Tasha Jackson vs Makoto Aihara - The Owner's Test

So, Makoto was definitely a martial artist. That had been rather obvious already before, but the way she was instinctively taking up that judo stance was more than telling. It was certainly a threat, one that Tasha needed to take into account.

Honestly, Tasha's blessing was that she had never been one to keep a close eye on the Olympics. Or really any of the other more refined sorts of combat sports either... No, wrestling was her game. The result was that while she had definitely heard her opponent's name somewhere before, she couldn't connect the dots of Makoto Aihara being a world-famous judoka. Had she done so, she would have probably been much more worried.

Now, Tasha wasn't really worried at all. She could just rough her way with the Japanese girl. Powerbombs were just one option to achieve that.

Unfortunately, Makoto was not eager to try one out. In fact, she was apparently so unhappy with the suggestion, that the Alabaman received a stiff strike to the face.

If Tasha had been unhappy before, now she was mad. Taking a couple of steps backwards after the impact, it was becoming clearer to her that Anesthesia's requests could turn out to be easier to obey than she had anticipated. If Makoto stayed on this path, Tasha would have absolutely qualms of giving her hard time.

"OK, if that's what you want!"

Her temper flaring after the strike, the Alabaman tried to quickly take hold of Makoto's arm. Her aim was to send Makoto towards a corner with a powerful Irish whip, and then rush after her to crush the smaller girl's body against the corner with her own.

Hm. Smacking people in the face was oddly cathartic, Makoto had to concede. She would need to start doing it a bit more often.

Not only did it feel good to knock that silly look off of Tasha’s face - like swatting a fly that was buzzing around her ear - but it was effective, too, landing right on target. It sent the bigger woman reeling, and when she stopped, she was on surer feet, looking at her with some real fire. Good. Makoto didn’t come here to be soft-handled, didn’t need to be coddled. She was in the ring to fight, and it looked like Tasha was ready to bring it.

”Yeah, it’s what I want!” She snapped back and moved in as her foe came her way. ”Bring it to me!”

And Tasha, to be fair, did exactly that. The next thing she knew, the bruiser of a woman was moving forward and snatching at her wrist, pulling it away and yanking her along with it. She was sent hurling off, forced into a hard run to the corner, and she had to turn at the last second to hit with her back.

The old Makoto would’ve been stunned, surprised, left wide open for the follow through. Unfortunately for Tasha, this Makoto was made of better stuff.

When her opponent came rushing in, Makoto grabbed the ropes on either side of the turnbuckle, lifted up, and shot both of her legs out at once, attempting to hit her square in the face with a both heels. That would give her some incentive to back off and make the separation that she needed.

As Tasha had stated her dissatisfaction with Makoto's punch, there was a sudden, noted increase in the smaller girl's verbality. Had the Alabaman not been engaged in an imminent attack, she might have paused for a while to ponder, what was that all about.

While her appearance may not have been classically characteristic of the type, the words still implied that Makoto was hungry for blood. Now that was perfectly commonplace in a wrestling ring, but it was almost as if she had the notion of Tasha having done something bad to her. Something that she needed to avenge, or something that required punishing the evil. Obviously, something that Tasha wasn't aware of, as she had never even met this woman before.

But she had met Anesthesia, and based on the woman's words, so had Makoto too... And that could have caused the realization, that Tasha had no way of knowing, what Anesthesia had told Makoto about her.

But Tasha was not in a place to ponder all that. She had to concentrate on beating Makoto down. And she started it off well, sending the girl swiftly to the corner. The fact that she managed to hit the ringpost with her back was a minus though, but the Southern Twister was sure that her body could thoroughly crush the Japanese girl nonetheless.

Wrong. More than halfway through, Tasha saw her opponent taking support of the ropes, ready to counter her attack. But it was too late to stop now. The Alabaman saw as the Japanese girl jumped up, her feet engaging their target in Tasha's face.

In the last second, Tasha tried to arch backwards to soften the impact, but it was just too little too late. Makoto's heels hit squarely on their target. And to make matters words, Tasha's attempt at avoiding the hit only caused her momentum to swing backwards, causing the Alabaman's back to get slammed to the mat after the impact!

There she was now, grounded after her failed attack, reeling as her face was aching from the brutal way Makoto had decided to start off the match. Covering her face with her hands, the only thing the Alabaman was capable of doing for now was trying to somehow roll away from the corner.

”Heh.” She snickered as Tasha fell right into her trap. “Bullseye.”

