Post by dsb on Oct 19, 2018 22:17:05 GMT
As FAWN’s greatest show of the year enters its final act, Honey Harris stands backstage and bounces on the balls of her feet with barely contained nervous energy. In just a few moments, the ring announcer would call her forth into the most important match of her young career…
...a young career that had thus far been much more turbulent than she had hoped.
Though Honey’s debut in the federation had brought with it much speculation that she would be heir apparent to Shea London’s sensational legacy, those lofty expectations were quickly tempered by a pair of losses to FAWN’s resident mean girl Allison Addison. More galling than the losses on her record, however, were the scars on her reputation. Suddenly there were questions -- questions raised verbatim by her cruel, red-headed tormentor -- of whether Harris truly belonged on the grandest stages and under the brightest lights, or if she were better served in dark matches and loaned out to lesser federations as she had been for the last several months.
Indeed, Honey Harris, once thought of as a torchbearer for the New Era, had been left off the FAWNAMANIA card completely until she found an unlikely lifeline in the form of an open challenge.
Or at least she hopes it’s a lifeline, for she knows that the same length of rope could very well hang her.
”LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, OUR NEXT MATCH IS FOR ONE FALL WITH A THIRTY MINUTE LIMIT AND IS FOR THE FAWN EURASIAN CHAMPIONSHIP! INTRODUCING FIRST… OUR CHALLENGER FROM BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND… HONEY HAAAARRRRRIIIIIS!”
As the first chords of Michelle Branch’s Best You Ever begin to pulse over the sound system, Honey grabs the edges of the curtain on both sides and BURSTS through onto the stage, making her first appearance in the FAWN Arena since her second ignominious defeat against Allison Addison. The young, blonde British spitfire skips to a halt on one foot, her left knee raised as she pumps her right fist to the crowd.
HONEY HARRIS
“C’MON, LET’S GO!!!!!” Harris bellows, a bright smile gracing her youthful features… but in the pit of her stomach she feels ill at ease.
How could she not when her opponent is not only FAWN’s reigning EurAsian champion, but the Slim Reaper herself? Among British wrestling circles, Yoona Park had become something of a boogeyman following her destruction of Fiona Waterford in a savage display that seemed less like a wrestling match and more like an execution. Though Lady Waterford was a divisive figure even in her native England, no one would dispute Her Ladyship’s status as a living legend, and to see her broken in every way a wrestler could be broken left an indelible mark on an entire generation of fans on the other side of the Atlantic.
That slightest hint of trepidation in the challenger seems to spread to the crowd as well. While they cheer as they always did for the Sweet Sensation, tonight there is a palpable sense of concern from Honey’s most ardent supporters who could hardly suffer the thought of their idol being defiled and debased to sate the voracious appetite of the champion.
And of course, with FAWN being FAWN, there are also a great many fans who want exactly that. Amidst the cheers there are audible wolf whistles and catcalls from black-hearted members of the audience, one-time supporters of the likes of Miriam Gaiman who now find refuge within the walls of Park Place. Already worked up to a lustful lather, they make no secret of the fact that they would enjoy nothing more than to see the blonde challenger become Yoona’s latest victim in a title run highlighted by violence and sexual debauchery.
Doing her best to tune out discomfiting thoughts of what might happen in the worst case scenario, Honey makes her way toward the ring at a brisk pace, but not going so fast that she bypasses slapping any offered hand or occasionally pausing for an embrace. The closer she gets to the ring, the louder it seems that the crowd cheers, as they gain more of an opportunity to take her in. The FAWN rookie’s well-shaped legs are bared, a hint of gold bikini style bottoms (with black trim) just visible beneath the hem a gold tee. Upon the front read the words “SWEET AS” in black type, directly above an illustration of a pot of honey. On the back, below the words “BUT WITH A” is a cartoon bee abdomen—complete with stinger.
Harris practically skips up the ring steps, that smile never leaving her features as she wipes her boots on the skirt of the apron. Honey slips through the ropes and mounts the second rope, tapping her fist to her heart twice before blowing a kiss to the full house. Maintaining her perch, the blonde’s hands move to the hem of her shirt, which she peels overhead to reveal a bikini top with matches her black trimmed gold shorts. Balling the garment in her right hand, the Brit cocks her arm and scans the crowd—a gesture which brings a few FAWNatics hands rising in anticipation. Choosing a lucky fan, Harris sends the shirt flying into the masses.
Allowing herself one big breath to steady her nerves, Honey settles into a corner to allow junior referee Merle to inspect her gear. The man is in the process of checking her elbow pads when the lights click off, plunging the building into darkness, and then heavy orchestral strings over the PA speakers and a roar from the crowd herald the imminent arrival of the Slim Reaper.
Just a few seconds later, however, the music cuts off just as abruptly as it had begun, though the arena remains cloaked in darkness as the cheering gradually gives way to confused murmurs. The mystery drags on for ten, then twenty, then thirty seconds, and finally a single spotlight shines on the top of the entrance ramp. The PA system comes on shortly afterwards, but rather than the EurAsian champion’s usual orchestral entrance theme, it’s instead the voice of Orphan Annie.
The sun’ll come out tomorrow…
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow…
There’ll be sun...
Yoona chooses this moment to step through the curtains at the top of the entranceway. Despite the shift away from her usual anthem, she’s still dressed for battle in her usual black and gold trimmed bustier one piece while her forearms and shins are sheathed in matching gauntlets and legsleeves. Also in black and gold is the gilded leather championship belt that Park straps diagonally across her torso from shoulder to hip like a bandolier. A lucky silk ribbon tied around her left thigh remains the only deviation away from her color scheme, providing a splash of garish red against the darker tones of her outfit.
YOONA PARK
Just thinkin’ about tomorrow…
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow…
Til’ there’s none…
She looks around the arena, one eyebrow raised in bemusement, then she turns and reaches her arms through the curtains to grab something on the other side. After a couple seconds of struggle, Yoona manages to yank her protesting girlfriend out onto the entrance ramp as well. Still dressed in the same street clothes she was seen in during Kanako Akiyama’s match earlier in the evening, a self-conscious appearing Camille Cosworth gives a half-hearted wave and an awkward chuckle to the crowd.
CAMILLE COSWORTH
“Yoona… what are you doing…” Camille says through a forced grin.
“I know you’re bummed out you’re not medically cleared to wrestle for the big show, so I’m giving you the Mania moment you deserve,” Park replies before she folds her left hand behind her back while extending her right towards Cosworth. “Camille Cosworth, may I have this dance?”
When I’m stuck with a day, that’s gray, and lonely…
Camille hems and haws, “Umm… I -- I don’t know how --”
I just stick out my chin, and grin, and saaaaaay…
“Babe, I just watched you Spider-Man your way over a cage like it wasn’t even there. If you can do that shit, you can do a fucking basic-ass box step.”
Cosworth looks out into the crowd, imagining the tens of thousands of expectant eyeballs trained on her, then she shrugs and sighs, “Oh, what the heck…”
The sun will come out tomorrow…
To an ovation from the FAWNatics, Camille takes her paramour’s hand and allows Yoona to reel her in. The ex-ballerina takes the lead, wrapping her other arm around Cosworth’s waist, and then the pair begin waltzing their way towards the ring, eyes closed and forehead to forehead.
So you gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow…
Come what maaaaay…
Ever the astute bunch, the FAWNatics catch on to Park’s intentions and they know what they must do. For their heroes they’d cheer, and their villains they’d boo, but for their Girl of Tomorrow -- one of their own, a fangirl made good who fell from blinding heights and was just now on the verge of soaring again -- they add their voices to Orphan Annie’s and sing.
“TOMORROW, TOMORROW!
I LOVE YA, TOMORROW!”
Right on cue, Yoona sends Camille twirling outwards only for her pirouette to be arrested by their still connected hands. Cosworth opens her hazel eyes, and they immediately well with emotion when she sees thousands upon thousands of fans holding their cell phones aloft and waving them back and forth, each luminescent screen a pinprick of light against the darkened backdrop.
“YOU’RE ALWAYS A DAY A-WAAAAY…”
Park reels her girlfriend back in, and as they continue to dance down the ramp, she whispers, “Look, Cam… the stars are shining for you again…”
“Oh -- oh, Yoona…” Cosworth manages to say before she gets choked up on the growing lump in her throat.
“Shhh… don’t talk, just dance…”
Serenaded by twenty thousand of their closest friends, the pair of lovers proceed to do just that, twirling and cavorting all the way down the ramp and up onto the announcer’s table -- a table that had already been smashed and reconstructed several times earlier in the evening.
“TOMORROW, TOMORROW!
I LOVE YA, TOMORROW!
YOU’RE ALWAYS A DAAAAAAYYYY… AAAA - WAAAAAAAYYYYYY!”
Standing in front of broadcast team Joanna Coleman and Gordy Solis just as the FAWNatics hit the crescendo, Yoona spins Camille one last time before pulling back in and dipping her backwards, holding that position for several long seconds and basking in a rapturous standing ovation as Gladiatrix photographers immortalize their pose on digital film.
Cosworth cups the side of Park’s face with one hand and caresses her girlfriend’s cheek with her thumb, then she softly murmurs, “I love you, Yoona Park. Forever and ever.”
Still holding Camille in the dip and her voice cracking with emotion, Park replies in her native Korean, <<You are the light of my life. If I could have just one moment in all of eternity -->>
“BRAVO! BRAVO!” Honey Harris gushes as she slides out of the ring and approaches the pair, alternating between applauding and wiping away tears of her own. “Oh, such passion! I haven’t been this moved since The Fault in Our -- UNGGH!”
In one smooth motion, Yoona pivots about on the table and whips a vicious Roundhouse Kick to the side of Honey’s head while also pulling Camille fully upright. Caught utterly off-guard, Harris crumbles into an ungainly, unconscious heap out on the floor as the entire building is shocked into deafening silence.
“GET YOUR OWN MOMENT, SHITHEAD!” Park screeches at the prostrate form of the would-be challenger while Cosworth throws up her hands in exasperation, her good mood immediately dashed.
Harrumphing indignantly, Yoona unbuckles her belt and leaves it with her girlfriend at the announcer’s table before she heads to the ring, callously trampling over Honey’s twitching body on her way there. Merle tries to put on his sternest, disapproving-est look of stern disapproval as Park steps through the ropes, but the EurAsian champion is having none of it as she flits past him and slouches in the far corner.
“How can you flip the switch like that from world’s greatest girlfriend to world’s greatest bitch just like that…” the referee grumbles under his breath as he inspects her gear.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Yoona scoffs derisively. “I guess the same fucking way YOU flip the switch from world’s shittiest referee to world’s shittiest lover!”
“Hah! Joke’s on you, Park!” the man triumphantly retorts. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since --”
Merle cuts himself off when he sees Camille cringing at the announcer’s table, and he realizes he’s made a terrible mistake.
“Oh no…” he mutters, the blood draining out of his face. “...I just played myself, didn’t I?!”
Park gives the official a superior smirk and a couple of condescending pats on the shoulder, which only adds to his distress.
“No… don’t you say it! Don’t you say it, Yoona! DON’T YOU --”
“Exactly as planned,” Yoona harshly whispers into his ear, dealing the coup de grace to his pride.
“ARRRGHH DAMN IT!” Merle bellows, stomping his feet in frustration.
Meanwhile, the champion merely rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She pads over the the side of the ring and looks down at her latest challenger, Honey just now stirring back to life and crawling to hands and knees. Evidently not satisfied with her rate of recovery, Yoona decides to offer Harris some choice words of encouragement.
“MOVE YOUR ASS, FUCKTARD! WE AIN’T GOT ALL GODDAMN DAY!” Park screams at the fallen Brit before she does an about-face towards the still seething Merle, jerking a thumb over her shoulder while she huffs, “What a dick, amirite? Would’ve expected a little more class from London two-point-oh...”
“Actually, London two-point-oh is someone else,” Camille interjects from the announcer’s table, much to Yoona’s chagrin.
“Are -- are you fucking kidding me…? There’s not one -- BUT TWO -- of these wannabes?” the Korean incredulously asks while gesturing towards the flagging British challenger. “What is this, fucking Hollywood with all these shitty sequels? This clown’s like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, or Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, or Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, or Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales!”
