Reiko Ishida vs Lilliana Reynolds: The Hard Road

Running away to fight another day wasn't exactly Reiko's M.O. so when she found herself retreating it hadn't been solely for her own benefit. Sliding under the ropes and moving off the apron she caught herself upright on her feet, using the side of the ring as a crutch to lean on while her eyes focused back on Lilliana standing tall. The young biker scowled at the patience on full display as it seemed the brunette was keen on waiting her out rather than pursuit, which was the opposite of what she was hoping for. not one to look a gift horse in the mouth though, she nursed the back of her neck while regaining her breath, letting every precious second that passed work to her own recovery.

The referee moved to the edge of the ring, starting a disqualification count, adding a deadline for just how long Reiko could remain outside the ring. It didn't seem to stress her in the least as she pushed off the ring and backed a small distance up. With a flash of a grin she dead eyed stared at the other woman in the ring, doing a few quick jumping jacks then tossing the soldier girl a mocking salute, trying to goad her into coming outside the ring to get her.

"What's the matter, scared or something?" That was rich coming from the girl who had just run away, but that act of cowardice seemingly didn't exist in Reiko's mind who instead flipped it back onto her opponent. The young girl half turned, hoisting her backside up in the air towards Lillinia and gave it a slight slap, childishly taunting her opponent again over a fresh chorus of boos. The whole while she watched like a hawk for an opening, waiting to see if she could get the other woman to at least get closer to the ropes. "Haha! What a joke!"

Lilliana wasn’t exactly sure of how to proceed from the point she was at now. Of course it looked like keeping going was a wise choice, but being far from the ring was of no use to her. She needed to remain inside to make a win, but it looked like Reiko didn’t care about the match nor the show. It was as if for the biker thug there was only the objective of humiliating the former soldier, and since she had just experienced, the levels of strength were different enough to make that an impossible task, so apparently Reiko resorted to the next plan, and that was fleeing out of the ring and try to recover.

Reiko was definitely something else. The biker, not happy with all the attention she was getting she started boasting as if she was the bigger fish in the tank, not realizing how she had to flee after just one hit. The crowd reacted once more and started booing the woman as the referee was in the middle of a DQ count. Lilliana knew that the count reaching 10 would mean her win, but that wouldn’t give the people the show they wanted, and a good record meant nothing if she earned a reputation of a poor show.

Lilliana’s blood was boiling. Why had she to face such a despicable rival for her debut? Things could have been much different and satisfactory if she had found a proper opponent for this, but she would have to make the best out of the cards she got dealt. But the moment her rival insulted her and stuck out her butt in a taunting manner was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “That’s it, you are going to get it now.”, the former soldier said as she slipped below the ropes and started walking towards Reiko in order to get a proper hold on her.

Hook, line, and sinker. It didn't take much to rile up the former soldier despite all her apparent discipline. There were no shortage of differences between the two women, painting them as near polar opposites, but one thread connected them more than either would care to admit. Ego. Pride, temper, both were easily manipulated to rise to the occasion for their own reasons and both of them had fallen for nearly the same trap. The corner of her mouth twitched into a slight smirk as she tried her best not to jump the gun and give anything away. All she had to do was wait and strike at just the right moment. Standing herself upright, the young punk threw her arms wide, inviting Lilliana to come get her.

The moment the former soldier dropped down to roll under the ropes, Reiko sprang forward in large jumping strides, reaching out to grab the lip of the fabric that bordered the ring apron. Pulling it as far back as she could, she made the perfect pocket for Lilliana to inadvertently drop into, trapping her against the ring apron. With the snap of the elastic band, the cover closed in around the brunette with Reiko close behind it to ram her body up against her opponent to make sure she was pinned in even more.

"Not so tough now, huh?!" She practically cackled, taking advantage of the situation by throwing hard, wild strikes at Lilliana's unprotected upper body and head, making up for any lack of raw power with a staggering quantity of blows. if the brunette started to fight back, the punk would clamp her hands on the other woman's shoulders to balance herself before laying in with hard forceful knee strikes through the fabric, trying to continuously hit the brunette as many times as she could where she thought she was beneath the cloth. The smaller wrestler was unrelenting, making sure each and every count from the referee was drawn out and punishing, pushing the time as much as she could. The coup de grace came when the biker grabbed hold of handfuls of Lilliana's hair, jerking her from one side then to the other harshly, trying to slam the soldier's face into the edge of the apron.

