Putting Out Fire With Gasoline

Army could already picture it. He’d be dealing with Imugi for months on this, taking her teasing on it with every sparring match they had, get the jokes when they were in bed or playing games or out on a walk or whenever she had half of an excuse. She would get him in a headscissor and mock him about the time Zoey almost knocked him out, or make remarks about the way he needed to be told what move to use. It’d be the butt of so, so many jokes from that silly, giggling face of hers.

And he was looking forward to it. To all it. He was even picturing some of her jokes in his head, and already working on the rebuttals.

He was busy doing other, more important things, too, like sucking in lungfuls of air and rubbing his throat, decompressing his windpipe and returning to normal breathing operations. A quick look up showed that he had a little time for that now, too - his attack worked, way better than he could’ve hoped. Zoey wasn’t out all the way, tougher than she looked, but she wasn’t going to be moving her legs or her mouth much for a little while, and both of those were good things.

He had her. Finally. Now, he just had to make something of it, and the first thing on his list of priorities were those legs she seemed so proud of, the same ones that nearly put him to sleep. ”Okay,” He rolled over to his stomach and grabbed her ankle with both hands, locking on with a tight grip as he rose up. “My turn.”

Army made it to his feet and took a few steps back, creating some space before he proceeded. He had a few ideas on where to go from here, but they all needed Zoey’s stamina sapped, needed to make sure she couldn’t throw any more curveballs. Those legs, they had to go.

He rolled her over on her back, stepped over her spine with the ankle tucked under his armpit. Tight, secure. Sitting down, he reached out and pulled the leg back, bending her spine with a single-legged version of the Boston Crab. His kind of submission move - easy to do, but oh would it suck for Zoey.

She could probably use a little support right now, finding herself in an agonizing position, but Sin wasn’t in a position to give it. She’d made her way up the rafters, slipped through the crowd, and moved down on the blue haired girl from behind, deftly hopping from seat to seat until she was on the row right above her. She didn’t say anything, didn’t make her presence known just yet. She simply spread her legs, leaning forward, and loomed over the smaller Korean. Curious. Watching. Waiting.

Yaaaaay, everything sucked. As usual.

Zoey was kind of really goddamn stupid to think she could get away with that. She was squeezing the equivalent of a two ton human boulder between her legs. Sure, she was managing, but all it took was one simple push to send the whole thing down on her. And that was just what she got, all over her back.

Frankly, the impact wasn't as bad as what it could have been. Army was a little tired and Zoey had toughened up a bit since the last time she'd stepped into a ring. No, what sucked was when Army flipped her flat against the floor and jabbed a knee into her back. Then all she had to look forward to was a nice, long, agonizing pain in her back as her spine was bent in a way that was never meant to go. The Kick Chick was in trouble and she knew it. Her strength was being fast on her feet and Armando just took those clean away from her. Being bent like a pretzel was bad enough. When she slapped her hands to the floor and started to crawl, only to realize just as quickly that she had nowhere to go, the panic set in. Zoey curled her fists and slammed her head into the floor repeatedly. Fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this-

No. Just calm down. Calm down.

That's what Zoey told herself, but all she did was bite her teeth and growl. Not here. Not now. No matter what happened, she had to give it her all to resist the urge to give in.

Sucks for her. The only thing that Imugi was resisting at the moment was the urge to jump out of her seat and start yelling. Not that she doubted Army for a second. He was too stubborn and too strong for to tap to a pair of rock-hard thighs and a bad attitude. It was physically impossible for him to quit this early. His character just didn't allow it and that was just another reason Imugi had to rematch one of these days.

Still, the crowd was going a little crazy right now. The fight had just really gotten started and already there was some serious momentum going for both sides. Between all the noise it was hard to tell if Army could hear her or not. But when he started rising and noticed he was taking Zoey with him for a very painful drop to the floor, she considered it a message received. Imugi pumped her fist and sat back down and whipped out her phone. Figured this would be as good a time as any to snap a highlight for them to look back and laugh at together later. Maybe she could have Army take a couple pictures during her round. Maybe they could compare afterwards. Make a contest out of it, the works.

That would have been a pretty sweet idea. Would. If Imugi could see over the fluxing tide of inebriated idiots. She found herself standing on her tippy-toes more than twice. Honestly, the Korean had no idea whether she was getting a good image or not. She sat back down and sighed, taking another look into the ring to see Army still dominating things. Her lips pouted as she sat kicking the railguard a few times.

