Tokyo is Gorgeous on Winter Evenings

Jessica recognized her mistake when Seren got around her. She could not twist in time, and sure enough a powerful kick lashed against her back. The terrible force of the blow caused her to cry out into the unforgiving Japanese night, and Jessica fell forward onto the snow. Jessica knew that the only thing that stopped the kick from hitting the back of her head was the fact that she turned so quickly, as she had recognized that Seren had gotten in behind her.

The Violent Violet rolled over, so that she was facing up now. Seren kept peppering her with kicks, but all that meant was that she was within range. This wasn't an AFW match where she would get banned simply for fighting. No, Jessica could afford to pull out some of the stops. Especially now that she was very much on the back foot.

She lashed out with one of the most powerful upkicks that she had ever launched. All of her body was nice and loose now after the running, and she brought her monstrous core strength to bear in a sudden and frightful way. Jessica was not particularly aiming at anything. This was an attack predicated on sheer force, rather than any sort of precision. If Jessica hit anything at all with this momentum, she would be happy.

It could be said that while Seren was a cunning individual, she had a tendency to get lost within the moment. There was a certain zeal to her violence, once she had been able to lay into Jessica, the chance to continue was too good an offer to pass up. And so she had lost sight of her original focus in order to rain down kick after kick. There was an almost childlike glee in ehr face, an odd contrast to everything else that this monster seemed to be. If she knew joy, it was certain that this moment had been one of those rare times where it reached her beyond the swirling pit of malice that comprised most of her being.

Jessica was a sturdy woman, one who didn't give much under the doll maker's blows. That was something worthy of respect, perhaps even admiration. Lesser adversaries would have curled themselves up  and prayed for survival, but not this one. Not only did she not cower, but she didn't struggle. her movements were deliberate and focused, even though the pain Seren so thoughtfully gifted her with every landed blow. There had been a brief moment where she had been disappointed with Jessica, the woman's insistence on staying on the ground felt to her like an act of desperation. The last bastion of one with no other moves, attempting to lure her in. That hadn't been the case at all.

Jessica's kick caught her squarely in the stomach, the woman's foot making firm contact enough before it had fully been extended. When it had reached the length of the limb, the force had taken Seren back, but blown out her entire lower body from the power behind it. She was knocked horizontal as she was knocked back, colliding hard against the ground on her chest. An arm instinctively came to clutch her abdomen as she  stared wide eyed along the ground at where Jessica was, now several feet from where she had been prior to the kick.

She planted a forearm on the ground, shoulders shaking as her body struggled to keep up with what her mind asked of it. She wheezed at first, though it evolved into a laugh which rocked her entire body. The surprise had worn off already, and amusement had settled into its place. That had been so unexpected. Jessica, was unexpected. Never would she have thought to encounter someone so fun on this lonely evening.

Jessica never once closed her eyes. She knew that was the coward's way out, and Jessica was not a coward. Her eyes were focused solely on Seren as she went through with the kick. This one seemed tricky, and Jessica dare not tear her eyes from her for even a second. Her hard heel impacted the soft stomach of Seren's, causing the woman to all but fly upwards. Throughout their little impromptu match, Jessica had gotten a few shots in, but this was her first massive blow that she had managed to land.

And she was going to make damn sure that this was not the only success that she would have this evening. Jessica scrambled over to her now fallen foe and tried to mount her back. It seems like from the moment the two women started struggling with one another, Jessica had been on the receiving end of a vast majority of the blows. If she could secure Seren's back, that would provide her with a wonderful opportunity to really take the fight back.

Or maybe even end it. Presupposing that Seren was not going to be the most lively person on the face of the earth after such a kick, Jessica swung her strong leg around the woman's body. She then attempted to snake her arm under Seren's neck, and pull as hard as she could. Her hat fell off from all the jostling, leaving her head exposed to the wind.

A stiff breeze whipped her hair about. Her nose, at this point, was beet red. The tears that formed in her eyes were not those of pain, but they might as well have been. Jessica wanted to go home, but she wanted to go home victorious. No random stranger was going to come to her park, sit on her bench, and attack her with impunity. When she breathed out, her hot breath formed mist, even as she moved to take Seren's back...

Jessica had taken her breath away and it had little to do with the woman's impressive physique. The unexpected blow to her midsection had thoroughly robbed her of her speed, without oxygen her limbs were sluggish, unresponsive. She saw Jessica coming for her. Tried to rise. Her fingers straining as they clawed into the ground. She had managed to just start to get herself to her hands and knees when the violent violet threw a leg over her, the added weight on her back pressing her to the snowy ground. Even still she was wheezing and laughing, finding this all incredibly amusing.