Cosworth chimes in again, “Y’know, word on the street is they’re making an unnamed sixth Pirates movie…”
“YOU HEAR THAT, ASSHOLE?!” Yoona screeches at Honey, who’s just now struggled her way into the ring. “YOU’RE SUCH A FUCKING WASTE OF TITS THAT YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME!”
Despite her ears still ringing from the concussive blow, Harris keeps herself upright if unsteady in one corner and reassures the referee that she is fit to compete. Treating Park as anything but a dangerous savage had been a costly mistake, one that she vows not to repeat again as the timekeeper’s bell signifies the official start of the contest.
Her eyes burning with determination, Honey glowers at her opponent and forcefully states, “I have a name, and you WILL remember the day that Honey… Blossom… Har --”
“FUCK YOU, THAT’S A CUNT NAME!” Yoona snaps at her. “FROM NOW ON, YOU’LL BE KNOWN AS NEW COKE! FIRST NAME: NEW. MIDDLE NAME: ETHEL. LAST NAME: CO -- NRRGHH!”
Having heard quite enough from the notoriously loud-mouthed champion, Honey propels herself forward and leaps all the way from the center of the ring to the opposite corner to deliver a Dropkick flush to Park’s chops. Perhaps not expecting such an athletic maneuver from a woman who looked to be in shambles just moments ago, the champion drops to a seat in the corner with one hand protectively cupped against her jaw.
Harris knows that she needs to make the most of every opportunity, so she quickly kips to her feet and does her best to shake off the lingering effects of the previous kick to the cranium. Noticing that the Slim Reaper is slow to rise, the British spitfire spins about on her heels and dashes off, hopping onto the middle turnbuckle before rebounding back at even greater speeds. Honey takes to the air and leaves her feet once more, although this time not from quite so far out, and instead of bringing her heels together for a Dropkick, she spreads her legs in a V and rams her golden derriere right into Yoona’s chest.
The impact forces the air from the champion’s lungs in a pained gasp, but the Sweet Sensation still isn’t done. Holding onto the intersecting ropes for support, Honey bucks up and down and up and down in her seat, using her rump to repeatedly batter her opponent’s collarbones. After a full ten bounces Harris deems Park’s Bronco to be adequately Busted, and the blonde dismounts to raucous cheers from her reinvigorated fans, while the brunette slops out onto the floor for a breather.
BRONCO BUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfg84UZ16IM
Honey follows out of the ring as well, quickly catching up to her foe and seizing an arm to drag Yoona back into the ring, and as they pass by the announcer’s table Harris takes a moment to comment to Camille, “Though I mean no offense, I must say that your ladylove is a bit of a… naughty dottie.”
“Uhhhh… I… err… umm… what?” Cosworth stammers.
“My apologies, I usually don’t use such harsh, uncouth language, but I really am quite frustrated,” Honey calls back over her shoulder as she rolls the champion back into the legal field of play while a very perplexed Camille looks on.
By Harris enters the ring, Park is just staggering upright with her back turned to the challenger. The Sweet Sensation continues to press her advantage, locking on a snug Rear Waistlock and powering forward to ram Yoona chest-first into a set of turnbuckles. The recoil from the collision sends both wrestlers into a backwards tumble, each woman finding her feet again in the center of the squared circle, and Honey deftly trades her Waistlock for a Full Nelson. Like poetry in motion, the British spitfire uses the inertia of the O’Connor Roll to pops her hips up, over, and back to send Park into the canvas with a Dragon Suplex.
O’CONNOR ROLL DRAGON SUPLEX:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QxLePoYGao
With Yoona’s shoulders pressed to the mat and her hooks still sunk in deep, Honey pushes up onto her toes and bridges as high as she can for leverage while Merle counts…
ONE!
TWO!
...and Park bicycles her legs and powers her way free of the pin, landing on stomach in the process. Harris is not dismayed, however, and she backs up a few steps to clear a runway for her next move. When the champion crawls to a seat a couple of seconds later, Honey springs forward and blasts Yoona across the chest with a stiff Penalty Kick that knocks her flat on her back.
PENALTY KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy44TWMlbq4
The challenger pounces into another pin…
ONE!
TWO!
THR -- NO!
...only for the champion to deny her again by getting a shoulder up with less than a second to go. She shoots a silent glance towards the referee, and when the man reaffirms the count, the Sweet Sensation runs for the ropes once more. Bouncing off one set of cables, she dashes past the recovering Yoona and throws herself into a Front Handspring into the opposite set. Her boots hit the top rope and bounce off, putting Harris back on her feet for just the briefest of moments before she leaps backwards into a seat atop Park’s shoulders. From there, the British spitfire needs but a heartbeat to gather herself before clamping her thighs tight around the Korean’s head and launching into a backflip.
HANDSPRING INVERTED HURRICANRANA:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzusfIW1LeQ
Yoona is pulled along for a short flight with a rough landing courtesy of her opponent’s Inverted Hurricanrana, landing headfirst on the deck, bouncing to her knees, and finally collapsing onto her back. For the third time in half a minute, Harris sprawls into a pin…
...but there’s not even a count this time. Harris follows the official’s gaze and sees that Park has one leg on the bottom rope.
“FUDGESICLES!” Honey cries out in frustration as her fingers subconsciously tug at her golden locks of hair.
The consummate babyface, Harris’ sense of honor and fairplay compels to back off and respect the rope break even though it means she must relinquish her snowballing momentum. Her efforts aren’t for naught, however, as the FAWNatics are greatly appreciative of her New Era reboot of the classic London Run, and she’s rewarded with a booming chant of HUUUUN-NEY! HUUUUN-NEY! HUUUUN-NEY!
Feeling better now than she has in ages, Honey indulges in the love, climbing to the top rope, turning outwards to face the crowd, and punching a fist high into her air as she roars, “LET’S GO! LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Harris turns about on her perch without dismounting, and sees that her foe is struggling to stay upright on wobbly legs after the barrage of offense. The challenger can’t help but break into a grin as the punch-drunk champion staggers about aimlessly in the center of the ring, seemingly unaware of her surroundings and operating on instinct alone. Having come into the match a significant underdog -- so much so that her closest confidantes and trainers practically begged her to not take the fight -- Honey sees an opportunity to silence the doubters and cement her FAWN superstardom with one giant leap.
Park wobbles closer and closer, eyes still glazed over and swimming about in their sockets, apparently without an answer for the Briton’s frenzied blitz. Honey senses that another big blow would put Yoona down for the night, and while she cannot hit her Reading Rainbow finishing move on a standing foe, she reasons that a more basic Crossbody would do the job just as well. She waits for the Korean to stagger another step forward, and then the British spitfire launches.
Harris immediately regrets her decision.
As soon as Honey’s boots leave the top ropes, Yoona’s dulled gaze abruptly shifts into sharp focus, a maniacal glint reflected in her dark eyes now that she’s no longer playing possum. With Harris at the mercy of inertia and gravity, the Slim Reaper chambers her right arm and leaps forward to meet her rapidly descending opponent head-on.
Realizing what’s about to happen but unable to prevent it, the Sweet Sensation’s eyes widen with shock as she quietly mutters, “Oh, shiz…”
The G-rated vituperation is still on Honey’s lips when Yoona’s fist plows through her jaw, blasting her out of the skies with a mid air Superman Punch that’s made all the more devastating by Harris’ own runaway momentum. The blonde’s head snaps back violently from the crushing impact, and the rest of her body is already limp by the time she crashes face-first to the mat a split-second later.
MID AIR SUPERMAN PUNCH:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywj2rdSxv2s
“SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER!” Yoona shouts at her fallen challenger to a decidedly mixed reaction from the FAWNatics.
Shaking out the stiffness from the fingers on her punching hand, Park casually saunters to Harris and rolls the blonde over with a forceful nudge from her right leg. She raises a foot as if to stomp Honey’s skull into a pancake, but then she thinks better of it and instead gently places her bare sole atop the Briton’s forehead. Yoona instructs the referee to start counting, and though Merle is quite displeased by the blatantly disrespectful pin, he abides by his duties and pounds on the canvas…
ONE!
TWO!
THR -- NO!
Honey gets a shoulder up with the official’s palm just inches away from hitting the mat for the third and final time, prompting the FAWNatics to cheer and the Slim Reaper to disdainfully scoff.
“Really, New Coke?” Park snorts while quirking an eyebrow.
The champion reaches down to grab a handful of flaxen hair, then hauls the semi-conscious Honey to her knees. Yoona genuflects behind Harris, grabbing her by the throat with one hand and bending her over backwards so that the base of the Briton’s skull rests atop Park’s posted knee. A gasp ripples through the audience when Yoona raises her right arm, and a few of Honey’s most loyal supporters even cry out in despair, but their pleas fall upon deaf ears.
Park brings down her arm like a hammer, striking Harris right between the eyes with the bony point of her elbow. Hit with the third brain-rattling blow of the night, Honey collapses to the mat with her features gruesomely frozen in an expression of abject fear, her eyes still open but unseeing.
“Wah, wah, waaaaaaah…” Yoona flippantly imitates the sound of a very sad trombone while pulling down Honey’s eyelids with a pair of fingers, then she settles into a Front Facesit on top of Harris’ head. “Oh, don’t give me that look, Merle! What the fuck did you think was gonna happen?! Reaper gonna reap, jobber gonna job!”
The referee keeps his grumbling to himself while he counts…
ONE!
TWO!
THR -- NO!
Somehow, someway, Honey gets a shoulder up again to keep her dreams alive, much to Park’s annoyance.
“Goddamn it, New Coke!” she huffs. “You are such a fucking asshole!”
Yoona decides that her opponent’s survival instinct is too hardy for a pin, even when dealing with what was likely a concussion. She rises from her seat and takes hold of the blonde’s limp left leg, quickly unbuckling and removing the boot to leave Honey’s foot bare and vulnerable.
Park rolls Harris face-down, then scoots forward and sits cross-legged at her challenger’s left side. She proceeds to wrap her left leg around the blonde’s left thigh, wedges her ankle into the crook of Honey’s left knee, and grasps the Briton’s foot in both hands.
FOOTSIE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wNJECekuzc
Having completed the complicated setup for Footsie, Yoona has the option of attacking both the blonde’s calf and the pressure points in her foot, an excruciating combination sure to lead to a bawling submission. For the moment, however, Park opts for a much gentler touch, giving a tender massage to revitalize her opponent just for the sake of toying with Honey a bit more before the finish. It takes about half a minute, but the fondling has its desired effect and Harris soon shows signs of life.
“Unnnggghh… wha -- what’s going on…?” the Sweet Sensation moans, not yet aware of her precarious situation.
“Ayyyyyyy, not dead!” Yoona cheerfully greets her. “Had me worried for a while there, New Coke! Would’ve gotten chewed out real bad by the brass if I murder-killed someone into retirement. Again.”
Those words finally cut through the fog clouding her senses, and Honey realizes the danger she’s in. She starts thrashing about, trying to reach the ropes or get free, but Park has her dead center in the ring and her awkward position means her leverage is nil.
“Unhand me, fiend!” Harris bleats, not liking the edge of desperation in her own voice. “Let me gooooOOOOOOOOOHHH CHEESE AND CRACKERS!”
Honey shrieks in agony when Yoona pulls back on her foot, causing her soft calf muscle to be crushed against the sharp, bony ridge of her opponent’s shin. At the same time, a subtle shift in Park’s massage technique triggers an avalanche of pain that starts in the arch of her foot and crashes through the rest of her body. Merle sees her distress, and the referee is immediately crouched down in front of Harris and offering her a chance to call it quits.
“AAAAAHHH GEEEEZ LOOOOUUUIIIIIIISSSSSE!” Honey wails as tears stream from her eyes, though she maintains the wherewithal to both mind her language and shake her head at the official.
