Miranda Blair vs. The Black Fang - More Than You Can Chew

The Black Fang would give Miranda credit - silly outfit or not, strange attitude or not, worrying henchwomen or not, this woman did know how to wrestle. Or, at least, fight. She’d done a great job of pouring on the pressure right from the start, harrying her in a way that few of her opponents had, and it was a true challenge just to stay ahead. The Black Fang breathed a long sigh of relief when she managed to push her off and create some separation, knowing she just dodge a bullet.

But she had little time to rest on her laurels. As soon as she was up, Miranda came in to press her advantage again, lashing out with a palm strike that sent her reeling, moved her closer to the ropes.

Too close. She had a bad feeling that the less time she spent on the outside of this ring, the healthier her life would be.

Knowing she needed to press forward, the Black Fang bounced off the ropes and lunged hard towards Mariah, throwing her full weight at her opponent. She reeled back, then shot her arm forward with all the power she could muster, attempting to hit Miranda was a flying forearm to the face.

Miranda believed her plan of action to be sound. So far, The Black Fang had yet to pull off any powerful throws on the speedy scientist, and Miranda’s constant barrage of strikes seemed to be pushing the hero further and further back. The flunkies outside the ring did not miss what their boss was doing and slowly were approaching where The Black Fang was. If she would get close enough, there was little doubt the two would snatch her right out of the ring and do god knows what while Miranda distracted the referee.

Miranda herself did not believe she needed her associates help in order to win this fight, but she was not here just to win, but to make a statement to the company she now worked for. She would do what she liked, how she liked it, and when she liked to do it. No “hero” would stop her, no authority would rule over her. Miranda had a job to do, and she didn’t plan on failing. If anyone thought otherwise, then they better bring backup.
All she had to do was push The Black Fang to the ropes, and this fight would be practically over.

But then The Black Fang did something rather unexpected. Rather than fight back, make a desperate push to stay away from the edge of the ring, or just straight out dodge, she ran towards the ropes. Bridgette and Kristy, who were slowly approaching both stopped in their tracks as their prey was running towards them. Their expressions were that of utter confusion, like they were actors in a play who had forgotten their lines.

Not even Miranda was immune to the strangely suicidal move. It defied all logic; The Black Fang didn’t honestly think she could win against those two, did she? But then why was she rushing them?

Miranda’s eyes widened as she realized what was happening, and shot forward, attempting to stop her.

Why aren’t those fools grabbing her? They had the perfect chance right there!

But it was too late. The Black Fang bounced off the ropes, using her momentum and power to send a flying forearm right to Miranda’s face. The blow hit Miranda hard, finally knocking the mad scientist off her feet and sending her sailing backwards, crashing hard onto the floor. The distortion in her mask made her scream of pain sound almost alien, one hand grabbing the mask while the other gripped the floor, far too focused on the pain to keep track of executioner of her pain.

--

“Oh, that’s not good.”

“You think she will blame me for distracting her, then not catching Ms.Mask when I had the chance?”

“Probably, yes.”

“Aw, crude!”

Right on target.

At no point during all of this did the Black Fang forget about her situation or who she was dealing with, highly cognizant of her foe’s associates loitering about the ring. This was obviously about trying to look tough and get people afraid of them, which meant that Miranda would have to stand on her own in this fight - to an extent. The other two hadn’t been a factor so far, but there was no guarantee they’d stay that way.

Best to make the most out of the opportunities that came her way, then. Miranda found herself laid out of the strike, left wide open, and it was a chance that the Black Fang couldn’t help but take advantage of as she rolled back to her feet. ”Let’s see if you like the logic in this…”

Aftera quick check to make sure the distance was right, the Black Fang took a moment to gauge the distance, work a little math in her head, and then shen went right to work.

She made a little skip for some extra momentum, then dashed towards the side of the ring. She leaped up, planted her feet on the middle rope, grabbed the top for balance, then vaulted off backwards with an arcing Lionsault, one that was sent to bring her crashing down on Miranda’s prone form.

Miranda squirmed slightly, grunting in pain and adjusting her breathing mask. The strike had moved it out of alignment, and due to how tight Miranda kept the straps, it was digging painfully into the bridge of her nose. Normally, it would have been more logical to simply take it off, but Miranda had little time to do so, and simply adjusted it back into place.

While she was in the process of fixing her mask, her opponent was making quick calculations, taking advantage of the scientist’s stupor. As quick as a flash, The Black Fang jolted to the ropes, hopping on them in a way only an experienced pro could, just before launching herself back into the air, arching backwards in preparation to deliver a powerful splash to her opponent below.

