Post by hawkeye on Dec 7, 2017 0:45:45 GMT
The video feed opened on the ‘All Hallow’s Evil’ logo before giving way to a shot of the Announcer standing in the center of a spotlight that was itself in the middle of a whole lot of darkness.
Raising his mic, the man said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time we returned to the Madhouse.”
A worrisome prospect indeed, not that anyone had time to get off the ride before the Announcer dissolved into a tracking shot racing down a well kept section of two-lane blacktop somewhere not too far from Cassadaga. Suddenly the camera made a sharp turn to the left, cruising between a set of wrought iron gates to continue its trek up a winding driveway that seemed to be nothing but hairpin turns. In less than a minute the road crested a small hill and the woods gave way to reveal the one-time Harrenhal Mental Health Institute reborn as FAWN’s premiere training facility, not to mention repository for some of its most outré gimmicks.
Even more unnerving when painted in the purple and orange light of a Florida Autumn, the looming pile of masonry lurked in the center of a wide green clearing, the former asylum no longer had need of razor-wire fences and guard stations, not that it ever received that many visitors. Even with its newfound fame, something about the place just kept people away. Unless they’d bought tickets of course, then the fans arrived en masse, seemingly bolstered by the idea of strength in numbers.
Aware that the camera was rapidly approaching the double doors of the main entrance, several fans pushed back in their seats and dozens more held their breath until they’d been whisked over that ominous threshold. Not that the interior was much more welcoming, think Matheson’s infamous Belasco Mansion by way of Vince McMahon. Keeping to a more or less straight line, the camera swept across the wide, empty lobby and ascended the wide central staircase before turning right at the second floor landing. Now a narrower, darker stretch of hall, followed by a dip to the left that led deeper into the bowels of Harrenhal. Finally, the journey slowed in front of a heavy wooden door, outside which a half dozen anxious looking referees waited.
The bronze nameplate on the door conjured unpleasant images for most:
SPIDER’S NEST
It opened without a sound and the camera slipped inside, taking the FAWNatics along whether they wanted to or not. Housed in a room roughly half the size of a standard gymnasium, the Spider’s Nest was, at first glance, the basic model FAWN steel cage -- Sturdy black steel bars made up the frame while flexible but unforgiving chain-link fence filled the gaps, making sure nothing much bigger than a clenched fist could reach in from the outside. A more thorough perusal identified Eve Choldstone’s unique flourishes. Hanging from the center of the cage ceiling was what could only be described as a spider’s web of steel chain. Arranged in a cylinder and hanging all the way to the floor (where it puddled in unpleasant clumps) the ‘Nest’ was perhaps six or seven feet in diameter, its single jostling wall made of a mismatched variety of circular steel links. Some near the bottom were large enough to crawl through, others were well sized for hands and feet, still others wouldn’t be good for anything other than abrading an opponent’s skin. By this point most everyone was wondering why anyone in their right mind would attempt to crawl through such a monstrosity. The camera showed them why, zooming silently through the links to angle down and reveal… a six foot leather strap, waiting patiently for the woman with vengeance in her heart.
The view held just long enough to send a chill down the viewer’s spine, then faded into a real time medium shot of the Nest and its latest occupants. Waiting on opposite sides of this hateful construct were a pair of slender brunettes with a mutual hatred that burned like the flames of Hell itself, Adelaide Brewster and Yoona Park. Between them stood the tall, lanky figure of referee Algernon ‘Al’ Carpenter, who’d checked the knees, elbows and wrists of both ladies before the show went live. With that done, he nodded to the camera. Upstairs, the fans sitting in a darkened arena cheered as the Announcer proclaimed the start of another violent war of attrition between the two battlers.
ADELAIDE BREWSTER
YOONA PARK
The bell sounded and the small gathering of FAWNatics urged to her vengeance, but Yoona didn’t move. Eyes locked on Adelaide, she reached out with one hand and gave the Nest a dismissive, backhanded swat.
“Bytch,” she huffed, “did you really think this overgrown slinky would help you beat me? Just how many times do I have to knock you the f*ck out before you learn to stay down?”
Adelaide didn’t move either, though Park couldn’t help but noticing the twitch in her fingers. “I don’t know,” she said after a slow, insolent shrug. “Maybe I’m just stubborn… or maybe your fists are as delicate as your dainty little feet.”
Yoona snarled, took a step around the Nest, stopped when Brewster did the same. “What’s the matter, cunt?” the Korean snapped. “Afraid my delicate little fists might break your fake-ass fangs?”
The Queen of Nightmares grabbed the dangling mesh in both hands and gave it a hard shake. “Just waiting to see how long it’ll take you to muster the courage to come for me when you don’t have a whole beach to strangle me--”
Park darted around the Nest like a cool breeze, the Snarky Striker coming in low and with a tackle aimed at Brewster’s “UNNNNNNGGGHH!” Adelaide snatched a double handful of the dangling links and jerked them into Park’s path like she was drawing some Cenobite’s idea of a curtain. The swipe didn’t so much hurt as it did distract and interrupt, Yoona’s charge stuffed with her on one knee and in perfect position for Adelaide to THWHACK a single swift kick between her eyes. Yoona went to all fours, immediately rose up and got smote by a Bionic Elbow to the crown of her skull! Dropped to all fours for the second time in all of ten seconds, Park was blinking the fireworks out of her head when the other brunette grabbed a double handful of hair and reeled her into a Standing Headscissors.
Adelaide’s arms cinched around her waist immediately thereafter and Yoona kicked her legs like a madwoman when the Churchgoer tried to hoist her upside down. The resistance returned her feet to the deck, though Park didn’t get a chance to celebrate this victory as Brewster promptly raaaaaaaaaaaaked her buttock to shoulderblade, then helped herself to a big handful of togs and pulled ‘em north in a hateful wedgie!
“No soft landings tonight you pampered bytch,” Adelaide snarled. “No cheap way to win when you can’t get the job done. You’re on my turf noWHOOOAANNNGGGHHHH!”
Galvanized by the catty tactic and Brewster’s arrogant certainty, Park cupped her rival behind the knees and straightened fast as she could to send the other brunette tumbling up, over and DOWN with an improvised Back Body Drop! Yoona reached down to flick her briefs back into place, or at least started to. She had to call an audible because Brewster scrambled to verticality faster than anyone dropped on canvas-sheathed plywood should’ve been able. Thankfully Yoona’s response was just as sudden, the black-clad brunette firing off a Roundhouse aimed squarely at Adelaide’s sku-- the Weeping Angel dipped low and straightened up fast, which proved a mistake as Park spun right on through the whiff to spring up and THWHACK a Spinning Heel Kick off Brewster’s dome!
STEP OVER SPINNING HEEL KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6g-sikmxvc
“THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE, ASSHOLE!” Yoona bellowed to the flattened brunette as she got to her feet and snapped her trunks into a more comfortable alignment.
Adelaide offered nothing useful in terms of witty repartee, so Park made a point to drive a heel into her belly as she stepped over on her stroll to see those assembled.
“Who’s the toughest bytch in this cage?” she called to the fans.
‘YOU ARE!’ they answered as one.
“Who’s gonna make this skank (she jerked her head in Brewster’s direction) beg for mercy?”
‘YOU ARE!’
Smile growing wider with each affirmation, Yoona wheeled around so she was facing the other woman when she asked, “And who’s going to be wearing a lovely fang necklace tomorrow morning?”
‘YOU ARE!’
“Goddamned right.”
The rallying session had given Brewster enough time to regain her footing, not that Park cared in the slightest. The only sound more satisfying that her foot connecting against Brewster’s head was the sound of her fat ass hitting the mat. She meant to hear both over and over tonight.
“Go ahead, f*ckface,” Park taunted when she saw Adelaide’s gaze flick to the strap hanging inside the Nest. “Go for it. Maybe you’ll even grab it before I kick your teeth against the goddamned--”
“Shut up and fight, you gutless whore,” Brewster said it with all the emotion of someone announcing the time, yet it still stopped Yoona in her tracks.
“That really what you want, Adelaide?” the Korean questioned. “Because every time we fight, I knock your ass the f*ck out.”
“Every time, Yoona? Did you forget how you begged that idiot Merle to make sure I didn’t hobble you at ‘Mania?” Adelaide’s dark eyes shown with cruel joy as she watched the anger flicker across Park’s face. “Perhaps you HAVE forgotten. Or at least blocked it from your memory. I know I’d certainly want to forget a humiliation of that magnit--”
The word was only halfway out of Brewster’s mouth when Yoona launched herself at the True Believer. Catching Adelaide across the base of the neck with a Muay Thai Clasp, Park pulled the other brunette forward and down and unleashed three gut-churning Kneelifts in the span of half as many seconds. Give the devil her due, Adelaide snagged Park in a clasp of her own and matched the first volley of Kneelifts shot for shot, but Yoona was in no mood for an even exchange and after three more blows to the belly she stuffed Brewster’s noggin between her thighs in a Standing Headscissors. Adelaide didn’t just sit there and take it of course, she gouged at the pits of Park’s knees and tried to buck her loose, but a single hard punch to the kidney slowed her enough to the Korean to snag a retaliatory handful of trunks.
“I could have you pissing blood just like that,” Yoona snapped her fingers to emphasize the point. “But then Al would call the match, I’d get fined and all of these people wouldn’t get a chance to see me spank your miserable ass on worldwide pay-per-view. So rather than just end this… I’m going to make you suffer.”
With that she doubled down on Brewster’s waistband and hauled it up like she meant to split the other wrestler in half! Offering the fans a theatrical cringe when Adelaide shrieked in pain, Yoona halved her grip to swat and slap at her opponent’s glutes.
“You’re not going to tap out to a f*cking wedgie, are you?” she asked with taunting incredulity. “It’d be pretty goddamned pathetic to win my first feud with a wedgie. Well… actually that would be kinda epic. Go ahead and tap out if you can’t take it, candy-asSSEEERRGHHHH FAAAAAAAAHK!”
Adelaide probably could’ve muscled her way out of the Headscissors the same way Yoona did, but the limited view of the canvas put Park’s feet on prominent display and it gave the Churchgoer an idea. Enduring the trunk torture long enough to let Yoona think she was in control, Adelaide abruptly grabbed the other woman’s toes in both hands and tried to wrench them off her feet! Yoona reacted with a panicky Double Axehandle to the small of Brewster’s back,
alas it didn’t stop the Weeping Angel from yanking the Korean’s stems out from underneath in a quick Double Leg Takedown.
Stretching Yoona’s legs into a wide ‘V’ the instant she hit the mat, Brewster didn’t even give her prey a chance to mull the inevitable, she simply raised one foot and brought her heel THUMPING down into Park’s crotch once, twice, three times! Yoona shrieked, tugged loose and curled into a ball, both hands wedged against her injured center.
