Avalanche 2023: Friction World Title Match: Rebecca Tomko (C) vs Lucia Lynch

With a glimpse of the trickle of red even the most gullible of officials could see that something fishy was going on in this match, especially with how the Amazon had made a big show of limping away from the car crash of a spinebuster only to be walking more normally once in the ring. Even the champ had a moment of doubt where it looked like the dastardly duo had overplayed their hand "We smashed heads on the outside, shit happens." Rebecca waved off the referee's complaints as she moved in on Lucia, hoisting the groggy and bleeding fighter off the ground and up on to her shoulders back-first. The Lone Wolf wasn't the only one who could do submission moves in this match.

The bigger woman wrapped her arms over Lucia's neck and thigh and started to pull down, bending the challenger's spine over her shoulders in a painful torture rack as payback for the many ways Lucia had both frustrated and hurt the champion. It had been a long time since she'd put this hold on anyone but the novelty was probably of poor comfort to the movie star suffering it.

As she lay upon the mat, she slowly stirred back to life. She turned away from staring up at the lights and felt that sensation of something moving across her face shift. The actress brought a hand up to wipe at her face, unsure of what it was. Sweat? Her fingertips touched wetness and swiped at it, leaving a smear of red across her brow as she pulled her hand back to look. She saw the crimson on her fingertips, the fainter streak along her palm and took a moment to have the realization it was blood. Her blood.

She had bled for the movies often, but it was generally stage makeup and dyed corn syrup mixtures. Even in the cases of her stunts gone wrong she had only been left with killer bruises. She had never actually spilled her blood in her career in any meaningful way.

“Huh…” The actress remarked in a slightly thoughtful tone as she turned over her hand, fixated on the new hue that graced it. It felt different than she expected, more of a numbness than a placeable pain…

Rebecca cast a dark shadow over her as she lay on the mat, having remained where Adrian had left her in her dazed stupor. When the bigger woman reached down to grab hold of her, there was a weak attempt to stop her. A flail of hands slapping at those thick muscled arms like a child slap fighting on the playground. Without much actual issue Lucia would be hoisted up and draped across Rebecca's shoulders, firmly locked in place as her neck craned, back arched, and leg bent to their limits to facilitate the raw power on display from the champion.

“Get…off… fuck…” Lucia hissed as she squirmed and struggled. Her body was well and truly stuck leaving her with nothing but her freed limbs to work with. She clawed her fingers at the arm around her neck while the other blindly flailed in an attempt to strike at Rebecca with an open palm and wide arcs. She kicked her unsecured leg hard, trying to swing it as hard as she could muster. There was no hope of breaking free from her power alone, she had to hope that if she made it too difficult to keep hold of her that Rebecca might let her go. While Lucia wasn't heavy for someone like Rebecca, the work she had done to cripple her base might have made it harder to handle her like this for too long. She had to hope that was the case, otherwise this might just be it.

Muscling someone into the air and carrying them around while putting the hurt on them was how Rebecca got in to AFW in the first place although no-one ever made it easy for her, the amazon had to adjust her grip every time the Lone Wolf looked like she was about to wriggle out instead of pulling down harder and bending Lucia's spine like a slinky. The striker's flailing limbs had none of the precision that had made Rebecca's match a pain in the everything but even a glancing blow made things worse, especially for the ref who was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when checking for a submission as Rebecca turned and walked around the ring hoping to keep the hold on only for the Lone Wolf's earlier actions to pay off when she needed.

The champion stumbled as her knee twinged, the woman's full weight hitting the ropes while she fought desperately to stay upright instead of turning into a one-woman Jenga tower on the brink of collapse. Where the challenger landed was out of Rebecca's hands, literally considering the amazon needed both of them to clutch at the top rope, leaving Lucia's fate up to luck and her own agility if she wanted to avoid taking a spill on the arena floor.

Lucia's strained whine filled the air as her futile attempts to wiggle free were met with unyielding resistance, her body contorted against the grain to its most extreme limits. The intensity of the pain was overwhelming, enough to blur her vision with involuntary tears. Every nerve screamed in protest, her fingers twitching with the agonizing urge to tap out or scream in submission. She had entered this fight with a nonchalant attitude, unconcerned with the outcome. After all, she hadn't truly earned this shot. But now, in the heat of battle, fueled by grit and a newfound determination, victory became her singular desire.

With every ounce of strength she could muster, Lucia fought against her constraints, her struggles only serving to exacerbate her plight, much to the dismay of her movie studio backers. In the chaotic whirlwind of their entangled bodies, one of her wild kicks found an unintended target, a solid blow inadvertently delivered to the referee who had been observing their bout a bit too closely.

