Post by bigfan on Nov 5, 2017 20:02:51 GMT
With the capacity Fallout crowd settles into their seats again just as The Heavy's "Oh No Not You Again" starts to blare through the arena's sound system. The FAWNatics pop loudly, a good section of the crowd now Trisha Belle converts since the Minnesota Mauler has taken the IC title, but there remains a constant tone of booing and jeering underneath her fans as well. The big brunette drinks it all in as she steps through the curtain in her usual ring gear, her IC title belt over her shoulder, but she also has a black taped and padded knee compress around the joint that Moira Kane had attacked during their match at FAWNamania. The big Minnesotan still has a slight limp as she comes out, microphone in hand.
TRISHA BELLE
Belle wals down the ramp as she speaks, "Well, well, well, another Pay-per-view another chance for FAWN officials to leave me off the card. Usually, they say, 'You're too dangerous.' or 'You don't know when to stop.' But something tells me, that's why you sick sons of bitches love me."
The crowd cheers, all but on cue, admitting that Trisha's brutality is fun to watch.
"But beyond that, apparently the medical team here at FAWN thinks I shouldn't even BE here. The medics think I should take some time off after what that pretty little blonde Moira Kane did to my leg last month," Trisha continues, her words dripping with bitter venom for Moira's actions against her.
"But, no, I think a Pay-Per-View without the IC title on the line, or hell, a Pay-Per-View where I don't show, isn't worth the price of admission."
The crowd is split with cheers and boos in response to this cocky proclamation.
"So, as per usual, any girl who wants a shot at this," Trisha raises her belt high to another pop from the crowd, "You're welcome to come out here and take a shot at the champ."
Belle’s challenge hangs in the air for a few seconds before the opening beats of Katy Perry’s Roar play over the PA system, and a concerned murmur ripples through the crowd when Bianca Simpson steps through the curtains at the top of the entranceway. Despite the fans’ misgivings, Bianca looks confident and ready for battle in her red one piece with white boots and pads, and she turns to the nearest camera to flash a smile and a wink. Simpson snaps her fingers and holds her right hand out to the side to summon a microphone.
BIANCA SIMPSON
Unfortunately, the microphone comes from her left, and it smacks into the side of her face before clattering to the metal walkway with a loud whine of feedback, bringing an abrupt halt to the music. A flustered Bianca sputters a string of curses under her breath, her left hand pressed to her cheek, though she quickly regains her composure and retrieves the mic from the ground. She takes a deep breath to get the latest embarrassment out of her mind, and then she addresses the Intercontinental Champion in the ring.
“Hello, Trisha. My name is Bianca...” the rookie begins before repeating her name for emphasis to avoid another Charlie fiasco. “...Bi -- an -- ca... and I’ll be taking that big, shiny belt from you!”
Simpson doesn’t quite get the response she had anticipated. Trisha merely mouths a silent “Are you fucking kidding me?” Meanwhile, the FAWNatics collectively answer with a deflated groan, as Bianca’s post-FAWNamania interview last month had not endeared her to the fans as well as she had hoped.
“I know, I know…” Simpson continues as gestures for the audience to simmer down. “You guys were expecting the B-Train to take the express line all the way to Eliza Bliss and the FAWN World Title, and it’s a little disappointing that we’re making a stop for this one-legged small-fry and her secondary title…”
Bianca’s audacity manages to shock the crowd into an eerie silence.
“...but I recognize the importance of humility. I’ll admit, after my rather spectacular FAWNamania performance, it would’ve been really easy to let my ego get the best of me. But no, I’m better than that. You see, I spent an entire semester at Cornell, and one of the things we learned about in Psych 101 was the danger of the Dunning-Kruger effect.”
Simpson begins pacing back and forth, as she had seen her professors do when lecturing an auditorium full of freshmen students.
“What’s the Dunning-Kruger effect? Well, I’m glad you asked! Quite simply, it means that people not as educated and perceptive as myself lack self-awareness and drastically overestimate their abilities. The lesser the actual ability, the greater the degree of delusion. Take our soon-to-be former] Intercontinental Champion, for example -- lookin’ all smug and confident like she’s hot shit -- THAT’S what a victim of Dunning-Kruger looks like before reality gives her a swift kick in the ass! She has NO IDEA what kind of SQUASH this is gonna be!”
This time, Bianca does manage to get the crowd behind her, as the arena erupts in a disbelieving roar.
“Oh, it’s true! IT’S DAMN TRUE!” the rookie screams before dropping her microphone and taking off towards the ring at a full sprint.
With every step that Bianca takes towards the squared circle, the volume of the fans seems to raise another decibel, and by the time she slides under the bottom rope, the entire building is buzzing at a fever pitch. Simpson pops to her feet, and without even waiting for the timekeeper’s bell, she charges at Trisha Belle with fists cocked and runs face first into a Big Boot.
Bianca’s head and neck snap back at whiplash speeds from the impact and her back slams into the mat, her eyes open but vacant and nary a twitch from the rest of her body, and the crowd falls silent once more. Unfortunately for Trisha, it appears to be a Pyrrhic victory, as her knee is in no condition to absorb the jarring shock of the blow, and she too falls to the deck, grimacing and clutching the injured joint.
The referee shakes his head and sighs. He signals for the opening bell to make the match official, and with both wrestlers down, he immediately begins his ten-count.
Bianca remains laid out, no movement from the confident rookie except the steady rise and fall of her chest with each breath and a few random blinks of her eyes showing she's VERY dazed instead of out cold.
Meanwhile, Trisha SCREAMS in agony, her already injured knee obviously exacerbated by her reflexive counter and the impact of all of Simpson's weight and momentum slamming so hard into her boot. The IC champ howls as she sits up to avoid the count. But, unfortunately for Bianca, the Minnesotan is fighting through the pain as she starts seeing red.