From somewhere overhead, Adelaide’s voice drifted down like cobwebs. “You’re the quitter, Park. And tonight you’re going to quit like you f*ck. Shamelessly and repeatedly.”
Brewster reached down to snare an ankle, and that immediately burned through the haze of pain in Park’s brain. She reached out to grab the chainlink fence with one hand while the other was still cupped over her throbbing groin, then pulled and thrashed her legs until she freed herself. Adelaide seemed content to let her go, watching the Korean’s frenzied scrambling while taking cruel bemusement in the panic she could induce with just a simple touch. Once Yoona had gotten semi-upright, one hand still gripping the cage for support, the Daughter of Darkness sprang into action again.
She charged forward with a lowered shoulder and smashed her opponent face first into the wall of the Spider Nest, and the Queen of Nightmares quickly buried one hand in Park’s dark locks. Rather than yank on that handful of hair, Adelaide used that grip for control as she scrubbed Yoona’s face back and forth across the metal wires, drawing anguished screams from the trapped wrestler with every pass. With a maniacal glint in her eyes, Brewster did her best to force Park’s head through that mesh, and she might have done just that had Yoona not reached back and latched onto her thumb.
A savage, desperate twist forced Adelaide to release her hair hold lest she suffer a broken thumb, and in the blink of an eye, Park whirled around and doubled her over with a Snap Kick to the midsection. Still holding onto the other brunette’s hand, Yoona gave a sharp tug on the captured limb and pulled Adelaide forward into a Front Facelock. The Korean took a moment to gather herself, then she leapt up, splayed her legs out behind her, and pushed her heels against the chainlink wall. The pair of wrestlers spun three-quarters of a circle like an unbalanced top, then Park fell onto her back and drove the crown of her opponent’s skull into the deck with a Tornado DDT.
TORNADO DDT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXIycjY-t-s
Despite the continuing throb in her undercarriage thanks to the triplet of stomps to the groin, Yoona held onto her Front Facelock after impact and shot her legs up to wrap her thighs around Adelaide’s midriff. It would’ve been a textbook Guillotine Choke, except that Park didn’t want to work the choke at all. Instead, she pushed out with her legs while arching her back in an attempt to tear Brewster’s head from her shoulders.
The Queen of Nightmares gnashed her teeth together to squelch a gurgling scream, then she set to fighting her way out of the Korean’s grasps. She started by scratching and clawing at Park’s arms, shoulders, and upper back, scoring several streaks into the tawny skin, though of course Yoona did not relinquish her hold to such minor annoyances. That was just fine with Adelaide, as she had only intended it to be a distraction while she worked her feet underneath her hips, thus allowing her to get into a crouched position rather than being stretched out flat on her belly.
With a great effort, she managed to straighten her legs and lift Park several inches off the mat, though with leverage and balance -- not to mention the recent head trauma from the DDT -- working against her, the Daughter of Darkness was still hunched over at the waist. Adelaide tried to stand up straight though to her dismay she found out she couldn’t, and after about eight seconds of futile struggling, the live audience at the Madhouse started up a chant of, “TAP! TAP! TAP! TAP!”
Trapped and increasingly drained as she was, Brewster would give them and her opponent no such satisfaction. She started stumbling around drunkenly with Yoona still tightly latched onto her body and wrenching on her neck, driving the two of them into one wall of the Spider’s Nest and then another. The chainlink proved to have enough give to
make those collisions soft, however, and Park’s hooks proved just as tight as ever after twenty seconds of careening around the Spider Nest. On the other hand, Adelaide was visibly starting to gas, and the fans responded by increasing the volume and tempo of their chant until the entire Madhouse was buzzing at a fever pitch.
”TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP --”
Brewster dropped back down to one knee, and the audience collectively roared and got to their feet.
”TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP -- OOHHHHHHHH!”
The Queen of Nightmares silenced the crowd by powering back to a stand then spinning a semicircle with a final, desperate effort. Whether by plan or by accident, she managed to swing Yoona in an arc such that the side of the Korean’s head smashed into one of the aluminum fence posts at each vertex of the Spider’s Nest. Skull met metal with an high-pitched, echoing PIIIIIINNNG! and Park silently slopped to a boneless heap on the mat with a small trickle of blood running from her left temple.
Adelaide was in better shape, although she too was splayed out on her back with one hand rubbing at her neck, taking in deep, heaving breaths of air. By the time Brewster had sufficiently refueled and regained a vertical base, Park was still struggling to stay on unsteady hands and knees as the gray canvas underneath her was getting increasingly red and splotchy from the drip drip drip from her head.
A victorious sneer spreading across her features, the Churchgoer shambled over to her prey and snatched a handful of hair to raise Yoona’s head. She leaned in close and opened her jaws, preparing to take another bite out of the Korean’s neck, but Park recovered far quicker than she had anticipated. As soon as Adelaide’s mouth was open, Yoona shot her hand into that gaping maw and clenched down on a vicious Mandible Claw. Suddenly re-energized by the scream that was now reverberating against her right hand, Yoona rose to one knee, grabbed a handful of Adelaide’s trunks with her left hand, and popped to a stand. Park wasn’t a powerhouse, but Brewster wasn’t a destroyer-sized wrestler either, and so the Korean managed to hoist her opponent high into the air. From there, it was simply a matter of letting gravity take over, as Yoona pitched forward to drive the Churchgoer to the mat with a wicked combination of Mandible Claw and Choke Slam.
The effort seemed to leave her nearly spent, however, as she rolled a couple of feet away and laid there staring at the ceiling lights. The referee took the opportunity with both wrestlers laid out to kneel down next to Park and dab at the cut on the side of her head with a small tube of Super Glue, an addition to the usual official’s kit that the brass had made mandatory given the setting and the propensity of the wrestlers in question for drawing blood. Contrary to her tendencies, Yoona didn’t protest the medical attention, merely sitting up and glaring at her opponent who had rolled into a face down position.
“All the glue in the world ain’t gonna be enough to put your bitch-ass back together,” she hissed at the Churchgoer.
Brewster’s only answer was a low groan, the tone of which spurred Yoona to crawl over and secure a handful of hair. The catty tether had both ladies on their feet in a matter of seconds, though Park fared better in the return to verticality, especially considering the Kneelift she spiked above Adelaide’s navel.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little toy hanging in there, asshole,” the Korean told her foe as she reeled her into grinding Front Facelock. “I’m going to whip every inch of your dumpy little ass before I walk out of this cage, but I want to ruin the rest of you first.”
Slinging Brewster’s near arm over her shoulders, Park collected a handful of waistband and muscled the Weeping Angel directly overhead. Rather than fall backward or straight down, she slung Adelaide back the way she’d came and simultaneously dropped to one knee to THWHUMP the pit of her foe’s stomach with a clever Gutbuster.
SUPLEX-LIFT GUTBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mELz9-K3Lkg
The True Believer gave voice to an ugly liquid gurgle, one that might’ve transformed into a full-throated sob if Park hadn’t straightened her up and muscled her across her shoulders for a Fireman’s Carry. Waggling her hips as the spectators urged her on, Yoona treated them to a wink, then tossed Brewster forward and out and went down to one knee, once again THWUMPING Adelaide’s sturdy midsection. Escape was denied a second time as Park kept the other brunette strapped down across the shoulders and thighs until she was docile enough to return to the Fireman’s Carry.
FIREMAN'S CARRY GUTBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYQTafLnCUw
“So how do you think I’m going to finish you off tonight, f*ckface?” Yoona chided as she strolled around the confines of the cage. Am I going to choke you out? Wreck your sloppy gut? Or how about I kick your f*cking head off?”
That last question was still on her lips when she pushed Adelaide straight up and dropped back, the Snarky Striker lashing out her right leg for a Detonation Kick primed to blow Brewster’s jaw to-- ‘OOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!’
Wide-eyed surprise, followed by grudging admiration from those in attendance as the Queen of Nightmares shifted mid-descent to land on her feet. Far worse for Yoona, Adelaide snatched her foot out of the air and immediately tried to wrench it around a full ninety degrees! Holding the limber lovely’s trapped ankle in the crook of her right arm, Brewster gripped the inside edge of Park’s foot and jerked it back and forth like she meant to snap it then and there.
“What was that, bytch?” Adelaide dug her fingers into Yoona’s exposed sole, adding another layer of anguish to the hellish hold. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of snapping tendons!”
Planted on her forearms and remaining knee after the vile counter, Park slammed a fist into the canvas, then shook her head at Al to know it wasn’t a submission.
“Run your mouth while you can, bytch.” she huffed while carefully rising to her palms. “Because eventually it’ll be stuffed full of my footEERRRRRHHHHHHHH!”
Adelaide shifted the focus of her punishment to Yoona’s big toe, yanking on it the way Park went after her thumb earlier in the bout.
“It’ll have to be the other one, surely.” the Daughter of Darkness cooed. “Because a foot with no toes is… well, quite useless actually. Much like the whole of your existence, Park.”
Yoona shook her head again, though this was a denial of her rival’s taunt as opposed to a refused surrender. Demonstrating remarkable balance for someone down a limb in an awkward position, the Korean pushed off with her hands and knee to regain a vertical base! The position was still quite awkward, what with her captured leg stretched out behind, but hopping was better than crawling and Yoona Park could do plenty with a single good plant foot. A single short hop brought her that much closer to the cage, alas, it also brought another twist from Adelaide, who’d moved onto Yoona’s other toes.
“Submit right now, chattel,” Brewster punctuated the demand by slowly gouging her thumb into the sole of the Korean’s trapped foot. “Submit to me and you have my word that I’ll only smother you out. Defy me and I swear I’ll use the strip to lash you--”
Park dipped into a deep crouch and pushed off, or at least started to. She was only about halfway up when Adelaide yanked back on her captured ankle and short-circuited any thoughts of an escape hatch Enzugiri when she
THWHAPPED a short, stiff Toe Kick into the other brunette’s crotch! Yoona sobbed and crumpled into a shocked ball, her forehead almost touching her knees as she tried to protect her center from any more punishment. She was still tending to these fires down below when Adelaide stepped in behind her, bent down and cinched both arms around opposing waist. Yoona responded with immediate Back Elbows, but Brewster was in too snug and the strikes didn’t have a fraction of their usual strength. As such, the hobbled exotique couldn’t prevent Adelaide from her off the canvas in a gut-mashing slow motion Waistlock. Turning in a circle to better let the heathens see the pain on her prey’s face, Brewster abruptly dropped her hips and took Yoona over and down, the trapped Korean THAWHAMMING down flush on the back of her head and shoulders.