The sudden disruption caused a ripple of movement, and Lucia felt a sudden lurch and jerk before the pressure restraining her ceased, sending her tumbling. Panic surged through her as she flailed her arms in a desperate attempt to orient herself within the chaotic arena, unsure of where she even was in relation to the ring. Onlookers held their breath as she teetered dangerously close to the edge of the ring, the outside looming as an almost inevitable destination.

In a stroke of luck mixed with desperation, Lucia's hand found purchase on something solid, instinctively latching onto a handful of Rebecca's hair. Her arm went taut as she clenched as hard as she could to her only handhold and swung herself back towards the safety of the ring. The ripcord force of gravity and her own momentum straining her arm as it violently tore her away, taking with her a few strands of the amazon's hair as a souvenir locked within her white knuckled grip.

True salvation however it was not as she was dumped onto the unforgiving ring apron. The impact reverberated through her body, a sharp crunch accompanying the scream of agony that tore from her lips as searing pain shot up her hip, which had borne the brunt of the fall.

Rebecca felt the pull on her scalp and winced while Lucia struggled not to fall over 10 feet down from the Amazon's shoulders to the arena floor below, the challenger doing everything she could to remain at least partially in the ring while giving the champ even more trouble as Rebecca tried to stay inside. Her neck was strong but it wasn't strong enough to deal with a full grown woman hanging on by the hair! It was a relief when the dyed hair finally gave way under the pressure after what was in reality barely a second but had felt much longer letting Rebecca stagger away to re-asses the situation. The ref had gotten clonked in the head by a flailing limb and was trying to recover from their glass jaw (which seemed to be a requirement for officials these days) and despite her best efforts to save herself the Lone Wolf had landed awkwardly on the apron. Hobbling back across the ring with a nasty plan in mind, Rebecca started to build up speed as she hit the ropes, ready to launch herself back at the recovering Lucia. It wouldn't be a fast charge but the momentum of a 240 pound woman was hard to stop.

And when Rebecca had a nasty plan it was all but guaranteed that Adrian was on the same page, having taken the opportunity with the hurt official to scurry up the steps and shuffle along the edge of the ring "Come on, up you get..." Adrian breathed, trying to keep her voice low on the off chance the dazed official would hear her and do something about what devious trick the veteran was playing this time. Once again, the brunette was helping the challenger get back in the match by lifting her up to her feet! Nothing untoward here! Except for the part where she was not so-subtly trying to trap the Lone Wolf's wrist in the ropes so that she was a sitting duck for when Rebecca came charging back.

Those who were unfortunate enough to have purchased seats behind Bethany were perhaps having feeling of buyer's remorse considering that in between the main event becoming intermittently besmirched by Adrian's blatant interference they were incapable of actually observing the match whatsoever. Bethany's sign occasionally obstructing their view whenever the dominatrix saw fit to showcase her wolfen pride for her fellow actress to the entire world, jubilantly bouncing on her tip toes from her primo seat in the front row whenever Lucia garnered any foothold in the world championship match. The whirlwind press tour for the premiere of Full Moon Rising, rife with media junkets and gabbing on early morning talk shows, culminating on the grandest stage of them all. The studio's marketing department working alongside the General Manager of Friction to concoct this entire venture in a masterful bit of dual brand promotion, and while box office predictions already had FMR on track to shatter opening weekend records for the first time probably in her entire professional career, Bethany was concerned with something beside ascending towards the heights of Tinseltown stardom...

"WOOO!!! WOLFIE,WOLFIE!!!!!" Bethany's promise to maintain a low profile throughout the match and not embarrass the dickens out of Lucia not exactly panning out as she may have hoped with her co-star dressed in figure fitting jeans and a "Full Moon Rising" t-shirt. Butterflies swirling around in her stomach since the pre-show matches with Beth on the literal edge of her seat every since the bell rang as she witnessed her wolfie be on the receiving ends of strikes and submissons that she herself doubted she could withstand. Still, hope sprang eternal all throughout as she willed her friend onward through this adversity in the hopes they could still take some steamy pictures with the WC belt on Instagram after the PPV...but Adrian's aforementioned interference was beginning to spark righteous indignation within her, a sentiment shared by audience members booing the Bullet Club leader. Bethany glowering from the injustice, the weathered fatigue on Lucia's face. Logic and inhibitions dictated she continue playing the helpless observer, except those thoughts were practically left in her now vacant seat as she long since leapt over the barricade, climbed the ring apron, and wound back her leg for an attempted super kick to the side of Adrian's head!!!