Through tightly gritted teeth, Belle growls and says, "This bitch just made the worst move in her FAWN career. Because she's not leaving here by her own power now.
With that the Minnesota Mauler drags Simpson up by her hair, stopping the ref's ten count as she whips the rookie to the ropes. Bianca is only aware enough to keep one foot in front of the other and returns to Trisha slamming her with a discus clothesline so powerful the blonde doesn't just fall to her back, but completes three quarters of a backflip, hitting the canvas hard, chest and face first. This gets a loud groan from the crowd as well as a breathless huff from Bianca.
Simpson instinctively gets to her knees, her body trying to cope with the back to back impact of Trisha's forearm and the mat, but Belle grabs the rookie again. The champ forces Bianca's head between her thighs, dragging the unfortunate wannabe to her feet again, prepping Simpson for an early Piledriver to the mat. The Minnesota Mauler lifts her opponent vertical for the early finisher, but as soon as she lifts all of Bianca's weight off the mat, her injured knee buckles, Bianca falls harmlessly back to her feet as the champ is forced to bend forward, then falls to her good knee with a frustrated and pained scream, "AAARRRGGGHHH!"
Still a bit dazed and confused, Simpson stumbles around for a few steps and glances at the prostrate Belle. Truth be told, she’s not sure what sort of devastating counter she had performed to put the defending champion in such a sorry state, though she doesn’t dwell on the question for long. After all, she didn’t recall attempting a triplet of Rolling German Suplexes or a Moonsault Powerslam against Camille Cosworth either, but the FAWNamania highlight package provided incontrovertible video evidence of her remarkable feats. Bianca reasons that both now and then she must have experienced a very brief dissociative fugue, another phenomenon she had learned about in her freshman Introduction to Psychology lectures.
She has little time to waste on reminiscing, however, because Trisha is upright once more, despite looking more than a little wobbly. Simpson sizes up her considerably larger opponent, then dashes for the ropes behind her. She hits the high-tension steel cables and bounces back with even more speed than before, and as she rapidly closes in on the Minnesota Mauler, the self-proclaimed B-Train prepares to launch her Cartwheel Back Elbow. It’s only when she plants her hands on the canvas that Bianca remembers that she doesn’t know how to cartwheel, but her inertia has taken her past the point of no return and she spills to the deck in an awkward tumble, looking as if she had tripped over an invisible wire.
Lady Luck smiles upon the young rookie though, as Simpson flailing body careens directly into Trisha’s demolished left knee. It proves to be a highly effective if inadvertent Chop Block, and Belle is left laying on the mat as she screams and clutches at her injured leg for the third time in the match. Meanwhile, Bianca pushes to her haunches to take a gander at the FAWNtron replay, and she frowns when she sees how ungainly and clumsy her latest attack had been. She resolves to make up for that less than photogenic effort by displaying her aerial chops, so instead of following up on the towering brunette who’s down but far from out, Simpson heads for the nearest corner.
Bianca had forsworn high-flying maneuvers since her nearly disastrous botch of a Corkscrew 630 Senton months ago against Dayna Ezra, but FAWNamania had restored her confidence to take to the air once more. Nevertheless, Simpson has learned to temper her ambitions, so when she climbs to the top turnbuckle and turns around to see Trisha still grounded, she opts to eschew the Corkscrew 630 Senton in favor of a run-of-the-mill regular 630 Senton.
“CHOO-CHOO!” she bellows before leaping from her perch.
Try as she might, Bianca cannot manage the six hundred and thirty degrees of rotation -- precisely one and three-quarters front somersaults -- that give the 630 Senton its name. The best she can do before gravity overpowers her humble leaping ability is one hundred and eighty degrees, just enough to leave her upside down and vertical. Fortunately, Trisha’s body proves to be a much softer landing zone than the thinly-sheathed plywood, and Simpson succeeds in not shattering her own neck when the crown of her skull drives deep into Belle’s belly, her failed 630 Senton miraculously turning out to be a picture perfect Swanton Bomb.
Unaware of her initial intentions, the fans assume that Bianca had planned the Swanton all along, so they get to their feet and roar when it appears that she really is making good on her promise to squash the Minnesota Mauler. The blonde throws herself into a cover, and counts along with the referee for…
ONE!
TWO!
...before Trisha gets a shoulder up to deny the most unlikely of champions. Simpson turns to the official and pouts when he only holds up two fingers, though she quickly gets back to business and slaps a rear Waistlock on her opponent who’s now on hands and knees and still gasping for air. She tries for a Deadlift German Suplex, grunting and groaning with effort, but Belle proves to be too large for Bianca to Deadlift, let alone German Suplex. After fifteen seconds of futility, Simpson gives up having achieved nothing except to tire herself out.
“God… you must be really… really fat…” Bianca huffs as she stands hunched over with her hands on her knees. “Gotta… gotta be at least… three hun -- UNGH!”
Trisha doesn’t take too kindly to the insinuations about her weight, and she surges forward with a Diving Clothesline that nearly decapitates the rookie. Simpson does another one hundred eighty degree rotation in midair, albeit not of her own volition this time, and crashes headfirst into the deck before flopping onto her belly.
The blonde is laid out yet again by the Minnesota Mauler, but the match is far from finished, Bianca has been too much of an annoyance to be given an easy loss. Trisha wants the wannabe to suffer tonight.
To start Belle rolls Simpson onto her back with little resistance, grabs a fistful of the blonde's locks and swings her free hand, clenched in a tight fist, straight to Bianca's face one, two, three times. The helpless girl, still dazed and not fully aware of what's going on just bucks with each impact, becoming more punch drunk with each blow to the skull.
Finally, after the third punch lands, the ref steps in, knowing from the look in the Minnesotan's eyes that she doesn't plan on stopping until she punches a hole in Bianca's head if he doesn't step in.
"Hey, watch the hair, Belle. And those look like full fist punches. Knock it off or this match is over!"
