SS 18 Entropy Title: Valley Doll (c) versus Manami Kuroda (Iron Man Match)

”Valley!”

She was somewhere distant, far away, floating. It was as if Valley’s mind had been squeezed out of her body and was left to float freely. She was still there, still present, still alive, but everything felt so disconnected and disjointed that she couldn’t put two thoughts together.

”Valley!”

Valley was bringing herself back, though. It wasn’t a quick process, never was. Sleeping was so comfortable, peaceful and serene, and there was a part of her that just wanted to let the warmth overtake her. But that wasn’t an option...why? She had something to do, something important, something-

”Valley! Can you hear me?”

Valley came back to reality with a startled jerk, jolted off the canvas and pushing herself up. It wasn’t a move that came without cost, since she had to use her hurt arm to do it, but the pain helped her stay focused and lucid. Not the worst thing, as she swiveled her head about and tried to shake some sense back into it. Breathing hard, she centered in on the referee after a moment and looked her up and down, squinting as a few wayward beads of sweat wandered into her left eye.

”Valley?” The referee shook Valley’s shoulder, her concern clear. ”Are you good to continue? Do you know where you are?”

An easy question, but Valley didn’t answer it right away. Instead, she turned her head about to look over her shoulder, and sure enough, found Manami sitting in her corner. Legs crossed. Calm. Unworried. She didn’t have the look of a woman in the middle of the most important match of her career, but the look of a woman who in the middle of a nice day at the park. Like the match was already over.

It wasn’t. And, one way or the other, Valley was going to show her just how wrong she was. She had no clue how yet, but she was evening this score. ”Yeah.” She gritted her teeth to bear the pain and stood up. ”Yes, I’m good.”

She stood up to mild applause and made her way back to her corner, where she promptly leaned against the turnbuckle and started to massage her bad arm again, hoping to get some feeling back into it. Her gaze stayed locked on Manami throughout, making note of her every little move. There had to be something she could work with here, and once the bell rang, she’d have to find it. There was a way out of this. There was always a way...

3-1. One point worse than she’d hoped to be doing, but time would make up for that.

Manami was content to simply bask in the glow of her impending victory. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, flicking away a bit of sweat. She stretched her arm above her head, rolled her shoulder, rested her elbow against the rope and placed one leg over the other. Any worries her mind was harboring didn’t even remotely reveal themselves.

Her skin tingled at seeing Manami treated her arm. She didn’t believe Valley’s morale would be hampered in any real way by the score. A few days ago, she may thought differently, but not now. Nevertheless, her body had its limits. She just had to exploit the ones that were revealing themselves.

It wasn’t long before the referee was calling her out from her corner. A delighted sneer wormed its way across her lips as she stood up and made her way back to the center. She kept one hand at her hip her eyes tracing Valley's countenance. “Any consolation? You look absolutely adorable when your unconscious.” The sound of the bell overcast the chuckle she let out.

She circled her opponent with loose and wide steps, keeping her movement quick and making clear just how big of a gap in energy she’d managed to cleave between the two. Her arms flopped to the side carelessly with a nonexistent guard, every bit of a mocking gesture as the literal smile on her face. The games came to a halt, though, when she suddenly snapped forward and threw a stiff roundhouse kick to Valley’s side, aiming right for that bad arm she’d been neglecting to give special attention for some time now.

Some feeling was starting to return back to Valley’s arm. Some. She wouldn’t be doing drum solos or juggling anytime soon, but if she was careful - extremely careful - she might be able to do something with it. She could make a fist. Get some rudimentary motion going. It hurt, but it was workable.

Good thing, too. Break time was over.

Valley marched forward, giving her arm a rub along the way, doing her best to ignore Manami’s cocky little smile. She really did think she had this match won, despite there still being a good chunk of time left on the clock. If her demeanor didn’t say that, the little taunt she threw out right before the bell did it in spades.

But you know what? That was fine. Every trait could be a weakness if you worked it the right way, and confidence was no different.

A moment later and Manami was in motion, circling about, light on her feet. The two of them couldn’t have been more different in their steps - the Wolf-Girl stepped swift, her paws scarcely touching the mat. Valley was slower, sluggish, keeping up with more effort than usual, her side wide open, caution in every twitch. Waiting, waiting, waiting…

There.

Manami’s kick came in, going for Valley’s right flank, targeting that arm. Smart move. Good kick. A wrecking ball of a move.

Valley ducked under it. Just a simple, barebones drop, letting her body go lax at the right moment, low energy. The kick came closing, narrowly missing her and flying overhead. As she went down, she moved forward, took two steps and came out behind Manami’s back.

For an instant, the two of them were facing away from each other, and for most wrestlers, this wouldn’t have been an improvement. They would both have to spin around to face each other, and then they’d be in the same spot. And Valley was willing to bet that Manami, the expert she was, would immediately turn about 180 degrees to face her, not wanting to leave her rear unprotected.

