AV 13 Loser Leaves Friction Match: Cassie Vs. Dark Angel

Cassie's head sagged for a moment before she caught herself. The edges of her vision were taking on a fuzzy blackness as her consciousness began to fade.

[size=90:3cskdxxb]"I..." A barely audible whisper.

She held on. She pushed back against Talia's legs, and in the moments when she let up she tried to make as much space as she could, if only to buy herself more time before blacking out.

[size=90:3cskdxxb]"...Helped."

Talia's leg was giving in. She wasn't sure how much more she could keep squeezing her leg in. If Cassie didn't tap now, Talia was going to have to win some other way. Her grip faltered and Cassie suddenly responded to her. The girl shook her head. "No you didn't," Talia whispered back defensively. She couldn't think of anything to back it up. She just knew it couldn't be true. It didn't feel like it was true. "No you didn't," she repeated and released the hold on Cassie.

Talia grabbed Cassie's head and tried to flip them over so she was on top. She couldn't straighten her body up and resorted to having to lay down atop Cassie to hold her down. "You...you just tried to force me into something I didn't want...you just..." The redhead trailed off as she sloppily tried to punch Cassie in the ribs and face; whichever was more convenient as the seconds passed.

Cassie drew a deep breath and relaxed for a second after Talia finally let go.

"No..." She said, and flopped onto her back. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Talia's fist slammed into her ribs and buckled her to the side. "Aaaggh!" She moaned. She tucked her arms against her sides to protect her ribs, but the next punch hit the side of her head. She gasped.

"You... just had to..." She covered her head with her arms while two more punches smacked into her body.

Talia continued to punch Cassie as best as she could. Her arms were getting tired. She didn't want the girl to say anything. She knew any words that came from Cassie's mouth would be poison. Truthful poison, maybe. But poison nonetheless. "You could have helped me so much. I wanted help. But you..." Talia's punches got more and more sloppy. "You..." But she trailed off once more as one of her punches missed and punched the mat instead.

Cassie cringed and winced with every punch, and during a break in the flurry she peered up at Talia with her green eyes. She was a far cry from the girl who brought her cookies in a plastic tub. Things could've been so different.

"I just..." She whispered. "Wanted you to be sorry."

She jerked her head to the side and Talia's fist slammed into the mat instead. Her body surged after the opportunity, grabbing Talia's wrist and twisting it, reaching around with her arm to intertwine with the others with a firm grip, she twisted Talia's back behind her, and torqued the arm around like she was trying to make the girl touch her own shoulder blade from underneath.

"Remember?"

Talia was suddenly trapped in a familiar arm hold. It was an unfortunate memory and something she remembered very vividly. It was the day she never looked back on. The day she turned into Dark Angel. She couldn't let Cassie beat her. There was too much riding on the line to lose like this. Talia tried to use her feet to slid the two along closer to the ropes. If she could just force them into the ropes then the referee would have to break the hold. If only.

As she flexed her right leg to engage in her plan, it gave way and she just fell right back down. At that very second, her leg hurt more than her arm did. She couldn't stand. And that was quickly changing the more Cassie tugged on her arm. Talia desperately tried to kick with her left leg to move the bodies of the two towards the ropes. She had to do something. There was just too much on the line to give in. All she had left was her career. Without it, she'd have nothing. She wasn't like Cassie. She didn't have a plethora of friends and family to fall back on. Talia was alone.

Cassie craned her neck to look for the ropes, to gauge how far until she'd be forced to let go. She scissored her legs around Talia's good leg, at once securing her position and stopping her progress toward the edge of the ring. Her arms ached from the effort of twisting Talia's arm. She was half-dazed, her head ached, her knee wouldn't carry her weight, she was beaten and battered and spent and none of that mattered if she could only make this simple little Kimura hold count.

"If I break it..." She managed to say through clenched teeth. "You lose more than your career." She did the only thing left, she pulled.

Akashi felt like she lost a hundred pounds just from the nerves of watching the match unfold. She squeezes her eyes when she though Talia might pull things out, peeking through a small slit in her vision. And when Cassie put Talia in the kimura, Akashi was jumping up and down screaming.

" YEAAAAAAAH! CASSIE-SAN!!! BREAK IT OFF! MAKE! HER! TAP!"

Talia desperately tried to kick up until Cassie locked her leg with her own. She was immobilized and Cassie's words only brought more dread. There was nothing left she could do. Her arm was about to snap. It was far worse than a year before when Cassie had put her in the same lock. A lot had changed since then. "My career is all I have left..." she whispered back. She could hear the audience all cheering for Cassie...all cheering for Talia to lose. It was an all too familiar feeling. One which she had thought she could brush off. But she couldn't. She couldn't ignore everything that was happening. She had spent so much time trying to make herself strong. She hated being hurt all the time. She hated everyone being out to get her. She hated herself. Everything that had happened to her all had one connecting factor. Herself.

And Talia tapped.

The ref quickly called for the break and Cassie eased Talia's arm back down to her side, slowly, so as not to cause her any more pain. Her one hand still clung to Talia's wrist, but her body collapsed from complete exhaustion. She laid back and looked up at the arena lights, like neatly arranged stars, every one shining down at the mat, the three ropes, and the two girls in the middle piled one on top of the other.

She hadn't the slightest idea what to expect now. She didn't know what to do, but it didn't matter. She could barely lift a finger, anyway, and soon she'd end up in the hospital being treated for this and that.

"Talia..." She whispered.