She sat cool and collected, let her phone relax in her lap for a moment as she took in the view of the cage a little bit longer. Enjoying the nice seats and rank air. Right until Imugi swung her head back and locked her eyes instantly with the intense stare of her fellow Korean just above. For a single, still moment things just came to a halt. There was a flash of complete awareness in the deep blue hue of Imugi's eyes. And then she smiled an unimaginably bright expression that could send shivers down the spine as quick as it warmed the heart.

"Hi there!" Imgui said in the simple, sweet, innocent voice you would have expected from someone as cute and small as her. Anywhere else it might have seemed endearing. Anywhere that wasn't three feet from the woman above her. The pop star held out her phone and pointed to the ring. "Do me a favor? Could you pretty please snap a picture of the big guy for me? I can't really see over everyone else. Try to get the girl on bottom too if you can."

Imugi tossed her phone up into the air without even waiting for Sin's confirmation. Worst case, she just bought another one. She was looking to switch anyway.

It was a little cliche, and Army knew it. The Boston Crab had to be one of the most used moves in all of the AFW, with the only possible exceptions being the superkick and the camel clutch. Everybody and their mother did it these days, and he’d even put in it a few times himself by smaller women. He didn’t recall ever tapping out to the damn thing, but there was no ignoring the prevalence, and it wasn’t hard to see why - effective, painful, and you could teach a five-year-old to do the damn thing. He wasn’t getting extra points for originality, so who cared?

He made sure to grind the hold in hard, digging his knee against her back, really twisting at the spine. He even gave her ankle a twist, as much as he could with this position, looking to pile on the pain and squeeze this move for everything he could get. She was flexible, had some impressive bendiness going on, but this had to hurt like hell and there were no ropes to save her, no referee to come and break things up. She was going to tap out. She had to.

Any minute now.

Soon.

...oh, come the fuck on.

”Hey!” Army called back after what felt like the better part of a minute, and bounced on her back to make sure he had her attention. ”You mind giving up sometime today? Your back’ll break if this shit keeps up, trust me, it’s not worth whatever stupid pride thing you got going on. Just tap out, deal with it, go home and eat some Ben and Jerry’s, I don’t fucking know.”

Even as he said it, he doubted it would work. Zoey was already proving to be one of the most stubborn opponents he’d ever had, fighting hard despite the odds stacked against her. It might’ve been inspiring if it wasn’t proving to be such a pain in the ass.

Sin, on the other hand, found the whole scene quite amusing. If there was one thing she had drilled into Zoey’s head, it was endurance, introducing to newer, higher levels of suffering that she’d likely never dreamed of before. She could endure this. She would endure this, because she knew that, if she didn’t, she’d only take something worse the next time Sin put hands on her. This last thing she wanted to do was give her mentor more ideas.

Still, in the meantime, seeing her squirm was it’s own little reward. The expressions, the looks, the noises, the way her body conformed. She could get Zoey in a move like that, but didn’t have the weight or upperbody strength to make it hurt, not to the same degree. So it was something to savor.

Sin was dragged back to reality when the blue girl underneath her finally spoke, her voicing coming out in this cutesy, saccharine tone that had her teeth grinding. The urge to stomp her in the head was already at a high, but she kept the reins on it for now. Couldn’t learn about this woman too much if she was unconscious.

She caught the phone as it flew up, snagged it out of the air, and went to work with a shrug. She took some pictures, though there wasn’t any getting away from her own biases - she was far more focused on the way Zoey’s body was twisting than anything else in her picture, snapping a few good shots of the way her skin folded, her hips, the anguish on that sweet face of hers.

While she had the phone, she decided to peruse her phone a bit, seeing if there was anything else interested in her photos, contacts, that stuff. ”Tough guy.” She used the blue girl’s shoulder as foot rest, settled her sole down right on it like it was made for her. ”Friend of yours?”

"Go...fuck yourself!"

Zoey would like to apologize for her short supply of fresh material, but her spine was currently being snapped in half. She wasn’t really in the mood to be witty. She was scrambling, drumming her fingers absentmindedly and madly against the floor. It was hard to resist the urge to tear her own hair out as she nabbed at it in clumps. She was more interested in getting out of this hold but Armando probably wasn’t just going to give that to her anytime soon. At least before she passed out. This wasn’t a wrestling ring either. No one to save her, nowhere to go. It was hopeless.

