Adrian Kytes & Rebecca Tomko vs Zarya Volkov & Isa Kubota: International Action

Adrian kipped up with a smile on her face as Isa slapped the mat in frustration. It might not have been as impactful as kicking the Japanese woman in the face but the breakdown of her opponent's previous pretence to being stoic was a level of catharsis all of its own. Or maybe it was schadenfreude. Either way it felt great as the former cosplayer opened her arms wide and shrugged her shoulders, the body language equivalent of a humble-brag before going back to the grappling.

Well that was the plan at least before Isa kicked her in the gut to her pain and her partner's annoyance. "God dammit..." Rebecca sighed from the sidelines, propping an elbow on the corner post as she watched Adrian get yanked into a tight headlock, twitching at the knowledge that if Adrian had kept her ego in check, she could have caught that kick and stayed on the attack instead of being stuck in the current situation.

"M- moral victory!" Adrian grunted from her precarious position, she had technically won the opening grappling by not being the first to resort to strikes. Small consolation in the headlock.

"Moral victory?" Kubota sneered, pointedly trying to ignore the uncomfortable truth of Adrian getting the better of her in the early going. "Very well. You keep your moral victory. We're after the real thing!"

Isa threw a glance over her shoulder and Zarya caught the signal almost at once. It seemed the only times the two weren't arguing was when they were working in tandem to pull off something decidedly underhanded. In this case, the Russian tried to enter the ring, drawing the ire of the ref who moved to stop her. Isa used the chance to subtly shift the position of her arm in the headlock, attempting to press her forearm into Adrian's windpipe!

It was a blatantly illegal choke, and Isa angled her body so that the ref couldn't easily tell what she was doing. Rebecca, on the other hand, might be able to see exactly what was going on from her vantage.

Adrian had her expression creased and her hands firmly wrapped around Isa's waist as she struggled in the headlock, overall it wasn't the worst scenario the former cosplayer could have been in despite her face starting to turn a lobster-ish shade of red. She could potentially move around the ring, shuffle Isa into the ropes, something like that to break the hold before the Japanese woman made a not-to-bad situation officially a bad one.

"Ack!" Adrian let out as Isa jammed her forearm across the brunette's windpipe, her steady grip briefly turning into a frantic flail before she got her act together and started pulling on the offending arm, trying to get some space and more importantly: some air as Isa tried to choke her.

Strangling Adrian Kytes behind the referee's back wasn't quite enough to completely soothe Isa's bruised ego, having lost the initial exchange, but it did help a little. Besides, it was the one area in which her partnership with Zarya wasn't bordering on complete dysfunction. They were very good at taking cheap shots. Isa struggled against Adrian's efforts to escape the blatant choke, fighting tooth and nail against Americans efforts, widening her stance to keep her balance and make it harder for Kyte's to move them around.

"Alright, alright! I'm going!" Zarya told the referee as she finally stopped arguing with him and stopped trying to enter the ring. It was a signal, and Isa quickly removed her arm from Adrian's throat, settling into a normal front-headlock as the referee turned around. She tried to wrench it in tighter, daring to edge closer to the ebony amazon, Rebecca Tomko.

"Go ahead, just try to reach for her!" Isa teased, trying to maintain 'just' enough distance to keep Kyte's from begin able to actually tag her partner, the Japanese hell mocking them both. "She's so very close." Unfortunately for Isa, she was paying far more attention to taunting Rebecca then she was controlling Adrian.

Rebecca's face was stoic in the face of both Isa's taunts and Adrian's struggles, even if she was tightly gripping the top rope as her friend let out a few coughs when the Japanese woman stopped blatantly choking the former cosplayer. Adrian's face was turning a deep shade of red as she struggled to break free but as she heard her opponent run her mouth, a different idea formed in her head instead of just escaping normally.

Briefly dropping to one knee in a bid to draw Isa in a bit closer to deal with the position change, the brunette would quickly wrap her arms around her foe's legs and lift her up, it would be a strain to do so under ideal situations but Adrian didn't need to go far: just stagger backwards a few steps into the now smiling amazon's reach.