DEAD-LIFT GERMAN SUPLEX:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-RzS8C1fE
Well versed in the rules of the Spider’s Nest at this juncture of his career, Al didn’t move in to make a count, nor was he surprised when Adelaide rolled onto her knees with the Waistlock intact, all the better to haul Yoona up as well. Recalling the painful grind of Park’s knotted hands against her belly when they fought on the beach, Brewster lifted her burden a good eight inches off the mat and shook her like a terrier shakes a rat, Adelaide doing her level best to cut Park in half with nothing but brute constriction. Yoona wailed something fierce and she cursed a blue streak to boot, but she didn’t submit, in fact she landed a few desperation elbows to Brewster’s biceps, then went in search of that thumb one more ti--
“UUUUUUNNNNNNGGGGGGHH!”
The Queen of Nightmares snapped her down and back, damned near folding the other brunette in half with a second German Suplex. Doggedly maintaining the Waistlock even after Park almost bounced free of her grasp, Adelaide rolled to her belly and made a show of grinding her hips against Yoona’s tush en route to hauling her up yet again.
“Canvas doesn’t have nearly as much give as sand, does it, bytch?” Brewster sneered in Yoona’s ear. “No wonder you love to fight on the beach. It’s the only arena as soft as you RRRGGHHH!”
Yoona stomped on her attacker’s foot, then stomped it again to break the Waistlock. Doubling over as she lurched away from Adelaide’s grasp, Park was mustering the strength for a Uraken when the Churchgoer grabbed her by the trunks and yanked her backward into that damned Waistlock! Yoona had just enough time to groan ‘F*ck.’ then the Weeping Angel hurled her through the stiffest German Suplex yet, only this time she released at the apex, meaning Yoona was moving at top speed when the back of her head BWAAANGED against the chainlink of the outer cage.
The crowd groaned along with Park as she skidded to a slumped seat, then voiced their displeasure when Adelaide grabbed her by the ankles and draaaaaaaaaaaagged her away from the edge. Yoona was in no condition to defend her feet from another attack, yet rather than return to her favorite target, she stalked around to Park’s head and jerked her to a seat.
“No sand to save you tonight, dear,” Brewster reached down, took a wrist in each hand and crossed Yoona’s forearms against her neck in a snug ‘X’. “No sand, no twenty count, no Camille, no anything. And if you should be stupid enough to wriggle your way toward one cage or another…”
Adelaide rolled the Korean onto her tummy, sat down just above the curve of her glutes and wrenched backward to effectively strangle the thrashing brunette with her own arms.
Licking her lips as Park struggled and rasped, Brewster finished her unpleasant threat, “…and I’ll grind your miserable face clean off.”
Al was quick to offer a chance to submit, though the angry hiss that he got in response let him know that Yoona wasn’t ready to call it a night. Still trapped in the Cross-Arm Camel Clutch, Park gouged her nails into the back of her
opponent’s wrists and carved angry red grooves in the lightly tanned skin. Irritated by the act of defiance, Adelaide let go of the Korean’s arms, stood up from her seat, and mashed the ex-ballerina’s face into the canvas with a Curb Stomp to the back of the head. Yoona’s vision exploded into white light and she felt like someone had set off a firecracker inside her skull, but unfortunately that was the least of her concerns as the Churchgoer had claimed control of her right ankle while she was dazed.
With the Korean still lying prostrate, Adelaide bent the captured limb around her own right shin and tucked Yoona’s ankle into the pit of the opposite knee. The crowd on hand at the Madhouse screamed for Park to shake off the concussive haze and do something -- anything -- to escape before Brewster completed the leglock that had reduced her to a sobbing, submissive wreck within mere seconds at Fawnamania, but it was already too late. The Queen of Darkness dropped to a seat, threw her left calf over her opponent’s right ankle to keep the leggy knot in place, then laid out and arched her back with Yoona’s left shin in her lap to pour pressure into the Midnight Clutch.
MIDNIGHT CLUTCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=62c-sfj59DI
“EEARRRGGGHHHH GAAAWWWDDD!” Park screamed, pushing her torso off the deck with both hands as the agony in her legs tore through her like ten thousand volts of electricity.
Park had dedicated hours and hours of training time to finding a way out of the Churchgoer’s diabolical hold. She had even enlisted the help of Olivia Dare, perhaps the finest technical submission wrestler of an entire generation and one of the very, very few wrestlers to whom Yoona showed even a modicum of respect. Unfortunately, after an entire afternoon of the two limber lovelies taking turns putting each other in the hold, they had each independently come to the same disheartening conclusion: the Midnight Clutch was simply inescapable. The only way out was to loudly -- and pathetically -- beg for release.
“NO! NO NO NO NO FUUUUUUCCCCCCCK!” Yoona wailed again when Adelaide slowly and agonizingly clawed the tender, sensitive sole of her foot as if to strip the flesh from her bones.
Rather than chant “PLEASE DON’T TAP!” as usual, many of the FAWNatics on hand just threw up their hands and groaned, as they deemed it inevitable that the ex-ballerina would be forced to submit once again. Curiously, the audience’s lack of faith seemed to prickle Park’s ego and thus bolstered her fighting spirit more than any display of encouragement could have, and she started dragging herself forward on hands and elbows, howling in misery the entire way.
“Give it up, chattel! There’s nowhere to go!” Brewster snarled before she turned her head to the side to sink her teeth into the bare arch of the Korean’s left foot, causing Park’s screams to go up another octave or two in pitch.
For now, however, Yoona still managed to disregard the internal voice that was begging her to submit. Unlike at Mania, she had not been stripped of her protective leg sleeves, and while it didn’t help with Adelaide gnawing on her foot, those high-tech protective polymers did much to counteract the otherwise debilitating strain on her joints and sinews. She planted a forearm against the mat and dragged herself forward another handful of inches, and now she was able to reach out and grab the steel links that comprised the inner cylinder of the Spider’s Nest. With a shout that was equal parts anguished and victorious, she pulled the upper half of her body through an opening in the mesh, then pushed up on one hand while reaching out with the other, her outstretched fingertips brushing against the bottom of the six-foot leather strap that was hanging in the center of the enclosure.
A vicious twist of her ankle and a savage bite to her Achilles Tendon made Yoona collapse back to the mat with a bloodcurdling screech, however, and it took every ounce of her willpower and then some to stop her traitorous hand from frantically slapping the mat right then and there.
Having seen Park leave the field of battle on crutches a few too many times, a very concerned Al Carpenter crawled his way into the inner circle of Nest and softly asked, “What do you say, Yoona? Need me to call it?”
Yoona didn’t respond with anything except for a series of stifled sobs as she laid there face down and tearing at her own hair. The referee moved a little closer, got down to hands and knees next to the struggling wrestler, and repeated his offer.
“Yoona, I need you to say something or else --”
Park slapped a hand on Carpenter’s shoulder and clenched down on a white-knuckled grip that made the man wince, then she sputtered through her sobs, “Y... Y…”
Adelaide stopped chewing on her opponent’s foot, though she actually redoubled the pressure on the joint locks, and she triumphantly sneered, “Once again you prove to be a quitter, my dear --”
”-- YOU LOSE, FUCKFACE!”
Letting loose a cathartic roar that brought the fans to their feet, Yoona used her grip on Al’s shoulder to push herself up those extra few inches to get a solid grasp on the leather strap with her other hand. In one smooth, contorting motion, she ripped the weapon from its moorings, twisted around at her waist, and delivered a stinging lash straight to the Churchgoer’s face. The other end of the strap struck Adelaide right between the brows, the Weeping Angel lucky to avoid being blinded in either eye by the vicious stroke. Brewster’s hands immediately shot up to protect her face as she shrieked like a banshee and curled into a ball, all thoughts of snapping Park’s legs washed away in a deluge of own searing pain.
Meanwhile, Yoona crawled to the other side of the inner cage to nurse her wounds and massage some life back into those tortured legs. There were splotchy, red and purple bruises on her foot where Adelaide’s teeth and claws had done their work, and Park didn’t even want to think about the internal damage suffered by her thighs, knees, and ankle. Nevertheless, the hate roiling in her gut and the adrenaline coursing through her veins demanded that she get up before her nemesis, so the battered ex-ballerina forced herself upright, relying on her protective gear to hold her traumatized legs together just a little longer. She wrapped one end of the leather strap around her left fist, then the other end around her right, and despite her aches and pains, she took off in a run as soon as Brewster had risen to a stand.
The Queen of Darkness was still afflicted by a set of very bleary eyes, and she hardly saw a thing when Yoona leapt past her. Turning halfway in midair, Park deftly slipped the middle of the strap beneath Brewster’s chin while she held the ends in either hand, then she fell to the mat and dragged Adelaide along by the neck, nearly tearing off the Churchgoer’s head with a brutally augmented Slingblade that earned a shout of “JESUS CHRIST!” from the mortified referee and a chant of “HO-LY SHIT! HO-LY SHIT!” from the Madhouse audience.
SLINGBLADE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XL9H3UJ1Lk
Brewster’s shoulders and head slammed hard into the deck, though her ordeal was far from over as Park immediately fashioned the leather strap into a snug noose around her neck with an ease and familiarity that raised some uncomfortable questions about the ex-ballerina. Now holding the free end of the strap with both hands, Yoona clambered to her feet and tugged a gagging and bug-eyed Adelaide up as well. Another sharp yank on the noose made Brewster stumble forwards, and as soon as she was within range, Yoona turned her inside out and upside down with a hateful Clothesline from Hell.
CLOTHESLINE FROM HELL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqsDQve4tM
Even as the Daughter of Darkness was sent flipping through the air, Park gave the strap a forceful jerk to whiplash the Churchgoer’s neck in the other direction and to cause her to land on the crown of her skull. Just like that, the raucous crowd fell deathly silent after one last OOOHHHHHHH, and Al Carpenter decided that he had seen enough. He stepped between the two wrestlers, shooting a horrified glance at the Korean as he passed, and he was
just about to signal for a stoppage before Yoona promptly turned off his brain with a Superman Sucker Punch to the base of the skull.
“Sorry Merle, but I’m not through with her yet,” Park huffed at the unconscious official before she turned her attention towards her opponent. “You’re gonna die here, fuckface.”
Adelaide was too busy desperately clawing at the leather strap that was crushing her trachea to respond to that ominous sentiment, and she leaned heavily against the inner wall of the Spider’s Nest to stay standing when Yoona hauled her upright once more. Park took the free end of the leather strap and threaded it through a link in the mesh a foot above Brewster’s head, then pulled it back through an adjacent link before wrapping it several times around her right forearm for a better grip. Just for the sake of spite, she slammed a hateful Knee Strike into the Churchgoer’s groin which drew a strangled gasp, then Yoona dropped to a seat and laid back on the mat.
There were only a handful of pounds separating Park and Brewster, a gap so small that it could have swung one way or the other depending on how much either woman had last eaten. Evidently Yoona had enjoyed a more bountiful supper than her opponent, and it was that extra weight that proved to be the tipping point that made gravity her ally, and as she dropped down to the deck, Adelaide was pulled higher and higher into the air by the noose. Yoona braced her feet against the wall, willing to suffer the pain of the steel wires digging into her bare soles in order to better hang her nemesis, then she closed her eyes and listened to the audience.