Harris knows she should give in, and yet, she can’t. Regardless of the opening cheap shot, to be defeated in a scant three moves -- to be made to quit -- in the most important match of her career would only prove the naysayers right. It would prove the mean girls of Phi Theta Tappa right. Though dethroning the Slim Reaper would have been a longshot, Honey had at least expected to be competitive. Even a hard-fought loss would’ve validated the hype that had accompanied her debut, but the champion had made it look easy, spending more time bantering with the referee and paying tribute to Camille Cosworth than actually wrestling.
To Yoona Park, she had been nothing more than an afterthought, and now Honey fears the rest of the world would see her the same way.
“DAGNABBED MONKEY SNATCHERS!” she screeches when Yoona targets a particularly sensitive pressure point near the ball of her foot.
She has one recourse. Soon, the torture would exceed her body’s capacity for pain and cause Harris to lose consciousness. It would still be a crushing defeat, but it would also be a courageous defeat. To be carried out on her shield after exceeding her physical limits and enduring to the bitter end against a superior foe would be respectable, perhaps even laudable. At least this is what Honey tells herself to soothe her soul as she waits for the cold respite of unconsciousness, screaming the entire way.
It’s not to be, however, as Yoona refuses to settle for anything less than an explicit surrender. Whenever she senses her victim fading, she dials down the pain only to redouble the pressure a few seconds later, taking Harris to the brink again, and again, and again, and again. Finally, after suffering a full minute of the torture that would’ve broken most women in ten seconds, Honey can endure no more.
“Submit… submit…” she weakly sobs while her fluttering hand raps against the deck.
To blonde’s surprise and relief, Park relents as soon as the bell sounds, disentangling from Harris and clambering upright to somewhat begrudging applause from the FAWNatics. Yoona takes a melodramatic bow as the announcer proclaims her FAWNAMANIA defense to be a successful one, but she refuses to accept the EurAsian title belt when Merle offers it to her. Instead she crouches next to her vanquished challenger and gently brushes some hair out of Honey’s tear-stained face.
“I get it, New Coke. I understand the comparisons to Shea London now,” Yoona muses, before she leans in close and whispers, “It’s ‘cause you’re both sexy as fuck when you tap out.”
Eyes going wide when she recognizes the implicit threat in those words, Harris pleads, “No! No, don’t -- MMPPFF!”
Park pivots into a Reverse Facesit, pinning Honey’s arms underneath her shins while salaciously sweeping her thinly sheathed undercarriage back and forth over the Briton’s features. Harris wildly kicks her legs into the air in an attempt to dislodge the Korean, but she only makes things worse for herself when Yoona snatches her ankles and tucks each shin underneath an armpit, effectively folding Honey into a tight Matchbook. With the blonde’s rump now pointed at the ceiling, Park reaches down, worms her hands into the legholes of Harris’ trunks and puts her well-practiced fingers to work. As a result, Honey’s muffled squeals rise dramatically in pitch and volume, much to Yoona’s pleasure.
Meanwhile at the announcer’s table, Camille groans in disgust. The couple have long operated by the maxim What happens in FAWN stays in FAWN, but the ever-wholesome Cosworth does not appreciate her girlfriend’s antics, even if she begrudgingly accepts them as part and parcel of their occupational hazard. Camille plugs in her earbuds and sets her phone to play music at maximum volume. Then she grabs the bottom hem at the front of her T-shirt and pulls it over her head, covering her face in protest and petulantly folding her arms in front of her chest.
Camille’s display of disapproval and Merle’s ineffectual threats of a fine and suspension are ignored by the lusty Korean, however, as she skillfully pleasures both herself and her opponent. Approaching the finish line, Yoona closes her eyes and bites her bottom lip as she continues to wiggle, and poke, and waggle, and prod, and grind, and tease, and --
“EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!” an indignant, microphone-amplified voice calls out, followed a moment later by a torrential deluge of boos and jeers.”JUST WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
Something about the whiny, slightly-nasal quality of the voice makes it difficult for Park to tune out. Her rhythm disrupted, Yoona growls in annoyance and brings a temporary halt to the debauchery. She opens her eyes and sees the sisters of Phi Theta Tappa, Allison Addison and Piper Sexton, marching down the entrance ramp dressed in their sorority branded T-shirts and sweatpants.
ALLISON ADDISON
PIPER SEXTON
“The low card is that way, cunt nuggets!” Park snarls as she points off in some random direction. “Get your worthless asses out of here, this is a goddamn title match!”
“Oh, puh-leeze! EurAsia is such a shithole country that I can’t even find it on a map!” Piper retorts. “No one cares about your sweatshop knock-off title!”
When Sexton is met with another round of boos, Allison comes to her sorority sister’s defense and admonishes, “It’s true, libtards! When EurAsia sends its wrestlers, they’re not sending their best! They’re not sending people like me or Pipes! They’re sending jobbers and rapists!”
The jeers only grow louder, prompting Addison to roll her eyes and scoff, “And some, I assume, are decent -- HEY, WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!”
Much to the Mean Girl’s irritation, Yoona has resumed her salacious ride, determined to get her big finish on the big stage.
“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO HUMILIATE HER! ONLY WE’RE ALLOWED TO HUMILIATE HER!” Piper screeches, sounding quite aggrieved and self-righteous. “THAT UGGO VIRGIN IS OUR BITCH!”
“WELL THEN IT LOOKS LIKE YOU SHITHEADS JUST GOT CUCKED!” Park snaps back while waggling her hips in a tight figure-eight.
The sisters of Phi Theta Tappa gasp as if profoundly offended and scandalized.
“AND THAT’S OUR WORD! YOU CAN’T USE OUR WORD!” Sexton howls, although the Slim Reaper seems content to ignore her outrage for the time being and blithely continues to grind on Honey’s face.
“Listen up, you rice-farming turbo-dyke! I’m gonna say this one last time in a way you understand…” Addison seethes before she pulls back the outer corners of her eyes with an index finger on each side of her face. “CHING CHONG WING WONG!”
When her caricature draws nuclear levels of heat from the fans, Allison quickly defends herself and huffs, “Hey, I’m not racist! Some of my favorite barbecues are Korean!”
That doesn’t assuage the crowd even a bit, and Yoona’s patience seems to have worn thin.
“Goddamn it, you bitches are drying out my pussy like the fucking Sahara…” she grumbles to no one in particular as she finally dismounts from Honey’s face, allowing the beleaguered Harris to take in some much needed gulps of fresh air.
“Merle, how the flying fuck did these assclowns make it all the way to adulthood without catching a bullet?” Park groans in disgust. “Did those Second Amendment people fuck off to Canada or something? Because I thought this country was the worldwide leader in school shootings.”
“YA GOSH ‘DURN RIGHT WE ARE! ‘MURICA NUMBER ONE!” a Polly Patriot pipes up from the front row, and perhaps emboldened by Lockwood’s victory earlier in the evening, the one man cheering band starts to chant, “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
“THAT’S NOT SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF!” a horrified Merle yells at the fan before he turns to Yoona. “Th -- That was the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard…!”
“”D’awww, thank you! You’re sweet!” Park coos before she leans in and gives the man a friendly peck on the cheek, though he still moves to block her path when the Slim Reaper tries to exit the ring.
Clearly exasperated, Yoona rolls her eyes and sighs, “Listen, dude, if you don’t get outta my way, in about five seconds I’mma kick you in the balls so hard you’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, Yoona, you’re a sexy beast with fantastic boobs that are criminally underappreciated, and I wish you didn’t just kick me in the balls so hard.’ Is THAT what you want, or do you want to see a couple of dumb cunts get their FDA-recommended daily allowance of street justice served up Reaper-style?”
The referee only needs to consider his options for a moment.
“Oh no, I have fallen victim to a vicious and unforeseen attack,” Merle flatly proclaims while he carefully lowers himself to the mat and lies flat on his back. “I am now incapacitated and unable to maintain order for the next five to ten minutes.”
Park chuckles coldly as she steps over the man’s body and slips out of the ring, setting her sights on the pair of interlopers from Phi Theta Tappa. Sexton is first to realize the danger they’re in as the Slim Reaper stalks towards them, and she retreats half a step behind her sorority sister.
“Careful, Allie…” Piper cautions. “She’s got that weird-ass Jackie Chan-look about her. I think she might know kung fu.”
“S’okay, Pipes. I got this,” the Mean Girl reassures, inching her way towards the approaching EurAsian champion with her fists raised. “Her slanty eyes can only detect algebra and motion. She can’t even see me if I move very, very slo -- URRK!”
Yoona promptly disabuses Allison of that notion with a viper-quick punch to the throat. The redhead’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets as she tries and fails to get air through her crushed windpipe, and a split-second later Park blasts her with a Knee Strike to the liver. Addison drops to her knees, and unfortunately that puts her head directly in the path of the Buzzsaw Kick that was already on its way before her shins even hit the ground.
BUZZSAW KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wioj6UDJUk
“OH MY GOD, SHE DOES KNOW KUNG FU!” Sexton shrieks in terror when she sees Yoona cut through her sorority sister in the blink of an eye.
For all her faults, Piper’s sense of self-preservation is strong, and she turns tail and flees rather than try her luck with the Slim Reaper. In her panic she neglects to run back up the entrance ramp or escape through the crowd, instead running lap after lap after lap around the squared circle with Park hot on her heels.
“COME BACK HERE! I’LL ONLY KILL YOU A LITTLE BIT!” Yoona shouts.
“IT’S JUST A PRANK!” Piper screams at the top of her lungs. “I LOVED YOU IN RUSH HOUR! YOU AND WILL SMITH HAD GREAT CHEMISTRY!”
Around and around they go, everyone in the building cheering for Sexton to get her comeuppance, except for Camille who remains blissfully unaware of anything that’s going on. With her face still covered and her music still blaring, Cosworth bops her head and hums along to the catchy melodies of the latest K-pop album that her girlfriend had gotten her addicted to.
After circling the ring a dozen times, Yoona is just about within reach of her prey. She extends an arm, her fingertips just inches away from Piper’s shoulder, and just as she’s preparing for a final lunge…
...Sexton is mowed down in front of her eyes by a Missile Dropkick from Honey Harris.
Yoona skids to a stop in front of the pair of blondes, Piper groaning incomprehensibly after being knocked for a loop and Honey gingerly picking herself up after having re-secured her shorn boot and at least somewhat recovering from her own Reaper-induced ailments.
“Nice one, New Coke! That was some ‘enemy of my enemy’ shit right there!” Park says as she cheerfully holds out her hand for a fist bump which is met only by a spiteful glower from Harris.
Brushing herself off and regaining her feet, the British spitfire tersely replies, “To be quite honest, I was aiming for you.”
“What?! Why?!” Yoona huffs in disbelief. “What the hell did I ever do to y -- NNNNnnnnnrrrrggghhh…”
She’s interrupted by a kick from behind that splits her thighs and pulverises her groin, and Park hunches over and goes pigeon-toed with her hands clasped over her womanhood.
“THAT’S FOR 9/11, BITCH!” Allison shouts. “NEVER FORGET! YOU THINK YOU PEOPLE CAN JUST -- AARRRGH!”
With Addison preoccupied by the dubious history lesson, Honey takes the opportunity to get some payback on the Mean Girl who had tormented her for the past year. The British spitfire plants her hands on Yoona’s shoulders and leapfrogs over the stunned Korean, launching herself at the redheaded half of Phi Theta Tappa. Still suspended in mid air, Harris wraps her legs around Allison’s head, then she twists her hips, arches her back, and sends Addison flipping to the floor with a Headscissor Takedown.
HEADSCISSOR TAKEDOWN:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=baG1sbdcAE8
Allison rolls through the landing and quickly gets upright once more, a bit dazed but otherwise unharmed. It all seems to be part of the plan for Honey, however, and she leaps at her nemesis again, this time clasping her hands around the back of Addison’s neck while tucking her knees against the redhead’s chest. Harris lays out on her back, suffering a bit of a rough landing on the thinly-padded cement, but the bulk of the impact is transferred through her posted thighs and into the Mean Girl’s ribs.
HONEY TRAP:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AszkGgipGKA
Blown backwards by the recoil of the Honey Trap, Allison stumbles in reverse until she crashes into the steel barricade. She clings to the barrier to remain semi-upright, though she can’t muster any resistance when Harris strides over, peels her away, and traps both her arms in a Double Underhook. The Sweet Sensation takes a deep breath to gather her strength, then she pops her hips and bends over backwards to power the redhead into the floor.