Trisha snaps out of her rage suddenly, reverting to her snarky self as she sarcastically responds, "Pffft! Sure. This girl is a precious snowflake that needs protection. Whatever!"
With that, Belle slides behind Bianca and locks the blonde into a seated sleeper hold. "Better?" she teases the ref as she defiantly stares down the official. Then she looks out at the crowd, an evil smile and glare on her face as her fans cheer her on and the rest of the crowd boo and jeer the champ.
Bianca struggles, arms and legs instinctively flopping around, but with little coordination, rhyme or reason, she's merely struggling to escape with no real plan or exit strategy. Belle twists and jerks the hold, knowing she's got the rookie where she wants her, the struggling slowing as she feels Simpson fade, and can see from the crowd's expressions that it’s nearly over.
Then, out of nowhere, the ref calls, "Rope break!"
"WHAT!?" Trisha screams, turning to indeed find Bianca's foot just barely sitting on the bottom rope. Bianca either once again came up lucky, her thrashing saving her from a knockout loss, or she has more ring awareness than most would give her credit for. Belle angrily throws Simpson to the mat and rises to her feet, towering over the rookie before stomping her good foot down into the challenger's stomach.
Bianca gurgles back to life with the impact and she starts rolling towards the edge of the ring, taking a second stomp to her flank before she makes it to safety on the apron. She drops down to the floor and starts stumbling away with one arm protectively swaddled around her midsection, her bravado evaporating as she was now in full retreat. Trisha isn’t about to let her prey get away that easily though, and she slides out under the bottom rope and drops to the floor as well, visibly wincing as her boots make contact against the barely padded cement. Belle stalks after the rookie, a task made much more difficult by her ever-worsening limp, and Simpson manages to gradually increase the distance between them.
After about a lap and a half around the squared circle and growing discontent from the fans, Bianca is shamed into rediscovering her courage. She does an about-face, and charges headlong at the Minnesota Mountain. No cartwheels this time, Simpson lowers her shoulders and goes for a Spear that she had used to good effect against Kylie Sanders. The reigning Intercontinental Champion is a much different quarry the the diminutive Pleasant Valley Pariah though, and having learned her lesson from the opening Big Boot, Trisha violently derails the B-Train with a sledgehammer of a right-handed Haymaker to the jaw as soon as Bianca is within arm’s reach.
The referee shouts “FOURTEEN!” and Belle is fairly sure she can pick up the victory simply by getting inside the ring and letting her opponent be counted out with only six ticks to go. Trisha’s appetite for destruction is not yet sated, however, so she drags the semi-conscious blonde up with two handfuls of hair, stuffs her under the bottom rope, and slides in after her. Belle clambers upright, and gripping the top rope with both hands for support, she resumes trying to stomp a mudhole in the rookie, sending boot after boot into the newcomer’s ribs while Bianca tries to curl into a protective shell.
After about five seconds, the official demands that the Minnesota Mauler relent, as she is technically in the ropes. Looking quite peeved at being denied her fun, Trisha pauses her assault in order to argue her case with the man, but that’s when Bianca springs her trap and unleashes her ultimate technique: the Small Package Pin.
Caught off guard and rolled into a tight ball with her shoulders down on the mat, Belle feels a sudden wave of panic wash over her. Her wonky knee prevents her from powering out of Simpson’s grasps as she normally would, so the best she can do is stretch out her arm, hook a couple of fingers over the bottom rope, and hope that the referee sees it rather than counting her down and bringing a premature end to her reign. The fans -- even the ones that had been on Trisha’s side at the start of the match -- appear to be in favor of a title change, and twenty thousand voices become one as they collectively scream…
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
...before losing their minds and exploding into cheers. Bianca releases the pin and pops up to her feet, eyes already welling with tears of joy because she’s absolutely sure that she’s just become the youngest woman to ever hold gold in the federation. Half-sobbing and half-laughing, Simpson slides out under the bottom rope once more before running a victory lap around the ring, slapping hands with every fan who reaches towards her. Reaching a velocity hitherto unknown to her, she circles around again, and again, and again, and then the din of the crowd has died down enough that she can hear the referee call out “TWELVE!”
Bianca stops dead in her tracks and turns towards the ring. At first she doesn’t comprehend, but the official continues to count and a silently furious Trisha beckons her back into the ring with a single crooked finger, and it quickly dawns upon the youngster that the match is still live. Simpson gulps hard when she sees the murder flashing in her opponent’s eyes, and she laughs nervously as she slowly, slowly ascends the ring steps while some dark-hearted FAWNatics start up a taunting, sing-song chant of “TRI-SHA’S GON-NA KIIIIIIILL YOU! TRI-SHA’S GON-NA KIIIIIIILL YOU!”
“Uhh… got a little… a little carried away there,” Bianca squeaks. “But… umm... no hard feelings… right?”
Trisha just continues to beckon Bianca into the ring. The rookie gulps loudly again as the ref closes in on counting her out.
But Trisha doesn't even let the scared rookie through. Instead the Minnesota Mauler charges as fast as she can with her gimp leg, but its fast enough to spear Simpson hard in the stomach, sending the two women out of the ring, off the apron and driving the blonde girl's back into the outside barricade.
"OOOMPHH!"
Bianca has almost all the air knocked out of her as Trisha straddles her opponent's lap, starting to rain down punches and forearms on the outmatched Simpson. The ref just sighs and starts the count out again as Trisha pounds Bianca down. Simpson tries to block as many fists and forearms as she can, but Belle just keeps throwing them, it overwhelms her.
Trisha finally lets up, only to grab Bianca by the hair and fling her toward the steel steps. The rookie girl struggles, but the Minnesota Mauler's force is undeniable as she tumbles into the metal construct, crumpling to the floor after the impact.
