Magic in a Bottle: Angelina Tarrant vs Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom II (Apex Match)

[Malkavia]

Ready, set — Go, and the middle finger sent them sprinting...or at least the nearest their shambling bodies could manage.

She was, the whole race, one step behind.

Shimmerlace grabbed a metal foldout chair, got it unfolded and stable in front of her. Pushed...and heaved up, shaking violently because all that force came from her back. Blood ran down her sides and dripped, forming pools at her knees. But in the end, she got to her feet, and her vision cleared, and she saw Angelina already halfway to the fucking barricade.

"Goat-shit...piss-pot of a worm's cunt...” Blood flecked from her mouth as she cussed. Angelina was streaking a zigzag, pathetic kind of Long John Silver limp and the pigshit was still ahead of her. In her game. It was her game after all—where races were concerned, they were still 0 and 1, in the Feychild's favor. And she'd take Silver's peg leg up her fairy arse before she gave that up.

Her head was a pinpoint dancing on the head of an angel. High, trembly. The ring in her ear that had started when she was tossed from the fuckin' bowl kept tinging. Still, she got to the barricade. Pushed up, got her left leg over, then slipped the right — and fell on her knees. Hissed. Cussed. Shoved to her feet.

Angelina was at the steps.

Fuck her. Fuck her fuck her fuck her. She squeezed her eyes shut, pumped her legs, and charged. Her breath heaved, and she stumbled, nearly fell, but got to the ring's edge, hunched and lept. Her tits squeaked over the mat's vinyl, and her body was halfway in under the first rope when her eyes popped open to see Angelina's hands close around the second rope and start to yank. The Feychild held her breath—and rolled.

Her back pressed, slimy, against the mat like an ink stamp. When she pulled up and rolled onto her chest, the blood clung in sticky lines, leaving an imprint of her shoulders and upper back through the costume. Strips of purple lace clung to the sticky and got left behind. But she rolled into the ring, and Angelina somersaulted, and her arm landed...on top of the fairy's shoulder. Shimmerlace met her eye.

"Suck...” She heaved a breath. Let it out wet and gravelly. "My pirate-Jesus...Blessed...Lips.”

She would've added cunt, but her back just then gave a spasm, and instead she clenched her teeth and pressed her face into the mat.

[Monsy]

What the hell do we do now? They were in some sick joke mud, careening and rolling into the ring with pitiful thuds. They were stuck tadpoles, breathing, existing, swelling, with no final peak in sight, or really a sense of progress when she cusses your shit from the lousiest position. Begh. Was the score one-to-one, yet?

Angelina breathed in through her nose and inflated her gut. Fast, but on the decline.
She had a moment to internalize her body’s condition. That fall. There wasn’t so much as bones to really sense, but bloated, solid, rigid but fragile muscle groups in her back. Balloons, in a crowded space, wrapped in skin and overly-sensitive tangled nerves. Tight.

“...What…evah.” Angelina then huffed, held it, then turned to one shoulder. Her elbow wedged a curved posture. The other arm reached down, pressed, and her baseball of a knee slunk over. She leaned on it and reached all fours, using the back of her shredded hand instead.

“Just keep… Pirate Jesus… Out…Of…” She shoved onto Shim’s shoulder, fingers crawling under the arm, with Angelina hunching, crunching her abdominals to move the larger Shimmer from her face-down spot, over and onto their back. “Your... Mouth.”

The push made her trip. She laid over Shimmer’s chest, belly to tit. Her knee slid over them like a slug to their other side. To wedge herself up, she used her messy, slice-stricken hand across Shimmer’s eyes, where she aggravated the cuts and swelling with an arch and oozed fresh blood. And once up, she inhaled quickly, then out, even faster — and punched them in the mouth. “Because that’s… MY thing. Not yours.”

A growl came out spent, scratchy, breathy, increasing pace in a nose pant. She punched again, opposite hand, and threw her entire seized-up back into it, dipping lower until her forearm was across their chin, and their faces were close. It had about half the strength of the first. Again, she breathed harder.