Zoey shut her eyes tight just as somber moisture began to fill her eyelids. In a situation like this, what did Sin tell her to do? Relax, accept the pain, make it work for you. Keep calm and think. Where was she strongest right now? What advantages did she have that her opponent didn’t and how could she make use of that? She had to dwell on that for half a second before the obvious thumped her on the forehead: her legs and her flexibility. She had an idea for that.

Propping herself up with one hand, Zoey curled herself back as far her aching spine would allow. Once she was within range, she brought her free arm up and shot a backward elbow into his side. She did that again, and again until he was too distracted on that to give her legs the proper attention. All she needed was one second, the tiniest opening. The second the Kick Chick felt that grip slacken, her legs would spring back and dig into Armando’s underarms. Her small body let out a fierce battle cry as she brought her legs to full extension, hooking her ankles to his triceps in a determined effort to throw him off of her. With a prayer to the dark gods, she put it all on this small gamble.

She had to pray to someone after all. It wasn’t coming from Imugi. Her attention had been stolen away a bit by the mystery woman lazing about behind her. And she still had her phone for some reason. Imugi didn't particularly care what she did with it, it wasn't like she had anything to hide. Just some selfies, pictures of Tokyo, some photos from that fancy restaurant she went to once, maybe one or two cats…

...and that first night with Army...

The Korean girl pursued her lips and chose for a rather stupid moment to trust in the kindness of an incredibly seedy stranger. After that moment passed, she was just about to turn around and ask for it back when the foot on her shoulder caught her off guard. She had to stop and stare at it for a second. That was in fact her foot. Imugi went ahead and assumed that was an accident. Nobody could seriously be that rude. Even by Imugi's standards. It was something she probably would have done herself if she had zero restraint.

Like so many things, the Korean girl detached herself from it mentally. Must have been an accident. Obviously.

"We know each other from work." Imugi brought her hand up and moved to shove Sin’s foot away with a quick brush of her shoulder, acting like nothing happened at all. "I know it doesn't look like it, but he's actually really sweet and thoughtful and kind of shy around girls. I thought getting him out of his room for a little while might do him some good. Remind me to thank your girlfriend for being such a good sport and playing with him for a bit."

The mystery woman didn’t mention any relation, but it wasn’t that hard to connect her to the girl Army was turning into a pretzel. Baggy pants weren’t exactly the hottest trend in Kyoto right now. “Where did you two meet? Morphicon?”

Huh. That marked the second time she’d heard the Morphicon joke, and the first she’d heard it from someone she didn’t kick in the face right after. That last bit might change in the near future, but for now Sin was willing to brush it off and keep things cordial. Non-violent, at least.

She had far more interesting things to grab her attention, after all, like the contents on this phone. It was boring shit for the most part, the kind of crap you’d expect a blue-haired Barbie Doll like this to have, and Sin was about to give it back without issue - or toss it off somewhere, she hadn’t decided - when she stumbled on a some pics that had Armando in them. Lewd stuff, too. R-rated. She gnawed on her lip as a slim smile stretched across her face, taking in all the details.

”Zoey?” She shrugged, barely registering the question she was asked, and thumbed through the folder, seeing all that she could see. ”I beat her up, we fucked, and now she’s my training bitch. Classic story. Your boy, though...” She hummed, sighed, and ran a finger under her neck as she focused on the screen. ”Doesn’t look all that shy to me. You let all your friends from work get their dick wet on you, or you just got a taste for Mexican? A little ‘cultural exchange’?”

Not that Sin was judging. As much as she preferred women over men, she didn’t mind dipping every now and then, if only for the change of pace. A small part of was envious of Zoey, wishing they could change places, just to see the look on this blueberry’s face when she got him down and went to work.

But this would do. It was getting interesting now, too. Sin was ready to write Zoey off, thinking she’d be stuck in the hold, forced to either tap out or get snapped in half. As it turned out, though, there was a third option that even she hadn’t saw, and Army damn sure missed, if the way he reacted was anything to go by.

”Wait, wait, what the fuck are you-” He’d been shocked by display of crazy flexibility, and even more shocked that she could attack like that, taking him well off his guard. Army let out a cry as his balanced was ruined, and Zoey used the moment to pull him forward, knocking him off - right into the steel cage. He couldn’t get his hands up in time, and that meant he took the harsh metal full on, slicing against his face. Stunned, he fell down to his knees and rubbed his features, feeling something wet that wasn’t sweat - yeah, he had a gash on his forehead. Nasty one. Wouldn’t need stitches, but it’d require more than a band-aid.

Never before had Imugi been left with so many questions from an explanation that short.

