Violeta 'Eztlicoatl' Ayala vs. Spider Kikuchi - Tangled Web

”Oh, my, what was that?” Spider had a light, lilting giggle as Eztlicoatl struggled and strained and made the most delightful noises. ”Speak clearly, dear, it's terribly impolite to-”

Spider was in the middle of what would've surely been a humorous taunt, when she was interrupted by - ironically enough - Eztlicoatl’s foot, as it crashed into her face with an overhead kick. It was actually an impressive display of flexibility, and Spider might have been impressed, if not for all the pain in her face, and the seething rage that was following close behind it.

Spider shrieked and released the chinlock, flopping on her back near the ropes. She rubbed her battered features with one hand and grabbed the middle rope with the other, starting to pull herself back up as she shook her head. The little wastrel had gotten lucky, that was all, nothing she couldn’t recover from.

Etzli sucked down a grateful breath as the chinlock was released at last, and rubbed at her throat from her position on the mat. Mrgh. She didn't look like it, but the new girl had some serious grip strength. Probably quite adept at technical wrestling.

Well, what she lacked in the strength department, the luchadora more than made up for with her speed and unorthodox offense. The Nahuatl girl kipped up to her feet, drawing an impressed 'oooh' from the crowd, then hauled back to get her momentum swinging and charged forward, head down, as if to spear or double-leg Spider....but as it turned out, she was actually just flipping her way up the other girl's body. This would've been a hell of a task if Spider had been upright, but she was staggered against the ropes, and so Etzli was able to get all the way up onto her chest, at which point she tried to drop backwards for a hurricanrana. Old school, baby!

Truth told, Spider probably shouldn’t have been all that miffed by Eztlicoatl’s surprise attack. It was hardly the first time she was ever caught off guard in her career, likely wouldn’t be the last. Granted, it had been a good while since someone had kicked her in the face, but she was a big girl. She could deal.

But being upstaged by someone like this -  with her silly moves and her silly entrance and her silly way of speaking and her silly costume and her silly everything - was simply unacceptable.

For instance, when Spider saw Eztlicoatl heading her way, moving at full speed, she naturally assumed she would go for something practical. Something any wrestler would do from that position. A spear. A takedown. A shoulder block. Maybe a roll-up pin of some kind.

What did Eztlicoatl go for? A hurricanrana. A hurricanrana.

Up and over Spider went, with an undignified squawk to go along with it. She could barely believe it was happening even while it was happening, all the way until she came down hard on her back and rolled forward to her knees. She turned her head to the side as she began to rise, trying to draw a bead on Eztlicoatl before she could move into whatever ridiculous manuever she was about to attempt next.

For a moment, as she leapt up and launched Spider halfway across the ring, Etzli felt like herself again.

She spun in the air, turning the hurricanrana perfectly and sending the other girl flying, and almost managed to land on her feet from the sheer momentum (as it was, she was springing back upright within a fraction of a second anyway). When she rose, it was with a sweep of her arms and a huge, dramatic bow - it was actually sort of impressive, despite being from, well, Etzlicoatl, and earned a smattering of applause.

"First blood is mine," she announced, her tone dripping with regal faux-sweetness. "Second, third, fourth, and last blood will also be mine, if you were wondering; all sacrificed to our wondrous solar father."

She wasn't rushing in to follow up. It might've been simply arrogance, but then it might've also been a tactical awareness that she didn't yet know her opponent's capabilities. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Spider was just about to get up and pummel Eztlicoatl’s smug, mesoamerican face in, when she heard the strangest sound come from the audience: applause. Small, short, applause.

Spider was not amused.

Someone was impressed by that foolishness? It was a hurricanrana. One of the most common moves in wrestling, and Eztlicoatl was acting as if she’d just pulled off a Reverse Corkscrew Shooting Star Press. And the mindless sheep were eating it up. Some of them, anyway. Far too many for her tastes.

She shook off the dizziness and focused on what was truly important: tearing this little idiot apart. Spider returned to her feet and charged towards the impudent pup as fast as her legs would take her, throwing out a swift strike towards her face, a vicious jab aimed for her jaw. One way or another, she was going instill some common sense into this woman.

