Angelina Tarrant vs Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom - Gibbet Match

[Monsy]

If this didn’t motivate. Nothing would.
She kicked it into gear two. There were always easy outs to her earlier stints, but this? This was when torture got its shackles. Not much is needed to lock in a triangle. Just a lick of time and a google on its know-how, a little practise on its familiarity, then you’re a guru to any wannabe player like Shimmerlace Snoreblossom. Every second that slipped was tearing flesh like a raw steak. It was only a matter of time before a chunk flew free. Who’s fault would that be? Who’s fault?

Bruising up her side and clawing did little to stem ANYTHING. It was all expected. No one was that fragile when teeth came into play. You pull on a dog’s bone and the dog just pulls back. Her jaws squeezed until tension was at the corners.

But what came next? That. That got her to scream. Half of it was panic. Suddenly, she can feel old scars ignite. Her lungs began to hurt as her body was sent into overdrive. The second time was the real stick. One where the lips of her town skin stuck to the thing, where white bite the staff, purple and black, its partner -- along with a flow of red, oozing out the seam like the watery puss. Her body spasmed. Her legs locked tighter and her back arched. She was locked, quivering. Movements beyond might as well stick a hot prod on her side. It was felt across her back and stomach. The rhythm, the fucking spot had its own heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump. A swelling shock that turned her pale.

“I-I-ii…” WHAM. Into her ribs. The point thunked. It vibrated throughout her bones. She can feel it shake her organs. “AA-” Again. The Marauder whimpered. She twisted shoulder to shoulder, making fists. There was hardly any bite, merely cuddling that hand she took as she physically limped her way through being a pin-cushion. One more time to really drive it in like a nail. The bruise was an bullseye, with the purple worth all the points. Her mouth went wide, then twisted, beginning to disintegrate into something that needed her hands to cover her eyes. She took her boots, released and placed them on Shimmer’s shoulders to shove them away. THAT sucked more than anything after the initial shock wore off. There she had to tend to her side, her ribs, face and just about everything that started sucking ten times more. She turned on her good side and shuffled up her knees, putting her face to them. Breathe, Rachel, breathe.

[Malkavia]

The timpani heartbeat—CRACK…CRACK—that was oarsman’s work, something her wand arm could piston through on sheer magic. Her eyes stayed locked on Violet, on the face that didn’t blink through a stream of the Arsenal’s worst. And then—not just a blink. A cringe. A whimper.

An endorphin wave sparkled in Shimmer’s brain. Just breathing made her skin shimmer, stretched a grin like your girl found a fairy jar tree-side on New Year’s morning; much like New Years itself, something gray lurked underneath that tinsel. Pain unscrewed, from 9 to 8, 8 to 6. Then the teeth popped out of the hand like a scab flaking.

The connection with Violet finally broke as Shimmer stared at her open-palm hand. Eight wee teeth left their oozing red craters. ”FFFFUUUUCK…!” Fingers twitched. Trying to curl a fist boosted 6 to jaw-clenching, groan-wrenching 8. The whole hand was blood-smeared as a fresh slaughter house cut. Better rocket fuel than all the cheers in the world.

Your girl could feel the comet sinking already—dead air—so she squeezed her eyes and got her feet underneath and pushed. Her back trembled, her knee wobbled (still aching even after all), but the fairy got vertical.

”Aight Angie…Come on now ya wee—”

—Where’s the Violet? Girl had her face in her knees. Not even looking. Altitude spiraled. Shimmer had to lean into her staff as pain roiled up on her shoulders.

Oh, but Shimmer had seen this trick before, right? Fuckin’ Lazarus. Undying scarlet eats splintering wood but emerges through the grime with its fangs bared and—

No purchase. Shimmer’s brow furrowed. Even down, that body had splayed out with crackling style, like paint scattered by baseball bat, all abstract expressionist candy splatter on the mat. Nothing, fuckin’ nothing dented the scarlet. But this...roly-poly bug just heaving in breaths, eyes shut, cringing away from the lightning until all you could see was the crater in her side..The only red on her matched the lovely paint on the tip of the Court’s staff. The rest? Sickly, drizzly ocean blue at best.

A video image—Thistledown with a wee helmet riding a skateboard across an apartment floor—hovered at the back of memory, and something went wait wait wait wait please please but recognition already made the Feychild’s lips curl. ”You lying shit.” Pink pixie fingers made a one-handed grip at the very tip of her courtly staff. ”You promised me REAL fuckin’ magic.” Gliding on wings, she took a step, fey staff gliding an arc behind her, accelerating like a hawk of the Court slicing a circle through the air, up and over and down again towards a pin-point bruise-blue target. ”Now pay up!”

