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

Valley would give Manami credit for one thing - actually, no, that wouldn’t be fair. She could give the woman credit for a lot of things, just based off the short time they’d been in each other’s orbit, but what stuck to her now, in this moment, as the referee’s hand came down for the third time, was how terrifying a woman she could be.

The nearest comparison Valley could make was to Amethyst Velour, the psycho who’d plagued her early AFW days, but even that was a far cry. Amethyst was dangerous, but it wasn’t just danger Valley saw in Manami’s fiery glare. This woman truly wanted to rip her apart - not just beat her, not just pin her, but destroy her. There was no doubt in her mind that, if she had the chance, she’d erase Valley out of existence.

A sobering thought. The Slamazon could safely say she’d never encountered anyone like Manami, and she kind of hoped she never would again.

She kept a straight face, though, hoping to drive the knife in further, and even gave it a twist when she leaned down and gave Manami a little peck on the forehead, like a little child being tucked in for the night. Did Manami fight better or worse when she was pissed off? Time to find out. ”Hilarious.”

Valley dismounted at the referee’s urging and went back to her corner, leaning against the ropes and taking a quick glance up at the clock…


...her war with Manami wasn’t over yet, not close, and the She-Wolf was out for blood now - more than before, at least. As confident as Valley wanted to be, she came out of the corner slow when the referee gave the go-ahead, and not just because everything from the neck down was still aching like crazy. Her guard was up, her eyes were forward, her smile had faded to a slim smirk. Break time was over, back to business.

Fine then. This was how things were going to be.

One could see it from her face easily enough, but there was no describing the endless thoughts that were running wild inside of the Wolf Girl’s head in this very moment towards her opponent’s demise, beating at the edges, just wanting to burst out and become reality.

Though, if Valley were receiving any of those vile sentiments, she didn’t care to make it obvious. Hell, she seemed to be getting a kick out of the whole thing. That was the impression that was figuratively and literally left on Manami’s head, one that made her stomach turn even worse than the lone word that accompanied it. Her face scrunched together in twisted malice as her vision blurred and turned red. She pushed up, snaking a hand free to reach up and seize Valley’s throat by the windpipe and crush it into powder between her fingers.

If the referee weren’t there, that was. Valley stood up and retreated to her corner at the offical’s behest, and Manami did the same, allowing her gaze to linger a moment on the Slamazon before she turned back around.

From her corner, she spared a look at the timer. Plenty to go on, but it did nothing to alleviate the rage brewing in her body. She gripped the top ropes, casting her head down and shaking them with an ever subtle tremor.

Once the official called for the match to resume, however, the shaking suddenly stopped. Manami turned on the spot and looked across the ring to her adversary stepping out of the corner. She did the same, but where Valley shifted into her guard...Manami did nothing. Her body turned to stone, vision narrowing as her gaze cut Valley in two. She looked forward. Never blinking, fists clenched, gaze shifting from one eye to the other.

She raised one hand into the air, as if she were about to ask for a break. But what came from her mouth was a different question entirely, giving the hand a slight shake as she asked. “Right or left?”

As much as Valley was trying to play things, she would have to admit that the mental aspect of wrestling had never been much of her forte. Her mother had been good at that- she’d been a taller, imposing kind of wrestler, using her size and strength to psyche opponents out on their way to the ramp. She’d tried to emulate that style in her early days, but favoring her father worked too much against her. Valley Doll Sr. was big and burly and bruising. Valley Doll Sr. was short and slim and slick.

Nonetheless, she thought she’d been doing a decent job of it in this match, exchanging mental salvos with the Wolf Girl throughout, and finally catching up for her in their little tit-for-tat game. She was hurting, yes. The fatigue was starting to set in, yes. But she was hanging in there with the younger woman. She was ready for round 3.

And that was when things got weider. Weirder. ”Ummmm…”

Valley Doll canted her head to the side and halted her approach, as she looked over and say Manami doing...nothing. Just standing there. It was like she wasn’t even there, as if she’d completely forgotten they were in a match at all, especially a match with a time limit. And then she raised her hand and asked her question, and…

Confused. Yes, ‘confused’ would be a great word to describe Valley’s mindset at the moment. But okay, she’d play along.

She eased up on her stance with narrowed eyes, then just let it go with a shrug. ”Left.”

Charging at her opponent may have been a wise decision. Staying nimble and perhaps dancing around her guard could have also worked. Outthink her, overpower her, a wealth of approaches to experiment with. But the Wolf Girl wasn’t in the mind for strategy. She didn’t seem to care much for what she was going to do next. She cared only for this point in time. An irreverent series of twitches and a pair of tremulous pupils were the only hints of her inner workings.

