Tag Elimination: The Valkyries Vs. Blaise Cameron, Amy Poford & Mariko Ishii

Amy moved away from the ropes toward the center of the ring as quickly as she could, only to be met with the unexpected sight of Stone down and flat on her back. Amy’s career hadn’t been particularly long, but escaping by the skin of her teeth into holding the upper hand was becoming a hallmark of her fights. Maybe this was just how pro-wrestling was?

Seized by a familiar feeling, Amy bounded to where Stone lay. She pivoted on a foot so that she could give a smart salute to Blaise behind her (it was his move she was co-opting, after all), then leaped into the air backwards. On her way down she curled her legs up and caught her feet behind her. Amy was on the lighter side of the Tension roster, but 115 pounds could feel like a whole lot more when it’s being delivered through two hard little knees into an exposed stomach.

Stone knew the pain would be coming soon - she was on the floor, vulnerable, and Amy had proven herself capable of taking advantage of an opening in the past. The only questions were where it would be coming from, and how hard.

She got her answers in short order: from above, and pretty damn hard for a woman half her size.

Amy’s knees came down right on Stone’s stomach, hammering her with all the weight her petite body had to offer. It drove the air clean out of the former soldier and made her fold in half for a painful moment, before gravity took over and dragged her limbs back to the mat. She was hurt, gasping and wheezing, and worst of all, vulnerable. Fortunately, she still had Mako to cheer her on.

”GET THE FUCK UP!”

Yay.

Nice. Amy could hear Stone sputter as she tumbled off of her body and onto the mat. Amy’s knees didn’t appreciate the maneuver, but, compared to Stone’s abs, they really had nothing to complain about.

Despite Mako’s encouragement, Stone didn’t seem to be making her way back to her feet in a hurry, which was just fine with Amy; it gave her time to throw a leg over her prone form. The last time Amy had a full mount on Stone, she’d thrown maybe four or five punches before taking a big ugly right right across the face. The counter had stunned Amy long enough for Stone to clap on a sleeper, suggesting that maybe a ground and pound, at least this early on, was ill-advised against Stone.

But Amy rocked forward with her first punch anyway, swinging her fist down on Stone’s face with her entire upper body. Let’s shoot for six.

Stone's grunts were a mix of pain, exertion, and sheer annoyance. Amy was providing the pain in abundance, the exertion came from her attempts to stop it, and the annoyance came along with the realization that there wasn't much to be done. She would be eating a fist for the next few seconds. No avoiding it.

And, of course, the crowd just had to count along.

"1! 2! 3! 4! 5! 6!"

Stone's was battered about by the rapid fire blow, hitting her with deadly precision and staccato speed. One or two wouldn't have been all that bad, but they came so quick that Stone barely had time to recover after each one, and the damage piled. By the time she could stop it, she smelled copper in her nose. She was bleeding. Lovely.

"Off." Stone grabbed Amy's fist before she could land punch #7. Her other hand went to work soon after, as she brought it up and gave her tiny opponent a swift chop in the neck, hoping some damage to her airhole would make her back off for a few seconds.

Amy was never happier than when she was punching somebody in the face. Just... the whole sensation of it: the give on somebody's face, how strong it made her feel... I don't know man, it just feels right, fuck. It was particularly nice in the ground and pound, and, if the person beneath her deserved it? Well!

It was at times like these that she was happiest for the AFW. It was hard to find a place somebody with her compulsions in polite society, at least not where she came from. Here though, the audience accepted her impulses, celebrated them even, going as far as counting her punches for her so she wouldn’t have to guess at the number later.

Also: Ha! The crowd had started counting right at one; looked like she was starting to build something of a reputation. A crazy-person smile tickled the corners of her mouth.

Punch number seven was killer; the fist started way up by her ear, lined itself up for Stone’s chin, then rocketed forward, blessed with bonus shoulder action to give it that extra spicy kick. Would it be enough to knock the Valkyrie out? She didn't know. But whatever happened, it was gonna be good.

But Stone, who’d struggled to defend against six equally satisfying punches, finally got a hand around her fist (and wrist besides. Girl had big hands.) before it could land, and all that power bled, not into a rapidly bruising face, but into a fast, humorless grip. Amy reacted quickly- she yanked back on her hand, hoping that the steel coil around her right arm could be shocked into letting go. At the same time, her left arm bent back in a guard around the side of her face- she wouldn’t be punched off; not this time.

And she was right. Stone didn’t punch her off; instead, her free hand swung forward in a chop right to Amy’s throat.

Amy collapsed on top of Stone, clutching at her neck and choking for breath. Stone hadn’t inflicted any lasting damage, but Amy had no way of knowing that; at that moment, she was panicked in the way that any blow to the trachea from a woman like Stone would panic a woman like Amy.

Stone saw that Amy was trying to defend and protect herself from the inevitable counterattack. Trying..and failing. She'd had a good run, and Stone would likely be feeling the impact for days to come, but she was far from defeated. In fact, she was in a good mood to demonstrate just how much energy she had left, in the most devastating way possible. "Get. Up."

