Death/Valley

Valley Doll stood in the ring amidst a hyped crowd - abliet one that was oddly split. More often than not, they were firmly on her side, no matter what she was coming out to do or say. As one of the oldest running wrestlers in the AFW, she had a lot of long-term support, fans who’d stuck by her through thick and thin, who’d seen her rise and fall and rise again. She could count on their cheers filling the stadium if she couldn’t count on anything else.

But today was different. There were cheers for her, yes, but they were mixed up with calls for someone else, a woman who wasn’t even out here...yet. Although she hadn’t said a single word yet, she was standing in the ring with her wrestling attire on, the microphone gripped tight, and a harsh scowl on her face. With the events that happened last week, everyone was wondering how the Slamazon would respond to the outrageous attack she and Kaylee suffered, and now they knew.

Valley took a deep breath, waiting for the crowd to settle a bit before she spoke. She closed her eyes and brought the microphone to her lips, sweet and slow, doing her best to remain calm. She’d had a good, painful week to comtemplate these words, no way she would botch it now. ”You know...respect isn’t the easiest thing to get in wrestling. You can’t just get it, you can’t buy it, you have to earn it. It’s a long, slow process, and there are so many ways to botch it up along the way, and lose it one it’s yours.”

She started to pace a bit, tracing her steps in a circle. ”Me? Personally? There’s not a whole lot of ways to get my respect. But one way, a big way, the best way? It’s to fight me. To wrestle me. To take me and show me you have what it takes, firsthand. There aren’t a whole lot of people in this company that I respect but haven’t wrestled. But, you know what? Death Bunny was one of them.”

The crowd gave a good round of applause at that, uniting for a brief moment. Whatever their opinions on Death Bunny’s actions, her resume spoke for itself. A pile of broken bodies laid in her wake, remnants of wrestlers who’d thought they could take on the Legend and came up painfully short.

”’Was’!” Valley shot her hand to the sky, cutting through the cheers. ”That changed last week, when Death Bunny decided to give me a little challenge. Did you she do it the right way, like I’m doing it now? No, she came out and ambushed me and laid out me and Kaylee. All to send a message, right?”

She turned to the entrance with a hand on her hip and leaned forward. ”Well, message received, Death Bunny. I was perfectly fine just riding out into the sunset and letting this just stay a dream match, but guess what? I think I’ve got room for one more Friction match. So come on out, let’s get it started!”

Valley pumped her fist and stepped back to bounce on her heels, eager to go. She wasn’t sure Death Bunny would take a match right now or want one later, but either way, she was good to go.

It was D.B.'s own, personal, experience within this particular wresting organization that those whom she had personally challenged tended to be rather...well, dense. At least when it came to them granting her the brawling showdown she thirsted for. Some of them outright denying her the match before realizing that D.B.'s offer was, much like in certain mafia movies, one not meant to be refused. That realization coming from the broad end of her spiked baseball bat. So it was that she opted to forego subtlety this time around and go straight for the jugular, skipping all pretense of a debate on the matter and making it explicitly known to Valley what was at stake should she refuse and cower back down. And lo and behold...the Californian received the message loud and clear, and made the correct choice. Valley's lost respect for D.B. being supplemented for a heightened respect for Valley from the murder bunny as Val outright demanded a confrontation right than and there. Well...who was D.B. to not reciprocate such an honorable throwing down of the gauntlets?


An all-encompassing darkness would engulf the stadium with cell phone camera lights dotted across the blackened arena, the grim bell chimes heralding the appearance of The Grim One herself. She strolled through the burgeoning fog with her gloved hands in the pockets of her tattered trenchcoat and her wide-brimmed top hat masking her face as she kept her head tilted down, flashing thunder over a macabre graveyard being projected over the Titan-tron. Those who were not among the Valley loyalists cheering on her appearance and the imposing, ethereal aura encompassed her presence. The morbid mystique about her somehow making her the most unlikely of fan favorites amongst the captivated masses who let their supportive opinion be known for the entirety of her strolling waltz up the steel steps and into the ring. Now standing tall before the Slamazon for several uninterrupted seconds until the lights flicked on in tandem with her lifting her head and offering Valley the same soulless gaze as before. A hushed silence from both the speakers no longer playing her theme, and her own lips not uttering a syllable.

She too was dressed in her ring attire, prompting the arena to start chanting "YES!!!" for what was seemingly a main event throw-down out of nowhere. A shuffling from within D.B.'s pocket making it seem like she was about to make the first move...which was merely her gloved hand raised between them, showing her palm to Valley in the universal stop/wait gesture. But than that same hand would be raised high and point it's index finger to the banner hanging far behind Valley...one that had been present for the last month or so, and spelled out D.B.'s intentions more than words ever could.  

The Banner...:

If nothing else, Valley had to give Death Bunny credit for being theatrical. So many other women in their line of work took the quick way when it came to things like this - come out, make the challenge, challenge accepted, match. Short, sweet, cookie cutter. Death Bunny? She had the lights, she had the mist, she had the setup, she had the look, and it all came together to give her this otherworldly vibe that could haunt dreams.

It did make Valley wonder how she got it all set up, though. When this was over, she’d have to get a few tips.

In the present, however, she tried to focus on the hulk of a woman before her. While Valley had faced big opponents before, ones who might have had a few inches on her, it was hard to imagine an opponent who carried herself taller than this. When she came in through the fog and stood in front of her, her aura seemed to radiate like a furnace, creating this menacing miasma around her.  Intimidating? That was the right word, but somehow, it felt inadequate. Valley stood firm, stared into her eyes, but she’d be lying if she claimed to be as confident as she was trying to seem.