The spine-jarring landing gets a collective OOOOOH from the FAWNatics. As spectacular as the Double Underhook Suplex might be, the audience is even more impressed when Honey flips over backwards with her hooks still in place and comes to a seat in Allison’s lap, deftly transitioning into the Butterfly Lock portion of her signature Honey Pot.
HONEY POT:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbxnz-9M5SA
Painfully folded in half and with both arms tied behind her back, Addison only struggles for a short time before she starts slapping at whatever she can get her hands on, hoping that Harris would accept the symbolic submission. In light of their bitter and up till now one-sided history, however, the British spitfire would not be so easily satisfied.
“WHO’S A NAUGHTY DOTTIE?” Honey roars with a vehemence rarely heard from her.
“I AM! I AAAAMMMM!” Allison screams in anguish.
“WHAT ARE YOU?”
“I’M A NAUGHTY DOTTIE! I’M A NAUGHTY DOTTIE!” the Mean Girl cries out, unable to endure the agony any longer.
“Indeed you are,” Harris affirms, sounding more cool and collected now. “Now say, ‘Honey Blossom Harris, you have earned both your place in FAWN and my respect as a competitor, and I, Allison Addison, offer my deepest and most profound apologies for impugning your --’ UNGH!”
The Sweet Sensation is so busy dictating terms of surrender that she fails to see Piper sneak up behind her. A vicious kick between the shoulderblades forces Honey to release the Butterfly Lock, and once freed from the hold, Allison clambers to her feet and joins her comrade in stomping a mudhole in Harris.
Or at least she would have, had she not been obliterated by a Flying Knee to the side of her head as soon as she got up.
“Everybody gets one, New Coke!” Yoona informs her erstwhile challenger just as she pokes a very surprised Piper in the eyes.
Sexton screeches and her hands reflexively shoot to protect her face, but that doesn’t help her much Park grabs her hair and bonks her head against the nearby ringpost. The Slim Reaper throws the blonde half of Phi Theta Tappa into the ring to get her out of the way, then makes a beeline for the redhead to exact some vengeance for the earlier Low Blow. Yoona hauls Allison up onto rubbery legs, then with one yank, pulls the Mean Girl’s sweatpants and underwear down to her ankles to a chorus of catcalls from the crowd.
Park frowns in irritation when she sees that the redhead is freshly waxed -- leaving the question of whether the carpet matches the drapes a mystery for another day -- then she kneels and delivers a stiff-fingered thrust straight to Addison’s sanctum sanctorum. That splash of noxious pain scatters the concussive haze in Allison’s brain, though with her scream too large to escape her throat, all she can do is stagger about with a tortured croak coming from her wide open mouth.
Her ankle-tied shambling spins her around in a wide, looping circle and eventually puts her back in front of Honey Harris. The myriad of humiliations heaped on her by the Mean Girl still fresh in her mind, Honey doesn’t hesitate to crack a picture-perfect Super Kick across Allison’s chops, propelling the redhead back into Yoona’s waiting arms.
Park immediately captures Addison’s head under one arm in a Reverse Facelock, then backpedals and drags the both of them to the announcer’s table. The Korean lays on the desk, pulling the Mean Girl along with her, then clamps down on the Dragon Sleeper while wrapping her legs around Allison’s waist.
BEAST CHOKER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_7qDnqNR0
Caught in the Beast Choker, Addison starts wildly tapping out for the second time in a minute, but Yoona doesn’t even pretend to care. Much to the delight of the FAWNatics, particularly those in Park Place, the nymphomaniac champion wedges the hand of her non-choking arm between the redhead’s thighs and starts rubbing her middle and ring fingers back and forth across Allison’s exposed womanhood. With the lewd, sordid action taking place literally right in front of them, Joanna Coleman tries to contain her look of disgust, Gordy Solis unabashedly records up close and personal video with his phone, and Camille Cosworth -- eyes still covered and ears still plugged -- continues to dance in her seat to the beat of her music, working through a frenzied and absurdly complex routine of head rolls, shoulder shimmies, jazz hands, and finger points.
A few feet away, an exhausted Honey leans her back against the apron, tilts her gaze towards the ceiling, and sighs. Though the match itself had been an unmitigated disaster, at least she had gotten more of a chance to showcase her skills in the scrum after the bell. If she were being honest with herself, Harris took a surprising amount of satisfaction in seeing the sisters of Phi Theta Tappa get their just desserts.
The sisters of Phi Theta Tappa…
“OH, FIDDLESTICKS!” Honey exclaims, but it’s already too late.
A pair of hands grab her roughly by the hair and drag her into the ring, the Sweet Sensation paying the price for losing track of Piper Sexton. With Merle still resolutely playing dead lest he risk his testicular health, there’s nothing to stop Piper from tearing into her fellow blonde. Sexton straddles the Briton’s chest and begins wildly swinging away with closed fists, managing to slip a couple of blows through Harris’ guard.
Fortunately for Honey, one of her flailing legs strikes Piper in the back of the head and dismounts the Las Vegas native. The pair of young wrestlers scramble to their feet more or less simultaneously, but while Sexton dives for a Chop Block, Harris leapfrogs up and over, going high whenever her opponent goes low as she had throughout her entire career. Honey lands lightly on her feet and immediately throws herself into a Front Handspring into the ropes.
As had been the case earlier in the evening, her boots rebound off the top rope with a twang and put her back on her feet. Rather than a Hurricanrana, however, Harris uses her excess inertia to launch into a standing backflip that ends with a ferocious kick to the crown of Piper’s cranium.
HANDSPRING PELE KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJH5iGtzBw
Honey’s signature Handspring Pele Kick seems to leave the Phi Theta Tappa sister out on her feet, although she does remain upright through some miracle of physics. Harris regains verticality with a crisp kip-up, and noticing Sexton’s glazed eyes, she runs for a corner and hops onto the middle ropes. She deftly turns about on her perch to get eyes on her target and leaps off, leading with both knees. The bony joints smash into Piper’s collarbones with Honey’s full weight behind them, and the British spitfire rides her foe all the way down to the mat. Sexton lands hard on her back with the other wrestler’s shins crushing her chest, and a split-second later her head whiplashes and violently bounces off the deck, decisively snuffing out what remains of her consciousness.
HONEY TO THE B:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK4x8Aqpkk4
The Sweet Sensation lands much more gracefully after her Honey to the B Meteora, rolling into a front tumble an instant after impact and lightly popping to her feet with an agile dismount worthy of Dominique Daly. She’s so caught up in the moment and there’s so much adrenaline coursing through her veins that she simply can’t stay still, however, so Honey sprints for the nearest corner and mounts the top turnbuckle in a single great leap.
“THAT’S TWO NAUGHTY DOTTIES SENT TO BED WITHOUT SUPPER!” she bellows while punching a victorious fist into the air.
Despite the rather tame and milquetoast nature of the exclamation, the FAWNatics still reward Honey with a thunderous pop worthy of the Sensation One herself. Harris wants nothing more than to soak in the adulation, but out of the bottom corner of her eye, she sees Yoona Park and Allison Addison still lying on the announcer’s table. Though the redhead had long since been choked out, Yoona continues to work the Beast Choker with maniacal glee, all the while coaxing climax after gushing climax from Allison’s flaccid, defenseless body.
Upon seeing the once haughty Mean Girl reduced to nothing more than a nymphomaniac’s plaything -- evil consumed by greater evil -- Honey realizes that her job is not yet finished.
“...one more naughty dottie to go,” Harris murmurs, her voice so soft and quiet that not even she herself can hear it, and then she takes flight once more.
Tucked into a tight ball, the Sweet Sensation flips through all six hundred and thirty degrees of rotation that give the 630 Senton its name. With her vision turning into a dizzying swirl of light and color, Honey must rely on her instincts rather than her eyes to guide her Reading Rainbow finisher to its proper landing pad.
Missing such a high risk maneuver inside the ring would be disastrous.
Missing such a high risk maneuver outside the ring would be career-ending.
The Sweet Sensation hears the terrified shrieks from the audience, the sound distant and distorted, and for what seems like hours she falls falls falls and spins spins spins. Just when Honey feels like she might never touch the ground again, there’s a jarring eruption of pain across the expanse of her shoulderblades accompanied by the explosive cracking noise of plywood and plastic being shattered into splinters, and then nothing but blackness and silence.
READING RAINBOW:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD_U5x8V0IM
Honey is sure that she’s dead.
She hears a chorus calling her name -- HUUUN-NEY, HUUUN-NEY, HUUUN-NEY -- faraway at first and then closer and closer and closer as she feels her body rising into the air of its own accord. Soon afterwards her face is bathed in ethereal white light so intense that it shines through her eyelids. Harris opens her bleary eyes and sees a blurry form juxtaposed against the blindingly bright background. The Sweet Sensation blinks a few times and squints, and her vision slowly and surely comes into focus on the divine visage of…
...Merle.
“HOLEY KNICKERBOCKERS!” she blurts as she sits bolt upright, thonking her forehead against the referee’s.
“OW, DAMN IT!” Merle exclaims, recoiling backwards and dropping the penlight he had been shining into the wrestler’s face. “Awww, maaaan, that’s gonna leave a lump…!”
And now, Honey only wishes that she were dead.
She flops back down onto her stretcher, groaning in misery as she’s now regained enough of her senses to feel the throbbing ache in her upper back. Harris cranes her neck around -- taking note of the production crew hastily assembling yet another replacement desk for the announcers and both sisters of Phi Theta Tappa being wheeled out on stretchers identical to her own -- and it all comes back to her.
There’s still something missing though…
…someone missing…
“THAT WAS A CRAZY MOVE. ARE YOU OKAY?”
Honey nearly jumps out of her skin for the second time, but a firm hand pressing on her chest keeps her lying flat on the stretcher. She turns her head in the other direction, and amid the crowd of EMTs surrounding her, she sees Camille Cosworth standing at her side. Slung over one of Camille’s shoulders like a sack of potatoes is the limp, groaning form of Yoona Park.
All persons accounted for in Honey’s book, she takes a deep, painful breath and sighs, “Oh jeepers, I’m going to be sore for a month, but I think I’m fine.”
“NO, I HAVEN’T SEEN YOUR CAR KEYS. YOU MIGHT WANT TO CALL TRIPLE-A,” Cosworth says at the top of her lungs. “ARE YOU OKAY THOUGH?”
“Car… keys…?” a bewildered Harris repeats. “I didn’t say anything about -- and why are you talking so loudly?”
“AN ENTIRE JAR OF PICKLES? THAT’S TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD.”
“Wha -- What in the seven shades of tarnation are you talking about? Are you okay?”
“HA, HA, HA! THAT’S A GREAT JOKE! I’LL HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT ONE FOR LATER.”
“Wow, okay…” Honey mutters. “...I think your music was too loud and you’re suffering from temporary hearing loss.”
“I’M SORRY, COULD YOU REPEAT THAT?” Camille asks as if she were talking to someone on the other side of the arena. “MY MUSIC WAS TOO LOUD AND I’M SUFFERING FROM TEMPORARY HEARING LOSS.”
Harris just stares at the other woman in blank disbelief for a ten seconds, and she could have continued for a full minute had Cosworth not spoken again.
“WE’VE ALREADY HAD OUR MANIA MOMENT...” Camille booms while indicating towards her girlfriend with a tilt of her head, “...SO WE’LL LEAVE YOU TO ENJOY YOURS, HONEY HARRIS.”
She leans in close to Honey’s ear as if to say something in a conspiratorial whisper, though much to the blonde’s aural displeasure, Cosworth is still at maximum volume when she adds, “AND JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME, YOONA KINDA HAD IT COMING.”
With that, Camille spins on her heels and lightly hops over the guardrail, carrying her girlfriend and still reigning EurAsian champion out through the crowd. The EMTs start to wheel Honey backstage too, but she gets them to pause by holding up a hand.
“Wait, hold on. Let me listen to them… just a little while longer…”
HUUUN-NEY! HUUUN-NEY! HUUUN-NEY!
