Escape from Haunted Hill - Magnificent Pendragon vs Scarlet Louise

Theme Promo Vibe:

Welcome Foolish Mortals to the Haunted Mansion Arena! I am your ghastly, ghostly host on this auspicious of nights....

A speaker cracked to life with a voice that maintained a wispy deepness and accent, much like that of a Transylvanian vampire. It had been the cue that Morgan had been waiting for after a brief time. She had been ushered into a tight corridor to await her Halloween themed match and while the wait wasn't long since she was shown inside, it was growing quite boring to hear the same hanging ghost figure drop down from the ceiling and rattle with a ghastly howl.

...You have stepped in and only one will step out this night....

Yadda, yadda, and so on the narrator went describing the rules of their match. Each contestant had a key on a necklace that would unlock one of two locks needed to escape the haunted house. You had to retrieve your opponent's key and maintain yours in order to escape the house. The house wasn't very big being in the confines of Tokyo building complex that had to make use of every square foot (or meters as they use here) in their lease to make a full haunted house like this. It had corridors, stairs, different dark Victorian themed rooms. They did a fantastic job given the circumstances, Morgan thought when she first entered but they paled in comparison to the acres of haunted areas back home to her.

Still though, it would be fun to have a full haunted house function as their wrestling arena for tonight. She wondered if there was a spinning room somewhere?

... Good luck and try not to be scared~

The door ahead of Morgan clicked open and revealed a room just beyond as the narrator finished his introduction. Morgan proceeded in to a mostly empty room...

The Taxidermy Room:

The walls were filled with fake animal heads all made to look a little more menacing then their actual real life counterparts. Birds, bats, and their skeletons even dangled overhead to create that stereotypical haunted house feel. It was so cheesy but soooo great~

That's when the second door clicked and swung open on its own, a corridor that lay on the opposite side of Morgan's, introducing her to her opponent formally.

The Magician herself:

"Oh hey cutie~ Ready to tussle?" Morgan chimed as her opponent entered into the room.

Force the key from your rival's neck, and the door shall be at your call and beck...
Fail to seize the second key, and never again will you be free!

Louise understood that they were going for the "low-budget amusement park haunted house" vibe, but this entire setup was just juvenile and amateurish. Or, at least, it would have been, if not for one little thing:

Louise Vandenbroeck was not a fan of haunted houses.

She remembered traveling to the United States once as a teenager to go watch an NBA game. The game happened to be in October, so she and her friends decided to check out a nearby haunted house. Suffice it to say that the experience was pretty memorable in all the worst ways. So when Louise heard that she'd been booked for a match in a makeshift haunted house, she almost tore her manager Christina's head right then and there. But the impish psychologist had talked Louise into the match, telling her that Halloween-themed matches were a quick way to boost her profile. So, with a slightly less-spiteful shove, she signed on the dotted line, bringing her to where she was today.

Cheap cloth streamers were draped across doorways to give the effect of a mid-century European-style manor. A silver cloche laid on a nearby table, speckled with texturing paint to make it look dusty without actually making the room unsafe to fight in. Countless doors and closets lined the walls every which way, providing a wide variety of avenues to take this match. But in this space, each and every decoration set off Louise's alarm bells. In her head, every streamer had a dead body draped across it, every cloche had a zombie's head underneath it, and every door held some paid actor that she'd get sued for punching out.

As she finished inventing grisly fates for herself to fall into, Louise heard two clicks: One from behind her letting her know that she'd been locked in here for the duration of their match and one in front of her letting her know that she was free to meet her opponent. She walked into the taxidermy room, grimacing at the rather realistic-looking animals lining the walls. A few feet in front of Louise was her opponent for the night, a blonde dressed in a sheer shirt with basic exercise clothes underneath. For her part, Louise was dressed in a black skirt and crop top, intentionally chosen to show off less skin than her primary attire (but not by much, unfortunately). The girl, whose name was written as "The Magnificent Morgan Pendragon" on their match contract, looked a fair bit smaller than her, but Louise's physical advantages would be a lot less useful in this house's small rooms and narrow passageways.

Tonight's Match Attire:

"Hey," she finally called out. "Was this match your idea? If it was, I've got a message for you." With that, she slipped her hand down the collar of her shirt. When she pulled her hand out, two things came with it: First, Louise showed her opponent the small brass key hanging around her neck, as if to demonstrate that she wasn't cheating. Second, Louise showed her opponent her middle finger, as if to demonstrate her dissatisfaction with their arena for the evening. "Piss off with your Halloween bullshit."

Morgan's opponent tonight, Louise was slightly taller and deceptively built. She was probably right about her being a cutie but calling her that was premature as she was all frowns and frustration when she entered the room. One of those "serious types" gimmicks or perhaps more applicable considering her opponent's outfit, she was having a bad day. One of many, it seemed.

