into the padded medal that gave her flashbacks to that one flip she botched into a metal rail.

Not her fondest moment, and not the kind she wanted to keep being reminded of. Artemis remained slumped against the corner for a second after the underground brawler let go, keeping one hand on the top rope like and another to nurse her face. With a glint in her eyes, she quickly rose out of the corner with a step backwards, snapping her arm behind her with a twist of her hips to shoot an elbow strike behind her and into Trinity’s temple.

Trinity should be happy. She was going to get to beat the living heck out of someone for a whole hour. However she couldn’t help but have this nagging feeling at the back of her mind. Something didn’t feel right. She felt almost like this was some sort of set up. She had pissed someone off and this was their revenge.

She couldn’t ponder too much on this though, she had to do her best to win the match, and if possible avoid getting mangled by the taller woman she was facing. Dismissive the thoughts that colouded her mind, Trinity charged forward back towards the lumbering titaness. Time to bring more pain. Only she got stopped right in her tracks when the woman flung her elbow back. It seemed that she had recovered far quicker than Trinity had suspected and the elbow came flying back into her temple with a loud thud.

She might as well have been hit with a sledgehammer. That would have actually of been less painful. The hit to the temple elicited a yelp of pain from Trinity, sending her reeling backwards across the ring, heading left along the ropes towards the left hand-side turnbuckle. Her vision was blurred, struggling to focus on anything that was in front of her, her vision a blur. Artemis had succeeded in stunning Trinity, who had bought herself to a stop by the ropes, only a step or two away from the turnbuckle.

“Now I am!” She shouted in a boisterous manner, feeling her elbow collide with Trinity’s skull.

It would be wrong of her to say that her first impressions of the woman across from her didn’t make her hairs stand up on end a bit. Artemis was by no means a slouch when it came taking a few hits. She’d been taking hits long before she stepped inside of the squared circle. Had plenty of times where somebody messed up the choreography in one of her fight scenes and she took a stiff shot the face. Sometimes with a bat. Sometimes a plank. Sometimes a sword whose edge was just flat enough to not take the rest of her jaw with it. None of them were very pleasant memories to say the least.

But there was something about the raw viciousness that Trinity had on display here that was giving her chills she hadn’t felt in quite a while. Could have been the way she threw her across the ring with this manic smile on her face. Or it could have been the way she’d slammed the taller woman’s head into the turnbuckle like a giddy child trying to break open a pinata. Whatever it was, Artemis wasn’t too keen on letting things keep going like this. She asked for enthusiasm, now she was getting it. Least she could do was return the favor.

A good crack of her elbow against Trinity’s skull drew a collective wince from the audience. Artemis pushed herself away from the corner, pivoting herself around just in time to see the hardcore brawler stumbling back to the corner. A slight grin made its way onto the former actress’ face as she went to seize the opportunity in front of her. Rushing towards Trinity a breakneck pace, Artemis would dive low thrust her entire weight forward, aiming to spear the woman into the corner.

Trinity did not enjoy being the smaller fighter here. She was so used to being able to throw and batter her opponents around. Something that she was going to struggle to do it seemed in this case. Even if Artemis had never been in hardcore matches before, her body was built in such a way that it could endure plenty of hits. It was going to take an awful lot of work to grind her down.

Trinity would look up towards Artemis, her vision just starting to stabilise. Though it didn’t save her from what was about to happen.Artemis came dashing forward, at such speed that it was almost a blur. Trinity had just enough time to raise her hand to try and slow Artemis down when she spear into her gut. It didn’t have any effect and less than second later, smashed into the turnbuckle with enough force that almost threatened to break it into two. Trinity would let out almost a scream of agony as her spine ached. Why was it everyone went for her back. First Liberty, then Tina and now Artemis.

”Ow, For fucks sake!” She let out. Deciding to try and get back at Artemis by bringing her elbow down on the back of Artemis’s neck while she was still hunched from the spear “Take this!”