Valley's confusion seemed to have spread to the crowd watching as they exchanged glances amongst themselves. The intensity building throughout the match seemed to have peaked, but none around them could make it out. When would it show itself? When would it come? Manami did. It was the moment she heard what she wanted. What she needed. What she was going to get regardless.

Left.

There were no other words after that. Manami clenched her fist tightly and let it fall back to her side. She kept her gaze forward, lingering on her adversary for a while longer as the official looked between them. The audience began to produce isolated rambles as the moment passed and the clock continued to tick away.

Then, she stepped back. The definition outlined across her body receded. Her body unlimbered and slackened, letting go of all the tension as her eyes slowly relaxed. All at once, Manami lunged forward, ducked low, and whipped her leg out to kick Valley’s left leg, going to the tender meat of her inner thigh.

And this was official weird, now. Not even the usual kind of weird that Valley was accustomed to, the kind that happened when you were in a wrestling league with giant sex addicts and sumos and evil nurses. No, this was more of the awkward kind of weird. The sort that resulted when you had an opponent who wasn’t quite all there.

Valley could see Manami at the moment, but she got the distinct impression that Manami wasn’t seeing her in return. Oh, her eyes were focused forward, she had all the outward appearances of looking at her, but something wasn’t quite clicking, and she couldn’t put her finger on it, but-

She moved.

The change was so stark, so abrupt, so quick that Valley didn’t even register it until the distance was closed and the attack had begun. Thankfully, her instincts were quicker on the draw, and she automatically lashed out with a high kick. The only problem was that Manami wasn’t high anymore.

Manami’s sweeping kick connected, clean and flush, and it didn’t help that her other leg was busy with a failed a kick at the time. Valley fell and flopped to her back, grasping the burning spot and hissing as the pain ran its course.

Manami should have been reveling in the how quickly she’d managed to drop Valley. She should have been amused by her confidence, pleased in how deftly she’d been able to dodge the high kick that whipped past her face, excited at the smack of flesh and the way it yielded against her foot, taken at least some degree of pleasure at the sight of the Entropy champion writhing on the ground.

There was none of that.

After her kick, she merely remained crouched low, watching the Californian fall to her back and grip her flaring extremity. Her eyes were a cool, sharp glare as she stared, a moment passing like an eternity. She slowly rose and stalked about, taking in the weaknesses exposed to her.

She came down on Valley’s midsection with a hard drop, putting her whole weight down on her gut. She’d stay seated there for a moment, just a moment, to gaze into the Slamazon’s clear blue orbs before the wolf would seize her left arm and fall to the side. Clamping her thighs down around her arm, Manami would fall to her back before bucking her hips up and wrenching Valley’s left arm closer against her with an armbar.

Casually as could be, she’d roll her head off to the side, looking down past her chest to Valley’s face. There was a silent dare behind those eyes. A want, almost, for her to try and fight her way out. She welcomed it.

It was a kick, just one kick. Valley had landed plenty of them, won matches with them, knocked out plenty with them. She was the Queen of Kicks, and had already spent a good deal of this match kicking Manami from pillar to post. The momentum was swinging in her favor, she was finally on her good foot, ready to start taking control.

So why was she the one on her back, hissing as the pain coursed through her body?

It was a conundrum, and one she wouldn’t be getting an answer to at the moment. For now, her concerns were with the She-Wolf who’d just pounced on her gut, landing hard and driving all the air from her stomach, leaving her gasp on the floor. Valley knew having Manami on top of her was the worst possible position, and she started to struggle, buck her hips, kick her legs, reached up to push her off.

That last action was the mistake - it made her arms all too accessible, gave Manami the bone she was craving. Her arm was seized and the armbar was locked in an instant, drawing a shrill shriek from the Slamazon as her bones threatened to part ways.

She was able to grit her teeth and summon some control a moment later, but that didn’t make the overall situation that much better. She was still trapped, still stuck in the hold, and it was a safe bet that Manami hadn’t even really begun to crank it. Hoping she might have some chance to escape, Valley tried to pull her arm free, looking to slip out of Manami’s grasp before the jaws tightened.

Manami was starting to enjoy some of this again. It was hard not to, as the Slamazon shrieked and bucked in her grasp. She could feel the tension beneath the surface of the skin, the bone getting ready to yield as the Californian's body readied itself for the agony it knew was coming. Her mouth twitched, giving the faintest of a delighted smirk on her lips. For a moment, the priorities she’d set up in her mind were flipped.