With the ref over half way through his count, Belle rolls her now seemingly helpless opponent into the ring and backs her into the corner, lining up and then executing some theatrical but very loud and very powerful chops to Bianca's chest. Each impact hits with loud SLAP to the blonde's outfit, Simpson bucking moaning while the crowd gives a loud Ric Flair "WOO!"
Trisha doesn't stop until she's landed an insane TEN chops. Bianca bruised and breathless as Belle Irish whips her to the opposite corner, following close behind the blonde to deliver a Spear that this time won't spill out of the ring, but slam full force into the newbie's abs to further injure the new girl.
Simpson’s body neatly folds in half around Belle’s shoulder, and she ends up nearly stuffed into the space between the top and middle turnbuckles. Fueled by the indignity of letting Bianca get in some actual offense earlier in the match, Trisha fills her hands with her opponent’s flaxen locks, then hurls the hapless rookie to the center of the ring with a massive Hair-Mare. Simpson lands hard on her back and bounces before rolling onto her side, B-Train looking very much like the Little Engine That Couldn’t as a wet gurgle escapes her lips.
Trisha still isn’t done, and she storms out of the corner as quickly as her knee will allow. She jumps into the air as she closes in on her waylaid opponent and comes down in a Leg Drop right across the side of Bianca’s unprotected neck, Belle making sure to let her good leg take the brunt of the landing. Fortunately, the Minnesota Mauler isn’t as hefty as Simpson’s prior estimate, and instead of shattering her vertebrae the impact seems to jolt Bianca back to life for a brief moment as her body spasms and flops around as if electrocuted even while her head remains trapped underneath Trisha’s thigh.
With Simpson obviously spent, the referee fears for her safety so he immediately drops down to the mat, and starts counting to bring a merciful end to the match. Despite the quicker than usual pace of the count, however, Trisha still rolls clear by “TWO!” to break the pin and prolong the beatdown. She gets lambasted by the official for her sadistic callousness, though she clearly doesn’t care as she hobbles to her feet and drags her semi-conscious opponent upright as well. The Minnesota Mauler isn’t content with another successful title defense, she wants to send a message to Bianca, and perhaps to the rest of the women in the locker room as well.
Trisha grabs a bunch of hair with her left hand and uses it to hold up the sagging blonde. She balls her right hand into a fist and slowly draws that arm into a series backwards circles as if winding up a Bolo Punch. Most of the FAWNatics lustily boo her, their volume increasing with every second that Belle draws out the inevitable finish, but a subsection of the audience enthusiastically count off each rotation of her arm. Once they reach “TEN!” the Intercontinental Champion unleashes all her pent-up rage and frustration in a single blow, and she clobbers an unaware and defenseless Simpson in the side of the jaw.
Bianca’s head snaps in the other direction, a spray of blood and saliva erupting from her lips and staining the black-and-white striped shirt of the nearby referee. The force of the whiplash tears the follicles from her scalp, and now freed from the only thing keeping her upright, Simpson crashes face-first to the mat like a felled tree and lays there dead as a doornail, eyes open and frozen in fear while blood continues to dribble from one corner of her slightly parted lips. Trisha looks at her fallen foe, then looks at the wisps of detached blonde hair still clutched in her left hand. She scoffs derisively and wipes her hands on the front of the flabbergasted official’s shirt.
“Count,” she orders the man. “And I want ten.”
With that, the Minnesota Mauler easily rolls the deadweight blonde to her back and hooks the leg, Bianca's limp body offering no resistance as the ref starts the long count.
"ONE!"
"TWO!"
"THREE!"
The ref's count even seems to be a bit fast, the official trying to save Bianca from Trisha, but Belle doesn't seem to mind, she gives the Gladiatrix photographers a wink as
"FOUR!"
"FIVE!"
"SIX!"
Trisha's fan's join the count while those naive enough to think Bianca had a legitimate shot at the title boo and jeer, filling the arena with a cacophony of noise.
"SEVEN!"
"EIGHT!"
"NINE!"
"TEN!"
Finally the bell sounds as Trisha gets up for the announcement.
"Your winner and STILL FAWN Intercontinental Champion, TRISHA BELLE!"
The crowd reacts accordingly, noise almost doubling with the finish made official. After having her hand raised and her belt handed to her, the champ motions to also have a mic handed to her. The stage hands toss her a mic so the victorious Minnesotan can make a statement after her win.
"Now, I thought champions in FAWN faced the best. I know the IC title is an open challenge, but did ANYONE other than this twerp think she'd be able to stand up to me, bum knee or not?"
Belle grabs a fistful of Bianca's hair, lifting the still KOed blonde up for the audience to see.
"Does THIS look like a champion?" she asks, pointing to the limp Simpson. "No. THIS does."
Trisha drops Bianca to crumble to the mat again and points at her own smirking face for comparison.
"What I'm trying to say is, next time, I want to see someone who might stand a chance against me and maybe, just maybe, someone who almost deserves this title, not a delusional star chaser like this little girl turned out to be. But then again, in FAWN, actions speak louder than words, so let me show you rather than tell you how frustrated I really am."
And with that, Trisha tosses back the mic and carefully lifts the still napping wannabe up for an over the shoulder carry, Belle being very careful to carry Bianca's weight on her good leg. She then steps over the ropes with her cargo, ignoring the ref as he protests calls in the notoriously slow FAWN security.
Belle climbs down the ring steps and finally finds her way to FAWN's ringside announce table. She throws their monitors and equipment aside, clearing the table's surface before shifting Bianca on her shoulders, shuffling the poor girl from over the shoulder, to sitting on the Minnesota Mauler's shoulders. Trisha's bum knee trembles under the weight, but she braces herself just as the crowd realizes what she's about to do.
Almost on cue, Bianca starts to come to. Simpson is woozy at first but jolts to life with dread and fear as it dawns on her what is going on.
"Wha-? No-no-no! Please, no!" she protests.
