EuroBash 2021 - England Vs Italy

Seeing her Adele-punishing triumph turned to nothing should have infuriated Nicky Gunnery. In fact, it did. To be sure, Nicky was pissed to high hell. Even she was surprised when she didn't rip off her gloves with her teeth, marched over to Adele Monstrosorry, snag the ball from her dumb Anzio Disarbalest goalie hands, and beat her to death with it. It wasn't that she suddenly had magical control over a temper that had been continuously stoked ever since she hit 'reply' to @Adeleboxing, but also because she finally got the joke that had unfolded in the last 5 seconds.

Adele was a much better goalie than she was a boxer.

And when the Italian's chuckle faded and the 'poo poo poo poo poo!" died down and all eyes were on stone-faced Nicky, who had been staring blankly right through the whole ordeal, what did she do?

She laughed. For the second time today, she laughed in a way she had never laughed before, gloves to her belly as she howled her heart out. The stunned silence of the crowd told her they weren't in on the joke. She must have seemed insane to them, so she had to rectify that. She motioned for a microphone and one was tossed at her feet. She picked it up.

"I'm sorry, It just hit me that you're SO much better of a goalkeeper than you are a boxer," Nicky said, trying to keep her laughter from creeping into her words. She failed. "Doll, you should have challenged me to a football match instead. I guess we're pretending this matters now so, uh, Sandhurst Military Paladins. Division Champions. She's from some team from the Asia Diabolists, guys." Nicky said jabbing an excited finger at Adele, looking at the crowd, helpfully relaying what was not heard without a mic. This was the most mic work, press conference or otherwise, she had ever done. She was fully emboldened by the whole absurdity of the situation. The joke was just the tipping point. "To anyone who put money on Monstrosorry over here? You lost it. I'm going to beat her, I'm going to put her down on the mat." Her eyes went right back to Adele. "Then I'm going to tip 19 and a half boxes of Anzio pasta off the top of Mt Fuji into boiling lava-"

"Alright." The referee said, moving to grab the mic. "I think you've-"

Somewhere in the audience, there was probably someone(s) who wasn't following their Twitter feud in the slightest and had just come for a match who had zero idea what Nicky was babbling on about.

Adele was expecting...anything but that. She hadn't known Nicky long enough to know her style properly let alone guess her usual behavior on a warm Saturday evening. There were certain things, however, that just didn't need to be questioned to know the answer. The Englishwoman was vain, impulsive, and proud in a sense that defied all logic. Her temperament in the first round proved that. That childlike behavior had reminded her of her youngest sister, Isabella. She had just taken the wheels off her tricycle.

The Italian had expected a humorous explosion of pent-up frustration and self-loathing. What she received was a hyena on the safari; a greedy, filthy thing amused by the sound of its voice. Adele felt her brows raise then suddenly furrow in a lightning-quick shift between confusion and annoyance. Her eyes narrowed to razor-thin suits. The Anglo champion couldn't even resist attempting to bring the audience in on it. Adele couldn't believe they even had the courtesy to put a mic into her fat mouth. You would never see this in Rome. The biggest stage in the world wouldn't satisfy the British ego.

The sense in it was almost lost on her until it wasn't. If Nicky couldn't hurt her, she would go for the next best thing: insult her.

Mature.

She was never going to be content with simply punching her way to victory. No, the blonde wanted to assault everything. Her boxing, her family, their pride, and pasta. And against all of it, Adele didn't have a response. Not a verbal one.

Adele released the ball from her hands and landed a powerful punt before it could even hit the floor. A 40MPH missile of Italian artillery would shoot towards Nicky’s center of mass. If it missed, it would careen clear from the ring and KO an attendant that Adele just happened to notice 0.5 seconds after the point of no return handing out hotdogs with no mustard in the stands.

It hardly mattered for her in the end. The Anzioan would instantly raise her gloves and push forward towards Nicky with the intent of making sure she stayed on the canvas. The official, however, stuck herself between them before that reality had half a chance to pass. She gently went to move Adele back to the center and exchanged glances between the Italian and the Brit. There was at least one person in the ring that was completely over the drama. A shame that it was all far from over.