She might not have won gold, but with one great leap, Honey Blossom Harris had etched her name into FAWNAMANIA history.
...a young career that had thus far been much more turbulent than she had hoped.
Though Honey’s debut in the federation had brought with it much speculation that she would be heir apparent to Shea London’s sensational legacy, those lofty expectations were quickly tempered by a pair of losses to FAWN’s resident mean girl Allison Addison. More galling than the losses on her record, however, were the scars on her reputation. Suddenly there were questions -- questions raised verbatim by her cruel, red-headed tormentor -- of whether Harris truly belonged on the grandest stages and under the brightest lights, or if she were better served in dark matches and loaned out to lesser federations as she had been for the last several months.
Indeed, Honey Harris, once thought of as a torchbearer for the New Era, had been left off the FAWNAMANIA card completely until she found an unlikely lifeline in the form of an open challenge.
Or at least she hopes it’s a lifeline, for she knows that the same length of rope could very well hang her.
”LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, OUR NEXT MATCH IS FOR ONE FALL WITH A THIRTY MINUTE LIMIT AND IS FOR THE FAWN EURASIAN CHAMPIONSHIP! INTRODUCING FIRST… OUR CHALLENGER FROM BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND… HONEY HAAAARRRRRIIIIIS!”
As the first chords of Michelle Branch’s Best You Ever begin to pulse over the sound system, Honey grabs the edges of the curtain on both sides and BURSTS through onto the stage, making her first appearance in the FAWN Arena since her second ignominious defeat against Allison Addison. The young, blonde British spitfire skips to a halt on one foot, her left knee raised as she pumps her right fist to the crowd.
HONEY HARRIS
“C’MON, LET’S GO!!!!!” Harris bellows, a bright smile gracing her youthful features… but in the pit of her stomach she feels ill at ease.
How could she not when her opponent is not only FAWN’s reigning EurAsian champion, but the Slim Reaper herself? Among British wrestling circles, Yoona Park had become something of a boogeyman following her destruction of Fiona Waterford in a savage display that seemed less like a wrestling match and more like an execution. Though Lady Waterford was a divisive figure even in her native England, no one would dispute Her Ladyship’s status as a living legend, and to see her broken in every way a wrestler could be broken left an indelible mark on an entire generation of fans on the other side of the Atlantic.
That slightest hint of trepidation in the challenger seems to spread to the crowd as well. While they cheer as they always did for the Sweet Sensation, tonight there is a palpable sense of concern from Honey’s most ardent supporters who could hardly suffer the thought of their idol being defiled and debased to sate the voracious appetite of the champion.
And of course, with FAWN being FAWN, there are also a great many fans who want exactly that. Amidst the cheers there are audible wolf whistles and catcalls from black-hearted members of the audience, one-time supporters of the likes of Miriam Gaiman who now find refuge within the walls of Park Place. Already worked up to a lustful lather, they make no secret of the fact that they would enjoy nothing more than to see the blonde challenger become Yoona’s latest victim in a title run highlighted by violence and sexual debauchery.
Doing her best to tune out discomfiting thoughts of what might happen in the worst case scenario, Honey makes her way toward the ring at a brisk pace, but not going so fast that she bypasses slapping any offered hand or occasionally pausing for an embrace. The closer she gets to the ring, the louder it seems that the crowd cheers, as they gain more of an opportunity to take her in. The FAWN rookie’s well-shaped legs are bared, a hint of gold bikini style bottoms (with black trim) just visible beneath the hem a gold tee. Upon the front read the words “SWEET AS” in black type, directly above an illustration of a pot of honey. On the back, below the words “BUT WITH A” is a cartoon bee abdomen—complete with stinger.
Harris practically skips up the ring steps, that smile never leaving her features as she wipes her boots on the skirt of the apron. Honey slips through the ropes and mounts the second rope, tapping her fist to her heart twice before blowing a kiss to the full house. Maintaining her perch, the blonde’s hands move to the hem of her shirt, which she peels overhead to reveal a bikini top with matches her black trimmed gold shorts. Balling the garment in her right hand, the Brit cocks her arm and scans the crowd—a gesture which brings a few FAWNatics hands rising in anticipation. Choosing a lucky fan, Harris sends the shirt flying into the masses.
Allowing herself one big breath to steady her nerves, Honey settles into a corner to allow junior referee Merle to inspect her gear. The man is in the process of checking her elbow pads when the lights click off, plunging the building into darkness, and then heavy orchestral strings over the PA speakers and a roar from the crowd herald the imminent arrival of the Slim Reaper.
Just a few seconds later, however, the music cuts off just as abruptly as it had begun, though the arena remains cloaked in darkness as the cheering gradually gives way to confused murmurs. The mystery drags on for ten, then twenty, then thirty seconds, and finally a single spotlight shines on the top of the entrance ramp. The PA system comes on shortly afterwards, but rather than the EurAsian champion’s usual orchestral entrance theme, it’s instead the voice of Orphan Annie.
The sun’ll come out tomorrow…
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow…
There’ll be sun...
Yoona chooses this moment to step through the curtains at the top of the entranceway. Despite the shift away from her usual anthem, she’s still dressed for battle in her usual black and gold trimmed bustier one piece while her forearms and shins are sheathed in matching gauntlets and legsleeves. Also in black and gold is the gilded leather championship belt that Park straps diagonally across her torso from shoulder to hip like a bandolier. A lucky silk ribbon tied around her left thigh remains the only deviation away from her color scheme, providing a splash of garish red against the darker tones of her outfit.
YOONA PARK
Just thinkin’ about tomorrow…
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow…
Til’ there’s none…
She looks around the arena, one eyebrow raised in bemusement, then she turns and reaches her arms through the curtains to grab something on the other side. After a couple seconds of struggle, Yoona manages to yank her protesting girlfriend out onto the entrance ramp as well. Still dressed in the same street clothes she was seen in during Kanako Akiyama’s match earlier in the evening, a self-conscious appearing Camille Cosworth gives a half-hearted wave and an awkward chuckle to the crowd.
CAMILLE COSWORTH
“Yoona… what are you doing…” Camille says through a forced grin.
“I know you’re bummed out you’re not medically cleared to wrestle for the big show, so I’m giving you the Mania moment you deserve,” Park replies before she folds her left hand behind her back while extending her right towards Cosworth. “Camille Cosworth, may I have this dance?”
When I’m stuck with a day, that’s gray, and lonely…
Camille hems and haws, “Umm… I -- I don’t know how --”
I just stick out my chin, and grin, and saaaaaay…
“Babe, I just watched you Spider-Man your way over a cage like it wasn’t even there. If you can do that shit, you can do a fucking basic-ass box step.”
Cosworth looks out into the crowd, imagining the tens of thousands of expectant eyeballs trained on her, then she shrugs and sighs, “Oh, what the heck…”
The sun will come out tomorrow…
To an ovation from the FAWNatics, Camille takes her paramour’s hand and allows Yoona to reel her in. The ex-ballerina takes the lead, wrapping her other arm around Cosworth’s waist, and then the pair begin waltzing their way towards the ring, eyes closed and forehead to forehead.
So you gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow…
Come what maaaaay…
Ever the astute bunch, the FAWNatics catch on to Park’s intentions and they know what they must do. For their heroes they’d cheer, and their villains they’d boo, but for their Girl of Tomorrow -- one of their own, a fangirl made good who fell from blinding heights and was just now on the verge of soaring again -- they add their voices to Orphan Annie’s and sing.
“TOMORROW, TOMORROW!
I LOVE YA, TOMORROW!”
Right on cue, Yoona sends Camille twirling outwards only for her pirouette to be arrested by their still connected hands. Cosworth opens her hazel eyes, and they immediately well with emotion when she sees thousands upon thousands of fans holding their cell phones aloft and waving them back and forth, each luminescent screen a pinprick of light against the darkened backdrop.
“YOU’RE ALWAYS A DAY A-WAAAAY…”
Park reels her girlfriend back in, and as they continue to dance down the ramp, she whispers, “Look, Cam… the stars are shining for you again…”
“Oh -- oh, Yoona…” Cosworth manages to say before she gets choked up on the growing lump in her throat.
“Shhh… don’t talk, just dance…”
Serenaded by twenty thousand of their closest friends, the pair of lovers proceed to do just that, twirling and cavorting all the way down the ramp and up onto the announcer’s table -- a table that had already been smashed and reconstructed several times earlier in the evening.
“TOMORROW, TOMORROW!
I LOVE YA, TOMORROW!
YOU’RE ALWAYS A DAAAAAAYYYY… AAAA - WAAAAAAAYYYYYY!”
Standing in front of broadcast team Joanna Coleman and Gordy Solis just as the FAWNatics hit the crescendo, Yoona spins Camille one last time before pulling back in and dipping her backwards, holding that position for several long seconds and basking in a rapturous standing ovation as Gladiatrix photographers immortalize their pose on digital film.
Cosworth cups the side of Park’s face with one hand and caresses her girlfriend’s cheek with her thumb, then she softly murmurs, “I love you, Yoona Park. Forever and ever.”
Still holding Camille in the dip and her voice cracking with emotion, Park replies in her native Korean, <<You are the light of my life. If I could have just one moment in all of eternity -->>
“BRAVO! BRAVO!” Honey Harris gushes as she slides out of the ring and approaches the pair, alternating between applauding and wiping away tears of her own. “Oh, such passion! I haven’t been this moved since The Fault in Our -- UNGGH!”
In one smooth motion, Yoona pivots about on the table and whips a vicious Roundhouse Kick to the side of Honey’s head while also pulling Camille fully upright. Caught utterly off-guard, Harris crumbles into an ungainly, unconscious heap out on the floor as the entire building is shocked into deafening silence.
“GET YOUR OWN MOMENT, SHITHEAD!” Park screeches at the prostrate form of the would-be challenger while Cosworth throws up her hands in exasperation, her good mood immediately dashed.
Harrumphing indignantly, Yoona unbuckles her belt and leaves it with her girlfriend at the announcer’s table before she heads to the ring, callously trampling over Honey’s twitching body on her way there. Merle tries to put on his sternest, disapproving-est look of stern disapproval as Park steps through the ropes, but the EurAsian champion is having none of it as she flits past him and slouches in the far corner.
“How can you flip the switch like that from world’s greatest girlfriend to world’s greatest bitch just like that…” the referee grumbles under his breath as he inspects her gear.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Yoona scoffs derisively. “I guess the same fucking way YOU flip the switch from world’s shittiest referee to world’s shittiest lover!”
“Hah! Joke’s on you, Park!” the man triumphantly retorts. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since --”
Merle cuts himself off when he sees Camille cringing at the announcer’s table, and he realizes he’s made a terrible mistake.
“Oh no…” he mutters, the blood draining out of his face. “...I just played myself, didn’t I?!”
Park gives the official a superior smirk and a couple of condescending pats on the shoulder, which only adds to his distress.
“No… don’t you say it! Don’t you say it, Yoona! DON’T YOU --”
“Exactly as planned,” Yoona harshly whispers into his ear, dealing the coup de grace to his pride.
“ARRRGHH DAMN IT!” Merle bellows, stomping his feet in frustration.
Meanwhile, the champion merely rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She pads over the the side of the ring and looks down at her latest challenger, Honey just now stirring back to life and crawling to hands and knees. Evidently not satisfied with her rate of recovery, Yoona decides to offer Harris some choice words of encouragement.
“MOVE YOUR ASS, FUCKTARD! WE AIN’T GOT ALL GODDAMN DAY!” Park screams at the fallen Brit before she does an about-face towards the still seething Merle, jerking a thumb over her shoulder while she huffs, “What a dick, amirite? Would’ve expected a little more class from London two-point-oh...”
“Actually, London two-point-oh is someone else,” Camille interjects from the announcer’s table, much to Yoona’s chagrin.
“Are -- are you fucking kidding me…? There’s not one -- BUT TWO -- of these wannabes?” the Korean incredulously asks while gesturing towards the flagging British challenger. “What is this, fucking Hollywood with all these shitty sequels? This clown’s like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, or Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, or Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, or Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales!”
