Tension Rookie Tournament: Harper Williams vs Drake Fond

Vs.





Match type: Hardcore Match
Winning conditions: pinfall, submission (No DQ)

“Gettin’ old, gettin’ grey, gettin’ ripped off, under-paid, gettin' sold, that's how it goes!”

Harper bobbed her head up and down as she sat, letting the cord connected to her phone jingle as she slipped on her other glove. This was it. Tonight was the night she’d been looking forward to for the past month now. Her debut in AFW, and it was the biggest one she could hope for.

Wrestling was never something she had much time for as a kid, but if what she picked up from traveling folk back home was right, that didn’t matter much to the big shots around here. What mattered was whether or not you could fight. Whether you had the hunger, the killer instinct, and if you could make it fun as hell to watch. And frankly, Harper J. Williams didn’t know how to do much else.

“It’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock and roll!”

She hopped off the bench and got some shadow boxing in, getting the blood pumping through her veins, bouncing up and down on the spot. She was excited, if it was hard to tell. Tension seemed like a ripe opportunity, if a bit sour. While she wasn’t the most worldly gal around, she knew that the promotion had its fair share of troubles. Men that weren’t much men at all. Women that were better found beating working in front of a webcam than fighting in the ring. A lot of competition that wasn’t deserving of the name. It was a place that sounded like it really needed people stock with some proper meat on its bones.

Well, they had to look no further, and it seemed the brass knew that well enough! Tonight wasn’t her plain old debut. No siree! Tonight was a “pay-per-view” match. She had no idea what the hell that was, but it sounded like the place had been too long without one judging by the roar of the crowd seeping in through walls. The place was packed tonight, and it damn better should have been. Her match was a bit different from the other one running on later tonight. A bit more exciting. Hers was a Hardcore match. That meant the only rule was there were no rules. Plenty of weapons, plenty of violence, plenty of blood.

Harper was never the squeamish type, though. Growing up in Arizona does that to a woman, even if she never ended up being the fighting type. Spiders didn’t scare her. Snakes didn’t scare her. Big and bad men didn’t scare her. A bit of blood sure as hell wasn’t going to scare her.

She threw a few more punches, jumping into each one.

“HOT-”

Whiff!

“-DIGGITY-”

Whoosh!

"-DAMN!”

She finished the last one with an uppercut, letting the guitar riff taper off before she pulled out her earbuds and shoved them and her phone into her locker. She caught her reflection in the mirror and gave herself a strong thumbs up. It was the big moment. Couldn’t keep people waiting. Slamming the locker shut and hopping over the bench, she dashed out into the hallway towards the arena entrance.

Harper Williams:

Theme Music:

Only a few minutes later, the lights dimmed and the arena’s energized atmosphere reduced to excited murmurs and isolated yelps. The next moment, a series of heavy guitar twangs lit up the ramp leading down to the ring. From the top of the walkway emerged a jogging silhouette, a long, blonde ponytail billowing close behind her. Curling her hands into fists and leaping up high into the air, Harper came back down with a might stomp against the floor, coiling herself down before coming back up and shooting a pair of twin devil horns with both hands out to either side of the crowd. A wide, boyish grin overtook her features, a proud gaze reflecting in her clear blue eyes as she cocked her hands and started her run down the ramp.

She held her hand out as she went, meeting every hand and clap that reached out to meet her, touching fists here and there and ruffling a couple heads from the young-ins in attendance. Finally near the stairs, the rambunctious tomboy locked one last guy in a headlock, giving him a playful little noogie before nudging him back and ascending into the ring. With a confident hop over the top rope, Harper immediately ran to the nearest turnbuckle and leaped up, planting her feet on the middle rungs. She shot a single finger into the air, pointing it around from one side of the crowd to the other, before hopping down and returning the gesture to the other side, smiling wide the whole way as she walked to the opposite ends of the ropes. She patted the referee’s shoulder as she passed by, shooting her a confident grin and thumbs up, and getting a raised eyebrow in return. Harper finally made her way to her corner as the guitar faded into the background, letting her hands fall to her knees to get some last minute stretches in. She squatted up and down, pressed against the hamstrings, making sure she was nice and limber.

Everything now came down to her opponent. She’d heard Tension’s males could be a mixed bag at best. Big, stocky brutes or toothpicks with legs. Guess she’ll just have to flip a coin and find out.

“So…What exactly am I looking at?”