She didn't let go of the hold on Amy's arm, not for a single second. She stood up, shaking her head to deal with the groginess and dragged Amy along for her every bit of it, forcing her to rise along with her. If Amy was having trouble standing, she wouldn't have to worry: Stone didn't plan on keeping her up for too long.

She pulled Amy into a headlock and drapped the smaller woman's arm over her shoulder, putting her in the tell-tale position for a snap suplex. That wasn't what she had in mind, but it was close enough. With a slight grunt, Stone lifted Amy up, started swing her overhead to complete the classic move...but she stopped halfway. Instead, she kicked out her legs, dropped right on her butt, and slammed Amy's chest down to the mat with a sit-out gourdbuster, making the entire ring shake from the impact.

Amy felt Stone tug on her arm from above, but Amy stayed stubbornly down on all fours, desperately trying to massage away the baseball in her throat with her free hand. She got that they were fighting, and that this was sort of a golden opening for Stone, and maybe it was a little hypocritical of her to think this since she’d be doing the exact same thing in Stone’s place, but god damn. That was really dangerous- how did they know that Stone didn’t collapse her windpipe with that chop?

But Stone wanted them on their feet, so they got on their feet. Amy provided little resistance, too preoccupied with normalizing her respiration to be anything other than acquiescent. Stone pulled Amy into a headlock, then draped one of her arms over and around her neck; Amy continued to clutch at her throat, mind in a panic, breathing rag- oh wait, hold on… uh yup. Okay. So there was still an unpleasant sort of lump in her throat, but otherwise she was breathing just fine. Her fears of a shattered esophagus relinquished its hold on her attention…

...just in time to see Stone lift Amy high into the air. There was a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach at the apex of her climb, above even Stone’s head, like she was skydiving without a parachute. Then she fell back to earth, chest-first, in a ring-shuddering crash. “Aaugh!" Amy held her arms to her chest and curled up into ball. She opened her mouth to breath, but the air just wasn’t getting in her lungs- apparently, the wind had been knocked out of her. Great.

Everything had a purpose.

Stone hadn’t randomly selected to use the gourdbuster on Amy - there were plenty of moves she could’ve done, especially with her strength and Amy’s weight. She could’ve gone for a delayed vertical suplex, or dropped her on the ropes, or just kneed her in the stomach a dozen times.

But the gourdbuster? It was tailor-made to drive all the air out Amy’s body. It was perfect for punishment. If her little opponent couldn’t breath, she couldn’t escape. In theory.

Stone stayed sitting after she landed and reached forward, pulling Amy closer. She forced the smaller woman on her back and pressed down on her shoulders, going for a pinfall. The referee dropped down beside them and started to count her off.

”1…!”

This was it, Amy was done. Stone had Amy completely at her mercy. A few more seconds, and Amy might have been able to catch her breath and stage a comeback, but, with her lungs out of comission, Stone could slam Amy into oblivion without meeting any real defense. Amy continued to wheeze feebly for air as Stone rolled her over onto her back. My bad, Blaise; kind of an embarrassing showing. If she gets close enough, I’ll poke her eyes for you, but that’s the best I can do right now.

But to Amy’s immense surprise, the Valkyrie pressed down on her shoulders to try and end the fight early. It was confusing to say the least. If it were Mako, Amy might literally be dead by now. Amy stared up at Stone. A show of mercy? Was Stone secretly... a decent person?

"No!"

"Get up!"

"Amy-chan, faito!"

2!

The audience tried to rally Amy with their cries, but Amy was plenty lucid. Decent or not, Stone wasn’t pressing her advantage, and Amy liked to win. An instant after the two count, Amy held her breath, summoned everything she had, and rolled her shoulder up off of the mat by throwing her hand straight up in the air, breaking the pin and sending the crowd into conniptions. As she pushed her way onto all fours, then slowly back to her feet, her breathing gradually lost that rasping quality, and Amy took her first full breath in what felt like a very long time. Amy had plenty of fight left, too, and she needed only the slightest opportunity to show it off.

Mercy. That was one way to look at Stone's actions. She didn't enjoy hurting people, especially people she was oddly fond of. Amy was a sweet, innocent thing, and she deeply regretted her getting caught up in the whole mess, right from the start. But Mako was, of course, Mako, and that was the way she wanted things to go. It sucked for everyone.

Another way to look at it, though, was sheer practically. Stone wanted to end this as soon as possible, with as little pain as she could manage. That meant going for a pin whenever she saw the opportunity. But it wouldn't work now. Amy needed a little more coaxing.

Stone glared at the referee, more than a bit miffed, sighed and then she went right back to work.

She stood up and grabbed Amy's wrists, but this time she wasn't letting her get back up. Instead, she placed her knee in the smaller blonde's spine and pulled her arms back, contorting her body with surfboard strech - normally a good way to hurt an opponent, but with the size difference it would be even more potent than usual.