That theory was confirmed by the sudden disagreeableness with a rather rude gesture if Morgan had suggested the match. Morgan's mouth opened in shock but she quickly laughed finding the reaction humorous. "Oh my god~ what ever did you take this morning to be so salty about all this?" The blonde gestured around the room in a bit of disbelief. "It's a cute idea and someone really tried to their best with it."

Morgan shifted over to the what was supposed to be a fire place in the room. It had never seen a fire in its brief existence, of course, but judging from the light peaking around the edges of what was likely an imperfect seal to a door, it meant that creator of this match was certainly creative enough. Because why not just paint a whole wall instead of cutting out a section and then placing it as the backing to a fake fireplace? Morgan's attention shifted to the taxidermy animal mounts on the wall, reaching out to apparently idly fiddle with them with one hand. She kept herself turned towards her opponent the whole time.

"Look, try to have fun tonight. That's all I'm saying.... Aha!" Morgan's revelation almost came out of nowhere but an observant eye would have understood what she was doing. Her hand nestled into the mouth of a wolf, finding the grip around a secret level. There were secret doors in here after all!

The blonde, with her other hand reached for her necklace and drew it out, showing her key to mimic Louise's earlier admission. It was hardly necessary given that she wore a see-through shirt but whatever. "But I guess if you want to be so salty here is your key out. Good luck~" With that taunt, Morgan pulled the lever and the false wall in the fireplace swung open.

Their match was live and she had no intentions on just making this a standard brawl. Morgan quickly ducked and crawled through the fireplace into the next room, leaving Louise the choice on how she might pursue.

Louise sighed as her opponent returned her taunts with a laugh. Though she could make sense of what it meant to be "salty," she did internally muse at how silly Americans' insults were before realizing that a common Dutch insult was to call somebody a pancake. Maybe she should tone it down a bit. After all, she didn't hold any real ill will towards Morgan or even towards this match. It was all just so... annoying.

"Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot, let's just- Huh?" Louise's jaw dropped as a secret door popped open within the fireplace! In hindsight, she shouldn't have been so surprised, given that she'd literally walked in here through a bookshelf.  What was more shocking, though, was that her opponent quickly scampered through said door, putting valuable distance between herself and Louise!

"Dammit!" Looking around the room, Louise assessed her options. She wracked her brain, trying to come up with some mental geometry of this building based on what little she'd seen. Maybe she could figure out where the secret door led and cut Morgan off. The effort was futile, though, and much better suited for her manager or some of her smarter teammates besides. That left one unfortunate option: Louise would have to follow through the door herself, further limiting the space with which she could fight and possibly opening herself up to a brutal ambush as she emerged.

Louise dashed over to a taxidermists' desk and picked up what appeared to be a paperweight in the shape of a small animal's skull. Upon further inspection, however, the skull appeared to be made out of some lightweight material. This was a good thing, as Louise didn't want to seriously injure her opponent with her next move. With a growl, the Dutch woman quickly threw the skull underhandedly, pitching it like a softball through the trap door! While the move would certainly give her impending arrival away, she hoped that it would hit or at least surprise Morgan on the other side of the door. Louise quickly swung herself on the mantle, hoping to make it through the door without getting attacked.

Morgan was quite spry in tight spaces. It came with the nature of her escape artist childhood, really. So when it came to tunnel crawling, she was through in a flash. Her opponents attempted and hasty attack was far too late as the escape artist had already cleared the tunnel and was into the room beyond.

It was a bedroom, at least attempting to present itself as one but the bed, a normal double sized bed with bannisters and even cheap curtains, took up far too much of the small room. Although that gave her an idea.

She climbed up on the bed and drew the curtains, concealing herself inside. When her opponent would finally emerge from the tunnel, Morgan would leap out in a sudden surprise.

“Boo~!” She’d playfully tease. A pillow case expanded in both hands to create a perfect person sized hole to allow her to drop it around Louise and trap her inside the pillowcase!

Finishing her swing through the fireplace, Louise landed in a kneeling position, looking up in preparation for a potential strike from her opponent... only to have Morgan nowhere to be found. Still wary of an oncoming ambush, she glanced around the small room. Most of the floor space was taken up by the double-sized bed centered along the far wall. The rest of the wall space was occupied by portraits, curtains, and a few doors. Louise didn't want management to get the wrong idea, but even she could recognize how useful a bed could be for a high flyer who didn't want to injure her opponent. She went through a catalogue of moves, planning for what she'd spring onto Morgan when she saw her: a flying cutter, a simple tackle, a jump kick, a-

"Boo~!"

"What the-?!" Louise barely had enough time to get out a few words before Morgan sprung something on her first! Just as the Scarlet Streak turned to face the source of the sound, her world fell into black. Flinching for a moment, though, Louise quickly came to realize that there was no accompanying shock of pain with that darkness, and that she was still very much conscious. She waved her hands around at the fabric that seemed to be draped around her, only to be blocked by the small size of the... "Is this a pillowcase?"