Drake was sitting down in a folding chair, watching a video on his colleague’s laptop and genuinely trying to make sense of what was going on screen. The video quality was poor, whoever had filmed it must have been using a cheap device with a bad camera. The audio was a mix of cheers and grunts, with the occasional sound of a meaty “smack”. The constant movement of the camera suggested the cameraman was standing and getting jostled around, making an already terrible viewing experience worse.

“That, Drake, is one of Harper William’s first fights. This seemed to be taken quite a way back, but surely seeing how she fights will give you an idea on how best to approach and counter her.”

Drake leaned back in the folding chair, causing the metal to creak at the hinges. It was true he preferred to research his foes before entering a match, usually looking for weaknesses or past events he could use to his advantage. It was something like security, knowing what one could expect from another person could easily change the outcome of a fight for the better, especially since so few ever bothered to dig as deep as Drake was willing to go. He was a cautious, conniving, and over all selfish human being, and he knew it.

As the video began to wrap up, Drake turned his head toward the man who he had tasked to look into Harper for him. Drake’s one cold, uncaring eye seemed to trace the man, up and down until he let out an annoyed sigh.

“You can’t be serious. This video is worthless, plain and simple. It’s so grainy you can hardly see what the picture is even supposed to be, the audio is all over the place, and if there is a fight going on, the moron who filmed this must have been more interested in shooting the back of his buddy's shoulder, considering how much the camera focuses on it. I can hardly tell if that’s even a girl and a guy fighting.”

The man had no words of rebuttal to Drakes statement. It had taken him two days to find even that much on the web about the country girl. She seemed to have absolutely no online presence, not a social media, not a picture album, not even a text. While it was entirely possible he had missed something, the fact the he came back so empty handed really showed how little Harper seemed to use technology.

Drake pushed further, scooting his chair back and turning towards the man,

“You know what else I know about her? Apparently, she grew up in a farm, has something like fifteen brothers, and she left once her dad sold the farm. There, that’s it. That’s the best my guys could come up.” Drake’s uninterested gaze shifted from the man towards his laptop, distain for the video-taker was clear in his yellow eye.

“Well, if we had the proper time we could have conducted interviews with some of her home towns people. Perhaps we could have gotten something out of them.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Drake responded flatly. No matter what they did, his situation was unlikely to change. The girl was simply too far off the grid. He would need to figure something out after he met her.

Drake Fond:

Entrance Theme:

A minute or so after Harper William’s theme died down, the lights began to dim down, a sudden beat of drums erupting from the rings speaker system. Mist began to pour out of the entrance.Red lights burned through the cloud, causing the what was once a white smoke to be stained into a hellish red. Slowly, the drums built up into a climactic guitar/drum eruption, before dropping into a cool, steady beat. It was at that point the sharply dressed man rounded the corner. His cold gaze fell upon the crowd, his business-like manner made him seem more like a supervisor looking down on lower employees. The quiet beat began to swell as he walked down the ramp, exploding just as he made it towards the halfway mark, helping to drown out the boo’s and jeers from the audience. Both of his hands were in his pockets, Drake not bothering to try to high five those who reached for it, only his eye interacted with the crowd, sending an untrusting glare to anyone unfortunate enough to meet his line of sight. The right eye was hidden underneath a patch, a colorful design of a razor toothed mouth etched onto the front.

By the time Drake climbed in the ring, the music had hit yet another climax. With his one good eye, he noticed a woman in the other corner of the ring, doing light stretches in preparation for the fight ahead. Judging by how she was dressed, she would be Harper Williams. She looked nothing like the woman in the grainy video, but if what his associate said was true, then it was entirely possible that she changed her look since then. Drake was getting stressed out just looking at the girl bounce around, like a wound-up dog ready for a walk.

His music finally began to die down as he walked towards his corner. With a slight tilt of his head, Drake decided that his usual tactics to infuriate his opponents would not work on this girl. He simply did not know enough to make a sound judgment. It would be best to subtly probe around, and see what seems to hit a nerve.

In order to that, a dialogue must be started…

“So, you must be Ms. Williams? I regret to say I have never heard of you before. This wouldn’t happen to be your first match, would it?”

And down came Contestant #2...

Harper had just been finishing up the last bit of her shoulder stretches when she noticed the stage darkening a tad. She stood to attention, wriggling her fingers a bit and bouncing from foot to foot, taking a couple quick glances left and right as if she were looking for something before centering her gaze back towards the entrance. This whole thing was still a little new to her. She was excited, she was amped, and it was becoming a little hard to control it all. It was getting even harder to do that when she was so close to getting the answer to the biggest question she’d had all night: who her opponent was.