“THIS IS MUR-DER!” they chanted, simultaneously horrified and irreverant in the way that only a FAWN crowd could be. “THIS IS MUR-DER!”
Through the din of the fans, Park could make out the sound of the chainlink fence rattling as Brewster desperately kicked her heels against it.
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
The rattling grew more frantic, building to a fever pitch...
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...then it slowed…
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...and slowed…
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...and slowed…
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...and stopped.
Yoona opened her eyes to see Adelaide hanging limp against the wall of the cage, her toes just a handful of inches off the safety of the mat. Park took a deep breath and sighed, then she let go of the strap and Brewster crumpled to a heap right next to her. The Korean rolled over, took a seat on her opponent’s chest, and took a good look at her handiwork. The Churchgoer’s face was a deep shade of red, with lips an even darker shade of purple. The distended veins in her forehead and neck stood out like cords and visibly throbbed with each fluttering heartbeat, and her eyes were open, bloodshot, and bulging out of their sockets. She unwound the strap from Brewster’s neck and looped it around her own arm.
x finger right in Adelaide’s face. “...this is mercy.”
Park delivered one, two, three, four hateful slaps across her opponent’s mouth, the last one splitting Brewster’s lower lip. Message delivered, she crawled over to the body of Al Carpenter and began rousing the referee back to consciousness.
“Wake up, Merle. It’s over.”
No response.
“Goddamn it, I only hit you half as hard as I could’ve! Get your ass up!”
Still no response, not even when Yoona grabbed his lapels and gave him a few rough shakes.
“I swear to fucking God… just a bunch of fucking glass-jawed dipshits…” Park mumbled to herself as she pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.
The Korean took a deep breath and did her best to imitate the voice of Jenny Jacobs, “AL! AL, HELP ME! LISA’S HURTING ME!”
“JENNY, NOOOOOO!” Carpenter screamed as he suddenly sat bolt upright, eyes wild and pulse pounding.
Park merely rolled her eyes, and after a couple of seconds, the official seemed to get a better grasp of things as he asked, “What… what happened? Why does my head --”
“You fell down the stairs,” Yoona answered blandly.
Al looked around in confusion and stammered, “B -- but.. there… there are no stairs…”
“Then I guess it’s pretty fucking impreeeEEAAARRRGGGH!”
A spiteful lash of the strap across her shoulderblades made Park arch her back and screech, then a second lash to the side of her face sent her spilling onto her side. She rolled to hands and knees, then caught a brutal Soccer Punt to the head a split second later, followed by a single emphatic Leg Drop to the back of the skull that left her lying motionless in the middle of the Spider’s Nest.
“Welcome back, arbiter,” Adelaide panted to the referee while she rubbed at the abrasions encircling her neck. “You’re just in time.”
Al, still quite woozy from the sucker punch and his abrupt return to consciousness, did not fail to note the ugly welted ring around Brewster’s throat.
“Jesus, Adelaide,” he muttered. “Are you ok?”
On any other night the Churchgoer might’ve dismissed him with a glance or a hiss. Tonight she grinned and tipped her chin back, proudly displaying Park’s gift.
“I’m more than ok, Algernon. I am ascendant.”
The ref didn’t much care for the sound of that, but the throb in his skull kept him from offering any complaint. Meanwhile Adelaide clambered to verticality and positioned herself near the Korean’s feet. Spinning around so her back was to Yoona, the Queen of Nightmares planted her right foot between the other brunette’s splayed stems and seized hold of her ankles. This raised an alarm from those gathered, but Brewster didn’t rip and tear at her prey’s feet. Rather she bent Park’s left leg so that her shin rested in the pit of her right knee while the back of that calf was
braced by Adelaide’s own shin. From there she tucked the Snarky Striker’s right ankle into the pit of her own knee to secure a simple yet effective Deathlock.
“You strangled me in front of the whole world, Park,” Brewster sighed. “Strung me up like so much meat. And yet, like so many of the great misadventures of your pathetic existence, you failed to see things through to their logical conclusion. Allow me to show you the cost of that error.”
With that she reached down, grabbed hold of the leather strap still cinched around Park’s left wrist and threaded it under the brunette’s chin. Coiling the other end of the strap around her right hand, the Weeping Angel planted her left foot on the base of Yoona’s neck and YAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKED up on the strap while pushing down with her leg to throttle the bendy exotique with her own arm! Yoona gurgled to life in the grips of this hellish straightjacket, her free hand catching the strap in a white knuckle grip in a desperate effort to ease the pressure on her neck.
DEATHLOCK STOMPS: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIajFMPv7rU
Al Carpenter ticked off a slow internal five count in the hopes that Park would submit or Adelaide would grow bored with her torment.
When the situation remained unchanged, he stepped forward and said, “I can’t stand here and let you wring her neck, Adelaide.”
She flashed him a hard glare.
“Of course you can. After all, this is far more merciful that how she treated me. But since I’m feeling generous…” the Daughter of Darkness eased up on her stomp, which allowed the straightjacket to peel Yoona’s chest off the mat by a good three or four inches. “…I will allow you to employ a twenty count. If our little glass cannon here hasn’t shattered by then, I’ll release the hold. And if she has… well, let’s keep that a surprise, shall we?”
Arguing did nothing but prolong Yoona’s suffering, so the referee backed off and did as bade. He didn’t exactly rush through (any obvious favoritism would draw the Church’s ire and THAT was a hassle he didn’t need) but he certainly didn’t linger. Yoona fought through every heartbeat of it, first clawing at the strap, then digging her nails into the mat to either drag them both across the canvas or possibly unbalance her attacker. Either way it didn’t work and by the last five seconds even the most fervent Park supporters had silenced their ‘PLEASE DON’T TAP!’ chants in hopes of seeing the cruel knot brought to an end.
“EIGHTEEN… NINETEEN… TWENTY! Break the hold, Adelaide!”
“As you wish, arbiter.”
Brewster cranked up on the strap one more time, then let loose and stomped down with her left foot to drive her foe’s forehead into the mat with a bone-chilling THAWHONK! Yoona jolted once, then stretched out in a boneless sprawl, the only sign of life the soft, erratic beat of one foot against the canvas.
Above her, Adelaide looked at Al and for a moment the official dared hope she’d ask her to check on the other brunette. Alas, those hopes were dashed with an angry snarl and an aggressive reclamation of that wicked strap. Glassy eyed and weak in the knees, Park was hauled to her feet in stages and even then she probably would’ve crumpled if Brewster hadn’t snuggled in against her back. Any relief this brought the FAWNatics died the instant the Weeping Angel used the strap to pull Park’s left arm across her throat yet again. Yoona gaped and damned if she didn’t drive an elbow into the zealot’s side, but the blow had none of her usual strength and Brewster shrugged it off en route to slipping her free arm through the Korean’s legs. A triumphant roar from Adelaide as she bent her knees and muscled Park up across her shoulders in a strap-augmented cutthroat Torture Rack.
The Basement Dwellers knew what came next and pleaded to both wrestlers, to Park for a miracle and Brewster for mercy. But both proved in short supply at the Madhouse, as Adelaide demonstrated on her slow walk around the Spider’s Nest. Slowing to a stop in front of the hard camera, the weary brunette offered her audience a single word.
“Fragile.”
Then she rose up on one foot and laid out on one side to THAWHAM Yoona down on the back of her head and shoulders courtesy of Blood & Black Lace.
BLOOD & BLACK LACE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQhjXPD_fA
Park slopped onto her back in a boneless sprawl that had Carpenter ready to signal the Timekeeper at once. The only thing that stopped him was the Queen of Nightmares and just how quickly she laid claim to her prey’s ankles. Spreading those helpless stems in a wide ‘V’, Adelaide took a quick spin around Yoona’s left leg before forcing the bent limb against the post of her straightened right leg. Securing the knot with a grip on both ankles, Brewster dropped to a seat and promptly threaded her left leg over Park’s exposed ankle and bore down.
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHH FAAAAAAAAAAHK!” Yoona sat up like she’d been touched with a live wire, the formerly insensate battler brought back around by the lightning racing from her knees to her hips and back again.
“This is how it ends, bytch.” Adelaide cooed. “For all your talk of gods and death and disasters, in the end you were brought low by a move that’s been humbling arrogant sluts since the very beg--”
Yoona reared back and flicked the strap at Brewster’s face, but the Chruchgoer blocked it with her forearm. Catching hold of the leather even as it flicked around her wrist, the Weeping Angel pulled it back, leaned forward and PPPFWOOOOSHED a fountain of red into her face!
Yoona jerked back at once, the strap completely forgotten as she clawed at her stinging eyes. Brewster regarded the weapon for a moment, then tossed it well away from both women. With both hands available for anything she might desire, the Daughter of Darkness hooked her fingers beneath the band stretched across the sole of Park’s right foot and tore it aside. Deep in the fog between her ears, Yoona felt Adelaide’s fingers brushing her foot and she knew what was about to happen.
Sitting up as best she could, she reached forward with one hand and croaked, “Don’t. Adelaide, pleAAAAARRRRRRRRRRHHHHHH GAAAAAAAAWWWWD!”
Adelaide dug in with both thumbs, the True Believer seemingly intent on tearing her foe’s foot in half. Yoona reached for that hateful tangle of limbs just once and the encroachment was enough for wrench her big toe like she meant to snap it off! The threat of permanent damage abruptly overwhelmed the rest of Park’s resolve and she smacked the mat over and over again.
“I QUIT! I QUIT! F*CKING LEMME GO YOU EVIL CUNT!”
Al called for the bell at once, but Adelaide didn’t let go. Or at least, she didn’t let go of the Figure Four. She did release Park’s foot though, if only so she could plant her hands on the canvas and arch her back while the Announcer confirmed, “Ladies and gentlemen, your winner via submission…. ADELAIDE BREWSTER!”
The victrix bared her teeth for the jeering throng, then sat up and ran her thumb across Park’s toes just to get another violent shudder from her nemesis. She abandoned the Figure Four when Al approached, yet instead of allowing him to help her rise, the Queen of Nightmares straddled Yoona’s waist and placed both hands slightly above her head.
Leaning in close, she nipped Park’s ear between her teeth before whispering, “We are far more alike than I’d care to admit, Yoona Park. In fact, I can think of only one real difference between us.” She sighed, enjoying the trip-hammer
pace of the other brunette’s pulse when she nuzzled her neck. “In times of great personal strife, I bend. You BREAK. Remember that distinction the next time you feel my name getting ready to cross your lips.”
Forcing Park’s head to one side with a disdainful shove, Adelaide stood up and basked in the hatred raining down on her. She was still soaking it up when the feed cut to a video package detailing tonight’s Lightweight Title tilt between Dominique Daly and Katya Michalka.