All the same, though, her blood was racing, her nerves were excited, sweat was beginning to come in. She was ready for something epic, the perfect kind of match to leave Friction on and cement her career with the company, with a chance to get a little payback for what Bunny did to poor Kaylee…

So, when Death Bunny, pointed to the sign instead, she was initially disappointed, but that vaporized quick enough, and she nodded and smirked. ”So you want a date for the big dance, hm? I’m fine with that.” And the crowd seemed fine with it, too - while many of them weren’t happy about not getting the match right now, many more of them recognized this was a bout fit for a PPV, not just some random episode of Friction, worthy of the high level.

”But.” That single word cut through the cheers, as Valley leaned back with a hand on her hip. ”I don’t want to just beat you once, and I don’t want to just pin you, and I don’t want to go out on some normal match. No - you want me? You get me with Three Stages of Hell.” Valley held out her fingers to tick it down. ”Standard to start out. Second match is my pick. And if I can’t put you down twice in a row? You get the third, whatever you like.”

Valley folded her arms and stepped back, knowing full well that Death Bunny would pick up the gauntlet she’d thrown down. She couldn’t not accept this match, the wrestling gods demanded it, and it played well into Valley’s hands - with a standard to start off, she might as well have gotten two picks. A woman like Death Bunny excelled in the hardcore, but in a standard match, where skill mattered most, she’d have the run of things.

”Lucky you. Most women only get beaten by me once.”

D.B. always did pride herself on being a woman of few words. A wordless habit she inexorably picked up being birthed in a world where nothing was cheaper than talk, and your own worth was dictated moreso by just how much outright malice you could perpetrate upon others with thine own hands. Hence why she didn't tepidly interrupt Valley's celebration to politely ask if they could have an honorable dual amongst professional competitors. So it was that with as innocuous a gesture you could imagine, the Silent Reaper put the kibosh on the idea of them settling their differences tonight and set the stage for where this was going to be settled. Painting a picture that had main event level throwdown splattered all over it, even if it squashed the hopes of the live audience getting to see all of this happen on one humble T.V. taping. Those around them cheered all the same knowing that the end result would be well worth the weeks of waiting.

"...."

Stone-cold silence was the immediate and preeminent reaction from Valley's willful acceptance of D.B.'s proposal, continuing onward with the Slamazon getting the details out of the way. The fervent willingness, hot-blooded drive, and outright professionalism on display was an admirable sight to behold from the venerated veteran. Not to mention being cunning enough to stack the odds in Valley's favor right off the bat with the first match having stringent rules to shackle the Bunny Reaper's savage temperament. D.B. could already tell she had chosen wisely in dance partners, this all being something she had come to expect from the calculating veteran playing to her strengths and D.B.'s weaknesses. This...This was the challenge D.B. had been craving with salivating eagerness ever since first signing her name on the dotted line. A beguiling smirk being a solid confirmation to everything Valley had mapped out. The Bunny Reaper turning her back to Valley and taking a step or two before-

"Oh wait...that gives me an idea."

-she stopped in place and raised her hand, pointing an index finger upward as if it represented the light-bulb flashing in her head. A rotation of her stance to once more face Valley now revealing the microphone she had in her hand and the intention to continue breaking her silence. "If you really wanna ride off into that sunset...and start writing the final chapter of your wrestling career...I think it's only fitting that we ensure...that you are going to come at me with every fiber of your being. That you are going to bring your absolute A-game, and leave every last scrap of your soul in this ring. You pride yourself...on being the The Last Slamazon. The final holder of the main title belt from where you forged your career...a symbol of how much you've sacrificed for this business...and it's something you probably cherish more than anything else in the world...and now I want it." D.B.'s final words being tainted with guttural savageness...her deadened eyes directing bloody maliciousness Valley's way, with audience gasping at the legitimate raising of the stakes. "You set the rules...well...I...set the prize."

As much as she wished Kaylee hadn’t gotten caught in the crossfire, she had to admit, a part of her - a rather large, old-school part - was enjoying this whole scenario. It brought her back to some of her earliest matches, taking on wrestlers like Death Nell and the Hellions, people with these gothic gimmicks that the crowd ate up. It was cheaper back then, a lot of fog machines and dry ice, but she’d always appreciated the effort. Death Bunny was what wrestlers like that wanted to be, and she was the perfect contrast for Valley. Couldn’t have asked for a better foe to leave Friction on, and she had the feeling Death Bunny was about on the same page. Even if she wasn’t about to open her mouth and admit.

Death Bunny accepted the terms. Of course she did. There was no way she could back off now - Valley could have gotten her to accept just about any match she’d thrown out there. She nodded back at the towering figure began to make her way out of the ring, folding her arms, content that they’d managed to set this all up in record time - but no, it couldn’t be that simple, could it?

As it turned out, Death Bunny could speak. And when she did, she had some interesting things to say.

Her counter-offer brought some momentary worry to Valley’s face. While that belt wasn’t the most important thing to her - her girlfriend had that spot - it wasn’t too far off, either. It was the last semblance of her former company, the last thing tying her to the league that had started it all. To let that go was almost unthinkable. In ways, it would be even worse than losing the Entropy Title. The title was a part of who she was. The Last Slamazon.

...except for maybe Bubbles and technically Kaylee, but they didn’t count. At the very least, she was the last champion from her league, the standard bearer, the embodiment of everything that company had stood for. She had been defeated since she got that belt, yes, but never for it.

That was what wrestling was all about, though. Risk and reward. Her entire career had been built on living dangerously. Why stop now?

Valley gave the thumbs up as her smile returned. ”You’re on.”