In which case, she would promptly be greeted by Valley’s instep in her face, as the Slamazon threw her body backwards, swung her legs over in an arc, and attempted to nail her in the face with her signature move - the Pele Kick.

Manami wanted that arm. Yes, not exactly uncommon knowledge, but that was honestly all she was concerned with right now. She’d secured a fairly sizable lead, she felt comfortable taking more of her time picking her opponent apart piece by piece. It was like a hanging a big, delectable bone right in front of her. It was part of the reason she was practically jumping for joy as she circled the champion, struggling to contain herself. How was she supposed to resist temptation like that?

The problem was that Valley understood her liability all too well. She didn’t intend to just hand it over, of course, but part of Manami was willing to bet the Slamazon intended to use it as bait at one point or another. Better to not give her that chance at all in that case. She threw the kick straight at her, with enough force to cut the arm right from her body.

Only Valley dodged it, ducking beneath her leg to end up behind the wolf. The Wolf Girl expected that to a degree. She could have gone for a move that was a bit more subtle, perhaps, but she wasn’t in the mood for subtle. She wanted the arm, she was going to get the arm. In her eagerness, Manami whipped around on the spot.

And found a foot waiting for her, smacking her across the cheek with a crisp clap. She wasn’t sure what in the hell she’d just been it hit with, nor when Valley had the time to execute such a move, but the results spoke for themselves. Manami stumbled off to the side, slightly hunched over with her mind awash and her vision taking a brief second to come back into focus.

The Pele Kick was the perfect choice.

It wasn’t the sort of kick that Manami would’ve seen before, never in the sort of fights she’d favored before coming to the squared circle. It was pure wrestling, a wild move that few could even use, much less use effectively, and it gave something that Valley hadn’t enjoyed for a while in this match: the element of surprise. A gamble, but so was pretty much everything that Valley did.

The crowd’s reaction told Valley everything she needed to know the instant her shot connect, before she’d even hit the ground. Manami’s fans recoiled, drew back, as if a ghost had just popped up in the middle of the ring. Her fans cheered, their sound almost drowing out the kick’s echo. It had been a hit, a palpable hit, and when Valley dropped and rolled around to her chest, she could see the fruits of it. Manami was staggering. Open. Vulnerable for one sweet, golden second.

Now she just had to do something with it.

Her mind raced with possibilities - hurricanranas, suplexies, crazy moves off the ropes that would’ve left the crowd gasping. Nice ideas, but she was still winded from the knockout, and even the Pele Kick, a move she could execute in her sleep, took a good chunk out of her. She needed to recover, and that meant keeping things simple. For now.

So, instead, Valley burst to her with an Amazon’s war cry and charged straight at Manami. She ducked low and threw all her weight and momentum into a shoulder tackle, attempting to drive the Wolf Girl into the nearby turnbuckle and keep her pressed there.

Chick of 1,001 Kicks, hm? Yes. She was starting to see that.

On the outside, Manami was doing little else besides rubbing her aching jaw and still clearly reeling from the blow Valley had just landed. Inside, she was trying to piece together what exactly that blow was. The best she could compare it to was a somersault kick someone tried on her once before she made sure that leg could never reach full extension ever again. What the Slamazon threw her way had a bit more finesse than that. It was flamboyant, quick, daring, and well outside of her own skillset. Part of her was upset at being so clearly blindsided, another part was curious to see just how many other tricks the woman had up her sleeve.

She was learning a lot of interesting things today.

The Wolf Girl had little time to reflect, of course. That kick had done more than set her mind spinning on the spot. It gave Valley a brief window to seize the momentum Manami had worked ever so hard on building up. She was willing to bet, however, that that move had taken its toll. Valley had been through hell, knocked out with a limp arm weigher her down. That wasn’t something you did flying kicks on the back of. All Manami had to do was turn and put her down with a swift kick.

Until the bitch shoulder tackled her. Her.

Manami let out a choked gasp as her ribs were slammed into, sending her stumbling towards the corner. The champion may have been the lighter between the two, but one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference with this. A slim frame, but Valley kept plenty of power inside of it. As if a testament to that, Manami crashed shoulder first into the turnbuckle. She’d have fallen over altogether if it wasn’t for the grip she’d managed to secure on the middle rope, leaving her with her back to the corner and her head still slightly slumped.

This wasn’t doing her headache justice, to say the least.

Valley’s arm was crap, but she still had two functional - if worn - legs to work with, and today they were earning their pay. Years of training before and after had honed them into two formidable weapons, and while they lacked the pure crushing power of, say, Alicia Welles, they were more than able to propel her forward at rocket speeds. What she lacked in mass, she made up for with acceleration, and that equaled a fair amount of force. An equation that Manami could appreciate.