Aside from the fact that he was going to be a man, Harper didn’t know much of anything about who she was going up against. She wasn’t exactly the top of her field when it came to doing research. Any research. The only thing she went on was the fight card, and that was it. The person walking down that ramp could be six-foot tall and made of muscle, or barely over knee height and built like a string bean for all she knew.

As the music and drums got rolling, she was able to catch a flash of red from the entrance. Only a few seconds later, he finally came into full view. For a couple seconds, Harper could only keep her eyes forward, raising an eyebrow and growing a funny little half smile with a crook of her lip as the man in red descended the ramp.

Different. That was the first word that came to her mind. He walked with a dark air about him, slow and sure strides, dressed in an outfit that reminded her of the villains on the Saturday morning cartoons she used to watch. He was a funny looking fella, but Harper knew better than to criticize her company by the cut of their jib. She bet she must have looked pretty funny to people around these parts too.

Either way, there was no reason to try and get on his bad side. As he stepped through the ropes, Harper met him with the same attitude she met everyone she’d ever touched knuckles with. A big goofy grin on her face, a spring in her step. “Howdy!” She exclaimed before Drake could get a word in, raising a welcoming hand high into the air as he approached. She took a quick glance up and down his body, trying to get a glimpse at what she was dealing with. He was only slightly taller than her, but well put together. And that cold look in his eyes...er, eye...ruffled her feathers a bit.

But Harper didn’t budge. The seconds before a fight were always the most exciting, and tonight was no different. She kept her smile strong, placing her hands firmly against her hips at the question raised to her. “Heavens to Betsy if ya did! We ain’t got much Wi-Fi out in Cave Creek!” She chuckled and took a step forward. She curled her right hand into a fist, playfully brushing his shoulder as she kept on hand on her hip. “But don’t mean you should take me lightly there, Red! I’ve been throwing haymakers since I was knee-high to a grasshopper!” Her smile dampened somewhat as she coked her head to the side, looking up at him and tapping a finger underneath her right eye. “But uh, I see you ain’t no stranger to the fuss either. Y’all all right and proper with that there eye? I ain't come this far to fight a straggler with their hands tied behind their back.”

Drake’s eyes narrowed as Harper spoke. The fake, happy smile stayed glued onto his face, only the eye gave any slight hint to how he was really feeling. The man’s face was a moldable mask that could convey emotions that seemed genuine. His smile was warm and friendly, his posture? Open and welcoming. Everything about Drake could be rather charming if he chose to work on someone efficiently, if he cared enough to win them over to his side. Funny enough, it was his eye that he had the most trouble with when it came to his charade. Try as he might, his eye always held a hint of his real feelings. Disdain, frustration, hurt, all of those could be seen at if a person knew how carefully to look.

But Drake knew about that weakness, and had learned how to naturally avoid eye contact, usually without suspicion.

One such way was by observing everything he could about the person he was speaking to. Their posture, the way they talked, their behavior, all of it was valuable information to be gained with the added benefit of making him seem interested in who they were. Harper would be no different from the rest. Drake’s red and gold iris seemed to be searching her body, taking a close look at the bare musculature she decided to put on display. He listened to what she said, noted her strange speech, his eye seemed to be judging every aspect of her, it’s cold, calculating gaze clashing somewhat with the warm expression on his face. All in all, she did not seem to be the intellegent type, but most people like her never were.

It was hard to get a read on the girl, she seemed to be something of a striker, maybe a brawler type? Lord, how he hated those. Most fighters had certain things you could expect, boxers will throw punches, Martial artists do kicks and counters, but brawlers? They were basically nuts, like taking two or three styles and mixing them together in a unique, personal style that could be hard to trace. The only thing they ever seemed to have in common was that they always hit like a sledge hammer, no matter what type of style they used.

Irritation grew in Drake’s eyes. He knew nothing about the person in front of him, she was probably a brawler, his least favorite style to fight against, and to top it all off she was the friendly-touchy type. He flinched as she casually brushed his shoulder, and began to move back, but then decided against it and instead held his ground.

Then she mentioned his eye. Drake’s expression seemed to freeze, the happy demeanor stuck to his face, but his body language shifted, ever so slightly. No longer was it open, but rather, it became slightly guarded. With a bit of difficulty, he locked eye contact with the country girl.