A small thing, Makoto knew, and far from even having this match under control, but she was more than a little happy when she landed the kicks and sent Tasha reeling. The woman obviously thought it would be a simple thing to roll her over, that she wouldn’t have the time or ability to stop her push, but perfect timing and good legwork proved that wrong.

Down Tasha went, stumbling and falling on that admittedly shapely ass of hers. It left her with a proud moment, getting the better of things, and she was even gifted with the sight of her opponent retreating away from her for once.

Now, the question was simple: what to do with this?

It was tempting to just go after her and do some sort of hold, and Makoto was tempted to try that. But here, in the corner, she got a bolder idea. A wilder idea. A better idea. It was risky, but not taking risks was one of the ways she’d ruined her life up to this point. No more of that.

So, instead of going down, Makoto went up, climbing on the turnbuckle, reaching the very top. She took a moment to gauge the distance and steel herself, and then she leaped off into space with her arms out and her legs stretched, attempting to come down on Tasha with her full weight, coming down with a modest attempt at a Splash. She wasn’t a highflyer by any means, but it was far from the most complicated maneuver.

Tasha struggled to believe what had just happened. Based on how her opponent looked like, it should have been her downing her smaller opponent in no time. Not the other way around. Not like this.

Now that she was down and reeling she did have some time to ponder though. Maybe there was something indeed to this woman after all. Maybe she was serious threat to her. Maybe she was indeed some twisted sidekick of Anesthesia, who was at least as evil as her boss was awful. Maybe this was all just some twisted game.

This probably was just some twisted game. But Tasha was in it. And there was no escape. She just had to make Makoto fall in one way or another.

Lifting her head up a bit, the Alabaman checked her palms that the blows to her head had not gotten any blood running. That was good. And even the level of pain from the blows was by now only barely surpassing the anger that had been building inside her head.

As Tasha turned around to scan where Makoto was at, she found that the Japanese girl had already decided to check out the sights from the top of the turnbuckle. But instead of casual sightseeing, her interests were on the extreme sports side of things as she leaped towards her opponent...

It was all too fast for Tasha to form a plan, but she did have a couple of seconds to react. She did manage to get her arms out to receive Makoto's body, rendering the blow of the Splash nothing that she couldn't live with. Nothing that would blow the air out of her. And what was even better, she did get a good opportunity to wrap her arms around her body...

Less affected by the Splash as Makoto would have probably hoped, the Southern Twister would then try to twist her body so, that she could roll and throw the Japanese girl to a prone position beneath her. From there, she could try to get her in a Camel Clutch hold. And that could be perfect for some discussion...

”Shit!”

Cursing was a new thing in Makoto’s life, but one that she’d become more and more comfortable with in recent weeks. Her hangups on them seemed so silly in retrospect. They were just words. Words in English, as a matter of fact. This was a wrestling match, not a formal ball, not a church. Why should she care about being proper.

Beside, profanity worked very well to describe certain situations, like the one she was currently in. Flying through the air, heading towards a target that was no longer in the position she needed it to be. ‘Shit’, indeed.

Instead, Tasha had her arms wide open, ready to receive her with a big hug. One that Makoto leaped right into.

She didn’t stay in Tasha’s arms for long, but that was more of a curse than a blessing, since she wound up getting flung to the floor soon after, and soon after that she had her opponent on her back, pulling her up into a tight camel clutch.

And the match just started. Great. That fact alone was enough to send Makoto into a growling fit, kicking her heels about and gritting her teeth and thrashing in a furious attempt get free. ”Let go! Let! Go!”

Tasha might have gotten caught off guard with the sudden danger from the sky falling towards her, but her preparedness actions kicked in just in time to turn the threat into her favor. Instead of settling with being a vulnerable target for the the Japanese girl, she welcomed her kamikaze attack with open arms. Makoto might have gained the first strike advantage, but the Alabaman's defences were still strong enough to capture the threat.

It was quite corny, really. Makoto had so far been all about striking her and kicking her in the face, but Tasha just wanted to hug.

Granted, the hug had its reasons. And it achieved its desired effect. It was all too easy for Tasha to set up her arrogant opponent into the Camel Clutch, which in turn seemed to get Makoto's verbality on the rise even before one single question had yet been presented.

"Oh, so now you're talking?" the Alabaman began her rant, attempting to keep the Japanese girl under her control firmly enough to keep her in place, but simultaneously keep the submission hold loose enough to enable some discussion.

"So you think you're that tough, huh? Just coming in my face like that? You ain't got no survival instinct, girl? Or do you really just want me to beat you up, huh?"