[Monsy]

Tylenol wasn’t going to ease this cunt. The slimy, burning feel creeping in her side, from armpit to hip. The skin was marked with two craters of purpling, blacking and reddening. A seam split the one on her waist -- she swore it was a second mouth. Come to her knees for comfort, swiping away the pink in her eyes. It was another world, sitting with herself. Ponderings and reminders. Nothing that didn’t drive her to clenched teeth. Fuckin’ rabbit, a bike so far, a few wallets, a nightclub and biting the ankles of the stars. Lying here was just out of place. Some case of bad fucking luck, really, if she even believed in such a thing. It was easy to think on while licking the blood off her teeth. Almost lucid, with weight pushing on her eyelids that held them closed. Warm, iron gates.

When she remembered the brown streaks, she breathed out, shakily, skipped the next, held and out again, deeper. Let it flow. Her heart continued its punch at the speed bag. ‘I’m gonna be sick’ -- Treasure was worth it. It was fucking worth it. Pink shit and her own stupid tears. Thank god for the black to soak it all up. Still, shit would be so much easier if genetics gave her some more inches.

She peeped from her cocoon, though with her cheek smothering the knee. Her legs fully folded in, the Marauder shaped like a ball, peering up to sight what looked like God’s reckoning, with pink hair, a funky nose and a red right hand. It was like sticking a pig. A scream to rake the ears. This wasn’t just some throbbing type of pain, or an explosive kind of pain. It was thermo-fuckin’-nuclear knock-me-out now type of pain. The type to make your toes curl, those legs unfurl and thrash, spasm and grip the bleeding gash. She hammered the mat with her heels. The twitches eclipsed an exorcism, from one side, to a twisting back arch, banging an elbow down, holding her white knuckles, cringing as her eyes went into free fall in two streams towards her ears. There wasn’t any holding that in.

[Malkavia]

The swing arched like she was chopping lumber and hit with the same kind of satisfying, wood-splitting thunk. She felt the give in her shoulder, then hefted the staff, testing its weight while Angelina screamed.

Shimmerlace had performed her share of magic gigs—street performance, puppet fun with school-age kiddies, even a lucky spot or two in Vegas. But, no mark at any illusionist exhibition ever offered tears. The limelight imparted many a feeling, but never did Shimmer step back from her work, away from contorted faces or twisted backs. Nothing in Vegas curdled her stomach; never had she fought, pale in the face and buzzing in her gut, to keep looking on, listen to every sob, to etch in her memory the way blood speckled the mat. Some colors you don’t want to see, make a part of you (stop stop stop) hide away, but paint is paint, magic is magic, and some shades you only glimpse in the ring. At least Angie wasn’t fuckin’ drizzly gray anymore.

Now. Only question left was what to conjure next and who’d be holding the wand. She had a few toys left, your Scion, but first Angie would need a softer head. Soaring on a body buzzing toes to eyes with aches and glamour, she swooped at her opponent, jumped, aimed a leg drop at the still-cringing horn-topped head.

[Monsy]

Why must shit always be so fucking fragile. Punch something too hard, your hand breaks. Try too hard and your brain melts. But when something hits back, it breaks everything. She didn’t know how fuckers kept that shit in. How they can look so invincible at some points. It was almost never true. But you believed it by watching. Angelina didn’t know how to settle down. If her finger met her mouth, it would be bitten right off from the grit. She trembled, her lips popped, contorted and curled in half-fought sobs. Guess it was really crying season. Who gave this fucker the licence to hunt pirates, anyway?

For the fuckin’ rabbit -- she told herself. This key was the true heart of this push. To wind her face in, steady, breathe, shallow and wear a thin line of sweat over her brows. She propped her legs up, half-folded. One hand prodded, tapped and eventually cuddled her side whilst panting. Alright. That was something. It was progress in the wrong direction. But it was progress.

She found Shimmer’s shadow overhead again. If anything. Now was the time to rebel after two blood-letting and welting shots. Just needed to pull the chord on her body and revv into an up-right position, crunching her stomach to let Shimmer crash. Angelina’s face looked like it took a shot of 120 proof alcohol. An arch set in her posture, trying to straighten and hold her side. Huff. Huff. But those eyes. Oh those eyes lit up like sniper scopes, peering over shoulder to her rear. In no condition to move much, yet, she assessed.

