First Bell, First Clue? - Laxia(D) vs. Bandita

[Letta]

The core muscles Laxia had forged through years of horseback riding had carried her through countless jolts and impacts without surrendering her balance. Yet even she could not hide the bewilderment spreading across her face in the wake of Bandita’s perfect counter. It was difficult to believe this was the same woman who had been twisting the luchadora with such haughty composure only moments earlier. More than anything, the fact that the very same hold had been returned to her in kind stung sharply at Laxia’s pride. And the forbidden thrill she had believed belonged to her alone was now returning to her in full. Bandita’s lean, toned thigh slid along Laxia’s fuller one. It may have been nothing more than a small adjustment for balance and control, but the sensation brushing along the inside of her thigh made Laxia’s body tremble on instinct. A sound unbefitting a noblewoman threatened to slip between her lips. She bit down hard on her quivering lower lip, barely managing to suppress it.

“Haaah... I suppose.. the evaluation is a little fairer now..”

She tried to preserve some semblance of ease, but her expression was already markedly different from before. Only the faintest trace of a smile remained at the corner of her mouth, while her ragged breathing and mounting exhaustion could no longer be fully concealed. Her aristocratic pride and elegance had always served as armor, an aura that discouraged others from approaching her too carelessly. But cracks had already begun to spread across that armor. Bandita drew her leg back and twisted through the shoulders, forcing Laxia’s waist and side into an even harsher angle.

“AAAAAAHH...!”

In that moment, there was no dignity, no pride, no flawless expression left to preserve. What crossed Laxia’s face was pure agony. Her blue eyes flew wide, her brows twisted deeply, and her lips parted before she had any chance to restrain the scream. Her entire body shook violently within Bandita’s grasp. The flexibility she had cultivated through years of ballet protected her body from being damaged too easily. But flexibility did not mean freedom from pain. If anything, the fact that she could bend farther merely allowed Bandita to force her into an even deeper angle. She carried the obstinate pride inherited from her ancestors. Even if she lost consciousness, she would not lower her head, nor willingly acknowledge defeat with her own hand. And yet, somewhere in the deepest part of her heart, she almost wished Bandita would finish her with some other technique. Remaining trapped like this, forced to let her opponent feel every response her body betrayed, was nearly unbearable.

At first, she thought Bandita was merely adjusting the pressure of the hold. The palm spread across Laxia’s abdomen added a little more force each time she exhaled, slowly gliding downward in time with the movement of her taut muscles. The warmth began across her upper abdominals, passed over the clearly defined ridges beneath her skin, and finally settled over her navel. The movement was far too slow and meticulous to be strictly necessary for maintaining the technique. Laxia’s breathing faltered. Her body was already twisted wide within the abdominal stretch, but she knew that tiny disturbance had not come from pain alone. Each time Bandita’s palm traced the contours of her abdominal muscles, Laxia could not shake the feeling that she was not merely being restrained. She was being carefully observed.

Only moments earlier, Laxia had been the one reading her opponent through the palm of her hand. Now it was Bandita’s turn. Each time Laxia exhaled, the tension in her stomach softened by degrees, and the palm covering it seemed to press a little harder in response. Bandita’s touch itself was not unpleasant. That was precisely the problem. The luchadora’s hand wandered slowly across the noblewoman’s abdomen without resistance, while Laxia remained helpless to stop every contraction and tremor from revealing itself beneath her palm. That helplessness sent heat rushing into Laxia’s face. The hold twisted her body with almost savage force, yet the hand following the contours of her abs moved with striking care. The contradiction between those sensations clouded Laxia’s thoughts. She could no longer clearly distinguish pain from embarrassment. Just as Bandita had spent the entire match pulling and pushing her off balance, constantly defying expectation, the sensations she created refused to be defined in any single way. The sweet, breathless voice beside her ear. The fingers delicately brushing across her abdomen. The merciless force bending her waist from behind. The thrill stirred by those fingertips and the trembling forced upon her by the hold had merged into one, sending confused tremors through Laxia’s body.