“Now. Quit.” Angelina whispered then attempted to sit up, but it was more like a puppet string pulling on her upper spine, so she was left hunched, almost looking straight down, head tilted, teeth clenched. She switched to mouth breathing. “Quit!”

Her fist hammered its third punch. And after one sharp intake through the nose again, she donned an incandescent glare as her red flag and barked, “QUIT!” Then punched a fourth time. Palpitations set sail in her chest, and she was getting lightheaded, so she let loose her full broadside. “Quit! quit! QUIT! quit! QUIT! quit! QUIT!” A flurry of her rights and lefts, with every intention to ignite imaginary reserves from an imaginary state of mind — based on some inner belief that she can absorb that prior drop and everything before that, by just — shouting, swinging, getting angry, increasing the pace, the power and break their cheekbone, nose, teeth, jawline before her hands.

But: the gunpowder was fuckin' wet. Her strength bled from a proverbial jugular, halving, giving, shaking and slowing. Nothing but a trembling pirate who looked and smelled like she was overheating, with sweat making her clothes stick, wielding decayed fists, squeezed teeth, with the lower jaw shivering. A tattered hull of splintahs. Her lower lip curled, and she said tiredly, again. “Say ya quit…”

[Malkavia]

Whatevah. Shimmerlace cracked a sliver of a smile at the grumpiness in that growl, and that grin became a dry heave of a giggle when Angelina rolled her over and collapsed chest-first on her belly. Your Terror was a sore loser once, and she was a sore loser now, the biggest hypocrite this side of the South Pacific.

It hurt to grin, but it hurt to do anything. The main question was just what would hurt? Back, legs, face? Choose your move, and the world kept tilting. Soon enough, though, Angelina loomed between her on the spotlight and chose Shimmer's hurt for her. CRACK. Her left cheek went numb. CRACK. Stars exploded in her eye. Angelina kept hollering for the Feychild to tap out, so loud it made her voice rasp, so loud it started to sound desperate.

Shimmerlace raised her fists in front of her face, and another strike slammed her guard, and Shimmerlace growled, then heaved with her hips and shoulders to the two of them through a half barrel roll. Up and over she went, the Marauder as light a load than ever — lighter, even, with all that glowing ache heaving into the Feychild's push. Her back screamed, her legs ached, her head spun, the scar under her hairline itched, and yet the whole fucking way, she watched Angelina flail, then land. Thud.

Once she got to the top mount, she expected something, for Angelina to somehow bite or cut or tug the mat out from under. Shimmer was ready for it, ready to dig her claws in and scramble. But no. Our fairy stayed mounted for half a second, then a full second, and adrenaline spiked like a jolt from chest to fingertips. Shimmerlace saw a snapshot of the Marauder. Horns, hair, eyes, snarl, face, sneer, all splayed out and writhing below.

It was pure instinct from there, neolithic as Cain. She clasped her hands together, pushed them and her whole body high as they could stretch, and smashed. And smashed. And smashed.

[Monsy]

The arms became wet sticks. They clobbered with a pitiful fwip, a lacklustre snap and whimpering smack when hitting Shimmerlace’s soft, bruised and fucked-up face. She pounded Shimmer’s guard. Her knuckles dug between the forearms and wedged to press her way through and rub her messed-up knuckles into the bridge of their nose. She leaned in, with one shoulder, shoved downward and jerked it like a dull knife. A moment later, she was tossed, and endured a total collapse of her position onto flat back.

Her shoulder was first to hit, then the rest. She sagged like a wet towel, struck the ground, rolled out, with legs spread underneath Shimmer who took the top. Her weight made breathing through her tummy impossible, so it went to the chest, open mouthed, slightly parted to fit a straw. Her arms laid at about shoulder-height, palms up, and she stared like a ghost within the mirror. Very much dead, but very much focused on Shimmer’s eyes.