Raising his mic, the man said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time we returned to the Madhouse.”
A worrisome prospect indeed, not that anyone had time to get off the ride before the Announcer dissolved into a tracking shot racing down a well kept section of two-lane blacktop somewhere not too far from Cassadaga. Suddenly the camera made a sharp turn to the left, cruising between a set of wrought iron gates to continue its trek up a winding driveway that seemed to be nothing but hairpin turns. In less than a minute the road crested a small hill and the woods gave way to reveal the one-time Harrenhal Mental Health Institute reborn as FAWN’s premiere training facility, not to mention repository for some of its most outré gimmicks.
Even more unnerving when painted in the purple and orange light of a Florida Autumn, the looming pile of masonry lurked in the center of a wide green clearing, the former asylum no longer had need of razor-wire fences and guard stations, not that it ever received that many visitors. Even with its newfound fame, something about the place just kept people away. Unless they’d bought tickets of course, then the fans arrived en masse, seemingly bolstered by the idea of strength in numbers.
Aware that the camera was rapidly approaching the double doors of the main entrance, several fans pushed back in their seats and dozens more held their breath until they’d been whisked over that ominous threshold. Not that the interior was much more welcoming, think Matheson’s infamous Belasco Mansion by way of Vince McMahon. Keeping to a more or less straight line, the camera swept across the wide, empty lobby and ascended the wide central staircase before turning right at the second floor landing. Now a narrower, darker stretch of hall, followed by a dip to the left that led deeper into the bowels of Harrenhal. Finally, the journey slowed in front of a heavy wooden door, outside which a half dozen anxious looking referees waited.
The bronze nameplate on the door conjured unpleasant images for most:
SPIDER’S NEST
It opened without a sound and the camera slipped inside, taking the FAWNatics along whether they wanted to or not. Housed in a room roughly half the size of a standard gymnasium, the Spider’s Nest was, at first glance, the basic model FAWN steel cage -- Sturdy black steel bars made up the frame while flexible but unforgiving chain-link fence filled the gaps, making sure nothing much bigger than a clenched fist could reach in from the outside. A more thorough perusal identified Eve Choldstone’s unique flourishes. Hanging from the center of the cage ceiling was what could only be described as a spider’s web of steel chain. Arranged in a cylinder and hanging all the way to the floor (where it puddled in unpleasant clumps) the ‘Nest’ was perhaps six or seven feet in diameter, its single jostling wall made of a mismatched variety of circular steel links. Some near the bottom were large enough to crawl through, others were well sized for hands and feet, still others wouldn’t be good for anything other than abrading an opponent’s skin. By this point most everyone was wondering why anyone in their right mind would attempt to crawl through such a monstrosity. The camera showed them why, zooming silently through the links to angle down and reveal… a six foot leather strap, waiting patiently for the woman with vengeance in her heart.
The view held just long enough to send a chill down the viewer’s spine, then faded into a real time medium shot of the Nest and its latest occupants. Waiting on opposite sides of this hateful construct were a pair of slender brunettes with a mutual hatred that burned like the flames of Hell itself, Adelaide Brewster and Yoona Park. Between them stood the tall, lanky figure of referee Algernon ‘Al’ Carpenter, who’d checked the knees, elbows and wrists of both ladies before the show went live. With that done, he nodded to the camera. Upstairs, the fans sitting in a darkened arena cheered as the Announcer proclaimed the start of another violent war of attrition between the two battlers.
ADELAIDE BREWSTER
YOONA PARK
The bell sounded and the small gathering of FAWNatics urged to her vengeance, but Yoona didn’t move. Eyes locked on Adelaide, she reached out with one hand and gave the Nest a dismissive, backhanded swat.
“Bytch,” she huffed, “did you really think this overgrown slinky would help you beat me? Just how many times do I have to knock you the f*ck out before you learn to stay down?”
Adelaide didn’t move either, though Park couldn’t help but noticing the twitch in her fingers. “I don’t know,” she said after a slow, insolent shrug. “Maybe I’m just stubborn… or maybe your fists are as delicate as your dainty little feet.”
Yoona snarled, took a step around the Nest, stopped when Brewster did the same. “What’s the matter, cunt?” the Korean snapped. “Afraid my delicate little fists might break your fake-ass fangs?”
The Queen of Nightmares grabbed the dangling mesh in both hands and gave it a hard shake. “Just waiting to see how long it’ll take you to muster the courage to come for me when you don’t have a whole beach to strangle me--”
Park darted around the Nest like a cool breeze, the Snarky Striker coming in low and with a tackle aimed at Brewster’s “UNNNNNNGGGHH!” Adelaide snatched a double handful of the dangling links and jerked them into Park’s path like she was drawing some Cenobite’s idea of a curtain. The swipe didn’t so much hurt as it did distract and interrupt, Yoona’s charge stuffed with her on one knee and in perfect position for Adelaide to THWHACK a single swift kick between her eyes. Yoona went to all fours, immediately rose up and got smote by a Bionic Elbow to the crown of her skull! Dropped to all fours for the second time in all of ten seconds, Park was blinking the fireworks out of her head when the other brunette grabbed a double handful of hair and reeled her into a Standing Headscissors.
Adelaide’s arms cinched around her waist immediately thereafter and Yoona kicked her legs like a madwoman when the Churchgoer tried to hoist her upside down. The resistance returned her feet to the deck, though Park didn’t get a chance to celebrate this victory as Brewster promptly raaaaaaaaaaaaked her buttock to shoulderblade, then helped herself to a big handful of togs and pulled ‘em north in a hateful wedgie!
“No soft landings tonight you pampered bytch,” Adelaide snarled. “No cheap way to win when you can’t get the job done. You’re on my turf noWHOOOAANNNGGGHHHH!”
Galvanized by the catty tactic and Brewster’s arrogant certainty, Park cupped her rival behind the knees and straightened fast as she could to send the other brunette tumbling up, over and DOWN with an improvised Back Body Drop! Yoona reached down to flick her briefs back into place, or at least started to. She had to call an audible because Brewster scrambled to verticality faster than anyone dropped on canvas-sheathed plywood should’ve been able. Thankfully Yoona’s response was just as sudden, the black-clad brunette firing off a Roundhouse aimed squarely at Adelaide’s sku-- the Weeping Angel dipped low and straightened up fast, which proved a mistake as Park spun right on through the whiff to spring up and THWHACK a Spinning Heel Kick off Brewster’s dome!
STEP OVER SPINNING HEEL KICK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6g-sikmxvc
“THAT’S HOW IT’S DONE, ASSHOLE!” Yoona bellowed to the flattened brunette as she got to her feet and snapped her trunks into a more comfortable alignment.
Adelaide offered nothing useful in terms of witty repartee, so Park made a point to drive a heel into her belly as she stepped over on her stroll to see those assembled.
“Who’s the toughest bytch in this cage?” she called to the fans.
‘YOU ARE!’ they answered as one.
“Who’s gonna make this skank (she jerked her head in Brewster’s direction) beg for mercy?”
‘YOU ARE!’
Smile growing wider with each affirmation, Yoona wheeled around so she was facing the other woman when she asked, “And who’s going to be wearing a lovely fang necklace tomorrow morning?”
‘YOU ARE!’
“Goddamned right.”
The rallying session had given Brewster enough time to regain her footing, not that Park cared in the slightest. The only sound more satisfying that her foot connecting against Brewster’s head was the sound of her fat ass hitting the mat. She meant to hear both over and over tonight.
“Go ahead, f*ckface,” Park taunted when she saw Adelaide’s gaze flick to the strap hanging inside the Nest. “Go for it. Maybe you’ll even grab it before I kick your teeth against the goddamned--”
“Shut up and fight, you gutless whore,” Brewster said it with all the emotion of someone announcing the time, yet it still stopped Yoona in her tracks.
“That really what you want, Adelaide?” the Korean questioned. “Because every time we fight, I knock your ass the f*ck out.”
“Every time, Yoona? Did you forget how you begged that idiot Merle to make sure I didn’t hobble you at ‘Mania?” Adelaide’s dark eyes shown with cruel joy as she watched the anger flicker across Park’s face. “Perhaps you HAVE forgotten. Or at least blocked it from your memory. I know I’d certainly want to forget a humiliation of that magnit--”
The word was only halfway out of Brewster’s mouth when Yoona launched herself at the True Believer. Catching Adelaide across the base of the neck with a Muay Thai Clasp, Park pulled the other brunette forward and down and unleashed three gut-churning Kneelifts in the span of half as many seconds. Give the devil her due, Adelaide snagged Park in a clasp of her own and matched the first volley of Kneelifts shot for shot, but Yoona was in no mood for an even exchange and after three more blows to the belly she stuffed Brewster’s noggin between her thighs in a Standing Headscissors. Adelaide didn’t just sit there and take it of course, she gouged at the pits of Park’s knees and tried to buck her loose, but a single hard punch to the kidney slowed her enough to the Korean to snag a retaliatory handful of trunks.
“I could have you pissing blood just like that,” Yoona snapped her fingers to emphasize the point. “But then Al would call the match, I’d get fined and all of these people wouldn’t get a chance to see me spank your miserable ass on worldwide pay-per-view. So rather than just end this… I’m going to make you suffer.”
With that she doubled down on Brewster’s waistband and hauled it up like she meant to split the other wrestler in half! Offering the fans a theatrical cringe when Adelaide shrieked in pain, Yoona halved her grip to swat and slap at her opponent’s glutes.
“You’re not going to tap out to a f*cking wedgie, are you?” she asked with taunting incredulity. “It’d be pretty goddamned pathetic to win my first feud with a wedgie. Well… actually that would be kinda epic. Go ahead and tap out if you can’t take it, candy-asSSEEERRGHHHH FAAAAAAAAHK!”
Adelaide probably could’ve muscled her way out of the Headscissors the same way Yoona did, but the limited view of the canvas put Park’s feet on prominent display and it gave the Churchgoer an idea. Enduring the trunk torture long enough to let Yoona think she was in control, Adelaide abruptly grabbed the other woman’s toes in both hands and tried to wrench them off her feet! Yoona reacted with a panicky Double Axehandle to the small of Brewster’s back,
alas it didn’t stop the Weeping Angel from yanking the Korean’s stems out from underneath in a quick Double Leg Takedown.
Stretching Yoona’s legs into a wide ‘V’ the instant she hit the mat, Brewster didn’t even give her prey a chance to mull the inevitable, she simply raised one foot and brought her heel THUMPING down into Park’s crotch once, twice, three times! Yoona shrieked, tugged loose and curled into a ball, both hands wedged against her injured center.
From somewhere overhead, Adelaide’s voice drifted down like cobwebs. “You’re the quitter, Park. And tonight you’re going to quit like you f*ck. Shamelessly and repeatedly.”