“You’re.. really built..” Laxia’s blue eyes widened at the words whispered near her ear. More unsettling than the compliment itself was the complete absence of mockery in Bandita’s voice. She meant it. Bandita was disarmingly sincere, yet lethally dangerous the moment one underestimated her. For Laxia, accustomed to wolfish villains who announced their malice openly, she represented an entirely unfamiliar kind of threat—one that was stealing her heart before she could recognize the danger. How could a bandit be so sweet? In Laxia’s otherwise predictable life, Bandita always seemed to provide the opposite of whatever she expected. Like the whip she had cracked during her entrance, she jolted Laxia awake whenever her guard slipped. She was exciting. And, much as Laxia hated to admit it, dangerously addictive. You are younger than me. Smaller than me.. and yet you dare evaluate me... “More.. sleek, I guess.” Sleek...! Heat returned to Laxia’s face. The impudent little bandit. Yet she did not truly dislike the compliment. Knowing Bandita regarded her body that way was deeply embarrassing, but it also stirred a strange satisfaction somewhere within her. Before Laxia could protest even in her thoughts, Bandita twisted through her upper body and forced her frame wider still.

“GAAAAHH....!!”

Her exposed abdomen stretched taut to its limit. The defined muscles contracted and loosened with each ragged breath, and every tiny shift traveled directly into Bandita’s palm. There was no hiding it, no matter how composed Laxia pretended to be. She had applied this hold herself, and knew better than anyone exactly what Bandita must be feeling through their point of contact. “Just.. letting you know it’s about to get worse!” Laxia’s eyes narrowed. Worse? She had already believed it impossible for the pain to become any greater. “Wh....” As she exhaled, the last breath she had been clinging to escaped in a short gasp. Bandita seized the moment without hesitation. Her palm pressed hard over Laxia’s navel. Her fingers spread wide and dug deeply into the outer edge of the taut abdominal muscles, while her thumb clamped firmly against the opposite side. The remaining air was forcibly driven from Laxia’s stomach.

“Kyaaaaaaaah....!!”

A piercing shriek tore through the arena. Where the abdominal stretch pulled her waist and side long with a sensation like being torn apart, the newly added stomach claw crushed directly into the exposed, tightly stretched muscles. Each deeply embedded finger seemed to seize a different point and grind it apart. When Laxia tightened her abs, the hardening muscles only pressed more distinctly into Bandita’s fingers. But when she relaxed in order to breathe, those fingertips sank even deeper. She had to tense in order to endure. But the more she tensed, the worse it became. She had to relax in order to breathe. But the moment she did, Bandita’s hand clamped down with even greater cruelty. There was no choice that offered escape from the pain. That contradiction completely destroyed Laxia’s breathing.

“Ahh... ahn... nnngh...!”

Her restrained body writhed violently, her waist locked in Bandita’s punishing angle while her entangled legs trembled beneath her. Every instinctive effort to escape only dragged her abdomen and side tighter across the hold, increasing the friction against the luchadora pressed behind her and deepening the pain. Laxia’s free hand flew to her stomach and closed around Bandita’s wrist, but with one arm captured and her legs bound, she had neither the leverage nor the strength to tear it away. She could only cling to it and tremble, whether to pry the hand loose, keep the fingers from digging deeper, or simply find something to hold amid the agony, even she could not tell.

The referee crouched beside her and asked whether she wished to submit. Laxia lacked the breath to answer, but she squeezed her tear-bright eyes shut and shook her head firmly. Once. Then again. Her disheveled orange hair swept across her cheek, yet her grip on Bandita’s wrist did not loosen. Despair had begun to shadow her expression, but it was not surrender. Only short, broken breaths escaped her parted lips. Beneath Bandita’s palm, her abs hardened whenever she tried to hold her breath, then softened the instant she was forced to exhale. Every contraction, tremor, and faltering breath passed directly into the luchadora’s hand, just as Laxia had read Bandita moments earlier, only now with even greater clarity. Camera flashes erupted around them.