Direct hits to the face were a good wake up. She yelped. She was still spent, breathing faster, and took her moments like she forgot the last. Her grip came up and clawed into Shimmer’s arm sleeve, and another into their waist. She curled nails into the fabric, with one near the shoulder, which allowed her to be dragged up on one shoulder, then hammered back down. She whined, high-pitch. Her skull paddle balled off the canvas. The smack was loud, and her neck jerked around. Her vision went to murky waters. She rebutted by making a swing of her own. A sluggish hook swung when Shimmer came to make her face mush. Her sinuses neared implosion as she ate more on the cheek bone and orbitals. They swelled into a fainted red.

Blow to blow. To blow. To blow. Her body spasmed and writhed. Legs straight, toes curled in and she kicked and had her leather boots squeaking. She gasped and had panic written over her face after every shot. She grabbed Shimmer’s collar, then pulled further up. One eye peeped and she tried to speak, but then came one more… SMASH. Angelina’s head lulled back, her body slacked, but she held on. One elbow placed itself down. Then, slowly, her head tried to re-adjust, no longer the perfect countenance, with a busted lip and early swelling onset on her cheek, orbital and nose on one side -- staring upwards into Shimmer’s pink.

[Malkavia]

Straddling Angelina and pounding her face into the mat was simple. Simple, but not easy. Shimmerlace breathed in huge gasps that filled her lungs to the bottom when she raised her fists, then forced it all out on the way down. She felt light-headed. Sweat dripped from her chin and down her throat over her tits, and her knuckles started to ache, and one of her hands ― the one whose glove had been sacrificed to Nutcracka ― bled from the lowest pinkie finger knuckle, where the thin skin over bone ripped open. There was only so much gas left, but the sounds the Marauder made tipped nitrous oxide into the tank.

Her shoulders ached. She resented them. Fuck 'em. Here was she staring down into a pirate face fuckin' melting under fists, with Angelina's body ― Angelina's body ― writhing like like a wriggly ol' worm under her arse, and her back had the gall to whine? To twinge and ask for a break? Weak shit. A peal of frustration tipped over the edge in Shimmer, and she gave one last crack across the growing mess of a face. One more splat, this one with extra oomph to keep the pirate down. When she raised the hammer, she lifted with her whole body until she felt the stretch pinch at her belly button as she put her weight on her knees. When she crashed down, the impact went back to her elbows. Then she took a deep breath of one, out for two, then in for three, and told her shoulders to suck it up because they hadn't done nothing yet.

She grabbed the middle rope and yanked herself to her feet. From there, she switched her grip to the top rope, jumped, and got her feet up to the middle rope. Then it would be bounce, bounce and a taste of some lovely heights from which she could release an elbow drop ― a Seelie Slingshot aimed at Angelina's head.

[Monsy]

Plans, ideas and thoughts smashed back into her cheek. It jarred her shoulders back. Her neck kept her head on by ribbons and knots. Her energy would’ve been better spent screaming, and prying what loose mercy she could get. To hell with that, and to herself. The sore truth is she was stuck. Struggling did jack shit. Even if she could and would survive this barrage, sacrificing one side of her face, the futility cut her more than the pain.

In Shimmer’s punching finale, Angelina’s grip fell from Shimm’s collar and sleeve and landed on her elbows. The disorientation made her squint, like her brain was fluid, swishing to the back and pulling her down. She looked skyward to the lights and the hammering twin fists.

“H-Heep!” Peeped a mouse’s voice when she sucked in, and ate another that not only knocked her out, but slammed her skull into the canvas, hammer and nail. She spilled out all one hundred and eight pounds, arms down her side in an upside down V, and the chills of her sweaty back imprinted the canvas, flat. Her legs went still. Her eyelids looked like they were mid-seizure, flickering asymmetrically.

Her chest danced to irregular waves, and she stared at a watered wash of monochrome steel frames, the yellow suns, the white banners, and then a glassy pink mane, soaring and sparkling, with blood, ripped cloth and spite. The air time was exactly right, and the timing clicked. Shimmerlace had sprouted her wings.

She gasped right before impact. The point drove her nose bridge inward and made her snort until it closed. The crunch is quiet and vibrates through her head, which falls to the side and into her shoulder. Blood drools. A leg lifted into the air, straight, lifeless and strikes the mat.