Adrian was expecting consequences for her villainous actions. She was experienced enough to know that at some point the bullshittery would come back to bite her in a painful way but that was usually as a result of the GM deciding that she wasn't quite retired enough to not throw Death Bunny at her for some match that was going to involve the former champ getting dropped on her head. Again. What she wasn't expecting was a 'fan' to have ditched security and jump the railing in defence of their co-star and give Adrian a piece of her mind. And her boot.

"Huh?" the brunette let out as the crowd suddenly cheered as Bethany "Mistress Paige" ran up the steps and swiftly kicked the ex-cosplayer in the jaw just as she turned round, sending the interferring Bullet Club leader spinning back the other way and taking one big step off the apron... and flopping face-first to the arena floor below. Odds officially evened.

"Hooooooomygoshohmygoshoymygoshohmygosh-" Clasping her head in her hands with gawking disbelief directed down towards the splayed out Adrian, Bethany's blathering astonishment seemed justifiable once the breadth of her actions started settling in. She'd just sucker-kicked a veritable legend within the industry and multi-time champion who was quite frankly lightyears above her paygrade, in the World Championship main event match of a global sporting phenomenon whose viewership ascended into the millions upon millions. Bethany's name started trending worldwide seconds after her sneaker connected with Adrian's jaw as an entire audience cheered her on for leveling the playing field, wrestling fans and movie goers alike recognizing her as Mistress Paige and the co-star of Full Moon Rising. Although the security guards were less enthused about the breaching of the perimeter and were on the cusp of tackling Bethany to the ground when they were informed through ear pieces that she was an employee of AFW and not a deranged stalker. Her status as a roster member enabling her a certain degree of leeway with fines and suspensions the potential punishment for her actions rather than being dogpiled by security.

Bethany's racing heart eventually pumped the brakes enough for the actress to shake her head and blink herself out of her stupor, regaining her sensibilities and opting to treat like this just like her old improv classes. Just gotta go with the flow and make this up as she goes along, that's all!!! However in spite of being the abject center of attention of a worldwide audience, which was in no uncertain terms everything she'd been working for all her life...what mattered most to her right now had very little to do with fame. "Hey come on upupup, rise and shine Buster Brown~..." Bethany encouragingly whispered as she started aiding her closest friend back to her feet, taking care not to exacerbate any injuries as she embraced Lucia closely and quite literally being a shoulder she could lean on. "Now I know I promised not to embarrass you...and I might be stealing the spotlight from you again like when we first met...but you have to admit that you're happy to see me this tim-" Paige's chipper banter ceasing once she noticed with widened eyes the freight train of muscle stampeding straight towards them from inside the ring. A split second decision taken to immediately shove Lucia to the side and put her safety above her own...

With Adrian down for the count there was only one person that the Full Moon Rising duo had to worry about any more. Unfortunately she was heading straight for them.

Rebecca had pressed herself in to the ropes on the far side of the ring ready to come speeding at the soon-to-be trapped Lucia only to watch her girlfriend's assistance draw out support from one of Lucia's friends who sent the leader of the Club spiralling down to the floor "ADRIAN!" She roared from across the ring as she built up a head of steam now freed from any sense of caution. Because of Bethany's actions the charging Amazon no longer had to concern herself with things like 'accuracy', the only people she could hit right now were women she really wanted to smack into a different part of the calendar. "Rrargh!" Rebecca grunted as she ducked low to ram her shoulder through the top and middle ropes, obliterating anyone caught in the path with a vicious spear while she was held back from crashing straight through by the lower ropes bracing against her legs.

Genuine concern would be the lasting expression painted upon Bethany's facials before what came next. Thankfully her career as a C-list celebrity had made her thoroughly accustomed to being ejected from the limelight in favor of the A-tier talent in the industry, but she wouldn't have minded being in the spotlight just a few more seconds all things considered. Her act of self-sacrifice being the last thing she'd remember before she was ultimately proven right in her earlier assumption about being unable to withstand the type of brutality Lucia had been enduring all of this time. Brute force the likes of which she'd never experienced before was drilled into her midsection and sent her flying backward. Ragdolled flaccidity with locks flowing in the breeze whose landing only caused more concern since it was against the back of her and shoulders before bouncing over and spiraling to the side. Bethany ultimately ending up at the base of the entrance ramp and seemingly knocked unconscious, laying on her front with disheveled locks and faint trail of crimson on her forehead...