“Well I should certainly hope so, since I have had my “hands tied behind my back” since I was a kid.” The smile began to seem a bit forced, “I have been able to get through quite a few nasty tussles with one eye, and I’m confident this one won’t be too different. Really, I'm rather surprised you would take such a careless attitude to a fight such as this one, where just about anything goes. Weapons, tricks...blood.”

Drake's smile spread like a crack in glass while his eye seemed to give of the aura of looking at a pitiful creature. As if Harper was a child who just began to play a game that was too much for them. His tone, rather than stay business like, devolved into something like a caring friend, as if he knew her personally, intentionally acing like he knew everything about her. Really it was just a tactic to make her uncomfortable.

“Perhaps you have been a bit sheltered? Daddy too busy teaching you how to cook potatoes while all seventeen of your brothers ran around the farm doing the hard stuff?” Drake’s hand cupped his chin, as if a thought had just accrued, “Y’know, your parents must have been incredibly terrible at their job. I mean, what sort of girl goes out to fight backwoods hicks in a barn for recreational purposes? Maybe there is a bit of trauma or nasty emotions your hiding in there…”

The mask Drake seemed to wear finally dropped, falling into something of a neutral glare. He had subtly revealed he had indeed looked into Harper's fight history, and how far back it went, while his eye was once again weighing options, like he was working numbers in his head and thinking up a variety of plans as he backed away into his side of the ring, one hand always remaining in his jacket pocket.

“Oh! I never did introduce myself…My name is Drake, and I hope you can provide us all with some entertainment. I hate being bored!”

Getting some weird vibes from Drake. That was just a little something she felt needed to be made clear. Not like the usual weird either. This was like...weirdy weird.

Fella had a weird way of speaking. What he was saying wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, just the way he said it. He spoke clean, but there was always felt like there was something more to it, some hidden agenda or concepts that were outside her knowledge. It reminded her of some of the men in suits that came to the visit the ranch every now and then, ‘round the time her pa considered selling their home. Slick talkers, always had something up their sleeve.

Then she mentioned his eye and immediately felt wrong about doing so. She was genuinely curious, but even she could tell just how taken aback by that statement he was. He was stiff, staring at her rather than looking. It was like he had a second skin underneath. Harper raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her stance, raising her eye at her ever curious opponent.

Like her dad used to say, though: can’t judge a fox by its hide. Drake was talking plenty of sense. This was a hardcore match and, if that meant what she thought that meant, then anything was legal. Weapons, dirt in the eyes, kicks to the groin. Her opponent could be hiding an arsenal under all that snazzy wear and she wouldn’t even know it until it was too late. That was without even seeing how he fought. She had to be quick on her feet, think as she moved. This was her first time on the professional stage. No doubt pa was watching. Heck, maybe they all were...

...and it seemed like someone was reading her mind.

Harper’s expression soured almost as quickly as Drake’s had not even a second ago, though she wasn’t anywhere near as subtle about it. Her neutral smile flipped on its lid, giving a deep grown and a sharp glare that twisted and wrinkled the soft features of her face. She clenched her fists tight, enough that one would have seen the white of her knuckles if not for the tap wrapped around her hands. She usually had thicker skin than this. She didn’t know what brought this on, but he was dreaming if he thought he was getting away with it.

Harper stepped up, taking strong steps towards Drake, wanting to get right up in his face. “Why you talkin’ like you know jack shit about me, you-?!” The official was quick to put her hand between them, leaving Harper to only watch as Drake backed to his side to his part of the ring. “Please. To your corner, Williams-san.”

Harper grumbled and begrudgingly obliged, glaring over shoulder across the ring as she went back to her corner and tugged at the ropes. Not exactly the debut she was hoping for. Hadn’t even started yet and Drake was already walking away with an award for the shortest time to get on her bad side. On the bright side, she didn’t have to feel bad about whooping him up and down the ring on international TV.

But, if she was honest, that was the last thing on her mind. When the official raised her hand and the bell rung out, the only thing on Harper’s mind when she stepped out of the corner was making Mr. Snazzy eat those words. She circled the center with her hands raised, stance low as she circled Drake, watching for any sudden moves. “Listen. I’mma do my part to keep this civil and just forget 'bout what happened there. But from here on, I'd watch that tone you’s messin’ around with, Drake. Most folks don't take too kindly to that kind of lip.” She didn’t expect him to listen, but she was drawing a line in the sand regardless. Up to him if he dared to cross it.