Trisha smirks before mercilessly Powerbombing Bianca into the table, the structure collapsing with the impact. Bianca is left in a sprawled heap with pieces of the shattered table under her. Thankfully Simpson is still breathing, but she's sure to need medical attention.
"THAT is how frustrated I am with FAWN sending in the clowns to face me." Trisha finishes her point just as security comes in to separate Belle from her victim and the EMT's close in to look over the limp, bruised, battered and bloody Bianca.
TRISHA BELLE
Belle wals down the ramp as she speaks, "Well, well, well, another Pay-per-view another chance for FAWN officials to leave me off the card. Usually, they say, 'You're too dangerous.' or 'You don't know when to stop.' But something tells me, that's why you sick sons of bitches love me."
The crowd cheers, all but on cue, admitting that Trisha's brutality is fun to watch.
"But beyond that, apparently the medical team here at FAWN thinks I shouldn't even BE here. The medics think I should take some time off after what that pretty little blonde Moira Kane did to my leg last month," Trisha continues, her words dripping with bitter venom for Moira's actions against her.
"But, no, I think a Pay-Per-View without the IC title on the line, or hell, a Pay-Per-View where I don't show, isn't worth the price of admission."
The crowd is split with cheers and boos in response to this cocky proclamation.
"So, as per usual, any girl who wants a shot at this," Trisha raises her belt high to another pop from the crowd, "You're welcome to come out here and take a shot at the champ."
Belle’s challenge hangs in the air for a few seconds before the opening beats of Katy Perry’s Roar play over the PA system, and a concerned murmur ripples through the crowd when Bianca Simpson steps through the curtains at the top of the entranceway. Despite the fans’ misgivings, Bianca looks confident and ready for battle in her red one piece with white boots and pads, and she turns to the nearest camera to flash a smile and a wink. Simpson snaps her fingers and holds her right hand out to the side to summon a microphone.
BIANCA SIMPSON
Unfortunately, the microphone comes from her left, and it smacks into the side of her face before clattering to the metal walkway with a loud whine of feedback, bringing an abrupt halt to the music. A flustered Bianca sputters a string of curses under her breath, her left hand pressed to her cheek, though she quickly regains her composure and retrieves the mic from the ground. She takes a deep breath to get the latest embarrassment out of her mind, and then she addresses the Intercontinental Champion in the ring.
“Hello, Trisha. My name is Bianca...” the rookie begins before repeating her name for emphasis to avoid another Charlie fiasco. “...Bi -- an -- ca... and I’ll be taking that big, shiny belt from you!”
Simpson doesn’t quite get the response she had anticipated. Trisha merely mouths a silent “Are you fucking kidding me?” Meanwhile, the FAWNatics collectively answer with a deflated groan, as Bianca’s post-FAWNamania interview last month had not endeared her to the fans as well as she had hoped.
“I know, I know…” Simpson continues as gestures for the audience to simmer down. “You guys were expecting the B-Train to take the express line all the way to Eliza Bliss and the FAWN World Title, and it’s a little disappointing that we’re making a stop for this one-legged small-fry and her secondary title…”
Bianca’s audacity manages to shock the crowd into an eerie silence.
“...but I recognize the importance of humility. I’ll admit, after my rather spectacular FAWNamania performance, it would’ve been really easy to let my ego get the best of me. But no, I’m better than that. You see, I spent an entire semester at Cornell, and one of the things we learned about in Psych 101 was the danger of the Dunning-Kruger effect.”
Simpson begins pacing back and forth, as she had seen her professors do when lecturing an auditorium full of freshmen students.
“What’s the Dunning-Kruger effect? Well, I’m glad you asked! Quite simply, it means that people not as educated and perceptive as myself lack self-awareness and drastically overestimate their abilities. The lesser the actual ability, the greater the degree of delusion. Take our soon-to-be former] Intercontinental Champion, for example -- lookin’ all smug and confident like she’s hot shit -- THAT’S what a victim of Dunning-Kruger looks like before reality gives her a swift kick in the ass! She has NO IDEA what kind of SQUASH this is gonna be!”
This time, Bianca does manage to get the crowd behind her, as the arena erupts in a disbelieving roar.
“Oh, it’s true! IT’S DAMN TRUE!” the rookie screams before dropping her microphone and taking off towards the ring at a full sprint.
With every step that Bianca takes towards the squared circle, the volume of the fans seems to raise another decibel, and by the time she slides under the bottom rope, the entire building is buzzing at a fever pitch. Simpson pops to her feet, and without even waiting for the timekeeper’s bell, she charges at Trisha Belle with fists cocked and runs face first into a Big Boot.
Bianca’s head and neck snap back at whiplash speeds from the impact and her back slams into the mat, her eyes open but vacant and nary a twitch from the rest of her body, and the crowd falls silent once more. Unfortunately for Trisha, it appears to be a Pyrrhic victory, as her knee is in no condition to absorb the jarring shock of the blow, and she too falls to the deck, grimacing and clutching the injured joint.
The referee shakes his head and sighs. He signals for the opening bell to make the match official, and with both wrestlers down, he immediately begins his ten-count.
Bianca remains laid out, no movement from the confident rookie except the steady rise and fall of her chest with each breath and a few random blinks of her eyes showing she's VERY dazed instead of out cold.
Meanwhile, Trisha SCREAMS in agony, her already injured knee obviously exacerbated by her reflexive counter and the impact of all of Simpson's weight and momentum slamming so hard into her boot. The IC champ howls as she sits up to avoid the count. But, unfortunately for Bianca, the Minnesotan is fighting through the pain as she starts seeing red.
Through tightly gritted teeth, Belle growls and says, "This bitch just made the worst move in her FAWN career. Because she's not leaving here by her own power now.
With that the Minnesota Mauler drags Simpson up by her hair, stopping the ref's ten count as she whips the rookie to the ropes. Bianca is only aware enough to keep one foot in front of the other and returns to Trisha slamming her with a discus clothesline so powerful the blonde doesn't just fall to her back, but completes three quarters of a backflip, hitting the canvas hard, chest and face first. This gets a loud groan from the crowd as well as a breathless huff from Bianca.
