AV 20 Death Bunny vs. Margaux Lefeuvre

A scant bit of research did in actuality clue Death into the fact that this was indeed Margaux's grandiose introduction into the world of Friction. All of her knuckle cracking ventures having taken place in the boxing division Momentum up until now, which made perfect sense considering the Frenchwoman came out of the gate tonight swinging for the fences like a madwoman with haymaker after haymaker. Her nimble footwork and swiveled rotation with each punch were all signs of a professionally capable and adept striker, although the aroma of lavish and upscale perfume were signs of someone who apparently wanted to always be presentable. Even if she was pummeling someone bloody senseless in a caged death-match. Death was beginning to earnestly wonder if she should just give-up altogether trying to parse together the perplexing puzzle pieces of this woman's psyche...

Regardless, Death owed it to herself to formally welcome the Frenchwoman to Friction by cordially christening her like any rookie to the federation. By thwacking her with a downright savage knife-edge chop that sounded more like a gunshot than anything else. A step back being taken by D.B. to allow Margaux the room to collapse, the Merchant Of Death apathetically wiggling her striking hand indicating that even stung on her part. Death quirking an eyebrow at what initially sounded like Marg pleading for mercy, only to be swerved in as darkly comedic a way possible. The Reaper remaining dead silent aside from a flashed smirk out of the corner of her mouth before both of her gloved mitts clutched onto her dual colored locks. She'd than escort the mob-boss out of the corner to about mid-ring once back on her feet, a tugging yank on her left arm indicating a typical Irish Whip attempt...but instead Death's cocked back lariat with ferocious strength would attempt to mow down the pinkette presumably right out of her wrestling boots. Which Death noticed were rather fetching…

Margaux considered a career as a professional actress at one point. There was something curiously romantic about a glamorous lifestyle that offered that rare blessing of becoming whoever she wanted. At the very least, she believed she could spin a decent lie.

Death Bunny was not a patron of the arts, it would appear. The Frenchwoman winced as she was yanked from her corner by the hair on her head. She stood up on unsteady legs guided by the might of the revenant who looked down at her with what to Margaux appeared to be a hint of bemusement. Part of her wanted to say something, but the dent in her chest and her survival instincts flared all at once as the pinkette was suddenly jerked one way then whipped the other. The morbid heavyweight’s outstretched arm was the first thing that Margaux noticed through the blur and it would have been the last.

Quickly the pugilist ducked her head and narrowly avoided the bunny’s lariat by precious inches. Margaux continued running with the momentum before she stopped abruptly on her front foot and turned right back around on the spot. She yanked back on her left arm, using it as a bungee cord to stop on a dime and run straight back at her adversary on a second collision course. At the point of impact, the Frenchwoman lunged forward as she threw an overhand right hook aimed to dash the Grim Hopper across the jaw.

Death was certainly never so close-minded as to offhandedly dismiss unconventional strategies whenever someone was in the midst of a brawling scrimmage. Unorthodox fighting styles typically ranged the gamut from the ludicrously idiotic to the perplexingly ingenious, and she herself had overcome enough of them to understand that for all she knew about the sanguine painted artistry of hand-to-hand combat, she actually knew very little in the end. However, someone may have to explain to her what one benefits from intentionally goading and provoking an opponent who just thwacked a fissure into your very soul. The reasoning was lost on the macabre brawler at the moment. But the darkened smile shared between them, was nevertheless as unequivocally truthful a moment that pair have ever had.

Interpreting the bold words from the Frenchwoman as any predatory pit fighter would, Death intended to not leave Margaux disappointed tonight with her adversary's performance. The set-up for the attempted ripcord lariat going smoothly enough with the heterochromatic mobster being pitched towards what would have been a torqued back clobbering, but instead it whiffed above a tucked low Margaux. Who used the reversed tugging momentum and snatched grip on Death's arm to yank them back together but with a riotous right hook getting plunged into the side of the Reaper's facials. Spittle flying to the side as she twisted in that direction with a stuttered step and released Mag's arm to better use her hand in cupping her chin and shielding the bottom half of her grimacing visage.

Finally.

Death Bunny was never going to make this a trivial task for her. Margaux would have been deeply disappointed if that had been the case. She was expecting possibly the most painful, most difficult experience of her life and her fellow revenant certainly came eager to impress. Margaux felt her life on the edge as that lariat came slicing toward her throat. She could hear the bell call for her. The flowers at the abbey. And an excruciating pain from her marked chest. And at the end of all that pain, she finally landes one hit.