Cosworth chimes in again, “Y’know, word on the street is they’re making an unnamed sixth Pirates movie…”
“YOU HEAR THAT, ASSHOLE?!” Yoona screeches at Honey, who’s just now struggled her way into the ring. “YOU’RE SUCH A FUCKING WASTE OF TITS THAT YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME!”
Despite her ears still ringing from the concussive blow, Harris keeps herself upright if unsteady in one corner and reassures the referee that she is fit to compete. Treating Park as anything but a dangerous savage had been a costly mistake, one that she vows not to repeat again as the timekeeper’s bell signifies the official start of the contest.
Her eyes burning with determination, Honey glowers at her opponent and forcefully states, “I have a name, and you WILL remember the day that Honey… Blossom… Har --”
“FUCK YOU, THAT’S A CUNT NAME!” Yoona snaps at her. “FROM NOW ON, YOU’LL BE KNOWN AS NEW COKE! FIRST NAME: NEW. MIDDLE NAME: ETHEL. LAST NAME: CO -- NRRGHH!”
Having heard quite enough from the notoriously loud-mouthed champion, Honey propels herself forward and leaps all the way from the center of the ring to the opposite corner to deliver a Dropkick flush to Park’s chops. Perhaps not expecting such an athletic maneuver from a woman who looked to be in shambles just moments ago, the champion drops to a seat in the corner with one hand protectively cupped against her jaw.
Harris knows that she needs to make the most of every opportunity, so she quickly kips to her feet and does her best to shake off the lingering effects of the previous kick to the cranium. Noticing that the Slim Reaper is slow to rise, the British spitfire spins about on her heels and dashes off, hopping onto the middle turnbuckle before rebounding back at even greater speeds. Honey takes to the air and leaves her feet once more, although this time not from quite so far out, and instead of bringing her heels together for a Dropkick, she spreads her legs in a V and rams her golden derriere right into Yoona’s chest.
The impact forces the air from the champion’s lungs in a pained gasp, but the Sweet Sensation still isn’t done. Holding onto the intersecting ropes for support, Honey bucks up and down and up and down in her seat, using her rump to repeatedly batter her opponent’s collarbones. After a full ten bounces Harris deems Park’s Bronco to be adequately Busted, and the blonde dismounts to raucous cheers from her reinvigorated fans, while the brunette slops out onto the floor for a breather.
BRONCO BUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfg84UZ16IM
Honey follows out of the ring as well, quickly catching up to her foe and seizing an arm to drag Yoona back into the ring, and as they pass by the announcer’s table Harris takes a moment to comment to Camille, “Though I mean no offense, I must say that your ladylove is a bit of a… naughty dottie.”
“Uhhhh… I… err… umm… what?” Cosworth stammers.
“My apologies, I usually don’t use such harsh, uncouth language, but I really am quite frustrated,” Honey calls back over her shoulder as she rolls the champion back into the legal field of play while a very perplexed Camille looks on.
By Harris enters the ring, Park is just staggering upright with her back turned to the challenger. The Sweet Sensation continues to press her advantage, locking on a snug Rear Waistlock and powering forward to ram Yoona chest-first into a set of turnbuckles. The recoil from the collision sends both wrestlers into a backwards tumble, each woman finding her feet again in the center of the squared circle, and Honey deftly trades her Waistlock for a Full Nelson. Like poetry in motion, the British spitfire uses the inertia of the O’Connor Roll to pops her hips up, over, and back to send Park into the canvas with a Dragon Suplex.
O’CONNOR ROLL DRAGON SUPLEX:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QxLePoYGao
With Yoona’s shoulders pressed to the mat and her hooks still sunk in deep, Honey pushes up onto her toes and bridges as high as she can for leverage while Merle counts…
ONE!
TWO!
...and Park bicycles her legs and powers her way free of the pin, landing on stomach in the process. Harris is not dismayed, however, and she backs up a few steps to clear a runway for her next move. When the champion crawls to a seat a couple of seconds later, Honey springs forward and blasts Yoona across the chest with a stiff Penalty Kick that knocks her flat on her back.
PENALTY KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy44TWMlbq4
The challenger pounces into another pin…
ONE!
TWO!
THR -- NO!
...only for the champion to deny her again by getting a shoulder up with less than a second to go. She shoots a silent glance towards the referee, and when the man reaffirms the count, the Sweet Sensation runs for the ropes once more. Bouncing off one set of cables, she dashes past the recovering Yoona and throws herself into a Front Handspring into the opposite set. Her boots hit the top rope and bounce off, putting Harris back on her feet for just the briefest of moments before she leaps backwards into a seat atop Park’s shoulders. From there, the British spitfire needs but a heartbeat to gather herself before clamping her thighs tight around the Korean’s head and launching into a backflip.
HANDSPRING INVERTED HURRICANRANA:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzusfIW1LeQ
Yoona is pulled along for a short flight with a rough landing courtesy of her opponent’s Inverted Hurricanrana, landing headfirst on the deck, bouncing to her knees, and finally collapsing onto her back. For the third time in half a minute, Harris sprawls into a pin…
...but there’s not even a count this time. Harris follows the official’s gaze and sees that Park has one leg on the bottom rope.
“FUDGESICLES!” Honey cries out in frustration as her fingers subconsciously tug at her golden locks of hair.
The consummate babyface, Harris’ sense of honor and fairplay compels to back off and respect the rope break even though it means she must relinquish her snowballing momentum. Her efforts aren’t for naught, however, as the FAWNatics are greatly appreciative of her New Era reboot of the classic London Run, and she’s rewarded with a booming chant of HUUUUN-NEY! HUUUUN-NEY! HUUUUN-NEY!
Feeling better now than she has in ages, Honey indulges in the love, climbing to the top rope, turning outwards to face the crowd, and punching a fist high into her air as she roars, “LET’S GO! LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Harris turns about on her perch without dismounting, and sees that her foe is struggling to stay upright on wobbly legs after the barrage of offense. The challenger can’t help but break into a grin as the punch-drunk champion staggers about aimlessly in the center of the ring, seemingly unaware of her surroundings and operating on instinct alone. Having come into the match a significant underdog -- so much so that her closest confidantes and trainers practically begged her to not take the fight -- Honey sees an opportunity to silence the doubters and cement her FAWN superstardom with one giant leap.
Park wobbles closer and closer, eyes still glazed over and swimming about in their sockets, apparently without an answer for the Briton’s frenzied blitz. Honey senses that another big blow would put Yoona down for the night, and while she cannot hit her Reading Rainbow finishing move on a standing foe, she reasons that a more basic Crossbody would do the job just as well. She waits for the Korean to stagger another step forward, and then the British spitfire launches.
Harris immediately regrets her decision.
As soon as Honey’s boots leave the top ropes, Yoona’s dulled gaze abruptly shifts into sharp focus, a maniacal glint reflected in her dark eyes now that she’s no longer playing possum. With Harris at the mercy of inertia and gravity, the Slim Reaper chambers her right arm and leaps forward to meet her rapidly descending opponent head-on.
Realizing what’s about to happen but unable to prevent it, the Sweet Sensation’s eyes widen with shock as she quietly mutters, “Oh, shiz…”
The G-rated vituperation is still on Honey’s lips when Yoona’s fist plows through her jaw, blasting her out of the skies with a mid air Superman Punch that’s made all the more devastating by Harris’ own runaway momentum. The blonde’s head snaps back violently from the crushing impact, and the rest of her body is already limp by the time she crashes face-first to the mat a split-second later.
MID AIR SUPERMAN PUNCH:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywj2rdSxv2s
“SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER!” Yoona shouts at her fallen challenger to a decidedly mixed reaction from the FAWNatics.
Shaking out the stiffness from the fingers on her punching hand, Park casually saunters to Harris and rolls the blonde over with a forceful nudge from her right leg. She raises a foot as if to stomp Honey’s skull into a pancake, but then she thinks better of it and instead gently places her bare sole atop the Briton’s forehead. Yoona instructs the referee to start counting, and though Merle is quite displeased by the blatantly disrespectful pin, he abides by his duties and pounds on the canvas…
ONE!
TWO!
THR -- NO!
Honey gets a shoulder up with the official’s palm just inches away from hitting the mat for the third and final time, prompting the FAWNatics to cheer and the Slim Reaper to disdainfully scoff.
“Really, New Coke?” Park snorts while quirking an eyebrow.
The champion reaches down to grab a handful of flaxen hair, then hauls the semi-conscious Honey to her knees. Yoona genuflects behind Harris, grabbing her by the throat with one hand and bending her over backwards so that the base of the Briton’s skull rests atop Park’s posted knee. A gasp ripples through the audience when Yoona raises her right arm, and a few of Honey’s most loyal supporters even cry out in despair, but their pleas fall upon deaf ears.
Park brings down her arm like a hammer, striking Harris right between the eyes with the bony point of her elbow. Hit with the third brain-rattling blow of the night, Honey collapses to the mat with her features gruesomely frozen in an expression of abject fear, her eyes still open but unseeing.
“Wah, wah, waaaaaaah…” Yoona flippantly imitates the sound of a very sad trombone while pulling down Honey’s eyelids with a pair of fingers, then she settles into a Front Facesit on top of Harris’ head. “Oh, don’t give me that look, Merle! What the fuck did you think was gonna happen?! Reaper gonna reap, jobber gonna job!”
The referee keeps his grumbling to himself while he counts…
ONE!
TWO!
THR -- NO!
Somehow, someway, Honey gets a shoulder up again to keep her dreams alive, much to Park’s annoyance.
“Goddamn it, New Coke!” she huffs. “You are such a fucking asshole!”
Yoona decides that her opponent’s survival instinct is too hardy for a pin, even when dealing with what was likely a concussion. She rises from her seat and takes hold of the blonde’s limp left leg, quickly unbuckling and removing the boot to leave Honey’s foot bare and vulnerable.
Park rolls Harris face-down, then scoots forward and sits cross-legged at her challenger’s left side. She proceeds to wrap her left leg around the blonde’s left thigh, wedges her ankle into the crook of Honey’s left knee, and grasps the Briton’s foot in both hands.
FOOTSIE:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wNJECekuzc
Having completed the complicated setup for Footsie, Yoona has the option of attacking both the blonde’s calf and the pressure points in her foot, an excruciating combination sure to lead to a bawling submission. For the moment, however, Park opts for a much gentler touch, giving a tender massage to revitalize her opponent just for the sake of toying with Honey a bit more before the finish. It takes about half a minute, but the fondling has its desired effect and Harris soon shows signs of life.
“Unnnggghh… wha -- what’s going on…?” the Sweet Sensation moans, not yet aware of her precarious situation.
“Ayyyyyyy, not dead!” Yoona cheerfully greets her. “Had me worried for a while there, New Coke! Would’ve gotten chewed out real bad by the brass if I murder-killed someone into retirement. Again.”
Those words finally cut through the fog clouding her senses, and Honey realizes the danger she’s in. She starts thrashing about, trying to reach the ropes or get free, but Park has her dead center in the ring and her awkward position means her leverage is nil.
“Unhand me, fiend!” Harris bleats, not liking the edge of desperation in her own voice. “Let me gooooOOOOOOOOOHHH CHEESE AND CRACKERS!”
Honey shrieks in agony when Yoona pulls back on her foot, causing her soft calf muscle to be crushed against the sharp, bony ridge of her opponent’s shin. At the same time, a subtle shift in Park’s massage technique triggers an avalanche of pain that starts in the arch of her foot and crashes through the rest of her body. Merle sees her distress, and the referee is immediately crouched down in front of Harris and offering her a chance to call it quits.
“AAAAAHHH GEEEEZ LOOOOUUUIIIIIIISSSSSE!” Honey wails as tears stream from her eyes, though she maintains the wherewithal to both mind her language and shake her head at the official.
Harris knows she should give in, and yet, she can’t. Regardless of the opening cheap shot, to be defeated in a scant three moves -- to be made to quit -- in the most important match of her career would only prove the naysayers right. It would prove the mean girls of Phi Theta Tappa right. Though dethroning the Slim Reaper would have been a longshot, Honey had at least expected to be competitive. Even a hard-fought loss would’ve validated the hype that had accompanied her debut, but the champion had made it look easy, spending more time bantering with the referee and paying tribute to Camille Cosworth than actually wrestling.