Nicky had never honest-to-god hated an opponent before. Anger? Sure. Annoyance? Perpetually. Threatened? Consistently. The Boxer's mindset was a balancing act between absolute confidence and the kind of insecurity that made you strove for greater and greater heights. Nicky felt a lot of things during a match, many of them negative, but they were enabling mechanisms to better enact violence against another human being. Once the match was over, everything bad she felt was left in the ring.

Not here. She hated Adele Monstrosorry with the burning passion of a thousand suns. If she had the infinity gauntlet right now, she would snap her fingers and kill off all pasta in the universe right before the anzoian's eyes. Unfortunately, she wasn't a giant purple Josh Brolin with a weirdly simplified take on how mass genocide affected population dynamics, so she settled on glaring and glaring and glaring as the referee tried to pry the mic from her hands. Eventually, she relented and the moment the ref moved slightly back, something fast and blurry came hurtling in her direction.

She was no goalkeeper. Her first instinct was not to catch a ball, so she twisted her body to the side, letting the ball graze her bare sides-

And streak past the top rope, careen into the crowd, and smash right into an innocent attendant trying to make a living selling food. Nicky abandoned her glare at the chorus of shocked gasps, laughter, and booooos from the crowd, turning to find an attendant face-first on the bench, dozens of sausages and bread strewn across seats and people and floor. Her first instinct was to help. She moved towards the ropes, saw that there was already a pair of medics on the way, thought better, and decided her help could be applied elsewhere.

She reversed trajectories and made a beeline towards Adele, fists raised and ready to finish this.

"You daft cunt!" she shouted. No more mic. No one could hear her. Her words were for Adele and Adele alone. "Did you have to do that? Are you that much of a tosser that you had to drag the bloody help into this?" She was within punching distance but the ref, oh the god damn ref, came between them, keeping them at arm's lengths. Nicky didn't care. She kept throwing, trying to score hits onto Adele around the ref. "You know what?" Nicky said, plastering a vicious grin onto her face. "I changed my mind. I'm gonna feed all that pasta to my cat. Raw. Unvarnished. No, not unvarnished. Salted with catnip, yeah? Chef's choice. Best use anyone ever got out of Anzio in the last few centuries, I gather."

"Corners in 3 seconds or I'm disqualifying both of you."

Nicky threw one last parting shot before raising both her gloves in compliance to the ref's wishes. She backed away, maintaining eye contact with Adele for a few last moments, before dropping down into her corner, where she resumed staring down Adele from the vast distance between their corners.

She made a mental note to remind herself to google whether cats could even eat pasta. Because if they could, Mr. Nibbles was going to be chowing down on Italian ramen for the next 4 months and she was going to tweet every single session and post it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Hell, she'll make a Snapchat and TikTok for this.

Anything to piss off Adele Monstrosorry, certified soccer troll and abuser of attendants.

It did not take long for Adele to regret her decision. Even more so when that decision traveled at 30MPH straight into the face of an innocent bystander.

For a moment, it looked as if the Loathsome Nicky was about to forget the match entirely and leap over the top rope to assist a stranger in need. Compassion? Empathy? Adele was surprised the British woman was capable of such things. None of it made Adele feel any better. Her eyes were wide with shock as she stood frozen on the spot, watching a whirlpool of concerned bodies and medics converge on the disoriented victim in the crowd. She felt sick to her stomach. Suddenly, the dark shadow shrouding tonight’s match had fallen over her, and Adele was realizing the consequences of their actions.

That flipped on a penny when Nicky turned right back around just to spit and scream at her. Adele took a step back, bewildered and confused at the moment. But then she just got angry. Who was this woman to criticize? Why was she acting like she didn't just stand there and That person getting hurt was as much her fault as it was Adele's.

The fact that Nicky couldn't see that was nearly making her blind with rage.