She didn't know what kind of answer she would get from this woman assuming she wanted to answer at all, but Imugi had expected something fairly standard. She and 'Zoey' were partners. They trained at the same gym. They both had money problems. Morphicon got out early. Those were pretty typical reasons for ending up at an underground pit fight. At least in Imugi's experience.

The other Korean woman behind her was not ‘typical’. Not in the slightest. She was digging for something, but it wasn't like Imugi was just letting her. She was doing her own investigation, watching her mannerisms out of the corner of her eye, listening to that immodest tone and how she appeared to be regarding a complete stranger. They were both digging in their own way.

It just so happened that Sin struck gold first. The muscular idol turned around and propped herself up on one elbow on the back of her seat. Imugi's eyes looked over the brim of her iPhone in Sin's hand and fixed her gaze solely on the woman holding it. Through the placid look in her eyes, it was difficult to say whether Imugi was just annoyed or starting to simmer underneath. Even she herself didn't know what she was feeling. It wasn't as if Imugi cared what other people thought of her, but there was one thing she heard that she couldn't let go.

["He's Puerto Rican."] She spoke in their shared tongue to make sure Sin understood and snatched her phone back. Her eyes didn't break from Sin's right away. Imugi was fine with making it last just a couple seconds longer. One simple warning. Then she just smirked at her. "Thanks, 늙은 여자."

Imugi sat back down in her seat and pulled open her phone gallery, organizing the photos into a folder and making sure whoever this was didn't send them anywhere. She doubted it considering how little free Imugi gave her. And the pictures she took were garbage. Figures.

Her eyes flickered between her phone and the cage every other second to keep an eye on the action. Things looked like they were about to get messy. It was hard to make out his face but hopefully Army was still doing okay.

The Korean-American in the ring didn’t give a fuck about him, personally. Didn’t give a fuck about anything other than her own back.

Heaven was honest to god a place on Earth after Zoey finally slipped free of Armando's grasp and dropped flat against the floor. She heard the damage she'd done as he stumbled away behind her. She felt the impact from the floor as he rammed into the cage and sent vibrations through the ring. Her battle sense had improved immensely under the tutelage of her cruel Taekwondo mistress. She had enough awareness of the life and chaos around her to know that Armando wasn't going to be coming straight back at her. Zoey had bought herself a couple of moments.

And oh thank Jesus, because she needed a couple. Her arms rubbed up and down the small of her back to force some soothing relief between each vertebra. It hurt to move. So fucking bad. But she did move, because as bad as this was, there was a woman out there that could do so much worse. And for some reason, knowing that wasn't terrifying anymore. It was inspiring.

"...fucking…come on…!" Zoey punched the floor and forced herself to rise. Despite the gnawing in her back, she made her legs move and forced her feet to run. In a second she was there. She leaped up and brought herself horizontal before she kicked both of her legs out, shotgunning Armando in the back of the head with a point-blank dropkick.

[”He’s Puerto Rican.”] She repeated under her breath, letting the words drift off into a sigh. ”You say that like I’m anyone gives a shit.”] Hell, Sin couldn’t have found the place on a map, and she wouldn’t have cared to try all that hard. She couldn’t help but be curious how a pair like this found their way between the sheets, though - you didn’t see too many from their nation in the Tokyo streets, and you damn sure didn’t find many Mexicans or Ricans, or whatever-the-fuck Army was.

Jesus fuck, ‘Army’. She just caught on to that. Stupid name.

She didn’t fight it when the little blueberry snatched her phone back, though she did notice how fast she could move. Sin maybe could’ve moved fast enough to keep the phone back if she’d really tried, but the fact that she couldn’t be sure was interesting in itself. This was one had a pair of fast hands. ”You’re welcome, 작은 똥.”

Sin was content to keep quiet for now, looming over the bite-sized ball of fire below her, and switching glances between her and the ring. There was only so much attention she could cast that way, though, because back in the ring, things were actually getting interesting.

In the relatively short but intimate time that Sin had come to know Zoey, she’d realized a few things about the woman. First and foremost, she was stubborn. Getting her to focus on something required a special kind of touch, one that she excelled at providing. All she needed to push her way back up from any situation was the proper motivation, and in Sin’s experience, the best way to make a person ignore pain was to threaten them with more pain if they didn’t.

So she worked her way up. Defiant, strong, bold. You could see the agony it took for every movement she made, that the simple act of getting upright was pure torture, but she made it happen, and her reward for doing so was something you rarely received in these matches: Your opponent’s back.