Simpson instinctively gets to her knees, her body trying to cope with the back to back impact of Trisha's forearm and the mat, but Belle grabs the rookie again. The champ forces Bianca's head between her thighs, dragging the unfortunate wannabe to her feet again, prepping Simpson for an early Piledriver to the mat. The Minnesota Mauler lifts her opponent vertical for the early finisher, but as soon as she lifts all of Bianca's weight off the mat, her injured knee buckles, Bianca falls harmlessly back to her feet as the champ is forced to bend forward, then falls to her good knee with a frustrated and pained scream, "AAARRRGGGHHH!"
Still a bit dazed and confused, Simpson stumbles around for a few steps and glances at the prostrate Belle. Truth be told, she’s not sure what sort of devastating counter she had performed to put the defending champion in such a sorry state, though she doesn’t dwell on the question for long. After all, she didn’t recall attempting a triplet of Rolling German Suplexes or a Moonsault Powerslam against Camille Cosworth either, but the FAWNamania highlight package provided incontrovertible video evidence of her remarkable feats. Bianca reasons that both now and then she must have experienced a very brief dissociative fugue, another phenomenon she had learned about in her freshman Introduction to Psychology lectures.
She has little time to waste on reminiscing, however, because Trisha is upright once more, despite looking more than a little wobbly. Simpson sizes up her considerably larger opponent, then dashes for the ropes behind her. She hits the high-tension steel cables and bounces back with even more speed than before, and as she rapidly closes in on the Minnesota Mauler, the self-proclaimed B-Train prepares to launch her Cartwheel Back Elbow. It’s only when she plants her hands on the canvas that Bianca remembers that she doesn’t know how to cartwheel, but her inertia has taken her past the point of no return and she spills to the deck in an awkward tumble, looking as if she had tripped over an invisible wire.
Lady Luck smiles upon the young rookie though, as Simpson flailing body careens directly into Trisha’s demolished left knee. It proves to be a highly effective if inadvertent Chop Block, and Belle is left laying on the mat as she screams and clutches at her injured leg for the third time in the match. Meanwhile, Bianca pushes to her haunches to take a gander at the FAWNtron replay, and she frowns when she sees how ungainly and clumsy her latest attack had been. She resolves to make up for that less than photogenic effort by displaying her aerial chops, so instead of following up on the towering brunette who’s down but far from out, Simpson heads for the nearest corner.
Bianca had forsworn high-flying maneuvers since her nearly disastrous botch of a Corkscrew 630 Senton months ago against Dayna Ezra, but FAWNamania had restored her confidence to take to the air once more. Nevertheless, Simpson has learned to temper her ambitions, so when she climbs to the top turnbuckle and turns around to see Trisha still grounded, she opts to eschew the Corkscrew 630 Senton in favor of a run-of-the-mill regular 630 Senton.
“CHOO-CHOO!” she bellows before leaping from her perch.
Try as she might, Bianca cannot manage the six hundred and thirty degrees of rotation -- precisely one and three-quarters front somersaults -- that give the 630 Senton its name. The best she can do before gravity overpowers her humble leaping ability is one hundred and eighty degrees, just enough to leave her upside down and vertical. Fortunately, Trisha’s body proves to be a much softer landing zone than the thinly-sheathed plywood, and Simpson succeeds in not shattering her own neck when the crown of her skull drives deep into Belle’s belly, her failed 630 Senton miraculously turning out to be a picture perfect Swanton Bomb.
Unaware of her initial intentions, the fans assume that Bianca had planned the Swanton all along, so they get to their feet and roar when it appears that she really is making good on her promise to squash the Minnesota Mauler. The blonde throws herself into a cover, and counts along with the referee for…
ONE!
TWO!
...before Trisha gets a shoulder up to deny the most unlikely of champions. Simpson turns to the official and pouts when he only holds up two fingers, though she quickly gets back to business and slaps a rear Waistlock on her opponent who’s now on hands and knees and still gasping for air. She tries for a Deadlift German Suplex, grunting and groaning with effort, but Belle proves to be too large for Bianca to Deadlift, let alone German Suplex. After fifteen seconds of futility, Simpson gives up having achieved nothing except to tire herself out.
“God… you must be really… really fat…” Bianca huffs as she stands hunched over with her hands on her knees. “Gotta… gotta be at least… three hun -- UNGH!”
Trisha doesn’t take too kindly to the insinuations about her weight, and she surges forward with a Diving Clothesline that nearly decapitates the rookie. Simpson does another one hundred eighty degree rotation in midair, albeit not of her own volition this time, and crashes headfirst into the deck before flopping onto her belly.
The blonde is laid out yet again by the Minnesota Mauler, but the match is far from finished, Bianca has been too much of an annoyance to be given an easy loss. Trisha wants the wannabe to suffer tonight.
To start Belle rolls Simpson onto her back with little resistance, grabs a fistful of the blonde's locks and swings her free hand, clenched in a tight fist, straight to Bianca's face one, two, three times. The helpless girl, still dazed and not fully aware of what's going on just bucks with each impact, becoming more punch drunk with each blow to the skull.
Finally, after the third punch lands, the ref steps in, knowing from the look in the Minnesotan's eyes that she doesn't plan on stopping until she punches a hole in Bianca's head if he doesn't step in.
"Hey, watch the hair, Belle. And those look like full fist punches. Knock it off or this match is over!"
Trisha snaps out of her rage suddenly, reverting to her snarky self as she sarcastically responds, "Pffft! Sure. This girl is a precious snowflake that needs protection. Whatever!"
With that, Belle slides behind Bianca and locks the blonde into a seated sleeper hold. "Better?" she teases the ref as she defiantly stares down the official. Then she looks out at the crowd, an evil smile and glare on her face as her fans cheer her on and the rest of the crowd boo and jeer the champ.
