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

The vibration from her own headbutt managed to hurt her jaw and she quickly regretted such a course of action. Then she regretted it even more when Cassie responded with a headbutt of her own. It hurt even more then that first hit Cassie gave her to start it off. This time around, it hadn't taken too long for the natural redhead to bring out her vicious side. Talia instantly knew she had to win as soon as possible before Cassie got any new ideas of how to hurt her.

With both her wrists being grasped by Cassie, Talia needed a different way to break out. Expecting Cassie to simply maintain her hard grip, Talia jumped off both feet and placed them against Cassie's neck. When she fell, Cassie would've pulled herself right into the heels of Talia's boots.

"Ugh!"

Cassie's hands slipped off Talia's wrists and she jerked back up after smacking into her feet. She stumbled back a step and fell onto her butt, but she quickly pulled herself back up.

She took a breath and tried to calm down and refocus herself. She couldn't help but rub her neck a little, though her face hurt more from Talia's headbutt. She settled back into her grappler's stance and silently set her eyes on Talia while she waited for the girl to be ready to continue.

Talia immediately rolled away and out of harms reach when her wrists were released. She got up ready to fend Cassie off again but the attack never came. Cassie was rubbing her neck. As if subconsciously realizing her own face hurt, Talia rubbed her jaw. She knew Cassie could be ruthless if she had to be. She just didn't expect that to be the redhead's main plan of attack. Talia shook her head in disgust. "That was a low blow." Talia shook off the feeling and raised her arms in the same grappling stance Cassie was in.

She took a step toward to lock the girl up in a collar elbow tie up. Of all the people in the league, Cassie was the only one whose strength she could match in this move.

Cassie raised an eyebrow at Talia. How was headbutting her a low blow?

She didn't think too much of it. She didn't have time, as Talia came in with her hands up. Cassie was very cautious whenever people seemed to want to clinch with her, because so often people didn't really want to. It was a lesson she learned in her first match with Talia, Dark Angel at the time. She certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity, though.

As soon as Cassie's hand clasped Talia's elbow, she stepped into her and turned away, taking Talia's arm over her shoulder. She shoved her hips back into Talia's and with a yank on the arm and a pop of her hips she tried to fling the girl head over heels at the mat.

Talia didn't have any time to properly set up her stance before she flipped onto the mat with a thud. Talia cringed from the impact and slightly arched her back. "Ack!" The redhead realized she was suddenly off her feet and attempted to grab Cassie's ankle to at the very least delay her as she tried to pull herself to her knees.

Cassie hopped on one foot and had to fight for her balance for a moment, before she was able to stomp her foot down on the mat and keep it there with all her weight on it. She raised her other boot in the air and kicked down at Talia's face.

It wasn't exactly Cassie's style, but Talia had only herself to blame for Cassie's increase in violence. She knew she was a technically superior wrestler, and that the danger she posed with her submissions was more than enough to beat Talia ten out of ten times. And yet, Talia managed to give her two of the most vicious beatings she'd ever taken, just by beating more violent, more ruthless, and more glad to hurt her than Cassie was to hurt Talia.

She curled her upper lip into a snarl as her boot slammed down into Talia. She was done playing nice.

Cassie shook herself free and tried to stomp Talia's face into the ground. Such a kick could easily rebreak her jaw and Talia didn't intend to relieve that agony. She caught Cassie's ankle at the last second with both hands. She twisted the ankle sideways and wrapped her legs around Cassie's other ankle to trip Cassie over and onto the ground. Just as Cassie had learned how to be ruthless from Talia, Talia had learned to be technical from Cassie.

Talia tried to twist Cassie's ankle as much as possible while shifting her legs higher up her body for better control of the grappler.

"Ah!" Cassie cried out from surprise and fell onto her stomach.

She broke the fall as well as she could and immediately went to defend her ankle, gritting her teeth against the pain while Talia worked to twist it in a way it wasn't meant to go. She rolled once with it and pushed up on the mat to sit down on her ankle, holding on to Talia's arm for balance.

"Talia..." She said quietly, focused intently on the angles of their intertwined bodies. "Let me help you. When you try for an ankle lock from the bottom like that... it leaves my hands free and yours not, so unless you can get it right away..." She turned her body and grabbed for the back of Talia's head, cocked her other fist and began to rain down punches for as long as it took to be able to yank her foot free and be get control back.

Talia torqued on Cassie's ankle as hard as she could. After only a few seconds of the hold, Cassie started saying something probably condescending that she obviously didn't listen to. She closed her eyes and twisted more before several hard punches connected with her head. "Ugh..." She involuntarily released Cassie's ankle while stunned from one of the punches. Disorientated, Talia tried to shake it off and crawled away with her elbows.

Cassie pounced on Talia and straddled her across the middle of her back. She grabbed her elbows and gave them a yank to flatten the girl out on the mat, and laced her fingers under Talia's chin. She pulled up, bending Talia more at the neck than the back but keeping her safely weighed down, until she had to row back to add pressure to the clutch.

"You told me before..." Cassie said. She couldn't stay quiet. "That no one has any faith in me, but that's just not true," she paused, and listened for the voices of Akashi, John, Ro, Amanda... "People believe in me, but there's no one here for you, and that's sad but you never gave them anything to believe in. I have every reason to stay, and you just have more enemies. I won't let you win."