[Malkavia]

Right on the chalky fuckin' x. Except this training mark gurgled and spit and went crunch under her weight. They don't show you that in training, now, do they? Maybe they should.

Shimmerlace rolled off Angelina, got herself belly-down to the ground then slipped her hands to the mat and got to knees on the ground push-up position. Howdy do vertigo, my ol' mate. Her vision blurred and the ground lurched, and the shoulders still shook all trembly and numb over her elbows. Her gut squeezed, then squirmed, like maybe her insides wouldn't be just inside much longer.

Every second she spent wrestling with vertigo, however, was another tick along the circumference of the clock, another tilt of the comet over the horizon. Soon, Angelina would catch her strength and push to her feet, terrible and red and grinning. When Shimmer grabbed the bottom rope and pulled herself to kneeling, however, Angelina was still on the mat. Her hair was scarlet swamp-moss, whose tendrils bled on the mat. Her legs were splayed and bent like the gnarled roots of bog tree that had come unmoored from the soil. There was no sign she was about to spring back into action.

Shimmer's brow furrowed, and she wrenched towards her. "You called me a one-hit comet." With one arm on the rope to steady her, she aimed planted the other on Angelina's crown so she could yank her up and force her into the corner, back against the turnbuckle. "Told me it'd make no difference to you if I went and broke my neck." What had made this particular insult sting was that it came after Angelina had saved her neck—and regretted it.

The feeling of Angelina's snout collapsing had been a scintillating bit of magic, but looking at the job up close—that was something else. It had collapsed to the left side of the face and down, towards her lips, as if it were in the process of melting off her face. Its deep purple color was like wine and made Shimmer's eyes glitter with a bon vivant's thirst. She tried to imagine the jagged lines under the skin where the bone had cracked. The thin faults and razor edges under the skin. "Welllll my fine feathered conductor o' the losah express. I'd hate to see the fruits of your charity go so unappreciated. So this time, I think..." She lifted her palm, pressed it against the melty bit of face, and shoved Angelina's snout, as if to push it back into place. She pushed her head over the turnbuckle and back until her eyes were facing up, with Shimmerlace arched over her body to look down. She leaned, shoved, and squeezed, kneading the skin like she might have kneeaded bread. She could hear and feel it crinkle and crackle and crunch. "...I'll just paint the difference you've made where you can see it everrrry morning in your mirror."

[Monsy]

The Seelie world cracked her face. It webbed like glass, but the machines inside still ran like clockwork. She tasted mucus. From the breakage, pushed into the back of her throat, over her tongue so she had to swallow. All the nose hairs fizzled inside and set on fire. Then it plugged. It felt wet. Hot. Very, very hot, like her nose was placed over an open flame and dunked towards the scalding middle. It's the kind of discomfort where you want to sneeze, or cough from a bong hit. The pressure builds and you resist. Then, when the limit strikes and you go to release, you just fucking can’t. The off-patterns made her gag and lurch as she tried breathing through her nose to no avail. Switching to mouth was unorthodox and needed to be deliberate.

Then there was her head splitting. The only reason her eyes didn’t clutch and fold into wrinkles was because it felt god awful in her sinus. Slowly, her hands cupped her face. The red leaked down her medial cleft, and lipstick-ed her upper lip into a metallic sip. Angelina licked, subconsciously, drunk and buzzed the hell out from a brain that took the Black Pearl out of Tortuga.

Angelina peeled off the canvas like a wet towel. Hairs yanked against her scalp until the roots sored. Her arms fell behind her back on the incline, and she stared distantly, eyelids at quarter-mast. Pulling her up would be like a puppet packed with feathers, glitter and twine. She didn’t need to be totally vertical to clamber her feet, though the knees shook like balls being balanced on a moving isthmus, frequently going out, then in, re-balancing and then scampering to reach the corner. Her back rested and she’d almost immediately collapse to her ass if Shimmer hadn’t hoisted her like a topsail.