To Yoona Park, she had been nothing more than an afterthought, and now Honey fears the rest of the world would see her the same way.
“DAGNABBED MONKEY SNATCHERS!” she screeches when Yoona targets a particularly sensitive pressure point near the ball of her foot.
She has one recourse. Soon, the torture would exceed her body’s capacity for pain and cause Harris to lose consciousness. It would still be a crushing defeat, but it would also be a courageous defeat. To be carried out on her shield after exceeding her physical limits and enduring to the bitter end against a superior foe would be respectable, perhaps even laudable. At least this is what Honey tells herself to soothe her soul as she waits for the cold respite of unconsciousness, screaming the entire way.
It’s not to be, however, as Yoona refuses to settle for anything less than an explicit surrender. Whenever she senses her victim fading, she dials down the pain only to redouble the pressure a few seconds later, taking Harris to the brink again, and again, and again, and again. Finally, after suffering a full minute of the torture that would’ve broken most women in ten seconds, Honey can endure no more.
“Submit… submit…” she weakly sobs while her fluttering hand raps against the deck.
To blonde’s surprise and relief, Park relents as soon as the bell sounds, disentangling from Harris and clambering upright to somewhat begrudging applause from the FAWNatics. Yoona takes a melodramatic bow as the announcer proclaims her FAWNAMANIA defense to be a successful one, but she refuses to accept the EurAsian title belt when Merle offers it to her. Instead she crouches next to her vanquished challenger and gently brushes some hair out of Honey’s tear-stained face.
“I get it, New Coke. I understand the comparisons to Shea London now,” Yoona muses, before she leans in close and whispers, “It’s ‘cause you’re both sexy as fuck when you tap out.”
Eyes going wide when she recognizes the implicit threat in those words, Harris pleads, “No! No, don’t -- MMPPFF!”
Park pivots into a Reverse Facesit, pinning Honey’s arms underneath her shins while salaciously sweeping her thinly sheathed undercarriage back and forth over the Briton’s features. Harris wildly kicks her legs into the air in an attempt to dislodge the Korean, but she only makes things worse for herself when Yoona snatches her ankles and tucks each shin underneath an armpit, effectively folding Honey into a tight Matchbook. With the blonde’s rump now pointed at the ceiling, Park reaches down, worms her hands into the legholes of Harris’ trunks and puts her well-practiced fingers to work. As a result, Honey’s muffled squeals rise dramatically in pitch and volume, much to Yoona’s pleasure.
Meanwhile at the announcer’s table, Camille groans in disgust. The couple have long operated by the maxim What happens in FAWN stays in FAWN, but the ever-wholesome Cosworth does not appreciate her girlfriend’s antics, even if she begrudgingly accepts them as part and parcel of their occupational hazard. Camille plugs in her earbuds and sets her phone to play music at maximum volume. Then she grabs the bottom hem at the front of her T-shirt and pulls it over her head, covering her face in protest and petulantly folding her arms in front of her chest.
Camille’s display of disapproval and Merle’s ineffectual threats of a fine and suspension are ignored by the lusty Korean, however, as she skillfully pleasures both herself and her opponent. Approaching the finish line, Yoona closes her eyes and bites her bottom lip as she continues to wiggle, and poke, and waggle, and prod, and grind, and tease, and --
“EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!” an indignant, microphone-amplified voice calls out, followed a moment later by a torrential deluge of boos and jeers.”JUST WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
Something about the whiny, slightly-nasal quality of the voice makes it difficult for Park to tune out. Her rhythm disrupted, Yoona growls in annoyance and brings a temporary halt to the debauchery. She opens her eyes and sees the sisters of Phi Theta Tappa, Allison Addison and Piper Sexton, marching down the entrance ramp dressed in their sorority branded T-shirts and sweatpants.
ALLISON ADDISON
PIPER SEXTON
“The low card is that way, cunt nuggets!” Park snarls as she points off in some random direction. “Get your worthless asses out of here, this is a goddamn title match!”
“Oh, puh-leeze! EurAsia is such a shithole country that I can’t even find it on a map!” Piper retorts. “No one cares about your sweatshop knock-off title!”
When Sexton is met with another round of boos, Allison comes to her sorority sister’s defense and admonishes, “It’s true, libtards! When EurAsia sends its wrestlers, they’re not sending their best! They’re not sending people like me or Pipes! They’re sending jobbers and rapists!”
The jeers only grow louder, prompting Addison to roll her eyes and scoff, “And some, I assume, are decent -- HEY, WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!”
Much to the Mean Girl’s irritation, Yoona has resumed her salacious ride, determined to get her big finish on the big stage.
“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO HUMILIATE HER! ONLY WE’RE ALLOWED TO HUMILIATE HER!” Piper screeches, sounding quite aggrieved and self-righteous. “THAT UGGO VIRGIN IS OUR BITCH!”
“WELL THEN IT LOOKS LIKE YOU SHITHEADS JUST GOT CUCKED!” Park snaps back while waggling her hips in a tight figure-eight.
The sisters of Phi Theta Tappa gasp as if profoundly offended and scandalized.
“AND THAT’S OUR WORD! YOU CAN’T USE OUR WORD!” Sexton howls, although the Slim Reaper seems content to ignore her outrage for the time being and blithely continues to grind on Honey’s face.
“Listen up, you rice-farming turbo-dyke! I’m gonna say this one last time in a way you understand…” Addison seethes before she pulls back the outer corners of her eyes with an index finger on each side of her face. “CHING CHONG WING WONG!”
When her caricature draws nuclear levels of heat from the fans, Allison quickly defends herself and huffs, “Hey, I’m not racist! Some of my favorite barbecues are Korean!”
That doesn’t assuage the crowd even a bit, and Yoona’s patience seems to have worn thin.
“Goddamn it, you bitches are drying out my pussy like the fucking Sahara…” she grumbles to no one in particular as she finally dismounts from Honey’s face, allowing the beleaguered Harris to take in some much needed gulps of fresh air.
“Merle, how the flying fuck did these assclowns make it all the way to adulthood without catching a bullet?” Park groans in disgust. “Did those Second Amendment people fuck off to Canada or something? Because I thought this country was the worldwide leader in school shootings.”
“YA GOSH ‘DURN RIGHT WE ARE! ‘MURICA NUMBER ONE!” a Polly Patriot pipes up from the front row, and perhaps emboldened by Lockwood’s victory earlier in the evening, the one man cheering band starts to chant, “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
“THAT’S NOT SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF!” a horrified Merle yells at the fan before he turns to Yoona. “Th -- That was the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard…!”
“”D’awww, thank you! You’re sweet!” Park coos before she leans in and gives the man a friendly peck on the cheek, though he still moves to block her path when the Slim Reaper tries to exit the ring.
Clearly exasperated, Yoona rolls her eyes and sighs, “Listen, dude, if you don’t get outta my way, in about five seconds I’mma kick you in the balls so hard you’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, Yoona, you’re a sexy beast with fantastic boobs that are criminally underappreciated, and I wish you didn’t just kick me in the balls so hard.’ Is THAT what you want, or do you want to see a couple of dumb cunts get their FDA-recommended daily allowance of street justice served up Reaper-style?”
The referee only needs to consider his options for a moment.
“Oh no, I have fallen victim to a vicious and unforeseen attack,” Merle flatly proclaims while he carefully lowers himself to the mat and lies flat on his back. “I am now incapacitated and unable to maintain order for the next five to ten minutes.”
Park chuckles coldly as she steps over the man’s body and slips out of the ring, setting her sights on the pair of interlopers from Phi Theta Tappa. Sexton is first to realize the danger they’re in as the Slim Reaper stalks towards them, and she retreats half a step behind her sorority sister.
“Careful, Allie…” Piper cautions. “She’s got that weird-ass Jackie Chan-look about her. I think she might know kung fu.”
“S’okay, Pipes. I got this,” the Mean Girl reassures, inching her way towards the approaching EurAsian champion with her fists raised. “Her slanty eyes can only detect algebra and motion. She can’t even see me if I move very, very slo -- URRK!”
Yoona promptly disabuses Allison of that notion with a viper-quick punch to the throat. The redhead’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets as she tries and fails to get air through her crushed windpipe, and a split-second later Park blasts her with a Knee Strike to the liver. Addison drops to her knees, and unfortunately that puts her head directly in the path of the Buzzsaw Kick that was already on its way before her shins even hit the ground.
BUZZSAW KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wioj6UDJUk
“OH MY GOD, SHE DOES KNOW KUNG FU!” Sexton shrieks in terror when she sees Yoona cut through her sorority sister in the blink of an eye.
For all her faults, Piper’s sense of self-preservation is strong, and she turns tail and flees rather than try her luck with the Slim Reaper. In her panic she neglects to run back up the entrance ramp or escape through the crowd, instead running lap after lap after lap around the squared circle with Park hot on her heels.
“COME BACK HERE! I’LL ONLY KILL YOU A LITTLE BIT!” Yoona shouts.
“IT’S JUST A PRANK!” Piper screams at the top of her lungs. “I LOVED YOU IN RUSH HOUR! YOU AND WILL SMITH HAD GREAT CHEMISTRY!”
Around and around they go, everyone in the building cheering for Sexton to get her comeuppance, except for Camille who remains blissfully unaware of anything that’s going on. With her face still covered and her music still blaring, Cosworth bops her head and hums along to the catchy melodies of the latest K-pop album that her girlfriend had gotten her addicted to.
After circling the ring a dozen times, Yoona is just about within reach of her prey. She extends an arm, her fingertips just inches away from Piper’s shoulder, and just as she’s preparing for a final lunge…
...Sexton is mowed down in front of her eyes by a Missile Dropkick from Honey Harris.
Yoona skids to a stop in front of the pair of blondes, Piper groaning incomprehensibly after being knocked for a loop and Honey gingerly picking herself up after having re-secured her shorn boot and at least somewhat recovering from her own Reaper-induced ailments.
“Nice one, New Coke! That was some ‘enemy of my enemy’ shit right there!” Park says as she cheerfully holds out her hand for a fist bump which is met only by a spiteful glower from Harris.
Brushing herself off and regaining her feet, the British spitfire tersely replies, “To be quite honest, I was aiming for you.”
“What?! Why?!” Yoona huffs in disbelief. “What the hell did I ever do to y -- NNNNnnnnnrrrrggghhh…”
She’s interrupted by a kick from behind that splits her thighs and pulverises her groin, and Park hunches over and goes pigeon-toed with her hands clasped over her womanhood.
“THAT’S FOR 9/11, BITCH!” Allison shouts. “NEVER FORGET! YOU THINK YOU PEOPLE CAN JUST -- AARRRGH!”
With Addison preoccupied by the dubious history lesson, Honey takes the opportunity to get some payback on the Mean Girl who had tormented her for the past year. The British spitfire plants her hands on Yoona’s shoulders and leapfrogs over the stunned Korean, launching herself at the redheaded half of Phi Theta Tappa. Still suspended in mid air, Harris wraps her legs around Allison’s head, then she twists her hips, arches her back, and sends Addison flipping to the floor with a Headscissor Takedown.
HEADSCISSOR TAKEDOWN:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=baG1sbdcAE8
Allison rolls through the landing and quickly gets upright once more, a bit dazed but otherwise unharmed. It all seems to be part of the plan for Honey, however, and she leaps at her nemesis again, this time clasping her hands around the back of Addison’s neck while tucking her knees against the redhead’s chest. Harris lays out on her back, suffering a bit of a rough landing on the thinly-padded cement, but the bulk of the impact is transferred through her posted thighs and into the Mean Girl’s ribs.
HONEY TRAP:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AszkGgipGKA
Blown backwards by the recoil of the Honey Trap, Allison stumbles in reverse until she crashes into the steel barricade. She clings to the barrier to remain semi-upright, though she can’t muster any resistance when Harris strides over, peels her away, and traps both her arms in a Double Underhook. The Sweet Sensation takes a deep breath to gather her strength, then she pops her hips and bends over backwards to power the redhead into the floor.