Brewster reached down to snare an ankle, and that immediately burned through the haze of pain in Park’s brain. She reached out to grab the chainlink fence with one hand while the other was still cupped over her throbbing groin, then pulled and thrashed her legs until she freed herself. Adelaide seemed content to let her go, watching the Korean’s frenzied scrambling while taking cruel bemusement in the panic she could induce with just a simple touch. Once Yoona had gotten semi-upright, one hand still gripping the cage for support, the Daughter of Darkness sprang into action again.
She charged forward with a lowered shoulder and smashed her opponent face first into the wall of the Spider Nest, and the Queen of Nightmares quickly buried one hand in Park’s dark locks. Rather than yank on that handful of hair, Adelaide used that grip for control as she scrubbed Yoona’s face back and forth across the metal wires, drawing anguished screams from the trapped wrestler with every pass. With a maniacal glint in her eyes, Brewster did her best to force Park’s head through that mesh, and she might have done just that had Yoona not reached back and latched onto her thumb.
A savage, desperate twist forced Adelaide to release her hair hold lest she suffer a broken thumb, and in the blink of an eye, Park whirled around and doubled her over with a Snap Kick to the midsection. Still holding onto the other brunette’s hand, Yoona gave a sharp tug on the captured limb and pulled Adelaide forward into a Front Facelock. The Korean took a moment to gather herself, then she leapt up, splayed her legs out behind her, and pushed her heels against the chainlink wall. The pair of wrestlers spun three-quarters of a circle like an unbalanced top, then Park fell onto her back and drove the crown of her opponent’s skull into the deck with a Tornado DDT.
TORNADO DDT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXIycjY-t-s
Despite the continuing throb in her undercarriage thanks to the triplet of stomps to the groin, Yoona held onto her Front Facelock after impact and shot her legs up to wrap her thighs around Adelaide’s midriff. It would’ve been a textbook Guillotine Choke, except that Park didn’t want to work the choke at all. Instead, she pushed out with her legs while arching her back in an attempt to tear Brewster’s head from her shoulders.
The Queen of Nightmares gnashed her teeth together to squelch a gurgling scream, then she set to fighting her way out of the Korean’s grasps. She started by scratching and clawing at Park’s arms, shoulders, and upper back, scoring several streaks into the tawny skin, though of course Yoona did not relinquish her hold to such minor annoyances. That was just fine with Adelaide, as she had only intended it to be a distraction while she worked her feet underneath her hips, thus allowing her to get into a crouched position rather than being stretched out flat on her belly.
With a great effort, she managed to straighten her legs and lift Park several inches off the mat, though with leverage and balance -- not to mention the recent head trauma from the DDT -- working against her, the Daughter of Darkness was still hunched over at the waist. Adelaide tried to stand up straight though to her dismay she found out she couldn’t, and after about eight seconds of futile struggling, the live audience at the Madhouse started up a chant of, “TAP! TAP! TAP! TAP!”
Trapped and increasingly drained as she was, Brewster would give them and her opponent no such satisfaction. She started stumbling around drunkenly with Yoona still tightly latched onto her body and wrenching on her neck, driving the two of them into one wall of the Spider’s Nest and then another. The chainlink proved to have enough give to
make those collisions soft, however, and Park’s hooks proved just as tight as ever after twenty seconds of careening around the Spider Nest. On the other hand, Adelaide was visibly starting to gas, and the fans responded by increasing the volume and tempo of their chant until the entire Madhouse was buzzing at a fever pitch.
”TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP --”
Brewster dropped back down to one knee, and the audience collectively roared and got to their feet.
”TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP -- OOHHHHHHHH!”
The Queen of Nightmares silenced the crowd by powering back to a stand then spinning a semicircle with a final, desperate effort. Whether by plan or by accident, she managed to swing Yoona in an arc such that the side of the Korean’s head smashed into one of the aluminum fence posts at each vertex of the Spider’s Nest. Skull met metal with an high-pitched, echoing PIIIIIINNNG! and Park silently slopped to a boneless heap on the mat with a small trickle of blood running from her left temple.
Adelaide was in better shape, although she too was splayed out on her back with one hand rubbing at her neck, taking in deep, heaving breaths of air. By the time Brewster had sufficiently refueled and regained a vertical base, Park was still struggling to stay on unsteady hands and knees as the gray canvas underneath her was getting increasingly red and splotchy from the drip drip drip from her head.
A victorious sneer spreading across her features, the Churchgoer shambled over to her prey and snatched a handful of hair to raise Yoona’s head. She leaned in close and opened her jaws, preparing to take another bite out of the Korean’s neck, but Park recovered far quicker than she had anticipated. As soon as Adelaide’s mouth was open, Yoona shot her hand into that gaping maw and clenched down on a vicious Mandible Claw. Suddenly re-energized by the scream that was now reverberating against her right hand, Yoona rose to one knee, grabbed a handful of Adelaide’s trunks with her left hand, and popped to a stand. Park wasn’t a powerhouse, but Brewster wasn’t a destroyer-sized wrestler either, and so the Korean managed to hoist her opponent high into the air. From there, it was simply a matter of letting gravity take over, as Yoona pitched forward to drive the Churchgoer to the mat with a wicked combination of Mandible Claw and Choke Slam.
The effort seemed to leave her nearly spent, however, as she rolled a couple of feet away and laid there staring at the ceiling lights. The referee took the opportunity with both wrestlers laid out to kneel down next to Park and dab at the cut on the side of her head with a small tube of Super Glue, an addition to the usual official’s kit that the brass had made mandatory given the setting and the propensity of the wrestlers in question for drawing blood. Contrary to her tendencies, Yoona didn’t protest the medical attention, merely sitting up and glaring at her opponent who had rolled into a face down position.
“All the glue in the world ain’t gonna be enough to put your bitch-ass back together,” she hissed at the Churchgoer.
Brewster’s only answer was a low groan, the tone of which spurred Yoona to crawl over and secure a handful of hair. The catty tether had both ladies on their feet in a matter of seconds, though Park fared better in the return to verticality, especially considering the Kneelift she spiked above Adelaide’s navel.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little toy hanging in there, asshole,” the Korean told her foe as she reeled her into grinding Front Facelock. “I’m going to whip every inch of your dumpy little ass before I walk out of this cage, but I want to ruin the rest of you first.”
Slinging Brewster’s near arm over her shoulders, Park collected a handful of waistband and muscled the Weeping Angel directly overhead. Rather than fall backward or straight down, she slung Adelaide back the way she’d came and simultaneously dropped to one knee to THWHUMP the pit of her foe’s stomach with a clever Gutbuster.
SUPLEX-LIFT GUTBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mELz9-K3Lkg
The True Believer gave voice to an ugly liquid gurgle, one that might’ve transformed into a full-throated sob if Park hadn’t straightened her up and muscled her across her shoulders for a Fireman’s Carry. Waggling her hips as the spectators urged her on, Yoona treated them to a wink, then tossed Brewster forward and out and went down to one knee, once again THWUMPING Adelaide’s sturdy midsection. Escape was denied a second time as Park kept the other brunette strapped down across the shoulders and thighs until she was docile enough to return to the Fireman’s Carry.
FIREMAN'S CARRY GUTBUSTER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYQTafLnCUw
“So how do you think I’m going to finish you off tonight, f*ckface?” Yoona chided as she strolled around the confines of the cage. Am I going to choke you out? Wreck your sloppy gut? Or how about I kick your f*cking head off?”
That last question was still on her lips when she pushed Adelaide straight up and dropped back, the Snarky Striker lashing out her right leg for a Detonation Kick primed to blow Brewster’s jaw to-- ‘OOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!’
Wide-eyed surprise, followed by grudging admiration from those in attendance as the Queen of Nightmares shifted mid-descent to land on her feet. Far worse for Yoona, Adelaide snatched her foot out of the air and immediately tried to wrench it around a full ninety degrees! Holding the limber lovely’s trapped ankle in the crook of her right arm, Brewster gripped the inside edge of Park’s foot and jerked it back and forth like she meant to snap it then and there.
“What was that, bytch?” Adelaide dug her fingers into Yoona’s exposed sole, adding another layer of anguish to the hellish hold. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of snapping tendons!”
Planted on her forearms and remaining knee after the vile counter, Park slammed a fist into the canvas, then shook her head at Al to know it wasn’t a submission.
“Run your mouth while you can, bytch.” she huffed while carefully rising to her palms. “Because eventually it’ll be stuffed full of my footEERRRRRHHHHHHHH!”
Adelaide shifted the focus of her punishment to Yoona’s big toe, yanking on it the way Park went after her thumb earlier in the bout.
“It’ll have to be the other one, surely.” the Daughter of Darkness cooed. “Because a foot with no toes is… well, quite useless actually. Much like the whole of your existence, Park.”
Yoona shook her head again, though this was a denial of her rival’s taunt as opposed to a refused surrender. Demonstrating remarkable balance for someone down a limb in an awkward position, the Korean pushed off with her hands and knee to regain a vertical base! The position was still quite awkward, what with her captured leg stretched out behind, but hopping was better than crawling and Yoona Park could do plenty with a single good plant foot. A single short hop brought her that much closer to the cage, alas, it also brought another twist from Adelaide, who’d moved onto Yoona’s other toes.
“Submit right now, chattel,” Brewster punctuated the demand by slowly gouging her thumb into the sole of the Korean’s trapped foot. “Submit to me and you have my word that I’ll only smother you out. Defy me and I swear I’ll use the strip to lash you--”
Park dipped into a deep crouch and pushed off, or at least started to. She was only about halfway up when Adelaide yanked back on her captured ankle and short-circuited any thoughts of an escape hatch Enzugiri when she
THWHAPPED a short, stiff Toe Kick into the other brunette’s crotch! Yoona sobbed and crumpled into a shocked ball, her forehead almost touching her knees as she tried to protect her center from any more punishment. She was still tending to these fires down below when Adelaide stepped in behind her, bent down and cinched both arms around opposing waist. Yoona responded with immediate Back Elbows, but Brewster was in too snug and the strikes didn’t have a fraction of their usual strength. As such, the hobbled exotique couldn’t prevent Adelaide from her off the canvas in a gut-mashing slow motion Waistlock. Turning in a circle to better let the heathens see the pain on her prey’s face, Brewster abruptly dropped her hips and took Yoona over and down, the trapped Korean THAWHAMMING down flush on the back of her head and shoulders.
DEAD-LIFT GERMAN SUPLEX:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm-RzS8C1fE
Well versed in the rules of the Spider’s Nest at this juncture of his career, Al didn’t move in to make a count, nor was he surprised when Adelaide rolled onto her knees with the Waistlock intact, all the better to haul Yoona up as well. Recalling the painful grind of Park’s knotted hands against her belly when they fought on the beach, Brewster lifted her burden a good eight inches off the mat and shook her like a terrier shakes a rat, Adelaide doing her level best to cut Park in half with nothing but brute constriction. Yoona wailed something fierce and she cursed a blue streak to boot, but she didn’t submit, in fact she landed a few desperation elbows to Brewster’s biceps, then went in search of that thumb one more ti--
“UUUUUUNNNNNNGGGGGGHH!”
