AV 19 Hardcore Championship - Jessica Wright (c) vs. River Styx

Styx still wasn’t sure what to think about all of this. Wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

All she’d wanted since she came to this stupid fucking league was the goddamn hardcore title. She’d tried to get her hands on it a few times, competed for it, had it snatched away from her. She was still sore about that bullshit with Brittney from years ago, where she’d fought through the tourney, bled for it, only to have to fight that lame snake-bitch for it at the end, even though she hadn’t done a single thing to earn her way up. That still stuck in her craw, even now, and since then she’d always felt like the belt was her rightful property.

That only thing - the only thing - that had kept her from going after it in the past was respect for Jessica. She wanted her to have a good reign with the belt, and she was content to wait her turn for it. Besides, when the Violent Violet had it, it was kind of like her having it, too. She was with WAR. They were together. It was all good.

And just like that, it was all over. Jessica wanted out of WAR, wanted out of their relationship, even wanted the belt off her, though she was only willing to do that in a match, like a good champion. And she gave Styx that honor.

So Styx was about to get the think she wanted most, just without the person she wanted to have it with. Fate was a bitch.

She didn’t bother to hide her conflicted feelings as she came out from the back, her theme music blaring out over the speakers. She didn’t even take the time flip off the crowd like she usually did, opting to simply walk her way down to the ring and enter it like a normal person. She stepped through the ropes, one leg at a time, and made her way to the far side of the ring. That was where she stayed, facing the turnbuckle, stretching on them as she waited for Jessica to arrive.

Her ex-girlfriend.

Jessica had a sweatshirt on. It was warm, backstage, but Jessica wanted to feel the heat even more. It was only her in the locker room now, and the lights were off. Long spindles of her purple hair hung on both sides of her face as she was looking down in her chair, both hands clasped and touching her forehead. She was not contemplating the carpeted floor below her, but rather had her eyes closed. She was replaying a hundred events in her head at the same time, and feeling the enormity of them individually and in total. Her first match, where she got absolutely annihilated at a young age by a woman who was large and angry and brutal. Her first match in Japan, where she lost out in a squeaker against a smaller Japanese woman. Her match where she won the belt, over one of the most beloved champions AFW had to offer. Every slam or punch or submission boiled up within her and then disappeared into the ether, forever outshined by her first meeting with River Styx.

The first time they had met, it was gambling and drinking. The night devolved into a fight. She supposed that it was always going to have devolved into a fight. Jessica was a hotheaded asshole who loved nothing more than violence and winning, and River was her anarchistic double, and they had spent so long together in Japan. It was quiet. It had been quiet for a long time. There was WAR, and there was Hell on Earth, and there was a whole lot in between in terms of violence and love and the combination of the two. And tonight, it was all coming to a head.

Jessica opened her eyes and looked down at her legs. They were still pumped up from her warm up, and she thought that they were looking good in her tights. No one could see her black sports bra in her hoody, in large part because no one was around. She had left her phone in the car. Jessica wanted to tell herself that it was because she only wanted to focus on the woman that she would be facing tonight, but the reality of the situation was that the woman she was facing tonight would be herself. The Violent Violet had earned a reputation as one of the nastiest women in AFW, and it was a well earned one. Jessica had done terrible things in pursuit of the shiny belt sitting in front of her, and in doing so exposed the rot that she had on her soul. Here, without the lights of the locker room, the belt looked like a dull, lifeless thing. From day one, this was the only thing that she had ever thought about. From day one, her dad had placed a curse on her through his devastating mediocrity that made her want to climb all the way to the top. From day one, she knew that the struggle would be titanic and continuous and paved with the blood of any woman who stood in her way.

She leaned back in her chair, and smiled a bit. Jessica thought of all the nights that she was up until four in the morning, running from the cops because one of them felt like intimidating the poor gas station attendant for the beer instead of paying him, or the night that they got into a brawl with literally everyone in a bar and came out on top, or this or that or the other. It was a good run, she thought.

But all good runs must come to an end.

Jessica stood up from her chair, and walked through the halls of the arena. She shed her sweatshirt to reveal her top, and placed the belt on her shoulder. The Violent Violet brought it up to her lips and kissed it, to see if that would ignite some passion within her. It didn't.