Only moments before, Laxia had been the one holding Bandita in elegant control, chin lifted toward the cameras. Now she was displayed before the crowd in perfect reversal: one arm drawn long over her shoulder, her legs trapped with the luchadora’s, her waist twisted near its limit, and her exposed abdomen trembling beneath Bandita’s hand. Her perfect posture. Her composed smile. The flawless dignity she had fought to preserve. Pain was stripping each of them away. And the luchadora who had endured with smiles, jokes, and relentless ingenuity now held Laxia entirely in her own fashion. To break an opponent at her brightest, yet still desire that she endure until the very end, Laxia could finally understand that contradiction. Understanding it, however, did nothing to lessen the pain.

With another ragged breath, her abdomen contracted hard beneath Bandita’s palm. The muscles stood out sharply around the places where her fingers had dug in, and Laxia’s entire body gave another small tremor. Her own fingers tightened further around Bandita’s wrist. She could not push it away. But neither could she let go. The thing Laxia had called the privilege of the one holding the advantage only moments before.. That privilege now belonged entirely to Bandita.

[CyanDimitrik]

There comes a time in a match when it becomes clear that one side or the other is dead to rights. It takes a bit of experience to recognize it, particularly because it requires being able to feel a rival's body against yours; to feel the moment that body is fully trapped, or gives out. Bandita has felt it many times in her years in the ring, after coming to recognize the sensation. She's even been the one whose body has surrendered to the onslaught, or can simply no longer fend off whatever hold her opponent has her in.

In those moments, one of three things can happen. If the body has given out, the pin surely follows. An uncontested three-count, one girl stretched out dominantly across the other. If the person is trapped and they can't escape, tapping out is the only option to end the suffering - a quick moment of humiliation to swallow for the sake of surviving the night, an unfortunate necessity and tacit acceptance one takes when entering the ring. But the third - if the person knows they're caught but refuses to submit.. they hold on until they're forced unconscious or injured. They drag it out. They make the audience watch them squirm, writhe, scream, and cry.

Bandita is very comfortably in control now. The moment the hand grabbed onto her wrist was the moment she knew she had her. She just knew it. Had Laxia the strength to protect her stomach, she'd be dragging the hand away. But she doesn't. She has the will to do it, but no longer does she have that ability. Bandita can remain exactly like this, the heat of their bodies locked together a thrilling point of excitement and giving her every incentive to remain. And ultimately, Laxia would either try to endure the pain until she actually began sobbing, or she passed out.

She couldn't know it for sure. But she knew it. With every breath she felt pushing the girl's stomach tight against her palm, every flex of her fingers spiking in and crushing the abdominal muscles, keeping her waistline contorted sideways and backwards, she knew that all she had to do was remain exactly like this. And that would be the end of it. The noblewoman, so refined and elegant, so confident, reduced to ashes.

Bandita's head tilts, lips parted and chest gently heaving with every labored breath, and she casts her gaze onto Laxia's face. She doesn't expect the other girl to look back at her in this moment. But she's watching her. She's watching the anguished look on her face as she clings to hope, as she shakes her head as the referee continues asking her to tap out. To signal her submission to the rogue now binding her.

This should be everything she wants. It's a statement of a win. And any time she can win, it brings stability to her family. It makes sure they'll survive this very sudden upheaval of their lives. So why is she so conflicted?

The fingers ease up on the abdominals. Her hand continues to rest against her stomach, but the claw has officially ended - no more lancing pain directed fully into the belly. The twist at the waist eases a little, not fully relaxing yet, but providing some relief to Laxia's figure. Bandita's gaze drops, guilty - whether to her family or to herself, she can't be sure. But in her heart, she doesn't want to ruin anyone. And this feels dangerously at risk of doing that to her rival. This rival she's spent the match admiring, no less.

Laxia will have to tap out to someone. Maybe her later on down the road. Maybe someone else. But she's not going to make her suffer that embarrassment. Not on her debut. And whether or not Laxia can figure out that she's being shown some kind of mercy... Bandita won't make it her problem. She just hopes she can forgive her for not giving her her absolute best when the opportunity arose to finish her off.