Isa Kubota looked rather pleased with herself, mocking both of her opponents while ignoring Zarya, who was obnoxiously pretending to have fallen asleep in her corner of the ring. The Russian was probably bored and being overly dramatic about wanting to tag in, but why should Isa oblige her partner and share the glory? She had everything under control. At least right up to the point where Adrian dropped to one knee, drawing Isa closer with the motion.

"Just what do are you trying to d- wait!" To her extreme alarm, and to her partners chagrin, Isa found herself lifted clean off the mat by her opponent! She flailed in protest, eyes going wide as each step closed the scant distance between herself and the amazon she'd just, regrettably, taunted. For all her struggles, however, Isa wouldn't be able to escape before she was within range of Rebecca, and could only raise her arms in a desperate attempt to ward off whatever the much, much taller woman might come at her with.

Hands up or no hands up, Rebecca wasn't going to let a little thing like blocking get in the way of her catharsis as she cracked her knuckles theatrically, not after Adrian had so graciously set Isa's formerly smug face so brilliantly. Cocking back a heavy fist, the ebony amazon let the Japanese woman have it with a heavy haymaker, hoping that the force of the blow would blast her loose from the headlock and let Adrian breathe again.

Striking range of Rebecca Tomko was the absolute last place Isa wanted to be under any circumstance, even more so when she didn't have her feet solidly planted on the mat. Isa wasn't the quickest on her feet, preferring to plant herself in the middle of the ring and control the fights tempo. Still, she confidently imagined herself able to dodge and weave out of the amazons range. A woman that big *had* to be as clumsy as a drunken cow, right? Perhaps she should have done some scouting...

Any further consideration vanished as Rebecca laid into her, smashing her guard aside with insulting ease. Isa Kubota did more the simply let go off Adrian. The haymaker would send her flying, sprawled to the mat and flat on her back, arms and legs splayed, a groan rising from her lips as lights danced before her vision.

"You're useless." Zarya Volkov growled from her corner. She was leaning forward now, reaching. "Get up and tag me in!"

Unfortunately for them both, Isa wasnt entirely aware of where she was at the moment.

"Whew..." Adrian breathed in relief as Isa was sent flying to the canvas from just one punch from the Amazon Enforcer, the former cosplayer opting to just flop back into the ropes to catch her breath, the redness in her face slowly starting to fade as blew a strand of hair away from her eyes.

"You alright in there?" Rebecca asked, shaking some feeling back into her fist as she casually leaned up over the top rope, looming over her brunette buddy-in-action, ready to step over and in to being the hurt to the modern day warrior before Adrian waved her off. 


"Yeah, I'm... I'm good. Just uh... gotta watch out for dirty tricks more..." the smaller grappler panted as she pushed herself back up against the ropes, pulling herself up first onto the bottom rope, sitting on the top before taking a more risky step up to the middle, still looking into the ring as she steadied herself in the somewhat precarious position with a smile on her face.

It wasn't much of a leap but Adrian didn't need it to be, what Adrian needed was for it to get her far enough to drop her elbow down onto the Japanese woman's skull with a Bret Hart-esque elbow drop from the middle rope.

Isa Kubota, self proclaimed modern day warrior, considered herself ranked quite highly on the scale of sheer physical toughness. It was, then, with more then a little embarrassment that she found herself utterly FLOORED by a single well aimed punch to the face. Of course, it wasn't often that she came up against a woman who hit like a sledgehammer, either. Almost lost to the world, Isa was only dimly aware of her opponents talking back and forth, along with the encouragement of the crowd, excited at seeing a heel get a bit of comeuppance. Then, another voice shot through the haze and brought her back to something resembling awareness, despite the pain in her head.

"Roll! Roll out of the way! Roll left!" Zarya yelled.

"Ugh.. Huh?" Isa groaned and, taking a chance on trusting her tag partner, proceeded to roll to her left.

"Nyet, idiot, your other left!"

Thoughly confused, Isa rolled in the opposite direction and ended up right back where she started. Her vision fully cleared, for a few seconds anyway, just long enough she was doomed. Adrian came down on her with an elbow drop, causing the lights behind her eyes to explode.

"Uughn!" Isa cried out, legs kicking the mat as her hands went up instinctively to cover her head. It was all she could manage, however, knocked almost out by the impact.

Zarya glared at the scene from her place on the ring apron, knuckles white with anger and anticipation. She was going to have to interfere if this kept up...