Into the corner they went, hitting with an impact that shook Valley’s core and sounded like it did far worse things to Manami. The effect was profound. She felt the wind leave those powerful lungs, as Manami’s form, rippling with muscle, draped over her body. One opening had been taken advantage of, and now she had another one to play with. A pattern was starting to form. If she could keep hammering this woman, give her no chance to rally…

But her own energy was the problem. That little burst had taken a toll on her recovery, and while she would’ve loved to do a dozen things to her opponent at the moment, her body wanted nothing less than fall on her butt.

So that was exactly what she did. Sort of.

As she leaned against Manami’s, half to keep her pinned and half for support, she moved her head up, right until it was just below her opponent’s chin. A simple gesture, at first glance, but that changed when she reached up and grabbed a handful of the wolf’s hair with her good hair, gripping it tight to keep her in place and her chin resting on the top of Valley’s skull.

She only held that position for half a second, before she jumped back and kick her legs out, coming down for a rough sit on her backside...which would, in turn, drive Manami’s chin into the top of her skull, for a sit-out jawbreaker.

Manami wanted this woman off of her. Right now.

If it wasn’t difficult enough to ascertain already, Manami didn’t enjoy being put in corners. She didn’t like being chained down, restricted, wedged between a rock and a hard place. She was the one that did that. She was the hunter. Not some air-headed American past her prime.

Regardless, she didn’t have much room to put a good enough protest. Her body was still shaking off the aftereffects of the impact. The position was awkward enough, and she couldn’t release her grip on the middle rope like this without falling down into an even worse position. Having the top of Valley’s skull wedged beneath her jaw certainly wasn’t helping matters. The best defense she could muster a single hand against the champion’s shoulder, attempting to slowly yet roughly push the woman away from her.

“Get-” Off? Yes, she did something like that, only the end result was even more pain for Manami. The Wolf Girl fell forward and there was a tragic second, a single breath in time, where she realized what Valley was going for. The second after that realization, a harsh thud rocked her entire body and snapped her head back. What was worse was that she bit her tongue. Right on the top. Fucking perfect.

That last fact she didn’t realize until a second later, where she suddenly opened her eyes and found herself flopped on the floor with the back of her head weighing a thousand tons. Her jaw pulsed and ached maddeningly, sending nauseous shockwaves across her body, a metallic taste flowing across her gums. She rolled went to roll herself onto her side and spit out a wad of blood, unknowingly exposing her back towards Valley.

Valley’s fans were getting more and more animated by the moment, coming back to life as if they’d been drifting off to sleep for the past few minutes and were only just now rousing. It was an impressive sight, even with Manami’s fans turning out to be just as big or bigger, but they were loud and getting louder, yelling their support as the tide starting to turn back in her favor, tat least last.

So. She had Manami down on the floor, stunned, probably would’ve been cursing if she could move hre mouth for it. Just had to make something of it.

Her first inclination was to go for a pin, but she dismissed that one. Manami was taken by the surprise, but she wasn’t done by any means. And besides, as much as Valley hated to admit, she wanted to inflict more damage on her before they took a break. Even the score. She felt she had a good idea on how to do that, too.

She stood up after the jawbreaker’s success, getting to her feet with no small amount of effort, aiding by the ropes. She gripped them with her good hand, hard enough to whiten knuckles, and she was rewarded with the sight of a vulnerable back before. Valley wasn’t a huge sports fan in high school, but she’d been fond of soccer, enjoyed a game of it every now and then. Now was as a good as any to see how well her penalty kick held up.

She bounced off the ropes for a little extra oomph, then took a bold step forward with her back leg outstretch. Valley swung it swift and hard, lashing Manami right on the spine with a vicious kick, hitting so hard that you might’ve thought she was trying to kick her opponent in half.

Manami would have to renege that she did perhaps talk a bit too much. Like most things, the taste of iron in her mouth was a rather convincing argument.

Where had things gone so wrong that she was the one on the ground bloodied up? The has-been with a bad arm and an oxygen-starved body was doing this? Manami wasn’t one to believe herself in the throes of karma, but she’d have to find a way to turn against fate in the coming moments.

However, that all required her actually stand up for once. Whatever the move Valley had subjected her to, it was every bit as effective as it was unorthodox. She couldn’t help but notice that her palms refused to stop shaking as she attempted to rise. Even the simple act of opening her jaw was a relatively painful motion. Best not to test it for a while and divert her energy to more fruitful endeavors, like standing up. Something she was just about to…

...until Valley kicked her.

At least, Manami was sure she kicked her, but it didn’t quite feel that way. It felt like a solid pipe had been taken to her back, tapping her spine and sending a nasty tremor up and down her body. It looked every bit as bad as it sounded. For a brief instant, the Wolf Girl’s body left the ground beneath Valley’s solid leg and fell raggedly on her stomach as she let out something between a shriek and a choked gasp. One hand went to her back, feverishly rubbing the sore spot practically on instinct.

Her lone eye, however, stared up at Valley, casting an endless ire at the Slamazon to tear her asunder with her gaze alone. “You little-”