She decides to try to play it off.

"Think I prefer you on your back!," she suddenly calls down to the ginger. "It'll make better pictures!"

Unlike, you know, the absolute keeper of a photo of Laxia's pain-stricken body tangled with Bandita's confident, vicious figure, ripping into her abdomen. No, Bandita will always have that to enjoy.

The leg detangles from Laxia's, her thigh brushing against her again just where the leg meets the hip. She ducks under Laxia's arm to free the limb, and instead sets her newly freed hand behind Laxia's shoulder. It's the hand on the girl's stomach that's the last to move, lingering considerably longer there on her midsection than would be necessary. Conspicuously so. With it, she's drawing Laxia back to rest against her, now at her full height.

Bandita pants several hard breaths, her breasts nestled behind her shoulders, her hand sliding down from Laxia's shoulderblade to her upper arm, where it then gently squeezes. Her head turns just slightly, either bringing her nose to faintly brush the back of her head, or if Laxia's head has tipped back in resting, her sweaty cheek brushing against the ginger's.

Hips turn, arms pull, and Bandita draws her aside - only to finally fling her towards the far ropes. She doesn't expect her to fall down on the way, but it wouldn't necessarily surprise her. What she hopes for, however, is for her to rebound back. Bandita races after her to pause mid-ring, legs spreading, hands raised ready to receive her for a surprising powerslam!

[Letta]

Laxia could do little but wait for the hellish hold to end. At first, she believed enduring would be enough. If she clenched her teeth and forced her body to last, Bandita would eventually release her or transition into something else. But with every passing second, that certainty weakened. All she had to do was nod to the referee. Or move the hand clutching Bandita’s wrist to the canvas and tap a few times. Then the pain would stop. That simple truth circled relentlessly through her mind. Submission, buried beneath layers of pride, crept closer with every breath forced from her lungs. And Bandita must have felt all of it.

The way Laxia’s abs hardened as she tried to endure. The way they softened whenever she was forced to breathe. The way her fingers weakened around Bandita’s wrist, only to tighten again through sheer stubbornness. Just as Laxia had read the luchadora through her palm moments earlier, Bandita could now feel every flicker of hesitation passing through her. Then, just as the flame of resistance inside Laxia began to gutter dangerously low.. The crushing pressure disappeared.

“Haaaah....!”

Laxia dragged in a ragged breath like someone breaking through the surface after being held underwater. Bandita’s hand remained upon her abdomen, but the fingers digging into her tortured muscles had finally relaxed. The savage angle twisting her waist and side eased with them. The sudden relief only left Laxia weaker. A hot, constricted sound rose in her throat, perilously close to a sob. She pressed her trembling lips together and forced it down. Whatever happened, she would not let Bandita hear her cry. As the tension left her body, her legs threatened to buckle. It was Bandita who kept her upright. Feeling an arm support her shoulder and a body brace her from behind, Laxia’s blue eyes shifted with fresh bewilderment. Why... release me now? Bandita could have finished her. Laxia knew it better than anyone. A few more seconds might have driven her to tap. And if her pride still refused, she might simply have lost consciousness in the luchadora’s grasp. Yet Bandita had let her go. A possibility rose unbidden, sending fresh heat into Laxia’s face.

Did she... take pity on me? The thought struck her pride more sharply than the pain. Humiliation and resentment flared inside her chest. But Laxia quickly rejected the conclusion. This was Bandita, the woman who had spent the match answering every expectation with its opposite, turning every lapse in attention into some new and inexplicable danger. Releasing the hold might not have been mercy. Perhaps she merely intended to finish Laxia more spectacularly, or guide her weakened body into another trap. That explanation dulled the suspicion, though it could not erase it.