"It's your fault for moving, cordado! You are weak and scared! A great big scaredy-cat!" Adele stepped up to meet her at the center only for her advance to be haunted by the official. She wasn't interested in catching a second person in the crossfire, but that didn't mean she wouldn't stand up for herself. "Don't act like you are a good person! You stand there and hurl insults, but you can't take any of it when it comes back to bite, can you?!"

Nicky might have thought she was insulting Adele by bringing her cat onto the table, but the Italian was only bewildered. Her eyebrows furrowed with a stupefied expression dominating her features. Did she really want to hurt Adele that badly? "You...you can't feed your cat raw pasta, you stupid woman! They'll get sick! What is-?!"

This woman had no conscience. Whatever. If she wanted to spend her night cleaning up cat vomit, that was her idiot problem. Adele relented to the referee's final instruction and skipped backward away to her corner. Her gloves rested on the middle rope as she dropped to her seat with her back to the turnbuckle. The Italian had to cool down and clear her mind. This wasn't the time to stoop to Nicky's level and scream like an overgrown child would. Let her talk. Let her be conceited in her usual way. This next round that tune would change very fast.

As a kid, Nicky used to watch a BBC show called the Teletubbies, a band of four colored antennae'ed aliens with televisions in their bellies. Of their number, one of them was called dipsy. He was green, vaguely brown in the parts of his flesh that resembled humanity, and was a vain, self-important, stubborn idiot that couldn't see reason if it would save his life. It was no coincidence that his name was a few letters away from dipshit.

Adele Monstrosorry was being an utter and complete dipsy. If she chose to smack her in the belly instead of tossing balls at one, she would probably have heard the crack of her monitor screen as Nicky tore into her weak television belly.

"Take some responsibility for once in your life, Mario!" Nicky retorted right back. She had no idea what slur to use for Italians, so she went to the first one she could feasibly think of from her old gamecube. Her head was constantly shifting around the moving blockade that was the referee, ensuring Adele could see her as she screamed back whatever insult came to her in the moment. "You all just wave your stupid cheese-digging arms as you talk like this." She waggled her gloves like they were made of jelly. "And talk and talk and talk and talk and then nothing gets done. Win ONE World soccer match and suddenly everyone needs to bow to your unwarranted ego. Well, screw you! They said the french are all talk, but it's really Italy, ain't it? And I'll feed my cat whatever I want-"

And that was that. They went back to their corners, and Nicky spent the next minute fuming, trying to clear her mind, fuming some more, before settling into a kind of tranquil rage as her corner applied ice to her shoulders, took out her mouthguard to clean it, and massaged her. The minute was both the longest and shortest thing she ever had to endure, simultaneously anticipating jamming her gloves into every part of Adele's body and cooly trying to figure out what her gameplan was - which spoke to how anxiously she needed to win this because Nicky Gunnery never gave thought to the opponent's gameplan. She pushed the action and made them skip to her beat.

And when the bell rung, Nicky slowly got up from her corner, rolling her shoulders, and came in as a measured pace - right before accelerating with blinding speed when they came within a meter of each other, sending a blistering set of jabs at Adele to close the distance against her for her true objective: to wrap her arms around her and very deliberately clinch her.

And just as quickly as the clinch was secured (if she were successful), push her back, eating away at the distance between Adele and the ropes.

Add animal cruelty to the list of heinous crimes Nicky Gunnery would have to answer for in the inevitable future. Sure. Why not? It wasn't like these past five minutes had done anything to better her image for Adele.

The Italian could only sit and watch the reason for her anger be coddled and tended by her corner Cree. Adele's family couldn't afford her any such luxury. All she had to keep her company was the searing heat on the back of her neck and the sting of Nicky's gloves against her face. She uncapped her bottle of ice water and dumped it down on her face, hoping to flush the fury and irritation clear from her head. It didn't work.

Why wasn't it enough? Why didn't it feel like she could be satisfied with beating this woman into a smear? Well, it might have been simple in hindsight. Nicky was a horrible person. A horrible person with no manners, no kindness, and no respect for another's heritage. She floated in her own world without care or concern for the people she hurt. Someone like that didn't learn from failure. They deserved to lose it all.

There would be a time and place for all of that. Right now, she just had to win. Keep calm. It's alright. Head in the game, Montessori. Head in the game.