But she didn’t allow herself to be caught up in the moment. There was plenty of match still ahead of her and, as it turned out, Manami had gotten absolutely nowhere. Tempting as it was to simply make the Valley howl in pain, she needed to be a bit more conservative with her habits. She had plans beyond this match, and she didn’t intend to let some dumb, washed-up American stand in her way. She had to establish a firm lead and the earlier the better.

She wanted no room to debate this. She wanted her defeat to be clean and decisive.

With it mindset, it would probably be something of a surprise to those watching as to why Manami hadn’t doubled down on the hold. It was locked in, but by no means secure. With enough effort, anyone competent could have slipped through, let alone a champion.

Precisely.

When Valley yanked her arm back, Manami didn’t resist. If anything, she went with her. As the champion’s arm went to slip free between her legs, Manami reached down and went clung tightly to her hand, slamming her hips down as let the Slamazon tug her upright and pull her along for the ride. If everything went as planned, Manami’s weight pushing into Valley’s side would force the Californian to flip onto her belly. Something she was sure Valley intended when she yanked away, only when it happened, she’d find Manami sitting on her back, yanking back on her caught hand with a Fujiwara armbar.

Valley was starting to hate this again. She’d been in control, she’d been reigning things in, she felt she was back on the right track, but one little mistake and the wolf had sunk her fangs back in. Deep. It was more than a little infuriating. But as Valley languished and the pain seeped in, she eased herself with the knowledge that she could find her way out of this and salvage the match, pull it back together.

She just had no clue how. Yet.

Things looked promising at first, as her struggles started to bear fruit. The key with submission holds, she found, was to not lose your head. Struggle, sure, but don’t struggle without a point - otherwise, you’d be like a fly stuck on the web, just wriggling about and making it all so much worse.

No, she had some purpose to the way she was moving. The hold wasn’t quite secure yet, that worked in her favor. She would get her arm free with a well-placed yank, and then-

Valley had been on her way to escaping Manami’s grasp when the She-Wolf suddenly flipped things about. Yes, that was what she wanted to happen in the first place, but not like this, not on her opponent’s terms, and the reason why became all-too obvious. Her arm was still trapped, and Valley let forth another shriek as it was pulled into an even deadlier hold than before.

Fujiwara Armbar. Valley had to give Manami credit for using the classic, at least. This was worse - better leverage, more force to worry about, and moving to the ropes with Manami’s weight on top would be a feat instead of the chore it would’ve been before. For the moment, it was all Valley could do to hammer her fists on the mat and endure, clawing at the mat in an effort to hold on.

She wanted to laugh. Nay, she needed to. There was no way she could have seen that expression on Valley’s face, the way she clawed and festered at the mat like a trapped rodent, and couldn’t laugh at it all.

But her body wouldn’t allow it. Not until she secured that point, and it seemed like she was making considerable headway. The Fujiwara transition worked as well as expected, Valley unknowingly singing her own death warrant and letting the wolf move right in on top of her. Her arm paid for it dearly. She could feel the shakes begin, those moments when the muscles were giving all they had to stay operational. Her limit was coming.

That only left the question of what to do next. She had Valley in a very favorable position, but if she expected the Entropy champion to tap out to a Fujiwara armbar so simple the custodian could manage it, she never would have challenged her for the belt in the first place. She had her nice and compliant on the ground now, but she was under no illusions of how far that would go. Valley was slim, but stronger than she looked. She’d compose herself, deal with the weight, inch her way to freedom.

Manami didn’t need any of that. She needed to be a bit more methodical. A bit more...punishing.

The Wolf Girl leaned back into the hold, cranking it even further as she pressed her weight down on Valley’s lighter frame. She tested the integrity of her shoulder, the resilience in her very anatomy as she pushed the arm further past perpendicular. She needed the area all but numb, nigh unresponsive.

Just when the extremity was pushed to the max, she’d suddenly sit slightly up off Valley’s back, stepping over to one side as she flipped the woman onto her back. Not to give her the idea that she was being too merciful, the instant Valley’s face was exposed to the light, Manami would fall forward and slam her knee down on it dead center. Digging in with her shin, pinning down the Californian’s head beneath her leg, Manami would get to work on the arm, shifting her hands into a position she hoped Valley recognized.

Her hand gripped the woman’s wrist and bent the arm, while the other slipped through and gripped her own wrist and, with a single torque, locked in a kimura from her sitting position. From her comfortable spot, she’d pull on the kimura lock whilst pushing down with her leg, simultaneously threatening to separate Valley’s arm from her body while bringing it to the breaking point.

Hilarious, right Val?