All of those questions were meant to vent the Southern Twister's frustration on Makoto's behavior so far in the match. But she did still have some genuine ones too regarding tonight's match still remaining to get answered. And she was going to ask them, even with the risk of her "owner" possibly not being happy with hearing them...

"So, you know this Anesthesia then? Are you some pretty little sidekick of her's? What'd she told you to do?"

Ugh, this move. Makoto had been in more than her fair share of Camel Clutches in her day, and she hated it more each time. It wasn’t just the pain - though, yes, it did hurt, more than usual when you had a heavy hitter like Dixie Clemets or the bruiser on top of her right now.

It was a good move, and she didn’t think there were too many way to make it even more aggravating than it would be otherwise, but Tasha found a way.

The talking. God, could she do without the talking.

The taunting was annoying for a variety of reasons, not the least bit being that it reminded Makoto of her boneheaded mistake. One little error, taking her situation for granted, and this was what she’d found herself in. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Should’ve gotten Tasha on the mat and locked her into a submission, picked a limb and just gone to town on it. She would. The first chance she got, she grind her into dust. But, until then, she had to put up with this crap.

And then she went and mentioned Anesthesia.

Makoto jerked up in surprise - as much as she could in her current state - when that name reached her ears, surprise took hold. What was she going on about? A sidekick? She was acting as if she knew something about what happened between the two of them, as if it was any of her business…

She wanted an answer? She’d get an answer.

Makoto took a quick glance at the referee, made sure she wasn’t looking straight at her.

Opened her mouth.

And bit Tasha’s hand. Hard.

Sure enough, the match had gotten well going by now, and Tasha could have just concentrated on her mission - beating her opponent to pulp. That at least clearly was what Makoto was interested in doing... But the obscurity of the purpose and setup of tonight was still plaguing her, and she did have a good chance to twist some answers out of her opponent.

None were available. Granted, the first five questions she had presented had been more of rhetorical ones. She didn't really expect a reply to them, unless the respondent was somehow desperate or weak, and begging for a release. And it was obvious, that this match was still very far from that point.

Not that Tasha would not have been determined to get there as fast as possible...

Based on Makoto's reaction however, the Alabaman's last three questions were apparently very much meaningful for both parties of the fight. And frankly, Tasha even got her hopes up for getting some actual answers for them. It was obvious that they had struck a nerve, and her mission now was just not to release the Camel Clutch until she had heard everything she wanted to.

As if. Apparently Tasha was not the one with better imagination this time.

No answers, only bites. Or rather, one big, hard bite. Big and hard enough to bite off Tasha's motivation to keep up with the Camel Clutch.

After her scream of pain, Tasha dropped Makoto's body to the mat, getting immediately back up standing. But she was going to show her discontent towards her foe's chosen path by stomping her foot abruptly on the girl's upper back.

And yes, accompanied by some talking.

"Come on! If you were that hungry for fingers, you should have gone to KFC instead of showing your sorry ass here!"

Guess that did for venting. Tasha then shot an angry look at the ref, feeling extreme urge to complain her about Makoto's actions. But she didn't. Her mission was to give Makoto hell, and she did not want to look like a cry baby doing so.

Makoto could only imagine how the judges would react if she did something like biting in one of her Olympic matches. Disqualification? Oh, yes, certainly, but that wouldn’t be the end of it. She’d be chastised by her teachers, clearly. There’d be this big thing over the internet, with all these chatrooms and message boards and Twitter, talking about her like they knew her and what she was going through, speculating about things they couldn’t possibly understand. There’d likely even be talk of stripping her medals away. Shame. Infamy. Disgrace.

But wrestling was a different sort of beast, and it was one that Makoto was going to master. That meant knowing what she could and couldn’t get away with, taking full advantage of the match type. Hardcore matches gave her a full range of options to work with, why not take advantage. The referee gave her a disapproving look and the crowd voiced their disapproval with boos and disbelieving looks, but so what? Good strategy.

Makoto chuckled as Tasha shrieked and let go, and sighed as the pressure on her back was alleviated - the respite was brief, however. Before she could even think about getting back up, the big bruiser of a woman planted her boot into Makoto’s spine, hammering her into the match. The judoka started to scream, before she clamped her mouth shut and kept it all inside. Not giving her the satisfaction.

For now, Makoto’s thoughts were on getting back into the fight. Tasha was strong, that was obvious, and she had some real wrestling skill, but Makoto was sure she could break her apart if she could just get the woman on the mat with her on top. How, though? That was the big question.

It was one she pondered as she rolled away from her foe and made her way to the ropes, using them to pull her way up. Whatever her play would be, it would have to happen with her on her feet, and she would have to ignore her back’s protests for the moment.