Adele rose strongly in time for the bell. She moved at a steady yet determined pace out from her corner, eyeing Nicky closely as she moved to match her step for step. At least, that was right until the British Bulldog burst into a brisk rush. Adele gasped, barely managing to close her arms in time for the string of jabs that peppered away at her guard. Just as her right arm drew back for a counterattack, her adversary slammed into her with a clinch. Adele felt herself being thrown backwards and weightless, only held upright by the blonde's eerily strong grasp. There was no will of her own at that moment. Only Nicky's power and control forced her to the ropes. She knew that was where she was headed in the back of her mind through the adrenaline and panic. She had been here once before and her body told her how to react.

Adele pivoted on her backfoot at the last instant, seeking to rob Nicky's momentum and spin them both into a clumsy reversal. With the God of Appropriate Timing on her side, she would be the one forcing Nicky's back against the ropes, and where the Italian wouldn't waste any time sending left hook after bitter left hook jabbing into the Englishwoman’s ribs.

When the pivot began and Adele muscled her back to the ropes, Nicky panicked - for all the wrong reasons. Her first thought was that Adele was going to chicken out again like the Italian hen that she had proven to be at every turn; all cluck and no fight. More interested in dancing, dancing, dancing away to a weak, ignoble decision. So imagine her disbelieving surprise when Adele didn't break the clinch, tag her, and bounce away, daring her to follow and waste energy, but instead went on the offensive; she kept the clinch going.

She could work with this. She didn't really care about the position. Her only concern was only ever to get the Italian coward to fight back like a cornered rat.

And without being cornered, she did.

The first hook caught her unprepared. Adele's fist plowed deep into her ribs, digging in with agonizing pain. Nicky folded forward onto Adele's sweaty, nearly spitting out her mouthguard. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought about what a horribly humiliating way this fight would end if she gave here in round 2 after that show of spiteful bravado at the end of the last one, and that potential bit of humiliation (along with a healthy dose of adrenaline) was what drove her to brace herself for the second hit, as she brought her fist back to hammer Adele right in the exact mirroring rib with a hard hook.

Again.

And again.

And again, even as Adele would presumably return fire.

She jerked her forehead against Adele's, repositioning herself so that she was staring right into Adele's eyes for this endurance contest, their noses smushed against each other, their breathes coming hot and heavy against each other's faces. There was no real skill in this, no contest of exchange blows amidst footwork. This was pure and simply a challenge of grit. Nicky was wagering their first knockdown (Or pray, knockout) in this clinch and she was looking forward for the exact moment where Adele's eyes rolled to the back of her head and her weak, pasta-bloated italian body failed her.

Or better yet, Monstrosorry followed her true instincts and chickened out.

Did Adele have a plan?

Yes. Bearing Nicky's ribs one at a time until she fell over and cried like a baby.

Did she think that would happen?

Probably not, but it would make her feel better.

To say that the Italian was frustrated with how the match had played out so far was an understatement. She’d been itching to smash Nicky’s face in for the better of her mornings and nights for far longer than her mother would say is healthy. She visualized an imagined reality of these tense moments again and again inside of her mind. The crushing reality started to press down on her only now in this second round. The vision of the blonde pugilist on the back foot, struggling to breathe and with a glimmer of humility in her perfect blue irises, never seemed so far away.

Adele slammed her head into Nicky’s at the same time, meeting the British boxer halfway in a fixed point between them. She dug in, keeping their faces close as her eyes burned close to her opponents’. Adele kept wailing into the noble’s side harder and faster hoping to break ground. Of course, it was just her luck that Nicky would knuckle down and try to beat her with the same strategy. Which was easily the worst possible thing for her.

Loathe she was to admit it, Nicky was stronger than her. She hit harder even with less space to work with. More aggressively than Adele could ever manage standing still in this awkward position. The Italian was outgunned, and the look in her opponent’s eyes told her that Nicky knew as much. That acceptance just made her even more frustrated.