"Take it, bitch!" With a huff, catching her breath she didn't stick around to enjoy her handiwork, instead rolling back into the ring to beat the count. Popping to her feet, she let out a cheer, throwing her hands up and celebrating prematurely as she paced the inside of the mats. The crowd was volatile, shouting, hissing, booing her. A few items were tossed from the crowd into the ring before security rushed in to stop more from coming. "That's right all you Friction nobodies, Valkyries rule here too!"

Lilliana never saw herself as a proud person. She liked to think of herself as some kind, gentle and empathetic woman, willing to help and with a decent moral compass, with principles she stayed loyal to even in the worst times. But there was some people whose very presence propelled others to pursue toxic behavior, fueling the worst defects of everyone around them.

Reiko was one of those people, her attitude and scorn comments making a dent on Lilliana’s collected character. A woman could only sustain certain ammount of the biker’s arrogant and insulting attitude before exploding. The spit on her face was a terrible start, but there the former soldier managed to repress her outburst. However, in Lilliana’s mind a fantasy about making Reiko pay was forming, and seeing the woman so cowardly fleeing out of the ring and keeping going with her insults from ther made the American’s blood boil. After some time she had enough, Lilliana walking towards the ropes to slide below them and meet Reiko.

That was the moment the thug’s ruse was revealed. With a sudden and agile move Reiko managed to drape the fabric arround the ring’s apron around Lilliana, trapping the woman’s body in between the canvas and the ring structure. “What the fuck??” Lilliana didn’t even have time to formulate her disbelief before her rival started her pounding. The brunette was a resilient woman, but the barrage of hits Reiko gave to her was unrelenting and shamelessly dishonest. The biker was resolved to get as many damage on Lilliana as possible, and that she made with her powerful strikes to the woman’s head and stomach. After some time Lilliana stopped registering the impacts, just too overwhelmed by the flurry of strikes to even individually register them.

When Reiko was done with her pounding she went back inside the ring. Lilliana thanked silently for the mercy as her head clung forwards, her body remaining standing because of how the drapìng fabric had her trapped. Every sound was muffled and her vision was blurry from the powerful beating, but some voice forced her to return to reality.

“FIVE!”

The referee counting what would be her disqualification awakened Lilliana. Everything hurt and the woman panicked when she realized how little time she had to return to the ring if she wanted to keep alive in the match. What a terrible way to go down on her debut that would be. She tried to make a rush to free herself from the fabric in order to return to the ring, but her dazed state made each of her movements clumsy. Finally, after what felt like an eternity Lilliana managed to free herself and crawl below the lower rope, returning to the ring just when the count hit nine. The crowd rewarded her with a powerful round of cheering, but Reiko had achieved quite a feat since now Lilliana was feeling weak and staggered. The match would be a much more even thing now.

With a small running start Reiko hopped herself up onto the second rope where she was able to keep track of the recovering Lilliana out of the corner of her eye. From there she continued her mocking of the former soldier by saluting the booing crowds who were more than happy to pour on additional hate on top of things. With a wide smile, she pretended as though she couldn't hear them, going so far as to lean out towards the audience with a hand cupped behind the back of her ear as if straining to pick up anything from their direction. If nothing else, she was having fun now that she wasn't face down on the canvas getting stomped on... Though that did remind her.

She hopped back off the ropes when signs of the brunette crawling back in caught her notice, trotting over with a slow exaggerated strut to meet Lilliana along the way. She reached out, gliding her palm along the top rope as she walked the inside edge, moving up to the struggling woman who had just barely made the count, tsking softly. The fans seemed to adore the tenacity of the former soldier carrying on despite the odds, so the young punk thought it only proper she be rewarded with a hard stomp to her side... then another.  The Valkyrie stepped up onto the second rope, springing up off that to give herself additional height to land with a third, larger stomp down at Lilliana all the while yelling down at her. "Get up! Come on, get up and fight!"

It was clear she didn't actually want that though as she was doing everything in her power to prevent the former soldier from gaining any footing to stand on. Moving around to the front of her opponent, she reached down to grab hold of her ponytail again, clenching her fingers around that silky brunette hair to drag the other woman back towards the center of the ring. The referee was shouting at her for blatant hair pulling. It wouldn't take her long to get the other woman in position, even using her hair to try and yank the brunette upright into a sitting position before letting go just before the count ending.

Reiko would circle back behind Lilliana, attempting to collect both the woman's arms behind her back, holding firm at the wrists and pulling them painfully backwards. She threw a boot forward to kick it into the brunette's back, using it as an anchor point as she cranked those arms of her opponent backwards into a seated surfboard stretch. While Lilliana may have been the stronger woman between them, Reiko's position and leverage here would nullify most of that gap, giving the young girl free reign with each jerks of those arms, pulling them back against the grain of the brunette's shoulders. Intended or not, she was helping herself out by dismantling some of the other woman's punching power by wracking up damage on her arms.