Little sister there's blood on the tracks...

Jessica's music hit the arena, and the Violent Violet appeared with the belt on her shoulder. Just like River had chosen not to, Jessica also chose not to flip off the fans. Instead, she marched down to the ring with the solemnity of an executioner. Once she got to the ring, she raised the belt high. It was all an act. Jessica didn't really care that the audience was screaming and that camera bulbs were flashing and that this might be on a magazine cover. All she wanted was one last match with River. She handed the belt to the referee.

She looked across the ring, into River's eyes. "I love you." She mouthed.

Styx thought she’d be over this, when it all came down the line. She was River Fucking Styx, after all. Other women, they were the ones who got emotional in matches. They were the ones trying to turn wrestling into some sissy little game, who didn’t understand that this sport wasn’t for the weak or the sentimental. People like her and Jessica were meant for the ring. True hardcore wrestling. No mercy, nothing held back. When the two of them faced each other in the ring, all this sissy shit would melt away, and the fight would be on. No question.

That was the way it was supposed to work, anyway. As Styx was rapidly learning over the past week or so, things weren’t always going to go the way she wanted them to.

She was almost there at first, she was sure of it, getting psyched up when Jessica’s music hit. Seeing the belt helped. That was the object of her desire, right there, closer to being hers than it had ever been before. She’d wanted it from the moment she set foot in Friction, had gone through hell to get it and been denied so many times, and now all she had to do was reach out and seize the damn thing.

That was what she told herself, at least, right up to the moment that Jessica had to ruin it all by opening her mouth and saying those three words again. Styx hadn’t known what to do with them the last time, and she hadn’t grown anymore comfortable. It was something she didn’t understand, couldn’t process, and there was only one thing to do with something like that.

Styx rushed forward, stormed across the ring, and threw her heaviest punch in Jessica’s face.

Jessica felt a great presence in the air, of words that had been said but even more of what was not said. There was no way for Jessica to communicate to River what she meant to her in a way that Jessica could articulate the way she wanted to and in a way that River would have found meaningful. Jessica couldn't say that when she was drinking with River she didn't worry about all the pressure she felt on her shoulders all the time. Jessica couldn't say that when she was with River causing chaos was one of the few forms of catharsis she got to experience in her life. Jessica couldn't say that when she was with River she became a better wrestler, a better fighter, and a better woman in her own way. With them, it was always about action. Loud, fast, continuous until one side or the other was halfway dead.

River came charging across the ring and leveled a punch at her. For half a second, Jessica wondered if she should just sit there and take it, and give her friend the release that she so needed. But that was not the way that she wanted to go through this match. River was a big ball of rage, but Jessica saw it. The Violent Violet plunged down and to the right, trying to melt out of the way of the devastating strike.

Her lover scored a blow, but it was a glancing one. Despite the fact that it wasn't a direct hit, it still hurt a crap ton. Jessica had been on the receiving end of a few blows like that in her time, and was grateful that it was not worse. Still, she was grimacing.

But she would not worry about it that long. She was hoping to catch River when she was still off balance, by going for a low sweep to bring River down to the mat.

Styx didn’t want to be here, which pissed her off, which made her want to fight more, which also pissed her off. She wasn’t just mad, she was mad about being mad in the first place. This was just business, right? She wanted a title shot, she got a title shot, handed to her on a silver platter. The universe had finally gotten tired of fucking with her and given her the treasure she’d been hunting for half a decade, now. All she had to do was win, and that was that.

But why Jessica? Why now? Why couldn’t Jessica just lose to somebody else, drop the title to them, and then Styx could beat them shitless and take the belt as revenge?

Why did everything have to be so goddamn complicated?

It just drove her on that much harder, made her swing with that much force, and consequently made her miss all that bigger when Jessica dodged most of her blow. Styx was never the most graceful, needing a second to correct her body and keep her muscular bulk from carrying her away, and that gap was something the Violent Violet could seize on. She lashed out, tripped Styx up, and gravity did its thing.