...one hit. As if she could be satisfied with just that. It was savory, no mistake, feeling the flesh yield to her knuckles. Feeling the force bite back and send Death Bunny's head flying in the opposite direction. But it was far from an equal playing field, the young mob boss had come to realize. The sight of the phantom reeling and staggered did lend some credence to her mortality. Margaux started to feel invincible, and that was why despite the beating she'd just been given, the striding gait and eerie smile on her lips oozed an unnatural confidence as she approached the Dead One from behind and whispered into her ear.

“I have always wanted to try this.” Her cool breath tickled against the woman's skin. The Frenchwoman leaned in and tucked her head underneath the phantom's arm. One arm would come around to wrap itself around Death Bunny's waist. The other would find a lower path around the heavyweight's bodacious posterior and cup a firm grip on her inner thigh from behind. Buckling her weight and with a determined cry of fury seldom excised from her angelic vocal chords, Margaux lifted the hopper high into the air and fell backward towards the floor, releasing her grip at its zenith to let her adversary splash backfirst against the canvas from her belly-to-back suplex.

Minute coincidences and sheer happenstances were known to illicit changes in Fate's stretched out woven threads, although outright cunning can produce the same results as well. As to whether Margaux's earlier provocations were all, in fact, deliberately perpetrated in the slim hopes of goading Death into a state of overconfidence that invited opportunities for the French-Woman to take countering advantage of...who could say, honestly. Death would obviously rather not think herself to be so seamlessly manipulated like that. Although when you're dealing with someone whose outright mastered that particular craft, then even wraith-like manifestations of our eternal rest can become mere pieces on a chessboard to them. The revenant's regrettable reversal of fortune nevertheless curtailing D.B. of what had intended to be a nigh decapitating lariat in favor of a blindsiding right hook that was drilled into the side of her face. Whatever lingering doubts that Death had as to the ferocity of Margaux's aptitude as a striker were answered in about as blunt a manner as possible.

The Rabbit-Eared Wraith twirled about into a sort of defenseless wobble thanks to the side-winding hook that scrambled her thoughts and unwisely presented her back to the elegant mafiosa. The silken smooth utterance breathed into her ear being forebodingly overheard and sent a rarefied chill down her spine, but whose meaning was not fully registered until she's noticed Margaux's head suddenly become shifted beneath her armpit. An alerted Reaper becoming even moreso from the trailing hands ensnared around her waist and slinking along the contours of her shapely backside before being gripped on the back of her thigh. What proceeds being a textbook and perfectly high-angled suplex hurtling the startled reaper backwards for a savage impact onto the back of her head and shoulders with a guttural groan. A brief extension of her legs into the air coming before a belligerent tumble towards the adjacent ropes on her knees, where D.B. reflexively slouched herself against with seething discontent and one arm slung over the middle tether and the other clamping onto the back of her freshly rattled noggin...

Her first suplex. Cathartic.

Margaux had never trained for professional wrestling a day in her life. Even when she was considering the AFW as a worthwhile investment. She'd witnessed the sport plenty of times in the past; a surprisingly popular sensation in France these days, the break rooms for her lower ranks had a recorded match playing on the television every other day. She could appreciate the spectacle, she loved the theatrics. However, participation simply felt...beneath her. Le Bete de Mende was an identity that relied on keeping up appearances and reminding its investors who they belong to. Pugilism was an art. Performances had tempo, an established rhythm, a sense of respect that was as demanded as it was innate.

Where was the "performance" in this? Where was the beauty? For her, perhaps, it simply didn't exist.

And as strange as it might sound, Margaux was quite content with that. Why would she need anything else? What other way was there to describe the wide grin on her face as she slammed Death Bunny back-first into the floor?

Margaux rolled to one knee and quickly stood up in time to see her friendly Reaper struggling to do the same. The Frenchwoman sneered at her advantage as she approached. Seizing the back of the Dead One’s hair, Margaux brought her opponent’s head up just enough to look forward at the baying audience bearing witness to her fate. Right before she stepped forward and threw an uppercut to the bottom of her jaw.

Clean and crisp. Efficient in its recklessness. Discombobulated thoughts eventually formulating what Death figured was an appropriate grading summation from what she never would have figured was Margaux's suplexing premiere. Being ricocheted backwards as if off of a trampoline with that level of frightening expertise was undoubtedly going to be just the tip of the dual hair-colored iceberg tonight in terms of vexing and unanticipated surprises. Nothing overheard about Le Bete de Mende in smoking circles indicated anything more than a ravenous striker whose as bloodthirsty in the fight-pits as she can be in the corporate boardroom. Addendums needed to be made when it came to Margaux's overall fighting portfolio, it seemed. Substantial addendums.