Oh, the wickedness! From the very first instant they met face to face Reiko had shown nothing but disdain and disrespect for her rival, for the people gathering in the arena and for herself as a wrestler. Nothing looked capable of redirect Reiko to the path of redemption, no redeeming quality coming from her, nothing that looked that she could be a person worth being around. Was that her only defining traits? Was the woman like that when around her biker gang? And what kind of people would mingle with her?

Something was clear though: no matter what could be said about her, Reiko had a very strong kind of personality. She would always stand out when in a crowd withouth caring about the fact she did that because of ill reasons. That was her, it was her persona, her mantle with wich she draped herself. The crowd will have a difficult time forgetting about the thuggish biker who spat on her rival’s eye and then draped her with the canvas fabric. Everything in Reiko’s attitude was intended to make her stand out, to leave an imprint. What was Lilliana? Had she been able to make a statement of character as her rival did? Even if the crowd showed her support, who would they remember after the match was finished, the evildoer or the rightful, fair playing wrestler?

Of course Lilliana would have to reflect about all those questions in order to make her career advance forwards, but most likely it was’t the worst moment to do so. Still feeling really dazed about the beating taken while draped in the canvas Lilliana rushed below the ropes as soon as she got free as losing the match because of a ring out DQ would have been a devastating start for her career. But in her haste she didn’t take the proper time to acknowledge where her rival was at that time, and just when she slipped below the ropes Reiko was there to greet her with a new round of pummeling. While she was being stomped on Reiko couldn’t do much but cry in pain and try to roll over to get out of her rival’s reach, but to no avail.

In the end, when Reiko looked satisfied with the stomping, she dragged Lilliana to the center of the ring by pulling her ponytail. The former soldier wailed in pain and desperation. How could things have gone from a promising start to that grim situation in such a short span of time? But the agony wasn’t over as Reiko locked a sitting surfboard stretch.

It was too much for Lilliana, who cried in agony and kicked with her heels against the mat. So far from the ropes there wasn’t any choice for her but to break the hold by raw strength. Knowing that she was actually stronger than Reiko, and using the crowd’s cheering to fuel herself, Lilliana started bucking to each side, trying to roll over and force a hold break out of Reiko. She was almost out of options, and if that treatment kept going for long it would be over for the American, so she was willing to risk everything in order to break the hold.

Reiko was pulling as hard as she could, shoving at Lilliana's back with enough force to leave her dirty footprint transferred on the fabric of her top. Her arms shook, straining to pull back the brunette's limbs as hard as she could, almost looking as though she were trying to rip them off entirely. The strain was on her face and in her body as she gave it her all, just like earlier, to do as much damage as she could. It wasn't about throwing the odd punch here or there, it was about crippling this woman physically for the duration of the match to make her easy pickings. As cruel and malicious as she presented herself to be, she had never really gotten use to when people screamed like this. It made her uncomfortable if she dwelled on it too long... so she shut it out best she could and put on her tough girl face.

"That's right, scream for me baby!" It seemed the lyrics of her theme song came around full circle. She laughed, though it was forced as a means to save face. The punk had found a good motion for cranking the hold now, almost treating the other woman's outstretched arms like boar oars as she circled them backwards to give them a hard pull. It was working well for a time. They were stranded in the middle of the ring and Lilliana wasn't doing much save for kicking and struggling. If things kept up like this, this match was in the bag...

But it wasn't to be. The other woman was rocking from side to side. Reiko shifted to try and draw her back upright, but it proved to be difficult as she balanced herself on one leg. When the brunette finally heaved herself over onto her front, Reiko's arms cross crossed awkwardly as she tried to still keep hold of her wrists, nearly getting herself flipped over as well. Rather than take a fall, she let her grip go and stumbled back to find her footing. Her lips pulled tight in an unintentional pout, brows furrowing sharply in annoyance. Taking a bracing step back waiting for Lilliana to lift her head. The moment their eyes met, the young girl charged forward with long strides, winding her legs back to kick her boots out at her opponents face with a big soccer kick.