At a crawling pace, Angelina opened her eyes more to Shimmer’s saying. There’s a weak smile that flickers at the end of each sentence. Self-amused by her own things being played back to her. Memories of that frustrated phone call. Angelina had to wonder — why the fuck bring that up? — Not one Thistledown mention. Where is his mention, ya fuckin’ rabbitless twat-suckin’ butter sock.

She didn’t have the time to do much but listen. Shimmer had placed a hand over her face, with one wet squelch as her nose melted back into position. Her knee lifted and she whimpered, hands coming up, with her breathing hastened to a throttling, breathy sob. That knee stayed in the air. Angelina’s neck folded. Her eyes were wide, mouth twisted and underneath Shimmer’s wrist, frowning and shaking as she sucked in deep on intervals. It took only micro-amounts of pressure, and the damn busted, “HAGGH!!” And she cried out. “A-Ah-HAGHHH!! S-SHIM!!...” The sensation was only fire-like, but having a white-hot industrial press into the shape of your nose. The leg with the swollen knee had little rabbit stomps on the canvas, constantly through the whole duration. “G-Gu…GHA.. S-S-SHIM! .... I-IT HURTS!!” Angelina whined like it was almost a scream, squealed, closed her eyes and let them bleed clear droplets. Her nose inflamed another size, with more discolouring becoming violet, green and black. It spread closer to her eyes and under them. Her hands grabbed Shimmer by the thumb and pinky, ripped the former down and Angelina bit the tip, with the skin just under the nail and the top, together, clamping with full force.

[Malkavia]

That fuckin' smile.

Just before she got to kneading her bread, that flicker across the Marauder's mug shot an under-the-skin tremor through Shimmerlace. Her face darkened, grin went tight, and she savored those for every drop of blood-down-the-chin they were worth.

“Somethin'—” She thrust her palm against the folded cartilage and twisted skin. "Funny?" It didn't terribly sound like it, now. Every time the cunt spat her name, Shimmerlace seemed to loom an inch taller.

Then—

"Gk—"

Shimmerlace took a sharp intake of breath as Angelina's canine's split the skin at the tip of her thumb and clamped down just north of the bone. A shot of adrenaline straight to her solar plexus made the Feychild's skin run hot enough to burn. The pain arced like an electric shock and she tried to yank free—which was a seriously shit instinct and made her double over as the teeth scraped the bloody underside of her nail.

"Aaah-ahahnnng..." She down on her tongue, hard. Her shoulders' posture melted as everything inside her screamed to pull free. Then she started breathing, and then she started thinking, and then she started remembering who the fuck this was, and she raised a fist and started pounding.

"OFF!" She aimed to pound the back of the Marauder's head to the ringpost, to rain her free fist in like a mallet on the misshapen nose, and the whole while she screamed and bellowed and beat, the bottom-most edge of her nail shivered as the struggle jostled keratin over delicate, itching nail-bed.

[Monsy]

The pinch of death is what it was.

Angelina’s face felt smothered in her own ground beef. Fatty cartilage swished around into a squishy, scalding, skin-slipping pudgy surface, where the burgeoning bruises squeezed and grew and bled like puss out disfigured nostrils and bridge. Biting was, by feeling, a meagre rebuttal to that. It had made her feel a sense of numbness or that she could slip unconscious. So she held on by her literal teeth, then smacked head-first into the post. A dull, silent but a ringing focal point that pays itself in interest rather than immediately. Shimmer’s fist was free to paddle ball against her head, and the result gives her a splattered red mask, tainting their hand and throwing droplets to the canvas. Her stance drooped, and she yelped loudly.

Suddenly, she takes the fourth successive fist into her palm.
It stops cold.
Her shoulder blunts the next post-ram, and she peers up, hissing, face appearing rotten and her stare was bugged out with eyes of glass. You can just see that she wasn’t staring directly at Shimmer’s eyes. But she wanted to.

“Whaffs the mattah… Sfffim?”

Angelina wrestled with isolating the thumb and while her bottom teeth hooked under the nail, the top row stretched to the nail’s bottom crease, forming a wedge. “Firate fot ya nail?” One-- two, three and bite. Yank the yank down and rip upwards like tearing a bite out of raw flesh, and take their entire nail.