Warbled disorientation inhibited Death's attempts at a hastened recovery, although the staggered reaper was thankful enough to be in the vicinity of the ropes. A tangible structure to clamp onto, concentrate on, and help demystify her fogged over perception with time. Time it seemed that she was not allotted given that Margaux was back on top of her within practical milliseconds. Death unwillingly obeying the searing strain on her scalp that brought up her scowling visage. A split-second sight being taken of the enthralled masses colorfully expressing their discontent towards the Frenchwoman before the hooked uppercut rocked D.B.'s jaw and reacquaint the Dead Woman with the canvas should the grip on her hair be undone. Twisting over onto her back in teeth gnashing virulence, although perhaps unseen given that her gloved hand was cupping her jaw/shielding her mouth.

Margaux didn’t even care to watch Death Bunny fall to the floor with all the grace of a living sack of garbage. Her strike was perfect, her form impeccable as ever. She could already hear Olivier showering her with an appraisal from the green room. Her hands raised high, welcoming the cheers and jeers reaching her from beyond the cold steel bars.

But lo would she be one to neglect the adorable hare of her undivided attention. She turned her attention back to the Reaper who appeared to be thoroughly confused and aching on the floor. Margaux stepped over and fell to her knees to mount her midsection, only to reach out a tender hand and treat her cheek with a loving caress.

“My poor lapin stupide. I want to see you cry.” Margaux curled her fist tight and channeled a beautifully maleficent inspiration from her giantess acquaintance, River Styx, into her next strike. From her mounted position, she threw fist after fist into the Grim Reaper’s perpetually scowl-stricken face. She struck with the intent of breaking through the fog lingering in the phantom woman’s eyes and ears. Margaux intended to awaken her to a world of pain unlike any other.

Becoming undone by a Foppish Frenchwoman slugging her in the face and getting casually cast aside afterward as if unfit to be in her presence, were all career lowlights. Although, to gleam whatever positive she could out of this sorry display, it helped put in perspective the kind of competitor she was sharing the cage with. Death would have preferred if that cemented encapsulation could have come before being welted and knocked for a rollercoaster sized loop in the process. Getting straddled by Margaux's pert backside came before a dainty stroke that alerted Death more than soothed her. She bristled bitterly once awoken to the sight of the Frenchwoman mollycoddling her, but truly awoke from the straight right mashed into the side of her face.

Death hiking a leg up to bend at the knee on spastic impulse, breathing warmly but whose closed eyes wouldn't need to witness the next strike to catch it by the wrist. A defiant Reaper swiveling her head to center her hollowed iris' on Margaux with unholy elation sneering back up at her. "S'funny...considerin the only thing a pompous tart like you has ever made me wanna do was laugh..." Death grimly retorted before extending Margaux's arm sharply to the side and therefore angling her downward, tucking her head beneath D.B.'s armpit with her hands interlocked for a brutal Guillotine Choke. The Grim One's sculpted legs snatched around Mags' hips as well for some torqued squeeze play now on two different angles from the abruptly resurrected reaper.

She savored the first punch, feeling her knuckles sink into the Reaper’s wanting face. Margaux had dreamt about this position for an untold amount of time. Months, years even. For as long as the Grim Reaper stalked the vast and endless shadows of her organization, the Frenchwoman had relished the chance to retribute every foiled plot and unforeseen complication for which the living legend of the Phantom Lupus claimed responsibility. She would give half her life to live this moment again and again. The instant she dashed those hollow eyes and ugly stoic features beneath the beauty of her strikes.

Naturally, Death couldn’t allow her even that.

Margaux gasped when her fist was suddenly grabbed by the wrist. Only an inch away from her adversary's breakable nose, twin violet eyes opened and stared back at her. A chill rippled through her spine. She couldn't pull herself free. This must have been the sensation of witnessing one's own demise. "Of course you-"

The Frenchwoman was pulled to the floor and those next words were crushed in her throat as a vice grip strangled her throat. Margaux had seen a guillotine choke before but never done by a person this large. This ruthless, this assertive, and unforgiving. Death Bunny's muscular arm crunched around her neck bone and turned the French Madame's face red in a matter of seconds. Her lips sputtered with a breathless struggle. Margaux shoved a hand over the Reaper's chest and slowly pushed herself up from the floor, trying to make as much space as possible from her opponent. As she did, Margaux would throw a barrage of hooks into Death Bunny's side, digging into her ribs with pugilist-grade strikes and threatening to shatter a few flimsy bones if the phantom failed to release her promptly.