It was in moments like those in which people like Reiko revelled. Of course she had shown a picture that drew her as a vicious person, so determined to bring her rival to new levels of punishment and humiliation. Wrestling wasn’t exent of some physical pain and Lilliana knew that when she signed the contract, but for people like Reiko that pain inflicted wasn’t a mean to reach the end of submission, it was an end by itself, something to celebrate, to bask on. It was a system of beliefs aimed at tearing down the very foundation of sportswomanship associated with wrestling. That was why Lilliana was in such a predicament: she wasn’t facing a rival who wanted to put her against a wall in order to make her submit, she was just being a plaything in hands of a delusional misfit who just wanted to make her suffer because of some twisted logic. And she was getting that. Lilliana’s upper back and shoulders burnt as if her arms were going to pluck out of her body. The strain on them was so big she was just wondering when the torture would end.

It would only end when Lilliana put an end to it. With people like Reiko it worked like that. There was no end to their mischief, to their foul play. The only way to make them stop taking advantage of others was forcing them to do so. With that resolve in mind Lilliana started bucking her body to the sides, getting even more pain while doing so but with the certainty that her rival wouldn’t be able to keep her balance while standing with one foot. And when pressed with the choice of chosing her own safety or keep going with her punishment, what would Reiko do?

The crowd erupted in cheers when Lilliana forced a break in the hold, sending Reiko away stumbling on her feet. Lilliana got up while rubbing her pained shoulders with a grimace of pain in her face, but also a confident smile. Because no matter how vicious could Reiko be while taking adfvantage of her, she had managed to flip the tables and force a frontal confrontation. And if she had learnt anything from Reiko is that when forced to be in a fair fight, the biker wasn’t too much.

Reiko was just going to prove that as she went for a soccer kick. Her brawler style looked almost improvised, fueled by her anger instead of her judgment, and the biker also forgot something: she already caught Lilliana with that move before. Now knowing what to expect Lilliana had enough room to try and deflect the kick. It still was a quick move, but it wasn’t a technical wonder, allowing Lilliana to block it with her both arms and send Reiko’s leg back to its position. Then she would take the initiative with a couple of palm strikes to her rival’s upper chest and collar bone in order to keep her still, and then Lilliana would dive with her shoulder against Reiko’s waist in order to execute a double leg takedown.

Waiting until you saw the whites of someones eyes. That was some war bullshit she had read about someplace, right? Her intention had been to knock Lilliana's head off with a big penalty kick, but to do that she needed her head to be up. So she waited... and waited... And let out an annoyed growl. had she known it would take this long for the woman to recover she would have just booted her sooner. When her time finally came, she scrambled to action and closed the space between them swiftly. She shot off her kick like a rocket, trying to feed the former soldier a face full of boot leather but the kick was halted early. Solid hit, slapping against flesh and bone of her opponents arm... something that couldn't have felt good.

Before she had time to react, her kick was shoved away, making her take a half step back to catch herself or risk falling. In that instant Lilliana was up in her business, slapping her with open palm strikes, making her upper body jolt with each impact. She reared back from the blows, trying to muster a punch of her own to return fire but the brunette went low, slamming into her hip. Reiko was thrown back, her legs scooped out from under her as she slammed onto the mat, exactly where she didn't want to be underneath the other woman. One of her arms came up defensively, trying to shield her face from possible ground and pound as she lay beneath Lilliana. Her free hand shot up, trying to throw her palm into the other woman's face and dig in her fingers, trying to cover the other woman's eyes to keep from allowing her to have easy rein over attacking her while they were on the ground.

For all the viciousness and cheap tactics Reiko had been able to come up with, for every small display of disdain, for every little cocky or insulting comment, it was as if she had lost all of her momentum after Lilliana managed to recover from her quite inventive ruse with the canvas and the posterior beating. Now the biker was resorting for a different approach, much more improvised, less well-thought, so easy to predict. The biker was now repeating herself with her kick, and that is the reason why Lilliana could block her. Not to be dismissive about Reiko’s kick, it was quite powerful and Lilliana felt that on her arms as she blocked it, but being predictable as that made the thug so easy to counter, and that was exactly what Lilliana did with her takedown.

“Not so tough in a fair fight, aren’t you?” Lilliana let her scorn loose, even if she would regret it in the future. She wasn’t one to humiliate a rival, but she had taken a lot of low tactics coming from Reiko and now she was just where the American wanted. Grappling was her terrain and it didn’t look like Reiko was feeling comfortable about it. From there, Lilliana only needed to make the fight go under her terms to get the win. Of course Reiko wouldn’t just settle for that as she launched her hands to mess with Lilliana’s face, but the American was counting on that. Not without some good exertion Lilliana tried her best to move her body and lean forwards to transition and lock Reiko’s neck in a Sleeve Choke. She wanted to see how much pain Reiko could endure before giving up, showing the biker’s true colors.