She hadn't stopped until the arm wrenched itself around her throat, silencing her forcefully as her body was drawn back, stretching her out against her will. She had arguably been in worse situations throughout her life. Comparing one tragic evening's events to another wasn't a very productive use of her limited air supply however. She had other things to consider.

Her jaw clenched tightly, teeth bared as her gurgled cries of anguish were all that trickled out into the night air. Her hands reached up to clutch at the arm choking the life from her, digging her fingers in to attempt to pry it loose. It became readily apparent to her however this was an ultimately fruitless venture and she put her hands to better use. Her eyes darted over the surrounding area, limited in there scope she laid eyes on something worth moving towards.

It was harder in some respect and easier in others to inch her way along with Jessica weighting her down. In the ring, the mat was an easier smoother surface to crawl on. Here the rough terrain provided little assistance to ease the journey. Unlike the ring however, she was able to kick her boots into the dirt and gain a better foothold. Clawing at the ground with her fingers, kicking with her feet, she slowly was dragging them towards the bench, a race against her biological limitations as Jessica choked her.

Jessica held on. She felt a few things, in rapid succession. The first was a feeling of success. She had gotten the choke in, slightly easier than she expected to, all things considered. The Violent Violet idly wondered if this psycho would bite her as she tried to sink the hold in. Then, she felt a sense of satisfaction. Seren had grasped at her strong arm, only to find that trying to pry her off was going to be totally fruitless. Jessica snickered a little bit.

The final, and most pervasive, thing that she felt was a sense of surprise. Like a soldier crawling in a war zone with a heavy backpack on her back, Seren moved. Jessica's eyes went wide with shock. This woman had quite a lot of muscle to her to be moving both of them, and the fact that she was actively being choked made the move all the more impressive. Jessica tried to cinch the hold in a little bit tighter, to try and make that trip all the more difficult.

Jessica looked up. There was no rope to get to, no referee to tell her to break her hold. The Violent Violet did not know what horrors this woman was planning, and she was not really dying to find out either. Part of her said to abandon the hold, and not deal with a hammer or whatever the hell it was that was that Seren had for her. But instead, Jessica braced.

Biting wasn't above her. She actually enjoyed sinking her teeth into her opponents. She would have torn into Jessica too if the arm cinched under her chin hadn't been so snuggly locked. While it may have been considered a move of desperation, she tended to do it for other reasons. Her teeth were, after all, an easily accessible weapon far sharper than anything else on her body naturally... Only because she tended to gnaw down her fingernails.

While no assured salvation lay beneath the bench, the potential for retribution remained readily visible. Among the assorted snow and debris was Baby, face down where it had tumbled from their opening gambits. She was hungry for it, labored wheezes of excitement as her sunken eyes danced over the weighted plaything. She may have also been drooling a bit. It was unclear if it was because of the prospects of clobbering Jessica again with the heavy bodied plush ot the fact the choke was just doing a number on her.

Her vision was starting to become cloudy, small fuzzy bits of imagery bubbling up. Her peripheral vision darling around her. She knew what it meant. She had seen it before.

Seren slammed a palm down on top of the bench, using it to drag her closer. Fingers reaching out, pawing for Baby. Her first few swipes obtained nothing. Finally her fingers coiled around her prize. She planted one forward, twisting her body under Jessica to take a blind roaring swing back at her with the plushie. Even as sloppy as it was, the woman wasn't a hard target locked onto her like this.

It was rare for one woman who was literally choking another to be nervous, but Jessica could not help but feel a little sense of trepidation the closer she got to the bench. There had already been far too many surprises this evening. Jessica was not really aching to be hit with something large and painful. The closer she got to the bench, the more she recognized that having something painful done to her was all but inevitable. She could not just nicely choke this woman out and leave her in the cold, as fair and reasonable as that expectation was.

Something slammed into her back, and immediately made her yelp with pain. Jessica released the choke, and rolled away. That doll, that damned doll, crashed into her back and now she was not stopping the flow of air to Seren's lung. She thought she had everything made. Now, it was back to square one. Even worse, Seren had a weapon now, and Jessica was tired from all of the choking.

She rolled away, and stood up. Her breath turned to mist in the cold winter air, and Jessica recognized how fatigued she was. She dug her heel into the snow. It made a crunching sound, warning her that it would provide no backup should Seren really throw herself at the Violent Violet.