Bianca struggles, arms and legs instinctively flopping around, but with little coordination, rhyme or reason, she's merely struggling to escape with no real plan or exit strategy. Belle twists and jerks the hold, knowing she's got the rookie where she wants her, the struggling slowing as she feels Simpson fade, and can see from the crowd's expressions that it’s nearly over.
Then, out of nowhere, the ref calls, "Rope break!"
"WHAT!?" Trisha screams, turning to indeed find Bianca's foot just barely sitting on the bottom rope. Bianca either once again came up lucky, her thrashing saving her from a knockout loss, or she has more ring awareness than most would give her credit for. Belle angrily throws Simpson to the mat and rises to her feet, towering over the rookie before stomping her good foot down into the challenger's stomach.
Bianca gurgles back to life with the impact and she starts rolling towards the edge of the ring, taking a second stomp to her flank before she makes it to safety on the apron. She drops down to the floor and starts stumbling away with one arm protectively swaddled around her midsection, her bravado evaporating as she was now in full retreat. Trisha isn’t about to let her prey get away that easily though, and she slides out under the bottom rope and drops to the floor as well, visibly wincing as her boots make contact against the barely padded cement. Belle stalks after the rookie, a task made much more difficult by her ever-worsening limp, and Simpson manages to gradually increase the distance between them.
After about a lap and a half around the squared circle and growing discontent from the fans, Bianca is shamed into rediscovering her courage. She does an about-face, and charges headlong at the Minnesota Mountain. No cartwheels this time, Simpson lowers her shoulders and goes for a Spear that she had used to good effect against Kylie Sanders. The reigning Intercontinental Champion is a much different quarry the the diminutive Pleasant Valley Pariah though, and having learned her lesson from the opening Big Boot, Trisha violently derails the B-Train with a sledgehammer of a right-handed Haymaker to the jaw as soon as Bianca is within arm’s reach.
The referee shouts “FOURTEEN!” and Belle is fairly sure she can pick up the victory simply by getting inside the ring and letting her opponent be counted out with only six ticks to go. Trisha’s appetite for destruction is not yet sated, however, so she drags the semi-conscious blonde up with two handfuls of hair, stuffs her under the bottom rope, and slides in after her. Belle clambers upright, and gripping the top rope with both hands for support, she resumes trying to stomp a mudhole in the rookie, sending boot after boot into the newcomer’s ribs while Bianca tries to curl into a protective shell.
After about five seconds, the official demands that the Minnesota Mauler relent, as she is technically in the ropes. Looking quite peeved at being denied her fun, Trisha pauses her assault in order to argue her case with the man, but that’s when Bianca springs her trap and unleashes her ultimate technique: the Small Package Pin.
Caught off guard and rolled into a tight ball with her shoulders down on the mat, Belle feels a sudden wave of panic wash over her. Her wonky knee prevents her from powering out of Simpson’s grasps as she normally would, so the best she can do is stretch out her arm, hook a couple of fingers over the bottom rope, and hope that the referee sees it rather than counting her down and bringing a premature end to her reign. The fans -- even the ones that had been on Trisha’s side at the start of the match -- appear to be in favor of a title change, and twenty thousand voices become one as they collectively scream…
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
...before losing their minds and exploding into cheers. Bianca releases the pin and pops up to her feet, eyes already welling with tears of joy because she’s absolutely sure that she’s just become the youngest woman to ever hold gold in the federation. Half-sobbing and half-laughing, Simpson slides out under the bottom rope once more before running a victory lap around the ring, slapping hands with every fan who reaches towards her. Reaching a velocity hitherto unknown to her, she circles around again, and again, and again, and then the din of the crowd has died down enough that she can hear the referee call out “TWELVE!”
Bianca stops dead in her tracks and turns towards the ring. At first she doesn’t comprehend, but the official continues to count and a silently furious Trisha beckons her back into the ring with a single crooked finger, and it quickly dawns upon the youngster that the match is still live. Simpson gulps hard when she sees the murder flashing in her opponent’s eyes, and she laughs nervously as she slowly, slowly ascends the ring steps while some dark-hearted FAWNatics start up a taunting, sing-song chant of “TRI-SHA’S GON-NA KIIIIIIILL YOU! TRI-SHA’S GON-NA KIIIIIIILL YOU!”
“Uhh… got a little… a little carried away there,” Bianca squeaks. “But… umm... no hard feelings… right?”
Trisha just continues to beckon Bianca into the ring. The rookie gulps loudly again as the ref closes in on counting her out.
But Trisha doesn't even let the scared rookie through. Instead the Minnesota Mauler charges as fast as she can with her gimp leg, but its fast enough to spear Simpson hard in the stomach, sending the two women out of the ring, off the apron and driving the blonde girl's back into the outside barricade.
"OOOMPHH!"
Bianca has almost all the air knocked out of her as Trisha straddles her opponent's lap, starting to rain down punches and forearms on the outmatched Simpson. The ref just sighs and starts the count out again as Trisha pounds Bianca down. Simpson tries to block as many fists and forearms as she can, but Belle just keeps throwing them, it overwhelms her.
Trisha finally lets up, only to grab Bianca by the hair and fling her toward the steel steps. The rookie girl struggles, but the Minnesota Mauler's force is undeniable as she tumbles into the metal construct, crumpling to the floor after the impact.
With the ref over half way through his count, Belle rolls her now seemingly helpless opponent into the ring and backs her into the corner, lining up and then executing some theatrical but very loud and very powerful chops to Bianca's chest. Each impact hits with loud SLAP to the blonde's outfit, Simpson bucking moaning while the crowd gives a loud Ric Flair "WOO!"
Trisha doesn't stop until she's landed an insane TEN chops. Bianca bruised and breathless as Belle Irish whips her to the opposite corner, following close behind the blonde to deliver a Spear that this time won't spill out of the ring, but slam full force into the newbie's abs to further injure the new girl.