Eventually, Louise managed to shrug off her fabric prison, immediately throwing her back to the wall and taking stock of the situation once more.

The games were not finished with just a pillowcase. This was a wrestling match, mind you, and it would not do to just dump a pillowcase on her opponent.

When Louise would free herself up against the wall, Morgan would be there in front of her. Not facing her directly but instead the blonde was reaching over her shoulder to try and grab Louise and pull her over her shoulder (along with some proper positioning on Morgan’s part) to flip her opponent over in a snapmare onto the bed.

The distance to the bed proper was a bit clumsy though so if Louise hit the wooden edge so be it. Regardless of the happy landing or no, Morgan would be quick to follow leaping up and dropping her elbow on top of her opponent with a satisfied smile.

She’d giggle as she land on the bed tussling around and attempt to grab her opponent and playfully shove her off of the bed if Louise didn’t fight back. “You’re really just gonna take it, huh~” The blonde teased making light of the scenario and her opponent in as well.

Louise was not having a good time right now. Just in the first few minutes of the match, Morgan had toyed with her time after time. First, she'd laughed at Louise's pissed-off tone of voice. Then, she'd led her on a wild goose chase through a hidden door. And now, there was whatever the heck this was, blinding her with a pillowcase.

As Louise tossed the fabric case off of her, she was suddenly tugged up and over Morgan's shoulder, landing on the bed with a frustrated grunt. Because she was used to flying through the air, however, neither the flight nor the landing was enough to faze her. As Morgan leapt after her with an elbow out, Louise growled and braced herself. Right when Morgan made contact, Louise simply played through the pain and wrapped her opponent within her arms!

She would then attempt to use her superior strength to bridge off the bed and flip the two of them over, effectively straddling Morgan with her strength and size! Assuming she was successful, Louise would try to pin Morgan's wrists to the bed with one hand and reach for the key with the other.

"Just gimme the damn key!" she barked at Morgan. "You're really pissing me off, so don't make this any harder than it needs to be!" If Morgan would squirm and resist her grasps, Louise would try to break her guard with a surprising open-handed slap to the face -- not too hard, but just strong enough to show the girl who she was messing with.

This was so preferable to just a stuffy old match, Morgan thought as she rolled around on the bed with her opponent. It wasn't really comfortable but the novelty that she was being paid to play around was amusing. It felt like one of those cheesy girl sleepovers in the old 90s movies with all this play fighting. She couldn't help but giggle at how silly the whole thing felt, imagining the slasher in this film would be showing up right about now.

There was no killer in this place aside from Louise's attitude killing the mood somewhat. Her opponent certainly had some hidden strength as Morgan found herself pinned after their brief tussle, arms pinned above her head. "Oh no~ you got me~" Morgan wafted her voice airing it out like she was some damsel. Yet when Louise went for the key, Morgan obviously began to squirm around to prevent an easy go of it.

Yet miss "stick-up-her-bum" clearly was still taking this waaaay too seriously. That harsh slap to the cheek as a good evidence of that "killing the mood" thought earlier. Morgan's head twisted to the side form the impact as she felt the sudden jolt that a slap like that would have. She was surprised, more than anything else, but it certainly hurt as well.

"Wooow.." Morgan aired, tone drenched in bitterness as she rolled her eyes. But fine, if she wanted a serious showing, Morgan would step up. A pin like this on a bed was an easy warmup for a professional escape artist, she'd just have to wiggle her legs up as she thrashed around. The bouncing on the bed gave Louise little hops where her weight wasn't pressed down so it was an wouldn't take a much for one of Morgan's legs to lift up, knee curling on the blonde's chest. The flat part of a shoe awaited Louise as Morgan rocketed her leg in a kick right at her opponent's chest to try and throw her off.

"What part of 'having fun' did you not understand?"

Louise was just as surprised as her opponent seemed to be at her slap. If she'd just been focused on winning the match, she would have transitioned into some submission hold or, at the very least, used a real strike against her rival. But no, she'd used such a catty, unprofessional move instead, and it was laden more with anger than anything else. So when Morgan's simple slip-away-and-shove maneuver pushed her off the bed effortlessly, all she could do for a moment was blink in surprise and annoyance.

To be fair, though, Louise definitely felt a fair bit of anger. "I missed the part where 'having fun' means letting you make a fool out of me!" she growled, taking a step towards the bed before leaping up. Her legs shot out as she went into a flying dropkick! The small bedroom was unfamiliar territory, however, and Morgan seemed to be a trained escape artist. If the move didn't connect, she'd probably fly right to the other side of the bed and bounce right off. Nonetheless, she figured that if she had an opportunity to take advantage of her high vertical in this small house, she should take it. The rest could come later.