Adrian Kytes vs. River Styx - No Guts, No Glory

Styx weighed, roughly, 200 pounds. Not fat by any measure, mostly muscle, but she'd never relied on agility or speed to win her matches. She typically stayed away from the top rope for obvious reasons, knowing it would never be her forte...but this was a special case, and a special case demanded special approaches. She thought that the Goomba Stomp was a pretty safe move for her to use. After all, she was just jumping down. What could go wrong?

Well, she could miss and snap her ankle, for one thing. And that was exactly what happened.

And moved at the last second, and the impact on the bare mat turned out to be just a little more than her foot was willing to take. She felt a tendon in her knee give with a little 'pop, and then the pain came flooding in, mixing well with the agony she was still enduring from her hurt leg.

It all resulted in Styx falling flat on her back while she pulled her leg in close, nursing it and groaning while she rolled from side to side, muttering incoherent curses.

The impact of River's boots hitting the map bounced Adrian off the mat slightly, jerking the cosplayer back to some form of awareness just in time to see Styx rolling around in agony, which was nice. The brunette needed to see something to put a smile on her face as she tried to recover. "Pro tip." She groaned, pushing herself over onto her front, looking at the hurt brawler "Don't start with the head, it makes them woozy so they can't really feel stuff... like pain... too well. I mean, it's good for knocking people out but hit them hard enough and they forget things... like staying down." She joked, crawling towards Styx. "Legs, much better target." the cosplayer said with a vicious smile, the blood running down her face in a crimson mask.

As if the pain wasn't bad enough - and it certainly was - Styx had to deal with Adrian's taunting to. The little bitch was referencing a movie, though for the life of her she couldn't remember what it was. Honestly, that was even more aggravating than the pain in her ankle.

"Will you just shut the fuck up?" Styx growled, though even she knew how impotent that had to sound at this point. The only thing she could think to do was a tactical retreat. A good idea in theory, but the big problem was that she could barely move at the moment. Styx rolled on her back and feebly tried to sit up, failing time after time. All she could manage.

Adrian inwardly groaned as she started to realize what she had said. Was she really quoting The Dark Knight at a time like this? And doing it badly? "...mangled that quote..." she muttered under her breath as she crawled over to River. The bald brawler was still nursing that leg of hers as the semi-lucid cosplayer started to plan out her next line of attack, reaching out to grab Styx's good leg, somewhat safe in the knowledge that she wasn't in much shape to stomp her in the face for it.

Styx wanted to stomp Adrian's face in more than anything in the world. She wanted to just get the bitch down and kick away at her until her litlte body came to a full and complete stop. Hell, she would've settled for just being able to get a kick in while Adrian grabbed the one working leg she had left.

But with her ankle wrecked, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Instead, all she could do was throw a string of ineffective curses Adrian's way while she took hold. For what purpose, Styx didn't know and didn't want to know. "Bitch!" She tried to thrash around, shake loose, but couldn't put nearly enough effort into it. "Get the fuck off me, goddamn Philly cunt!"

"Nghh..." Adrian grunted as River thrashed around, trying to escape whatever devious scheme Adrian had in store for her. God dammit it was hard enough to pull someone Styx's size around the ring by her leg at the best of times let alone when she was struggling like this, but if she had the energy to at least try and fight back, then maybe the bald brawler had some energy left for other things: things Adrian could make her do to play into her advantage. 

Keeping hold of River's good leg as she pushed herself up off the ground, using it as a hostile crutch to get back to her feet, "Let's see you talk smack with TWO broken ankles. Ah ha ha!" The cosplayer taunted as she pulled and twisted on River's good leg, trying to get the bald brawler to roll over onto her front for the move that won Adrian her first match in AFW: the Ankle Lock.

River's mind had been racing, trying to figure out what Adrian was going for and thinking of some way to counter it. The leg she was holding on to was pretty much the only limb Styx had left that hadn't been battered or crushed or twisted so far, and she was intent on keeping it that way for as long as possible.

Adrian had other plans, though, and those plans seemed to include giving Styx a matching pair of aching ankles, done in the most gleefully sadistic manner possible. If she'd been watching the match, she'd might've applauded the idea. From this angle, though, she was just trying to keep from tapping out for the first time in her life.

Styx started to scream, but quickly bit down to keep it locked in - she'd ceded enough to the little bitch already, wasn't about to let that slide. The pain was excruciating, and that it was the same pain she'd felt in the other ankle just a moment ago didn't make it any more palatable. Having the referee on her knees and in her face was an extra annoyance. "Do you want to tap? Are you okay to-"

"Fuck out of the way!" Styx pushed her aside and tried to crawl for the ropes, madly scrapping at the mat as she went. No, she couldn't get a rope break in a hardcore match, but if she could grab hold, she'd at least have some solid leverage. It would be better than nothing.

Just stay calm... Adrian told herself as River started to crawl towards the ropes, the bald brawler probably knew she couldn't get a rope break in this match but getting to the ropes was still a good idea, get to a somewhat stable position before trying to pull her way out of the ankle lock or something. A strategy Adrian was banking on. 

The cosplayer did her best to keep herself standing as River crawled, keeping the pressure on but stability was her top priority right now, she wanted River in the corner and what better way for that would be to get Styx to want to be there herself! Just a little bit further for the bald woman to crawl before Adrian moved into stage two of her multi-part plan to put a painful finish on this perilous matchup: slamming River's good knee into the canvas.

Styx was a big girl - not quite 'Rebecca Tomko' big, but bigger than 95% of the AFW roster, Tension included. One would think she wouldn't have too much trouble getting to the ropes when she needed to, that her body could cover decent ground with ease. Well, 'one' had never been trapped in a goddamn ankle lock, because it made the ring seem a lot wider and longer than it really was.

Even so, she was getting closer and closer, and for a second it looked like she might actually reach that lofty goal - then Adrian brought the idea and her knee crashing down to the ground in solid move, slamming her leg hard into the canvas and making her wish she'd had the foresight to wear pads underneath the pants. As it was, she had to take the blow undiluted, and it was sent a pulse of pain traveling down her leg.

Styx croaked and her body reflexively jumped from the impact, rolling towards the turnbuckle. It wouldn't be a proud moment, but at least she could limit Adrian's options, there.

"Ha..." Adrian breathed as she wiped the blood from her eyes, smiling as she saw River roll towards the corner. "Thank you," she coughed out as she moved to stage 3 of her plan. Stepping out on to the apron, she grabbed River's aching legs once more and began to wrap them around the ring post and her own legs, trying to tie them up into a nice shape before falling backwards off the apron, locking River Styx into a Figure 4 Leg Lock around the ring post!

She hadn't really had much time to try out this move, it was illegal in most matches and definitely a no go in sparring, but she'd watched it time and again, practiced the movements with a training dummy, it wasn't anything she couldn't do. Just it left her hanging upside down with a big cut on her forehead for all the blood to rush out of. It was probably way worse for River though as her legs were tortured in Adrian's hold.