Simpson’s body neatly folds in half around Belle’s shoulder, and she ends up nearly stuffed into the space between the top and middle turnbuckles. Fueled by the indignity of letting Bianca get in some actual offense earlier in the match, Trisha fills her hands with her opponent’s flaxen locks, then hurls the hapless rookie to the center of the ring with a massive Hair-Mare. Simpson lands hard on her back and bounces before rolling onto her side, B-Train looking very much like the Little Engine That Couldn’t as a wet gurgle escapes her lips.
Trisha still isn’t done, and she storms out of the corner as quickly as her knee will allow. She jumps into the air as she closes in on her waylaid opponent and comes down in a Leg Drop right across the side of Bianca’s unprotected neck, Belle making sure to let her good leg take the brunt of the landing. Fortunately, the Minnesota Mauler isn’t as hefty as Simpson’s prior estimate, and instead of shattering her vertebrae the impact seems to jolt Bianca back to life for a brief moment as her body spasms and flops around as if electrocuted even while her head remains trapped underneath Trisha’s thigh.
With Simpson obviously spent, the referee fears for her safety so he immediately drops down to the mat, and starts counting to bring a merciful end to the match. Despite the quicker than usual pace of the count, however, Trisha still rolls clear by “TWO!” to break the pin and prolong the beatdown. She gets lambasted by the official for her sadistic callousness, though she clearly doesn’t care as she hobbles to her feet and drags her semi-conscious opponent upright as well. The Minnesota Mauler isn’t content with another successful title defense, she wants to send a message to Bianca, and perhaps to the rest of the women in the locker room as well.
Trisha grabs a bunch of hair with her left hand and uses it to hold up the sagging blonde. She balls her right hand into a fist and slowly draws that arm into a series backwards circles as if winding up a Bolo Punch. Most of the FAWNatics lustily boo her, their volume increasing with every second that Belle draws out the inevitable finish, but a subsection of the audience enthusiastically count off each rotation of her arm. Once they reach “TEN!” the Intercontinental Champion unleashes all her pent-up rage and frustration in a single blow, and she clobbers an unaware and defenseless Simpson in the side of the jaw.
Bianca’s head snaps in the other direction, a spray of blood and saliva erupting from her lips and staining the black-and-white striped shirt of the nearby referee. The force of the whiplash tears the follicles from her scalp, and now freed from the only thing keeping her upright, Simpson crashes face-first to the mat like a felled tree and lays there dead as a doornail, eyes open and frozen in fear while blood continues to dribble from one corner of her slightly parted lips. Trisha looks at her fallen foe, then looks at the wisps of detached blonde hair still clutched in her left hand. She scoffs derisively and wipes her hands on the front of the flabbergasted official’s shirt.
“Count,” she orders the man. “And I want ten.”
With that, the Minnesota Mauler easily rolls the deadweight blonde to her back and hooks the leg, Bianca's limp body offering no resistance as the ref starts the long count.
"ONE!"
"TWO!"
"THREE!"
The ref's count even seems to be a bit fast, the official trying to save Bianca from Trisha, but Belle doesn't seem to mind, she gives the Gladiatrix photographers a wink as
"FOUR!"
"FIVE!"
"SIX!"
Trisha's fan's join the count while those naive enough to think Bianca had a legitimate shot at the title boo and jeer, filling the arena with a cacophony of noise.
"SEVEN!"
"EIGHT!"
"NINE!"
"TEN!"
Finally the bell sounds as Trisha gets up for the announcement.
"Your winner and STILL FAWN Intercontinental Champion, TRISHA BELLE!"
The crowd reacts accordingly, noise almost doubling with the finish made official. After having her hand raised and her belt handed to her, the champ motions to also have a mic handed to her. The stage hands toss her a mic so the victorious Minnesotan can make a statement after her win.
"Now, I thought champions in FAWN faced the best. I know the IC title is an open challenge, but did ANYONE other than this twerp think she'd be able to stand up to me, bum knee or not?"
Belle grabs a fistful of Bianca's hair, lifting the still KOed blonde up for the audience to see.
"Does THIS look like a champion?" she asks, pointing to the limp Simpson. "No. THIS does."
Trisha drops Bianca to crumble to the mat again and points at her own smirking face for comparison.
"What I'm trying to say is, next time, I want to see someone who might stand a chance against me and maybe, just maybe, someone who almost deserves this title, not a delusional star chaser like this little girl turned out to be. But then again, in FAWN, actions speak louder than words, so let me show you rather than tell you how frustrated I really am."
And with that, Trisha tosses back the mic and carefully lifts the still napping wannabe up for an over the shoulder carry, Belle being very careful to carry Bianca's weight on her good leg. She then steps over the ropes with her cargo, ignoring the ref as he protests calls in the notoriously slow FAWN security.
Belle climbs down the ring steps and finally finds her way to FAWN's ringside announce table. She throws their monitors and equipment aside, clearing the table's surface before shifting Bianca on her shoulders, shuffling the poor girl from over the shoulder, to sitting on the Minnesota Mauler's shoulders. Trisha's bum knee trembles under the weight, but she braces herself just as the crowd realizes what she's about to do.
Almost on cue, Bianca starts to come to. Simpson is woozy at first but jolts to life with dread and fear as it dawns on her what is going on.
"Wha-? No-no-no! Please, no!" she protests.
Trisha smirks before mercilessly Powerbombing Bianca into the table, the structure collapsing with the impact. Bianca is left in a sprawled heap with pieces of the shattered table under her. Thankfully Simpson is still breathing, but she's sure to need medical attention.
"THAT is how frustrated I am with FAWN sending in the clowns to face me." Trisha finishes her point just as security comes in to separate Belle from her victim and the EMT's close in to look over the limp, bruised, battered and bloody Bianca.