Bandita’s hand had lingered upon her stomach far longer than necessary. And when Laxia’s exhausted body tipped backward, the faint brush of the luchadora’s cheek against her own left a question she could not dismiss. “It’ll make better pictures!” Laxia’s eyes narrowed faintly. Of course... The rogue had not released her out of kindness. She was merely preparing her next strike, one meant to finish Laxia in a more flamboyant and unexpected fashion. Bandita turned her hips, pulled through Laxia’s arm, and hurled her toward the far ropes. Laxia’s boots struck the canvas in rapid, uneven succession. Her balance was failing from the first step.

Her waist still throbbed as though the abdominal stretch had never released her, while every breath sent the lingering pain of the stomach claw biting through her abdomen. She was not so much running as being carried forward by Bandita’s momentum. Even so, Laxia raised her head. Through the haze clouding her vision, she saw Bandita waiting near the center of the ring with her legs spread and both arms raised to receive her. The intention was unmistakable. If Laxia allowed herself to be caught, it would truly be over.

For one fleeting instant, she remembered the pressure disappearing from her abdomen, and the hand that had lingered there afterward. Whether it had been mercy, hesitation, or merely another of Bandita’s inexplicable whims, she still could not tell. But Bandita had given her room to breathe. And Laxia would not waste it. If you meant to finish me, Bandita... you should never have given me that chance. Her back struck the ropes, their tension bowing around her battered frame. The impact stretched her abdomen again, sending pain across her waist and washing her vision white. “Khh...!”

A broken groan escaped her. Then the ropes launched her back toward the center of the ring. Laxia did not resist the rebound. She surrendered herself to it. There was no strength left in her legs to overpower Bandita, no energy for a high, graceful leap, and too little control to evade the arms waiting to seize her. That left her with only one weapon: the speed already carrying her forward. Laxia gathered what little strength remained and drove her boots into the canvas. It was nothing like her usual effortless ascent. Her exhausted body barely left the mat. Her abused waist screamed in protest, and her abdomen clenched before she even began to descend. The jump lacked its usual height, elegance, and precision.

But she refused to pull back. Suspended in the air, Laxia forced her body straight and thrust both legs forward with every fragment of strength she still possessed. She had aimed for Bandita’s chest. But her battered body could no longer carry her as high as intended. Instead, both ring boots aimed into Bandita’s tightly toned abdomen...!

[CyanDimitrik]

Even Bandita couldn't really wrap her head around why she did it. And she knew, she knew, being shown that kind of mercy might drive a hot spike of resentment into her rival. What's a girl to do when on one hand, she might be the instrument of humiliation and shame, and on the other hand, may lose any shot she might've had with her? Worst case scenario, she hurts the noblewoman's pride so deeply that she hangs up the boots and never enters the ring again! She couldn't let that happen! She wouldn't!

Wait, did she just think about having a shot with this girl?

The thought is momentarily distracting, the realization arresting. Dios mio, is she crushing on her? But she's-- her! And she's a she! And- she's coming in awfully fast.

Bandita's focus snaps to the fore again, spotting the advancing speed. "Ah--!" Her footing shifts, sliding the left boot back to prepare for a defensive posture. She's read the intention correctly. And when Laxia pops into the air in that telltale formation, she knows precisely what the battered girl is intent on doing. Her forearms cross defensively from chest to chin, remembering sorely where that last kick connected.

She didn't anticipate the damage she'd done to her causing the kick to go lower.

Suddenly, a pair of boots blast into her unprotected midsection like a cannonball. The abdominal muscles yield around her dainty feet, Bandita's body folding inwards, eyes instantly widened and all semblance of breath or voice is violently ejected from her mouth. She's knocked clean off her boots, hitting the mat in a hard tumble that evolves into a frantic, agonized writhe on the mat. Her arms wrap around her midsection, eyes squeezed shut, and she rolls from back to side, then facedown in a ball, toes kicking helplessly against the ring. She drops onto her side again, where she finally sucks in a gasp of air, but remains contracted and curled up.

She can't even force her eyes open yet. She's just enduring the blow for now, the full weight and momentum of Laxia coming to a singular point in the pit of her stomach.