But the scientist had recovered, and was watching The Black Fang soar with the same eyes a porcelain doll on top of a shelf might have, open, alert, but ultimately lifeless.

Having too little time to roll out of the way, Miranda decided to counter the Lionsault by quickly lifting and folding her knees, attempting to force a painful landing on the hero. A grunt would emit from the mask’s speakers as the hero impacted onto Miranda.

“Your strategy was clever, but…not nearly enough.”

She would not waste the opportunity the hero had given her. The scientist would try and roll her opponent over so that she could mount the hero, before grabbing her arm and pulling it into a cross armbreaker.

High-risk moves. Her mentor had always warned her away off them, wanting her to stay more grounded with her work, but...well, the Black Fang could never resist the allure. There was just something about going flying that worked so well with this style of combat. You never saw it any other form of fighting.

Though that probably had to do with the fact that it didn’t always work out. And when it didn’t work out, things could go bad. So very bad.

The Black Fang had just enough time to widen her arms before she came down hard on Miranda’s knees, shooting hard into her midsection and lighting her abs on fire. She rolled over and flopped about, grabbing her stomach and cringing, dealing with the pain that would’ve been bad enough on its lonesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough to appease Miranda.

Before she even had a chance to recover, the bad doctor was all over her, pulling her arm away and securing with a tight, excruciating hold, threatening to pull it clean out of the socket. The Black Fang tried to fight it for all of two second before she gave up and started to claw her way to the ropes, dragging Miranda’s body along for the ropes.

She grit her teeth and tried to focus through the pain, pouring her all into this singular effort. Just a little more, and...

Miranda continued to wrench The Black Fang’s arm, even as she was slowly dragged away from the center of the ring. The scientist’s machine-like eyes watched with curiosity as her foe crawled and scraped towards the ropes, hoping for salvation from the hold she found herself in, showing an impressive display of personal strength as she fought through the pain. The Black Fang had yet to even scream in pain from the hold, and upon realization of that Miranda redoubled her efforts in her armbreaker.

Kristy and Bridgette watched as The Black Fang struggled against their employers hold, fighting for escape from her painful grip. After a few minutes of struggling, The Black Fang began to crawl towards the ropes. She must have been fairly desperate to escape the hold, as the two flunkies saw an opportunity to inflict some damage.

While the hero crawled closer towards the ropes, Bridgette moved towards her side of the ring, as to not arouse suspicion from the referee who kept looking over at the pair throughout the match, as well as to avoid The Black Fang’s attention. Kristy, on the other hand, skipped merrily towards the exact opposite side Black Fang was crawling towards, waiting for both Bridgette and The Black Fang to get close enough to each other. As soon as it seemed like they were close enough, Kristy started off their plan.

Hopping up to the ropes, Kristy cupped her hands and shouted, “HEY REF! YOU BLIND OR SOMETHING? SHE CAN’T CRAWL TOWARDS THE ROPES, THAT’S ILLEGAL!”. The noisy woman and red somehow got louder, and she began to stick her head in the ring as if she were about to enter, causing the referee to walk over to insure she didn’t, and the two began to argue. Bridgette saw her opening and took it.

Marching over quickly, just as The Black Fang gripped tightly to the ropes, the blue bruiser stopped in front of her,

“Sorry Fang. Bad luck of the draw I guess. Nothing personal, okay?”

With her “apology” out of the way, Bridgette would wind up and launch a hard-right cross aimed for the hero’s defenseless face. She held back a little, not wanting to do so much damage that the referee might see it.

Whether the fist collided with the hero’s skull or not, Bridgette would quickly flee the scene, and Kristy would relent to the referee, hopping back down to the floor.

If The Black Fang still clung to the ropes, Miranda would abandon her hold. Standing back up, she would adjust her outfit, waiting for the hero to leave the safety of the ropes.

When she was in training, the Black Fang had always hated the endurance stuff. Learning how to endure a submission hold was tiring work, and the only true way to do it was to spend some time in the moves - long, painful time. You had to know how to keep your head clear, had to know your limits, had to master ring presence and the proper way crawl across a ring while another human being was on top of you and actively trying to rip you apart…

No. No, those were not fun days. But the endurance she’d worked up there came in handy here, as she made the long, arduous journey to the ropes, fighting for every single inch along the way. Miranda was many things, that much was clear, but merciful was obviously not one of them, and she ensured that the Black Fang experienced so much agony along the way.

Didn’t matter. She was almost there, and...and what?

Right when she was so close to the ropes, she looked over and saw the referee getting in an argument with one of Miranda’s goons. Ignoring it, she did her best to stay focused on the task at hand and reached up to grab the ropes…

...only to find herself eating a nasty punch in the face. The blue goon landed it flush and threw the Black Fang for a loop, retreating before the referee could make sense out of the situation.