Much to the one eyed mans surprise, it appeared his observations and intentionally provocative prodding into Harper’s personal family life was the perfect match to light the young belle’s surprisingly short fuse. Drake had expected results of some kind, perhaps a sad look in Harpers eyes as she realized her bubbly personality would not work on him, or maybe a slight hint of anger that would radiate quietly through her body language. Drake never expected Harper to have such an amusing outburst, one that even got the referee involved. It was interesting to see a face that was mere moments ago a wide-eyed girl grinning from ear to ear be warped into an angry grimace accompanied by a vengeful glare.

She even gave him a cold look over her shoulder as she was walked to her corner. The whole ordeal brought a faint smile to Drake’s cold face, himself amused by his opponent’s simmering anger. She looked like the expression was totally new to her, adding to his twisted amusement…perhaps she would turn out to be quite a bit of fun after all.

The official’s hand went up, and the bell went off. Time to start the fight…

Harper had begun to approach the center, with Drake following her lead. Both of them watching the other carefully, looking for the move that would start the fight off in earnest. Surprisingly, Harper still had a shred of motivation to talk to him, Drake’s eye brow raising slightly as he listened to what she had to say.

Oh yes, because you have done a great job at keeping it civil so far. That was why the referee pushed you back to your corner~!

Drake began to circle Harper as she did him, making sure to do so on his left side so he could still keep track of her. She was still an unknown element, an enigma that could be packing serious muscle power behind that smallish frame. It would be a moment before Drake finally spoke up, his tone as cold and business like as before,

“Heh…a civil fight. Kind of an oxymoron. No, perhaps you are right. That was rather rude of me, and I apologize.” One of Drake’s gloved hands moved to scratch the bridge of his nose, his yellow eye still dancing across Harpers form, “I never should have thought someone with your pathetic excuse for an upbringing could handle a serious conversation without throwing a fit like a child. A kid who can't take responsibility for herself. I'd suggest you take your own advice and watch how you speak to me. If you want to overstep your bounds...Do it as an adult!”

Drake finally stopped circling, making a point to look her in the eye. He wanted Harper to know how little he thought of her and the fight they were having. This was a simple game to him, and his hap-hazard stance announced that fact to the audience. So what if it was a PPV?! It could have been a backstreet brawl or a practice spar for all Drake cared, he would play by his rules, fight how he wanted, and enjoy the match in his own special way. And one of the happiest joys Drake got in life was getting under peoples skin and into their heads.

“It’s too bad that attitude couldn’t save daddy’s farm. At least now that freeway has a lovely view.”

Drake, for the first time since he exited the entrance to the ring, pulled his hand out of his pocket, adjusting his gloves and freeing up both arms for his defense or offense. A cruel mocking smile splintered across Drake’s face as his eye burned a fiery blaze, finishing the verbal combat with one last subtle yet pointed jab at Harper. Finally, he extended his arms, mockingly offering a lock up with his fellow rookie.

Harper had absolutely no idea what she was expecting when she made that offer. Forgiveness and patience were virtues she did her best to hold dear. They were the things her dad tried to teach her again and again back when she was pig-headed and stubborn. She was still pig-headed and stubborn, but she liked to think she was more in control of it now. She wasn’t the same kid that got into fights at the drop of the hat on the playground anymore. She had thicker skin, was a more mature, had taken those lessons to heart.

But Drake was quickly proving himself to be a man who wore many masks. Harper wasn’t a revolving door of emotion. She wasn’t dumb, it wasn’t easy to just get her rolling with a couple words. But it wasn’t difficult either. What it really took was tackling the wall at its foundations, getting to the very core of things and hacking away bit by bit. She’d left herself open from Drake’s facade, practically inviting him in without noticing that he’d already been here before.

What did he know about her? Enough, by what she hearing. She was already fuming by the time the bell had gone. Oh, she bared with it as best she could and tried not to play his game. It was subtle things that gave her away. Her fists were clenched, her cheeks were red, the wrinkles on her forehead as deep and dark as crevices, her ample chest rising and falling as her heart went up a pace. Before her own mind even realized it, she was on the edge.

And then he kicked her off with a single sentence.