The Queen of Nightmares snapped her down and back, damned near folding the other brunette in half with a second German Suplex. Doggedly maintaining the Waistlock even after Park almost bounced free of her grasp, Adelaide rolled to her belly and made a show of grinding her hips against Yoona’s tush en route to hauling her up yet again.
“Canvas doesn’t have nearly as much give as sand, does it, bytch?” Brewster sneered in Yoona’s ear. “No wonder you love to fight on the beach. It’s the only arena as soft as you RRRGGHHH!”
Yoona stomped on her attacker’s foot, then stomped it again to break the Waistlock. Doubling over as she lurched away from Adelaide’s grasp, Park was mustering the strength for a Uraken when the Churchgoer grabbed her by the trunks and yanked her backward into that damned Waistlock! Yoona had just enough time to groan ‘F*ck.’ then the Weeping Angel hurled her through the stiffest German Suplex yet, only this time she released at the apex, meaning Yoona was moving at top speed when the back of her head BWAAANGED against the chainlink of the outer cage.
The crowd groaned along with Park as she skidded to a slumped seat, then voiced their displeasure when Adelaide grabbed her by the ankles and draaaaaaaaaaaagged her away from the edge. Yoona was in no condition to defend her feet from another attack, yet rather than return to her favorite target, she stalked around to Park’s head and jerked her to a seat.
“No sand to save you tonight, dear,” Brewster reached down, took a wrist in each hand and crossed Yoona’s forearms against her neck in a snug ‘X’. “No sand, no twenty count, no Camille, no anything. And if you should be stupid enough to wriggle your way toward one cage or another…”
Adelaide rolled the Korean onto her tummy, sat down just above the curve of her glutes and wrenched backward to effectively strangle the thrashing brunette with her own arms.
Licking her lips as Park struggled and rasped, Brewster finished her unpleasant threat, “…and I’ll grind your miserable face clean off.”
Al was quick to offer a chance to submit, though the angry hiss that he got in response let him know that Yoona wasn’t ready to call it a night. Still trapped in the Cross-Arm Camel Clutch, Park gouged her nails into the back of her
opponent’s wrists and carved angry red grooves in the lightly tanned skin. Irritated by the act of defiance, Adelaide let go of the Korean’s arms, stood up from her seat, and mashed the ex-ballerina’s face into the canvas with a Curb Stomp to the back of the head. Yoona’s vision exploded into white light and she felt like someone had set off a firecracker inside her skull, but unfortunately that was the least of her concerns as the Churchgoer had claimed control of her right ankle while she was dazed.
With the Korean still lying prostrate, Adelaide bent the captured limb around her own right shin and tucked Yoona’s ankle into the pit of the opposite knee. The crowd on hand at the Madhouse screamed for Park to shake off the concussive haze and do something -- anything -- to escape before Brewster completed the leglock that had reduced her to a sobbing, submissive wreck within mere seconds at Fawnamania, but it was already too late. The Queen of Darkness dropped to a seat, threw her left calf over her opponent’s right ankle to keep the leggy knot in place, then laid out and arched her back with Yoona’s left shin in her lap to pour pressure into the Midnight Clutch.
MIDNIGHT CLUTCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=62c-sfj59DI
“EEARRRGGGHHHH GAAAWWWDDD!” Park screamed, pushing her torso off the deck with both hands as the agony in her legs tore through her like ten thousand volts of electricity.
Park had dedicated hours and hours of training time to finding a way out of the Churchgoer’s diabolical hold. She had even enlisted the help of Olivia Dare, perhaps the finest technical submission wrestler of an entire generation and one of the very, very few wrestlers to whom Yoona showed even a modicum of respect. Unfortunately, after an entire afternoon of the two limber lovelies taking turns putting each other in the hold, they had each independently come to the same disheartening conclusion: the Midnight Clutch was simply inescapable. The only way out was to loudly -- and pathetically -- beg for release.
“NO! NO NO NO NO FUUUUUUCCCCCCCK!” Yoona wailed again when Adelaide slowly and agonizingly clawed the tender, sensitive sole of her foot as if to strip the flesh from her bones.
Rather than chant “PLEASE DON’T TAP!” as usual, many of the FAWNatics on hand just threw up their hands and groaned, as they deemed it inevitable that the ex-ballerina would be forced to submit once again. Curiously, the audience’s lack of faith seemed to prickle Park’s ego and thus bolstered her fighting spirit more than any display of encouragement could have, and she started dragging herself forward on hands and elbows, howling in misery the entire way.
“Give it up, chattel! There’s nowhere to go!” Brewster snarled before she turned her head to the side to sink her teeth into the bare arch of the Korean’s left foot, causing Park’s screams to go up another octave or two in pitch.
For now, however, Yoona still managed to disregard the internal voice that was begging her to submit. Unlike at Mania, she had not been stripped of her protective leg sleeves, and while it didn’t help with Adelaide gnawing on her foot, those high-tech protective polymers did much to counteract the otherwise debilitating strain on her joints and sinews. She planted a forearm against the mat and dragged herself forward another handful of inches, and now she was able to reach out and grab the steel links that comprised the inner cylinder of the Spider’s Nest. With a shout that was equal parts anguished and victorious, she pulled the upper half of her body through an opening in the mesh, then pushed up on one hand while reaching out with the other, her outstretched fingertips brushing against the bottom of the six-foot leather strap that was hanging in the center of the enclosure.
A vicious twist of her ankle and a savage bite to her Achilles Tendon made Yoona collapse back to the mat with a bloodcurdling screech, however, and it took every ounce of her willpower and then some to stop her traitorous hand from frantically slapping the mat right then and there.
Having seen Park leave the field of battle on crutches a few too many times, a very concerned Al Carpenter crawled his way into the inner circle of Nest and softly asked, “What do you say, Yoona? Need me to call it?”
Yoona didn’t respond with anything except for a series of stifled sobs as she laid there face down and tearing at her own hair. The referee moved a little closer, got down to hands and knees next to the struggling wrestler, and repeated his offer.
“Yoona, I need you to say something or else --”
Park slapped a hand on Carpenter’s shoulder and clenched down on a white-knuckled grip that made the man wince, then she sputtered through her sobs, “Y... Y…”
Adelaide stopped chewing on her opponent’s foot, though she actually redoubled the pressure on the joint locks, and she triumphantly sneered, “Once again you prove to be a quitter, my dear --”
”-- YOU LOSE, FUCKFACE!”
Letting loose a cathartic roar that brought the fans to their feet, Yoona used her grip on Al’s shoulder to push herself up those extra few inches to get a solid grasp on the leather strap with her other hand. In one smooth, contorting motion, she ripped the weapon from its moorings, twisted around at her waist, and delivered a stinging lash straight to the Churchgoer’s face. The other end of the strap struck Adelaide right between the brows, the Weeping Angel lucky to avoid being blinded in either eye by the vicious stroke. Brewster’s hands immediately shot up to protect her face as she shrieked like a banshee and curled into a ball, all thoughts of snapping Park’s legs washed away in a deluge of own searing pain.
Meanwhile, Yoona crawled to the other side of the inner cage to nurse her wounds and massage some life back into those tortured legs. There were splotchy, red and purple bruises on her foot where Adelaide’s teeth and claws had done their work, and Park didn’t even want to think about the internal damage suffered by her thighs, knees, and ankle. Nevertheless, the hate roiling in her gut and the adrenaline coursing through her veins demanded that she get up before her nemesis, so the battered ex-ballerina forced herself upright, relying on her protective gear to hold her traumatized legs together just a little longer. She wrapped one end of the leather strap around her left fist, then the other end around her right, and despite her aches and pains, she took off in a run as soon as Brewster had risen to a stand.
The Queen of Darkness was still afflicted by a set of very bleary eyes, and she hardly saw a thing when Yoona leapt past her. Turning halfway in midair, Park deftly slipped the middle of the strap beneath Brewster’s chin while she held the ends in either hand, then she fell to the mat and dragged Adelaide along by the neck, nearly tearing off the Churchgoer’s head with a brutally augmented Slingblade that earned a shout of “JESUS CHRIST!” from the mortified referee and a chant of “HO-LY SHIT! HO-LY SHIT!” from the Madhouse audience.
SLINGBLADE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XL9H3UJ1Lk
Brewster’s shoulders and head slammed hard into the deck, though her ordeal was far from over as Park immediately fashioned the leather strap into a snug noose around her neck with an ease and familiarity that raised some uncomfortable questions about the ex-ballerina. Now holding the free end of the strap with both hands, Yoona clambered to her feet and tugged a gagging and bug-eyed Adelaide up as well. Another sharp yank on the noose made Brewster stumble forwards, and as soon as she was within range, Yoona turned her inside out and upside down with a hateful Clothesline from Hell.
CLOTHESLINE FROM HELL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmqsDQve4tM
Even as the Daughter of Darkness was sent flipping through the air, Park gave the strap a forceful jerk to whiplash the Churchgoer’s neck in the other direction and to cause her to land on the crown of her skull. Just like that, the raucous crowd fell deathly silent after one last OOOHHHHHHH, and Al Carpenter decided that he had seen enough. He stepped between the two wrestlers, shooting a horrified glance at the Korean as he passed, and he was
just about to signal for a stoppage before Yoona promptly turned off his brain with a Superman Sucker Punch to the base of the skull.
“Sorry Merle, but I’m not through with her yet,” Park huffed at the unconscious official before she turned her attention towards her opponent. “You’re gonna die here, fuckface.”
Adelaide was too busy desperately clawing at the leather strap that was crushing her trachea to respond to that ominous sentiment, and she leaned heavily against the inner wall of the Spider’s Nest to stay standing when Yoona hauled her upright once more. Park took the free end of the leather strap and threaded it through a link in the mesh a foot above Brewster’s head, then pulled it back through an adjacent link before wrapping it several times around her right forearm for a better grip. Just for the sake of spite, she slammed a hateful Knee Strike into the Churchgoer’s groin which drew a strangled gasp, then Yoona dropped to a seat and laid back on the mat.
There were only a handful of pounds separating Park and Brewster, a gap so small that it could have swung one way or the other depending on how much either woman had last eaten. Evidently Yoona had enjoyed a more bountiful supper than her opponent, and it was that extra weight that proved to be the tipping point that made gravity her ally, and as she dropped down to the deck, Adelaide was pulled higher and higher into the air by the noose. Yoona braced her feet against the wall, willing to suffer the pain of the steel wires digging into her bare soles in order to better hang her nemesis, then she closed her eyes and listened to the audience.