Etzlicoatl could in fact do a reverse corkscrew shooting star press. That wasn't the kind of thing one just pulled out at random though. No, that was the kind of thing one saved for special occasions.

Not that she couldn't use all the help she could get, as Spider was up from the rana and charging toward her a second later. The Nahuatl girl braced herself, adjusting her hands and preparing to tie up and go for an armdrag or something similar...only to be punched right in the face.

Besides her grave, grave hubris, Etzlicoatl's biggest weakness was practicality. She frequently wrestled as if under the assumption that everybody went for the same elaborate lucha style that she did, and when somebody decided to cut the Gordian knot and just smack a bitch in the face, it had a tendency to catch her off guard. As such, she took one right in the jaw and staggered back against the ropes, her eyes having turned to giant spinning swirls.

"Ow."

Spider was, of course, a woman who loved her submission holds and prided herself on vigorous and intricate technique. But, even so, she couldn’t deny that there was something satisfying about just punching an idiot in the face. Visceral, primal, and effective, if well-timed.

From this point, Spider was honestly torn. She wanted to beat Eztlicoatl around some more, really take her time, but the acrobatic Aztec had already shown her potential to turn a situation around to her advantage. Best to proceed in an intelligent manner, with a brutal edge, continue to work on the back.

With Eztlicoatl stunned, Spider had a variety of options, and she decided to go with the one that got her foe down in the quick, hardest way possible. She grabbed the lithe wrestler’s arm, turned to face away from her, and pulled her over the shoulder with one, smooth, continuous motion, dropping her flat on her back with a classic judo throw.

The classic ippon seio nage had put many people infinitely more talented than Etzlicoatl on their backs. It was no surprise, dazed as she was from the punch, that when Spider shot in and flipped her over one shoulder, she went with it instantly. It was a high arc, and made for a cool visual for the audience.

The landing, though, was a different story; Etzli twisted towards her free arm and managed something of a break-fall - although the wind was still knocked out of her, she wasn't in quite as much danger as a person might normally be in her situation. Quick as lightning, she'd shot her legs upward and scissored them around her opponent's arm. It was such an abrupt, forceful upward motion that she was practically balancing on her shoulders within the instant, straining her small frame to its limits in order to get the reach she needed.

Before the noise of her hitting the mat had stopped echoing throughout the arena, the Sanguine Serpent was trying to get Spider's elbow into a fulcrum position on her hips and torque into a painful armbar. The unorthodox offense worked both ways - sure, she could be dropped by a punch to the face, but sometimes getting her there required dealing with a lot of unexpected obstacles.

Spider didn’t really like anyone - in fact, it was probably more accurate to say she hated everyone to different extents. There were a few people however, who’d earned a special level of her ire, and Eztlicoatl was very quickly working her way up that vaunted list. Mostly, it had to do with the woman’s stubborn refusal to simply lay down and take a beating like the dog she clearly was.

When Spider executed her textbook throw, she expected her agile opponent to simply hit the floor, an easy target for whatever hold she could concoct. Not so. The little brat’s legs came up, snagged Spider, and she went tumbling only a second later, falling flat on her back as well. Only, in her case, Eztlicoatl was quick to followup, putting her in armbar and keeping her ground.

Eztlicoatl. Putting her. Into a submission move.

Spider hissed under her breath as she struggled in the hold. ”You realize…” She bit back a grunt as a spark of pain flared up in her bones. ”You do realize I’m going to break you half for this, don’t you?”

Sometimes things worked out surprisingly well. Etzli had kind of expected, given the size disparity, that she'd be able to posture up and balance on her shoulders, but that Spider's eventual strength would have let her either pull her arm free or simply slam the luchadora back to the canvas. But things worked out well for her, and they ended up going to the mat, where she could wrench on the armbar with a vengeance.

"Silence," she insisted with characteristic haughtiness, shoving at Spider's head with the sole of her boot in sort of a half-kick, half-'shut up' motion.

This was actually going pretty well. Maybe she'd had this within her the whole time, and it was just now starting to really show. Her last couple matches had just about convinced Etzli of her official garbage status, but here she was, holding her own (albeit just for the moment, and against a total newcomer). She felt a surge of the old familiar pride; perhaps things were starting to go her way again for the first time since Avalanche.