Army had just begun the slow, arduous process of rising up to his feet, gripping the steel for support as he worked his way up, when Zoey’s feet slammed into the back of his head. That would’ve been bad enough by itself, but his position meant that his face wound up whipping into the cage’s steel at full force. HIs forehead, his cheek, his lips, all of it. He flopped back from the impact and fell to his back, where he proceeded to roll about and grasp his face, dealing with the rush of pain his body had to take all at once.

”Oof, that sucked.” Sin leaned forward, elbow propped on her knees while her hands cradled her chin. ”Hope you didn’t like your boytoy for his good looks, ‘cause…”

"Couldn't get one good picture?"

No helping it. Imugi mumbling to herself wouldn't change the fact that all of the images Sin had snapped were complete garbage. She'd held out some hope, but that quickly fizzled away. Why even do that? It wasn't like Sin was getting these pictures back later.

It was just to be a pain. This? This is why Imugi had trust issues. One of several hundred reasons anyway.

["You seemed to care enough when you were eyeballing me all the way up here. You're the third-worst stalker I've ever had. Congrats."] Imugi slipped her phone back into her pocket and did her best to focus on the match again. Maybe there would be another chance at a photo op.

When she looked back into the ring she'd noticed that her opportunity had passed in a very dramatic way. Army was on the ropes, or the cage in this case, and had his back to Zoey. Imugi had connected the dots in a fraction of a second. She knew what Zoey was going to do before she even did it. She knew because it was the same thing she would have done. For her the dropkick had landed in slow motion. And she felt it in the worst way possible.

It was funny. At any other time before or after, Imugi would have been thinking of a way to hold this over Army's head later. Something she could whisper in his ear, or bring up out of the blue while they were enjoying themselves. She'd be picturing the silly face he would make and how he would try to come back at her. This would be fun at any other time. At any other point before this mystery woman came out of nowhere and started pissing her off. Before she'd just wanted Army to win. Now Imugi needed Zoey to lose.

Second by second things seemed to be getting away from that. Imugi did her best to ignore the devil in her ear and face forward with her arms folded. Imugi had the personal experience to know what Army could and couldn’t take. At least she thought she did.

But holy fuck, Zoey hoped Sin caught that on video. That wasn't a move she would have been able to pull off a year ago. Not without the flexibility and the endurance she had now. What could she do in this spot? What was she taught to do?

Enjoy the moment.

Zoey hadn’t understood the meaning of those words until right now. In this moment when she looked down at this big, powerful bastard at her feet and felt the realization tingle her bones. That rapturous bliss in knowing that she was the one who’d done it to him. That she’d brought him to the ground and made him cry out. The sensation was unreal...addicting. More. She fucking wanted more.

Zoey lunged forward and threw her leg into his side, smashing him in the ribs. She followed up with another one, then another one. At some point, it turned into stomping. Relentlessly, The Korean-American assaulted him with a levy of kicks that pinned him between the floor and the cage well. Not a breath of respite did she allow for either of them. Slashed across her face, Zoey was blessed with the biggest smile she’d had in years.

Pain. Sheer, unrelenting, unending pain. That was what was Army was dealing with right now, in heavy amounts. It wasn’t like he was unused to pain - in fact, pain was an everyday part of his life, whether it was working out or getting his face hammered in a boxing match or getting slammed around in wrestling. But there was the kind of pain you expected to take in combat sports, and the kind of pain that resulted from having one’s face rammed into a metal cage. As he could confidently attest here, they were two very different things.

This kind of pain was different, harsher, wilder. It felt like his face was on fire, like there wasn’t a single inch of it that wasn’t suffering with searing sensations. Something was bleeding, he could feel the wetness between his fingers, but he couldn’t be sure where the source was with all the sweat mixed in. He blinked a few times, making sure his eyes were still intact, and all he could see were tiny blurs of light slipping through his fingers.

It was all coming to him now, senses rushing into his head as his brain remembered that there were other ways to perceive things. The coppery smell of blood in his nostrils, the thunderous roar of the crowd, it all came down on him like a wave. And then, through all of it, he could feel the vibrations through the canvas, the steady beats. Zoey was closing in.

He needed to get up.