“THIS IS MUR-DER!” they chanted, simultaneously horrified and irreverant in the way that only a FAWN crowd could be. “THIS IS MUR-DER!”
Through the din of the fans, Park could make out the sound of the chainlink fence rattling as Brewster desperately kicked her heels against it.
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
The rattling grew more frantic, building to a fever pitch...
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...then it slowed…
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...and slowed…
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...and slowed…
“THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER! THIS IS MUR-DER!”
...and stopped.
Yoona opened her eyes to see Adelaide hanging limp against the wall of the cage, her toes just a handful of inches off the safety of the mat. Park took a deep breath and sighed, then she let go of the strap and Brewster crumpled to a heap right next to her. The Korean rolled over, took a seat on her opponent’s chest, and took a good look at her handiwork. The Churchgoer’s face was a deep shade of red, with lips an even darker shade of purple. The distended veins in her forehead and neck stood out like cords and visibly throbbed with each fluttering heartbeat, and her eyes were open, bloodshot, and bulging out of their sockets. She unwound the strap from Brewster’s neck and looped it around her own arm.
x finger right in Adelaide’s face. “...this is mercy.”
Park delivered one, two, three, four hateful slaps across her opponent’s mouth, the last one splitting Brewster’s lower lip. Message delivered, she crawled over to the body of Al Carpenter and began rousing the referee back to consciousness.
“Wake up, Merle. It’s over.”
No response.
“Goddamn it, I only hit you half as hard as I could’ve! Get your ass up!”
Still no response, not even when Yoona grabbed his lapels and gave him a few rough shakes.
“I swear to fucking God… just a bunch of fucking glass-jawed dipshits…” Park mumbled to herself as she pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation.
The Korean took a deep breath and did her best to imitate the voice of Jenny Jacobs, “AL! AL, HELP ME! LISA’S HURTING ME!”
“JENNY, NOOOOOO!” Carpenter screamed as he suddenly sat bolt upright, eyes wild and pulse pounding.
Park merely rolled her eyes, and after a couple of seconds, the official seemed to get a better grasp of things as he asked, “What… what happened? Why does my head --”
“You fell down the stairs,” Yoona answered blandly.
Al looked around in confusion and stammered, “B -- but.. there… there are no stairs…”
“Then I guess it’s pretty fucking impreeeEEAAARRRGGGH!”
A spiteful lash of the strap across her shoulderblades made Park arch her back and screech, then a second lash to the side of her face sent her spilling onto her side. She rolled to hands and knees, then caught a brutal Soccer Punt to the head a split second later, followed by a single emphatic Leg Drop to the back of the skull that left her lying motionless in the middle of the Spider’s Nest.
“Welcome back, arbiter,” Adelaide panted to the referee while she rubbed at the abrasions encircling her neck. “You’re just in time.”
Al, still quite woozy from the sucker punch and his abrupt return to consciousness, did not fail to note the ugly welted ring around Brewster’s throat.
“Jesus, Adelaide,” he muttered. “Are you ok?”
On any other night the Churchgoer might’ve dismissed him with a glance or a hiss. Tonight she grinned and tipped her chin back, proudly displaying Park’s gift.
“I’m more than ok, Algernon. I am ascendant.”
The ref didn’t much care for the sound of that, but the throb in his skull kept him from offering any complaint. Meanwhile Adelaide clambered to verticality and positioned herself near the Korean’s feet. Spinning around so her back was to Yoona, the Queen of Nightmares planted her right foot between the other brunette’s splayed stems and seized hold of her ankles. This raised an alarm from those gathered, but Brewster didn’t rip and tear at her prey’s feet. Rather she bent Park’s left leg so that her shin rested in the pit of her right knee while the back of that calf was
braced by Adelaide’s own shin. From there she tucked the Snarky Striker’s right ankle into the pit of her own knee to secure a simple yet effective Deathlock.
“You strangled me in front of the whole world, Park,” Brewster sighed. “Strung me up like so much meat. And yet, like so many of the great misadventures of your pathetic existence, you failed to see things through to their logical conclusion. Allow me to show you the cost of that error.”
With that she reached down, grabbed hold of the leather strap still cinched around Park’s left wrist and threaded it under the brunette’s chin. Coiling the other end of the strap around her right hand, the Weeping Angel planted her left foot on the base of Yoona’s neck and YAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKED up on the strap while pushing down with her leg to throttle the bendy exotique with her own arm! Yoona gurgled to life in the grips of this hellish straightjacket, her free hand catching the strap in a white knuckle grip in a desperate effort to ease the pressure on her neck.
DEATHLOCK STOMPS: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIajFMPv7rU
Al Carpenter ticked off a slow internal five count in the hopes that Park would submit or Adelaide would grow bored with her torment.
When the situation remained unchanged, he stepped forward and said, “I can’t stand here and let you wring her neck, Adelaide.”
She flashed him a hard glare.
“Of course you can. After all, this is far more merciful that how she treated me. But since I’m feeling generous…” the Daughter of Darkness eased up on her stomp, which allowed the straightjacket to peel Yoona’s chest off the mat by a good three or four inches. “…I will allow you to employ a twenty count. If our little glass cannon here hasn’t shattered by then, I’ll release the hold. And if she has… well, let’s keep that a surprise, shall we?”
Arguing did nothing but prolong Yoona’s suffering, so the referee backed off and did as bade. He didn’t exactly rush through (any obvious favoritism would draw the Church’s ire and THAT was a hassle he didn’t need) but he certainly didn’t linger. Yoona fought through every heartbeat of it, first clawing at the strap, then digging her nails into the mat to either drag them both across the canvas or possibly unbalance her attacker. Either way it didn’t work and by the last five seconds even the most fervent Park supporters had silenced their ‘PLEASE DON’T TAP!’ chants in hopes of seeing the cruel knot brought to an end.
“EIGHTEEN… NINETEEN… TWENTY! Break the hold, Adelaide!”
“As you wish, arbiter.”
Brewster cranked up on the strap one more time, then let loose and stomped down with her left foot to drive her foe’s forehead into the mat with a bone-chilling THAWHONK! Yoona jolted once, then stretched out in a boneless sprawl, the only sign of life the soft, erratic beat of one foot against the canvas.
Above her, Adelaide looked at Al and for a moment the official dared hope she’d ask her to check on the other brunette. Alas, those hopes were dashed with an angry snarl and an aggressive reclamation of that wicked strap. Glassy eyed and weak in the knees, Park was hauled to her feet in stages and even then she probably would’ve crumpled if Brewster hadn’t snuggled in against her back. Any relief this brought the FAWNatics died the instant the Weeping Angel used the strap to pull Park’s left arm across her throat yet again. Yoona gaped and damned if she didn’t drive an elbow into the zealot’s side, but the blow had none of her usual strength and Brewster shrugged it off en route to slipping her free arm through the Korean’s legs. A triumphant roar from Adelaide as she bent her knees and muscled Park up across her shoulders in a strap-augmented cutthroat Torture Rack.
The Basement Dwellers knew what came next and pleaded to both wrestlers, to Park for a miracle and Brewster for mercy. But both proved in short supply at the Madhouse, as Adelaide demonstrated on her slow walk around the Spider’s Nest. Slowing to a stop in front of the hard camera, the weary brunette offered her audience a single word.
“Fragile.”
Then she rose up on one foot and laid out on one side to THAWHAM Yoona down on the back of her head and shoulders courtesy of Blood & Black Lace.
BLOOD & BLACK LACE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQhjXPD_fA
Park slopped onto her back in a boneless sprawl that had Carpenter ready to signal the Timekeeper at once. The only thing that stopped him was the Queen of Nightmares and just how quickly she laid claim to her prey’s ankles. Spreading those helpless stems in a wide ‘V’, Adelaide took a quick spin around Yoona’s left leg before forcing the bent limb against the post of her straightened right leg. Securing the knot with a grip on both ankles, Brewster dropped to a seat and promptly threaded her left leg over Park’s exposed ankle and bore down.
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHH FAAAAAAAAAAHK!” Yoona sat up like she’d been touched with a live wire, the formerly insensate battler brought back around by the lightning racing from her knees to her hips and back again.
“This is how it ends, bytch.” Adelaide cooed. “For all your talk of gods and death and disasters, in the end you were brought low by a move that’s been humbling arrogant sluts since the very beg--”
Yoona reared back and flicked the strap at Brewster’s face, but the Chruchgoer blocked it with her forearm. Catching hold of the leather even as it flicked around her wrist, the Weeping Angel pulled it back, leaned forward and PPPFWOOOOSHED a fountain of red into her face!
Yoona jerked back at once, the strap completely forgotten as she clawed at her stinging eyes. Brewster regarded the weapon for a moment, then tossed it well away from both women. With both hands available for anything she might desire, the Daughter of Darkness hooked her fingers beneath the band stretched across the sole of Park’s right foot and tore it aside. Deep in the fog between her ears, Yoona felt Adelaide’s fingers brushing her foot and she knew what was about to happen.
Sitting up as best she could, she reached forward with one hand and croaked, “Don’t. Adelaide, pleAAAAARRRRRRRRRRHHHHHH GAAAAAAAAWWWWD!”
Adelaide dug in with both thumbs, the True Believer seemingly intent on tearing her foe’s foot in half. Yoona reached for that hateful tangle of limbs just once and the encroachment was enough for wrench her big toe like she meant to snap it off! The threat of permanent damage abruptly overwhelmed the rest of Park’s resolve and she smacked the mat over and over again.
“I QUIT! I QUIT! F*CKING LEMME GO YOU EVIL CUNT!”
Al called for the bell at once, but Adelaide didn’t let go. Or at least, she didn’t let go of the Figure Four. She did release Park’s foot though, if only so she could plant her hands on the canvas and arch her back while the Announcer confirmed, “Ladies and gentlemen, your winner via submission…. ADELAIDE BREWSTER!”
The victrix bared her teeth for the jeering throng, then sat up and ran her thumb across Park’s toes just to get another violent shudder from her nemesis. She abandoned the Figure Four when Al approached, yet instead of allowing him to help her rise, the Queen of Nightmares straddled Yoona’s waist and placed both hands slightly above her head.
Leaning in close, she nipped Park’s ear between her teeth before whispering, “We are far more alike than I’d care to admit, Yoona Park. In fact, I can think of only one real difference between us.” She sighed, enjoying the trip-hammer
pace of the other brunette’s pulse when she nuzzled her neck. “In times of great personal strife, I bend. You BREAK. Remember that distinction the next time you feel my name getting ready to cross your lips.”
Forcing Park’s head to one side with a disdainful shove, Adelaide stood up and basked in the hatred raining down on her. She was still soaking it up when the feed cut to a video package detailing tonight’s Lightweight Title tilt between Dominique Daly and Katya Michalka.