It wasn’t the end of the world. She could take a punch. But it stunned her, and meant she had to take an extra, painful moment to grasp the ropes and achieve her much-needed salvation.

The Black Fang had achieved her goal of salvation. The referee, realizing she had been distracted, immediately turned around to find the hero’s hand wrapped around the ropes. Quickly she sprinted over to break the hold, the sadistic scientist releasing her foe from the hold on her second warning.

Miranda unraveled herself from her opponent’s form, standing up and dusting her costume off. Much like an office worker preparing for a high-level meeting, she straightened her clothes to make any wrinkles disappear, threw her braid behind her head, then stared down at her opponent.

Retreating to the ropes turned out to be a logical move for the hero. She could now take a breather so long as she held onto those lifelines, and Miranda was powerless to stop her, so long as the referee’s eyes were still on her. Of course, every moment The Black Fang hung onto the ropes would only prove that Miranda was a severe force to be reckoned with, slowly accomplishing what she had set out to do in this match.

She stood there, unmoving. Her posture was straight as a board, with a face so solid and unmoving, even without the mask, reading anything into it would be near impossible. Miranda seem to gain neither pity nor joy in hurting her opponent. It was simply a job that needed to be done, one that could ONLY be done by herself.

“Give up.” the distorted voice said plainly, “it would be illogical for you to continue this fight. You are outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outmatched in everyway imaginable. I predicted your chances of victory being somewhere in the twenty to twenty eight margin when we first started this match, and since then it has only gotten lower.”

Miranda had given herself some space when she rolled off of The Black Fang, but now she stepped closer, until she was just out of reach,

“If you wish to continue this little resistance of yours, by all means. Serve your purpose, defend your honor, protect your ring. All of it are simply steps towards my ambitions.”

Miranda stood waiting for Black Fang’s response, letting her take as much time as she needed to recover, so long as her hands were on the rope. The ref had begun standing between her and the guardian of the ring until she was ready to continue battling.

The Black Fang wasn’t honestly sure whether or not she should’ve been surprised by what was happening here. It seemed fairly obvious that Miranda’s goon would’ve gotten themselves involved, after all. She was clearly not the sort of woman that cared too much about things like rules or procedures, and she didn’t bring her friends along just so they could have a good view of her match.

All the same, it was rare for ringside interference to even be a thing in the AFW. Especially something so well coordinated.

It reinforced the Black Fang’s growing notion, that she wasn’t dealing with some run-of-the-mill debuting group, here. This was a faction. An organized one. That was a troubling thought, and she was only now realizing that even if she came out of this victorious, she was still going to have to deal with the wrath of these two when she was done. Not the prettiest prospect.

Oh, well. That was the price that came with being a hero. It also meant that she wouldn't giving up anytime soon, regardless of what her oddly dressed opponent thought. She planned on giving back every bit of pain she’d taken.

The Black Fang clung tight to the ropes with her good, hissing as the pain in her arm subsided. She still had three good limbs, however, and they were what she used when she pushed off and dashed past the referee, making a beeline for Miranda. As soon as she was close enough, the Black Fang hopped forward and lashed out with a quick chop, aiming for her foe’s chest, intent on putting her on the retreat.

Miranda watched passively as The Black Fang finally realized what she was up against. Even if she were to defeat Miranda, she would still need to deal with her lackeys outside the ring. Violent Lackeys who clearly didn’t care for the rules of the sport, and would likely want revenge for their fallen employer.

The Black Fang was essentially fighting three people, just one at a time.

All of this was planned down to the last detail by the woman standing right in front of her prey’s face. While this was indeed a “spur of the moment” challenge, the scientist was an amazingly quick thinker, and all the tools she needed to create such an advantageous situation were right in front of her. It would have been a lapse in logic not to take this opportunity.

In Miranda’s mind, which she tried to dominate with logic, it would be foolish for someone in The Black Fangs position to continue fighting. She had no backup, no knowledge on her opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and after such a harsh armbreaker hold, only three non-suffering limbs. Logic dictated that she give up, and deliver Miranda her victory.

But that was not what happened. Instead, the Hero grit her teeth, fought through the pain, and came at Miranda with new found determination. A chop slapped against Miranda’s chest, The Black Fang’s momentum adding to the force while still carrying her too close for comfort for the scientist.

Backing up, giving some ground, Miranda pulled a tight defense with her right arm, but her left arm did something different. It went to the right, then came back with top speed. Miranda had just thrown a wild back-handed slap. It was a quick move, possibly from panic or poor calculations, that seemed to have no aim. If The Black Fang dodged it, Miranda’s entire left side would be left wide open.