Army started to rise, moving one hand away from his face to plant it on the mat, using it to push his way up, when he was greeted by a sharp blast to his side. Common sense told him it was a kick from Zoey, but it felt like she’d hit him with a hammer, and that was about the way he reacted, croaking loud and flopping to his side, his face screwing into a tightened mask as he cradled his side. It wasn’t over with that, either, as more kicks followed, drilling him again and again and again. There was a wild force to them, this unrelenting fury that kept him from moving. Every stomp came down like she was trying to go through his body, hammered with all the force her body could muster. A wild, dangerous force, and somehow, through it all, even though he could spare a second to look up, Army knew she was smiling the whole time.

Zoey wasn’t the only one. As the smile crept along her face, Sin did the same, biting her lip to quell the rising ecstasy. She and her pupil had been here before after all, with the roles reversed. A common position, actually, and she was glad to see it hadn’t been for nothing. Every stomp she hammered into Army was one that she’d taken herself. She could appreciate the damage she was creating, know the agony he was going through, and that made dishing it out all the more satisfying.

Sin leaned forward, elbows on knees, and let out a long, pleasured sigh as the carnage continued to unfold. She only spared a moment to look back at Imugi, watching as her little boytoy was dismantled, before she brought her gaze back to the ring. She didn’t want to miss too much of this. ”That’s my girl.”

The audience was eating it up, too, cheering on the onslaught, some chants breaking out. Good stuff, exciting, but Army’s thoughts were purely on how to escape it before she kicked his ribcage in. For now, nothing flashy was on the table - he needed an escape, and a quick one. Gritting his teeth, he waited until the short gap between her stomp and threw himself to the side in a wild roll, a desperate attempt to at least get away from the cage. He went in a mad tumble, sloppy and stupid, just trying to get away from Zoey and make a scramble to his feet. Whatever chance he had of salvaging this match, it wasn’t going to be down there.

Army was in a very tough spot right now. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Imugi understood this particular “place” better than anyone.

Her life before had her pinned against concrete walls and fences like this, ravaged with an onslaught of blows that could take her life away with one decent hit. But unlike Army, she didn't have two hundred pounds of muscle and the testosterone of a raging bull. She had a cute face that sleazy men loved to step on. So she knew how bad that blow to the back of the head hurt. She knew that his face must have felt like it was on fire ground up against that rusty fence. She knew he had to move and he had to do it right now.

Thank goodness he did just that. Army moved with a deftness that Imugi didn’t think even had and made the distance he needed, avoiding her last stomp that shook the floor. Zoey stumbled forward and caught herself on the cage wall, but she didn’t turn around. She was breathing heavily and might have looked a little tuckered. It was hard for Imugi to tell from this far away but that’s what it seemed like. What she could make out was the blood. The pain crept across his face. Yeah, Army might not have wanted to admit it, but Imugi knew perfectly well that he needed a couple of seconds.

Thankfully, his opponent was just giving that to him. Zoey hadn’t moved away from the fence, keeping her face to the floor. She looked like a woman locked in some kind of trance despite having the upper hand two seconds ago. What was up with her?

That relief would have been better savored if this horn-haired hyena wasn't behind her. Just her presence and the subtle tone of her voice cut like a dagger. Imugi would have assumed she was inebriated if she could smell anything on the woman's breath. Sin had brought herself close enough to smell it after all. This was a whole new breed of annoying.

“Quit messing around, dummy. She’s not that fast.” She muttered to herself before craning her head to the side slightly, giving a fraction of her attention to the woman behind her. [“Two thousand yen says in two minutes, he puts your girlfriend on her back.”]

Zoey would have said that was a safe bet considering how she was trembling at the goddamn knees over here. Not out of fear, fuck no. She couldn't say what the fuck. Her last strike had missed, but it was as if she didn’t have any concern about that or her opponent. As she stood with her fingers clenched tightly against the fence, she couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from curling upwards at every twitch. A rush of ecstasy filled her veins. For a beautiful moment, she didn’t hear the roar of the crowd or feel the heat from the lights tingle her skin. What she felt was her skin heating up and a curious warmth well between her legs. Her fingers reached down and caressed the tender spot.

Blood. She was staring at the blood.

"Hey, Mexico...you having fun?" She turned around on two wobbly feet, facing the Puerto Rican as she lifted her face from the floor to reveal a hauntingly familiar manic grin

"Cause straight up? Kicking you turns me on like a goddamn light bulb.” So much for not fucking anyone, huh? Zoey took off towards Armando without a second thought. Her movements weren’t the same as a moment ago. Everything felt light. Her body carried itself. She was in the zone now. The Korean-American leaped into the air with a spin, kicking her foot straight out behind her to nail him in the chest with a jumping spinning back kick.