But still, Jessica was standing tall. This was just like any other match, the kind she had been in hundreds of times before. Jessica had a lot of miles on her, in more ways than one. If she could withstand all of that, then she could withstand this little psycho, too.

She couldn't see it, but she wished she had. The dull thwack of Baby swiping at Jessica. It must have been grand, surely, to find the woman releasing her from that iron grip. Seren grapsed to the bench slowly drawing herself up to her knees as she battled with her consumption of air. Her wheezing hiss of a laugh at odds with her need to actually inhale.

She staggered to her feet on shaky legs, blinking unevenly as vision slowly returned to her. What a remarkable woman this was to happen across at random. Someone who could go toe to toe with her like this. She supposed one who went around picking fights should be rather strong though.

“What’s…” Seren furrowed her brow in annoyance, her voice house and raspy from the choke. Gargling back saliva in her throat she turned her head and spit it to the side. Take two. “What’s your name?” The woman had given it freely earlier. She honestly hadn't paid it much mind past repeating it. Now she had an actual interest it seemed.

Her arm hung at her side, idly letting the weighted plushie sway from her fingertips as the two held hands. Her free hand brushed across the front of her coat, clearing away Jessica’s footprints which had been emblazoned on her from her earlier kick.

The doll maker lingered at the bench for a moment more as labored breathes spilled out into the night air, a plume of mist flooding from her lips. She stepped away from the seating, dragging her boots through the gravel, letting the sound of parting rocks and debris fill the air between them. Despite the damage, even with nearly having been choked out, she seemed almost excited. Grinning from ear to ear… perhaps if not for the healing flesh on his face it wouldn't look so unsettling.

Jessica did not particularly enjoy watching Seren reanimate. One, it was fairly strange, like watching Frankenstein's monster come to life. There was some gurgling, some spitting, and some furtive movement of the eyebrows. Altogether, this woman was giving off an incredibly strange affect, spurred along by that weird doll of hers. Second, it meant that Seren was going to be back in the fight. If the woman could see, and breathe, that meant that she could fight. And that, in and of itself, was fairly problematic. The night had not yet ended, and there was still quite a lot of dancing left to do.

The question, and the grin were pretty unsettling. Jessica was an experienced woman, and did her best not to show that she was rattled. With a wary eye on Seren's toy, Jessica sneered her answer: "Marilyn Monroe." Her great contempt was evident in her voice, and Jessica spat to the side, just as Seren had. When she turned her head to look back at the woman, she found that she was approaching.

It was a slow approach. That made sense, all things considered. Jessica was not feeling like a spring chicken herself. The dull ache in her back reminded her that she really did not want to get hit by that damn doll again. Jessica recognized that she was now playing defense more than she was playing offense. A few more wacks with that toy, and Jessica would be out like a light.

So Jessica dug in. She was ready to spring in any direction. When she breathed out, the cloud of mist hung in the air, and faded into nothing. Jessica was going to have to fade into nothing when that blow came, hard as it would be. Her muscles became tense. Very tense.

She paused mid step at Jessica's answer, a notable shift in the oddly raptured expression she wore. The name had struck a sour chord, enough that caused a twitch in her eye. Her hollow eyes glanced down to the sagging doll in her hands, muttering softly to herself. "I don't care if it was a joke... She is mocking us." Sneering Seren's pupils snapped back to the Violent Violet, quaking ever so slightly. Her fingers squeezing the weigh loaded plaything at her side tightly.

"Marilyn Monroe... " The doll maker's tone was flat and hoarse, a clear cut window to see how unamused she was. "Marilyn Monroe..." Her jaw tightened as the name came out in a low growl. She had, for a brief moment shown genuine interest in Jessica, only to have it thrown back in her face. She began moving again, steps more pronounced, feet no longer dragging as she moved with more purpose. "Marilyn!" Her heels dug into the ground as her eyes shot wide, charging the distance between them, screaming bloodly murder. "MONROE!"

Baby flew upwards, catching hang time as she reared her arm back, telegraphing what was surely going to be a devistating downward slam with the doll. As she neared though, it didn't come, not at first. Instead she bound off the snow and gravel, leaping her last wide step to swing her leg through the air horizontally in a wide sweep. The kick was aimed to try and catch Jessica at her hip of midsection, trying to knock her off balance.

If she managed to strike the girl, or Jessica managed to dodge, that is when Baby finally showed their face again.  She would bring the stuffed bludgeon down with cataclysmic force her intent to maim oozed from every pore of her body as her screams filled the darkened park. "Let's get you back in the ground, MARILYN!"