"RAAGH!" Adele pressed her forehead into Nicky’s, using every fiber of muscle that wasn’t dedicated to punishing her opponent’s ribs to shove them back. In that half-second of fleeting space that she made, Adele would reel her fist back and throw a concussive strike into Nicky’s gut. That would have been enough to get her to back off. "Figlio di puttana!"

But, as Adele liked to remind people from time to time, she grew up rural. Very rural. She hocked back that frothing phlegm and indignation welling in the back of her throat and spat it directly into Nicky’s waiting mouth.

She didn’t have a plan after that.

Contrary to every single mean-spirited taunt, vicious insult, rude gesture, and aggressive showmanship Nicky had issued throughout the start of her feud with Italy till now, she was not usually a bad sportsperson. She never went out of her way to antagonize an opponent beyond the bounds of sportsmanship. Was she occasionally moody and sullen? But that was one part nerves, one part resting bitch face. She wasn't a creature of cruelty and despite it all, she did not expect Adele Monstrosorry to throw more than mean jibes behind twitter and her gloves. Was she an uncouth hooligan with an inability to give an objective opinion of a football match? Yes. Did she fight like someone who spent all her time running away from her socio-economic problems and blaming others? Affirmative. But would she breach one of the unspoken rules of boxing and treat her at least with the professional respect one would accord a fellow boxer?

Apparently not.

Because the moment Nicky Gunnery had proven herself superior, the moment Adele realized she could not take her in a head-on clash of fists, was also the moment Adele chickened out and sank to the lowest depths of discourteous depravity. In one moment, Nicky was staring into her eyes, throwing punch after punch, each one taken and received coursing through their shared embrace. In the next, Adele threw a gut punch that pummeled into Nicky's bare belly. Painful, and it loosened her grip just enough for the Italian coward to retreat. Pathetic? Sure. But it was part of the game.

Then Adele spat at her.

Or rather, into her. The disgusting glob of phlegm, blood, and saliva sailing through the short distance between them and slipping into Nicky's mouth. Nicky was still for a moment. They were parted now and she brought one glove up to wipe it away in an oddly calm manner....and then she spat out her mouthguard onto the floor, bit into the lacings of her right glove, and tore it the frick off, screaming and charging right at Adele Monstrosorry not as a boxer, but as an angry young woman wanting to kill the frick out of her! The referee grabbed at her, but she was a second too slow, and Nicky's charge would take her slamming into Adele, taking them both through the ropes and onto the ground below.

And Nicky was pounding, pounding, pounding all the way with both gloved and ungloved fists. And should Adele end up cushioned beneath her, she wouldn't be stopping.

Adele didn't know why she did that.

Like she felt compelled to return all of the hate and humiliation Nicky had tried to force on her. It was a small, indecent act that nobody would forgive her for, not even herself. But right now she didn't care about any of that. It felt good. She could be happy about that. Damn the consequences, damn what anyone thought. Gunnery the Coward deserved it. Whatever reaction came her way, as a result, Adele believed she could take it.

Adele scoffed and punched her gloves together, bouncing up and down on the spot. "What? Go ahead! Say something! I don’t give a crap! I’m so sick of you. Come over here and fight already, you weak, pathetic wom-”

Confusion. That was the first thing that struck the Italian clean across the forehead when she saw Nicky undoing the restraints on her gloves, discarding the essential piece of equipment so readily. The next thing that hit her was Nicky's shoulder embedding itself in her gut.

Adele cried out as the two barreled out of the ring and hit the floor just below. Her arms quickly locked together in time to block a stiff punch to the face. Nicky had no problem moving elsewhere as the targets rained down all over her body. The Brit's knuckles dug into her ribs, clapped her on the ear, and sliced her forehead. Adele desperately twisted her body from one side to the other to avoid her strikes and throw Nicky off, but the freak would not budge! It didn't feel like a human being was on top of her at all. She was grappling with an uncaged animal.

"Get off me, pazzo stronzo!" Adele screamed out, still thrashing around underneath the British Bulldog and kicking her legs in a frenzy. She couldn't even see like this! "Get off! Get her off! She is freaking crazy!"