For a split moment in the time, Harper wasn’t in the arena anymore. She wasn’t in Japan, wasn’t surrounded by a crowd, but by her family, sitting down at the table with the last rays of the evening peeking in through the window. The house was as bright and warm as she remembered it. As she sat across the table She saw Ricky’s big and dumb smile, heard her dad’s gruff laugh from across the table, smelled her mom’s cranberry crumble in the air…

...

“FUCK YOU!!!”

Harper bellowed with all her might as she charged straight ahead at Drake. She didn’t care if she was being baited. She didn’t care if she was walking right into a trap. She didn’t even care if Drake seemed to know enough to push each and every one of her buttons. Only one thing mattered to her: decking this asshole. As she charged, she cocked her arm back and let it loose with a fierce cry, putting everything into the strongest haymaker she could manage straight to his face.

Truthfully, these were the moments Drake enjoyed the most in fights. It was such a joy to him to worm his way into his opponent’s head with nothing more than a choice set of words and a sufficiently smug smile. Harper, whom had mere moments ago appeared so carefree and eager to start her new career in the AFW was no a burning little ball of rage. Those wide eyes so full of excitement had dissolved into narrow slits of resentment. Even that annoying little accent of hers was beginning to fall to the wayside, her body language already screaming out in desire to pound on Drake as soon as possible.

So, it gave Drake the utmost pleasure in sending dear young Harper over the proverbial edge as he attacked what he thought was an excruciatingly raw nerve: the loss of the home in which she grew up in.

His guess was right on the mark. Harper charged him in a rage, looking ready to rip him apart limb by limb. No more “keeping it civil”, no more “letting things go”. Now it was simply a free for all, a fight with no rules and no limitation as to what one could do to the other. Weapons, tricks, and low blows were all on the table…Simply put, this match was practically made for Drake and his method of combat!

His younger foe threw caution to the wind, charging right at Drake with only the intent of wiping his smug grin from his face in the most painful way imaginable. Drake’s eye watched as she reared her arm back, looking to smash right into the blindside of his face. Years of fighting, and not one person did not try to attack his bad eye…well, in the end he could hardly blame them.

Muscle memory kicked in instantly, Drake’s arm moving to protect his head and take Harper’s hit! When her fist crashed against his defense, his eye noticeably widened in surprised, his smile turning into a snarl as more pain then he predicted shot up his arm!

Despite the power of the blow, Drake miraculously stood his ground. Taking the blow with one hand, and mimicking Harper’s movement with the other, pulling his free arm back and letting loose his own fiery left hook aimed at the young belle’s face.

So this is what seeing red was like. Harper had heard about it happening to fighters all the time in the barnyard brawls she roughed around in. It had even happened once upon a time right in front of her, an ex-boxer that wasn’t at all happy about losing to a little girl barely out of her teens. But she’d never felt it herself. She never got carried away like that. Tried to stay best to how her pa raised her.

Not until now.

It was like she was watching everything unfold from outside of her own body, like a ghost had possessed her, controlled her, filled her head with terrible thoughts. Her sight became a tunnel with Drake’s stupid red outfit on the other side of it. The pure force of nature compelled her forward, every fiber of muscle pushing her onward like a bull as her legs pumped and she tightened the fist in her hand. The scary thing was, though, that she didn’t even care. She didn’t care that she couldn’t control herself, that the audience and the ring had seemed to disappear around her, that she was no doubt playing right into a trap.

The only that mattered was caving this guy’s face in.

With one solid stomp to the ground, Harper cocked her fist back and let it soar like a raging arrow straight towards the bridge of Drake’s nose. There was nothing held back. It was enough to break it right down the middle...if it hit. Instead, his arms got in the way, tanking as much of it as that scrawny excuse for a body of his could. The blonde brawler didn’t so much as hesitate to capitalize on the way he stumbled. Before her fist even returned to his side, she reeled back her other fist and went to smash him down to the floor with a blow to his head.

That was the plan at least, until his fist caught her flush in the cheek, right on her exposed side. A slight crack from bone meeting bone echoed out from the ring as Harper’s momentum found her taking a step to the side. For an instant, she was stunned from the unexpected blow, the shock still working through her system. Fresh meat for any smart fighter.

But the adrenaline coursing through her system righted her almost immediately. The pain was secondary to her right now. Everything was taking a backseat while Drake was still conscious. Her teeth gnashed as she snarled back at him, her eyes twice as wide as before. “C’MERE!” She yelled out, diving straight at him and trying to take him to the ground with a shoulder tackle.