Styx hit the mat, annoyed, but far from incapacitated. Not wanting to give her opponent a chance to pounce, she pressed her palms on the floor and raised up enough to shoot her foot out, hoping to kick Jessica away before she could make her next move.

Jessica was not going to give it up easy. She had absolutely no intention of giving anything less than her best in order to win this bout. The Violent Violet was turning, and getting ready to launch a truly hellacious kick right into River's side. It was funny, she thought. In the bar fights that they had been in, had someone done this to River, she would have been likely to try and actually remove their head from their shoulders. But here, she was trying to make River bleed. She had made tons and tons of sacrifices to get to where she was, and she knew that River appreciated that, at least in her head. Now Jessica was going to make River understand it on a whole different level.

Only, River got in there before Jessica could do anything. A foot caught her ankle, and Jessica was sent tumbling to the mat. She let out a loud "Oof!" when she did so. Of all of the places in the world to be, she could not imagine a worse one than being back to the mat with an angry River Styx on top of you. In order to gain herself some distance, she sent a probing kick out to River. It might not have hit, but it would be enough, she hoped, for Jessica to be able to roll away and stand up.

"I have seen you do better," Jessica taunted.

Styx was never much for strategy - at all. Ever. More of a run-and-gun type, and using her strength and size to knock through obstacles, and that was more than enough to handle 99% of the lightweights on the Friction roster...but not Jessica. That was the big problem when it came to dealing with the Purple People Beater. No matter how hard Styx hit her, she could always hit back just as hard.

So...yeah. This might take a minute. And that little taunt? Jessica wasn’t wrong. She had seen better. She was going to get better, too.

Styx flipped to her chest after taking that kick, pounded her fist into the mat, and rose up in a sprint, barreling straight towards the hardcore champion with all the speed she could muster and maybe a little extra on top - adrenaline could be a good friend in situations like this. She wanted to close the distance on Jessica, but she knew she had to do so with something a little special. The typical bag of tricks weren’t going to cut it.

So, as she neared her target, Styx jumped up, brought her legs in, and tried to nail Jessica with a dropkick. It was a sloppy thing, not her usual wheelhouse, but it had a ton of force and momentum behind it - all she wanted was damage, and it could deliver that.

Jessica got up just in the nick of time. River was barreling at her like bulls charged at rodeo performers in all of those stupid rodeos that she saw when she was kid. Unlike when she was a kid, she had zero desire to watch the bull run right through the poor clown. That being said, this particular bull only had so many tricks that it could pull out of its sleeve. Jessica hunkered down and made herself light on her feet. When that spear came, she was going to dodge to the right and use River's momentum against her to toss her into next week. Her purple eyes traced every step of River's, and she did what she could to time it.

Then something amazing happened. Jessica's eyes went wide with a blend of surprise and amazement and fear. She was not sure that she had ever seen River slip the harsh bonds of the earth to ascend to the sky, let alone against her. River's feet greeted Jessica's stomach, and immediately Jessica went flying back. She had been hit with kicks that were more technically executed, and kicks that hit in a better spot, but she was not sure that she had ever been hit with a kick that came with this much force.

Jessica skidded to a halt a few feet away. She looked up at River, wide-eyed. "I've never seen you do that," she wheezed.

Styx swore, she was never going to fucking do that again.

The move looked ugly as fucking hell when she did it, which she normally wouldn’t have cared about, but it had the added effect of making for a rough landing. Styx’s body, as it turned out, was really not designed for vertical movement, and when she came down on her hip, it sent a jolt throughout her body. She gritted her teeth and hissed as she snapped upright, and there out a few curses through her teeth.

But it worked. Fuck her, did it work. It sent Jessica stumbling back, a rare sight, and if not for the ropes, it might’ve sent her hurtling out of the ring. Which, now that Styx thought about it, wasn’t a bad idea.

Using the pain from the landing for added fuel, Styx rolled to her front and scrambled up again, getting to her feet and rushing towards her former lover with another burst of wild speed. This time she stayed low and turned her body into a human missile, as she threw her shoulder into Jessica’s stomach with a tackle, looking to carry them both through the ropes and wind up on the outside. Given their size and weight, there was no way the landing was going to do anything else but suck.

Good.