The spine-jarring landing gets a collective OOOOOH from the FAWNatics. As spectacular as the Double Underhook Suplex might be, the audience is even more impressed when Honey flips over backwards with her hooks still in place and comes to a seat in Allison’s lap, deftly transitioning into the Butterfly Lock portion of her signature Honey Pot.
HONEY POT:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbxnz-9M5SA
Painfully folded in half and with both arms tied behind her back, Addison only struggles for a short time before she starts slapping at whatever she can get her hands on, hoping that Harris would accept the symbolic submission. In light of their bitter and up till now one-sided history, however, the British spitfire would not be so easily satisfied.
“WHO’S A NAUGHTY DOTTIE?” Honey roars with a vehemence rarely heard from her.
“I AM! I AAAAMMMM!” Allison screams in anguish.
“WHAT ARE YOU?”
“I’M A NAUGHTY DOTTIE! I’M A NAUGHTY DOTTIE!” the Mean Girl cries out, unable to endure the agony any longer.
“Indeed you are,” Harris affirms, sounding more cool and collected now. “Now say, ‘Honey Blossom Harris, you have earned both your place in FAWN and my respect as a competitor, and I, Allison Addison, offer my deepest and most profound apologies for impugning your --’ UNGH!”
The Sweet Sensation is so busy dictating terms of surrender that she fails to see Piper sneak up behind her. A vicious kick between the shoulderblades forces Honey to release the Butterfly Lock, and once freed from the hold, Allison clambers to her feet and joins her comrade in stomping a mudhole in Harris.
Or at least she would have, had she not been obliterated by a Flying Knee to the side of her head as soon as she got up.
“Everybody gets one, New Coke!” Yoona informs her erstwhile challenger just as she pokes a very surprised Piper in the eyes.
Sexton screeches and her hands reflexively shoot to protect her face, but that doesn’t help her much Park grabs her hair and bonks her head against the nearby ringpost. The Slim Reaper throws the blonde half of Phi Theta Tappa into the ring to get her out of the way, then makes a beeline for the redhead to exact some vengeance for the earlier Low Blow. Yoona hauls Allison up onto rubbery legs, then with one yank, pulls the Mean Girl’s sweatpants and underwear down to her ankles to a chorus of catcalls from the crowd.
Park frowns in irritation when she sees that the redhead is freshly waxed -- leaving the question of whether the carpet matches the drapes a mystery for another day -- then she kneels and delivers a stiff-fingered thrust straight to Addison’s sanctum sanctorum. That splash of noxious pain scatters the concussive haze in Allison’s brain, though with her scream too large to escape her throat, all she can do is stagger about with a tortured croak coming from her wide open mouth.
Her ankle-tied shambling spins her around in a wide, looping circle and eventually puts her back in front of Honey Harris. The myriad of humiliations heaped on her by the Mean Girl still fresh in her mind, Honey doesn’t hesitate to crack a picture-perfect Super Kick across Allison’s chops, propelling the redhead back into Yoona’s waiting arms.
Park immediately captures Addison’s head under one arm in a Reverse Facelock, then backpedals and drags the both of them to the announcer’s table. The Korean lays on the desk, pulling the Mean Girl along with her, then clamps down on the Dragon Sleeper while wrapping her legs around Allison’s waist.
BEAST CHOKER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_7qDnqNR0
Caught in the Beast Choker, Addison starts wildly tapping out for the second time in a minute, but Yoona doesn’t even pretend to care. Much to the delight of the FAWNatics, particularly those in Park Place, the nymphomaniac champion wedges the hand of her non-choking arm between the redhead’s thighs and starts rubbing her middle and ring fingers back and forth across Allison’s exposed womanhood. With the lewd, sordid action taking place literally right in front of them, Joanna Coleman tries to contain her look of disgust, Gordy Solis unabashedly records up close and personal video with his phone, and Camille Cosworth -- eyes still covered and ears still plugged -- continues to dance in her seat to the beat of her music, working through a frenzied and absurdly complex routine of head rolls, shoulder shimmies, jazz hands, and finger points.
A few feet away, an exhausted Honey leans her back against the apron, tilts her gaze towards the ceiling, and sighs. Though the match itself had been an unmitigated disaster, at least she had gotten more of a chance to showcase her skills in the scrum after the bell. If she were being honest with herself, Harris took a surprising amount of satisfaction in seeing the sisters of Phi Theta Tappa get their just desserts.
The sisters of Phi Theta Tappa…
“OH, FIDDLESTICKS!” Honey exclaims, but it’s already too late.
A pair of hands grab her roughly by the hair and drag her into the ring, the Sweet Sensation paying the price for losing track of Piper Sexton. With Merle still resolutely playing dead lest he risk his testicular health, there’s nothing to stop Piper from tearing into her fellow blonde. Sexton straddles the Briton’s chest and begins wildly swinging away with closed fists, managing to slip a couple of blows through Harris’ guard.
Fortunately for Honey, one of her flailing legs strikes Piper in the back of the head and dismounts the Las Vegas native. The pair of young wrestlers scramble to their feet more or less simultaneously, but while Sexton dives for a Chop Block, Harris leapfrogs up and over, going high whenever her opponent goes low as she had throughout her entire career. Honey lands lightly on her feet and immediately throws herself into a Front Handspring into the ropes.
As had been the case earlier in the evening, her boots rebound off the top rope with a twang and put her back on her feet. Rather than a Hurricanrana, however, Harris uses her excess inertia to launch into a standing backflip that ends with a ferocious kick to the crown of Piper’s cranium.
HANDSPRING PELE KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJH5iGtzBw
Honey’s signature Handspring Pele Kick seems to leave the Phi Theta Tappa sister out on her feet, although she does remain upright through some miracle of physics. Harris regains verticality with a crisp kip-up, and noticing Sexton’s glazed eyes, she runs for a corner and hops onto the middle ropes. She deftly turns about on her perch to get eyes on her target and leaps off, leading with both knees. The bony joints smash into Piper’s collarbones with Honey’s full weight behind them, and the British spitfire rides her foe all the way down to the mat. Sexton lands hard on her back with the other wrestler’s shins crushing her chest, and a split-second later her head whiplashes and violently bounces off the deck, decisively snuffing out what remains of her consciousness.
HONEY TO THE B:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK4x8Aqpkk4
The Sweet Sensation lands much more gracefully after her Honey to the B Meteora, rolling into a front tumble an instant after impact and lightly popping to her feet with an agile dismount worthy of Dominique Daly. She’s so caught up in the moment and there’s so much adrenaline coursing through her veins that she simply can’t stay still, however, so Honey sprints for the nearest corner and mounts the top turnbuckle in a single great leap.
“THAT’S TWO NAUGHTY DOTTIES SENT TO BED WITHOUT SUPPER!” she bellows while punching a victorious fist into the air.
Despite the rather tame and milquetoast nature of the exclamation, the FAWNatics still reward Honey with a thunderous pop worthy of the Sensation One herself. Harris wants nothing more than to soak in the adulation, but out of the bottom corner of her eye, she sees Yoona Park and Allison Addison still lying on the announcer’s table. Though the redhead had long since been choked out, Yoona continues to work the Beast Choker with maniacal glee, all the while coaxing climax after gushing climax from Allison’s flaccid, defenseless body.
Upon seeing the once haughty Mean Girl reduced to nothing more than a nymphomaniac’s plaything -- evil consumed by greater evil -- Honey realizes that her job is not yet finished.
“...one more naughty dottie to go,” Harris murmurs, her voice so soft and quiet that not even she herself can hear it, and then she takes flight once more.
Tucked into a tight ball, the Sweet Sensation flips through all six hundred and thirty degrees of rotation that give the 630 Senton its name. With her vision turning into a dizzying swirl of light and color, Honey must rely on her instincts rather than her eyes to guide her Reading Rainbow finisher to its proper landing pad.
Missing such a high risk maneuver inside the ring would be disastrous.
Missing such a high risk maneuver outside the ring would be career-ending.
The Sweet Sensation hears the terrified shrieks from the audience, the sound distant and distorted, and for what seems like hours she falls falls falls and spins spins spins. Just when Honey feels like she might never touch the ground again, there’s a jarring eruption of pain across the expanse of her shoulderblades accompanied by the explosive cracking noise of plywood and plastic being shattered into splinters, and then nothing but blackness and silence.
READING RAINBOW:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD_U5x8V0IM
Honey is sure that she’s dead.
She hears a chorus calling her name -- HUUUN-NEY, HUUUN-NEY, HUUUN-NEY -- faraway at first and then closer and closer and closer as she feels her body rising into the air of its own accord. Soon afterwards her face is bathed in ethereal white light so intense that it shines through her eyelids. Harris opens her bleary eyes and sees a blurry form juxtaposed against the blindingly bright background. The Sweet Sensation blinks a few times and squints, and her vision slowly and surely comes into focus on the divine visage of…
...Merle.
“HOLEY KNICKERBOCKERS!” she blurts as she sits bolt upright, thonking her forehead against the referee’s.
“OW, DAMN IT!” Merle exclaims, recoiling backwards and dropping the penlight he had been shining into the wrestler’s face. “Awww, maaaan, that’s gonna leave a lump…!”
And now, Honey only wishes that she were dead.
She flops back down onto her stretcher, groaning in misery as she’s now regained enough of her senses to feel the throbbing ache in her upper back. Harris cranes her neck around -- taking note of the production crew hastily assembling yet another replacement desk for the announcers and both sisters of Phi Theta Tappa being wheeled out on stretchers identical to her own -- and it all comes back to her.
There’s still something missing though…
…someone missing…
“THAT WAS A CRAZY MOVE. ARE YOU OKAY?”
Honey nearly jumps out of her skin for the second time, but a firm hand pressing on her chest keeps her lying flat on the stretcher. She turns her head in the other direction, and amid the crowd of EMTs surrounding her, she sees Camille Cosworth standing at her side. Slung over one of Camille’s shoulders like a sack of potatoes is the limp, groaning form of Yoona Park.
All persons accounted for in Honey’s book, she takes a deep, painful breath and sighs, “Oh jeepers, I’m going to be sore for a month, but I think I’m fine.”
“NO, I HAVEN’T SEEN YOUR CAR KEYS. YOU MIGHT WANT TO CALL TRIPLE-A,” Cosworth says at the top of her lungs. “ARE YOU OKAY THOUGH?”
“Car… keys…?” a bewildered Harris repeats. “I didn’t say anything about -- and why are you talking so loudly?”
“AN ENTIRE JAR OF PICKLES? THAT’S TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD.”
“Wha -- What in the seven shades of tarnation are you talking about? Are you okay?”
“HA, HA, HA! THAT’S A GREAT JOKE! I’LL HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT ONE FOR LATER.”
“Wow, okay…” Honey mutters. “...I think your music was too loud and you’re suffering from temporary hearing loss.”
“I’M SORRY, COULD YOU REPEAT THAT?” Camille asks as if she were talking to someone on the other side of the arena. “MY MUSIC WAS TOO LOUD AND I’M SUFFERING FROM TEMPORARY HEARING LOSS.”
Harris just stares at the other woman in blank disbelief for a ten seconds, and she could have continued for a full minute had Cosworth not spoken again.
“WE’VE ALREADY HAD OUR MANIA MOMENT...” Camille booms while indicating towards her girlfriend with a tilt of her head, “...SO WE’LL LEAVE YOU TO ENJOY YOURS, HONEY HARRIS.”
She leans in close to Honey’s ear as if to say something in a conspiratorial whisper, though much to the blonde’s aural displeasure, Cosworth is still at maximum volume when she adds, “AND JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME, YOONA KINDA HAD IT COMING.”
With that, Camille spins on her heels and lightly hops over the guardrail, carrying her girlfriend and still reigning EurAsian champion out through the crowd. The EMTs start to wheel Honey backstage too, but she gets them to pause by holding up a hand.
“Wait, hold on. Let me listen to them… just a little while longer…”
HUUUN-NEY! HUUUN-NEY! HUUUN-NEY!
She might not have won gold, but with one great leap, Honey Blossom Harris had etched her name into FAWNAMANIA history.