But.
With one swoop of her thieving hands, she grabbed the sharpened ear tip of the feychild’s ear and stole it from its home. “Abracadabra, ya fuckin’ poser pixie pigshit.” Then, the ear was tossed into the water with an overhead throw, slumping right after to re-tend to her side.

[Malkavia]

Tug-and-pop—hand slammed to ear, and her feet scrambled to shove Shimmerlace out of the thief’s reach. Fairies can bleed, tear their clothes, use trick wands, but they don’t glue their ears.

Shoulders hunched, defensive like a vulture’s wings, she crooked her head so hair obscured face, but from Angie’s angle, a girl could catch how she bit her lip, how her face had gone pallid as the flu, how her eyes darted from one point in the bleachers to another. Red-head girl around twenty with the crocodile skin purse, college-aged sandy-haired boy sporting rabbit ears, blonde and tubby who called the King of Diamonds—gang’s all here, just as the maître instructed. It’s hard to read an audience's face across that distance through a shell of pink hair, but your girl could imagine their feelings as they watched her shrivel like a raisin.

Think fast poser pixie.

“AAAAAAGH!” Shimmerlace doubled over in agony. Just slice the nail into the ear-tip, and it’s not like we’re lacking for a wee bit of ‘fake’ blood... “MY EARRRRR!” The Seelie Scion popped to her feet, clutching her head, bellowing and arching her back, spinning a tortured waltz in the limelight. Soon enough she'd whip her hands away, show the blood dribbling down her cheek—fwip, two of clubs becomes King of Diamonds! How did she do it? “MY FUCKIN’ EAAAR...”

You can sense it on a gut level—like an uneven floor or a crooked painting—when the audience checks out. Who knows how your girl senses it. Perhaps it's the volume dropping from eleven down to three, cheers and gasps and gut-punch groans, to...murmur. Then again, maybe it's the looks. Maybe her peripheral vision catches the rabbit-head slump or the blonde roll her eyes, or just the movement in the stands calming like a sail without any breeze. Maybe audience and performer just share a bond, an exchange of energy, and your girl feels the power cut when her boosters unplug.

Shimmerlace pivoted, from loud to quiet agony. Make it more real. Own this. Feel the fuckin ache. One boy at the front caught her eye. Overweight to the point of roundness, spectacles as thick as coke-bottle glass, buzzcut she'd suspect his mom ordered if kids were allowed in the seats—plus a whole set of gear. Rabbit ears, fairy wings, pink face paint. Lord Father of the Tree, we have the mark of marks. But then, an obvious geek such as him identifying with an outsider such as her—checked out, didn't it? Did her heart good. Or would have, if he hadn't been clutching his hair, bug-eyed through the glasses and looking in general five seconds from a major coronary incident, a condition that only worsened when they made eye contact. At that point he started gesticulating at the Marauder.

"SHE'S RIGHT. THERE!"

Pop.

[Monsy]

Felt like fuckin’ cheap plastic. That’s all she surmised when pulling it off. Some things are held together by glue, but Shimmerlace? God, it looked like it was ACTUALLY the case. Even with this sucky state, where her side still burned and trickled, throbbed, and turned her sick, she learned more in ten seconds than their entire magic tricks. It’s funny -- when you earned shit, you earned shit. You took it and you didn’t ask. That’s the biz. Angelina was just, a mere puppet with a few strings. Her arms drooped like her head and shoulders, nursing and eating her own lip and scrunching her eyelids into sandpaper. Even her back was to the Seelie Scion. The key was right fucking there. Hell, both necklaces, there for a yank to turn her head into a grape.

The dance and bumble around served to open her eye. It was a slow crawl back up. Having to go on all fours and then mess around with her pain tolerance just to find the most comfortable way to plant a foot down. It still all came down to the ropes, holding it close even when she was up. Looking at them made her heart sink. It was the type of thing where you swallowed what to say next. The type to lock your shoulders up, and think twice about what you’re about to do. This wasn’t just showing your back, this was showing her the naked fucking neck.

And looking at the crowd -- the Shimmer crew was spotted from the black skull shirts. Horned-skull T-Shirts starked from the rabbit ears. Your pink face paint and counterparts with leather straps, signs that read ZERO. Aye, the fans are apples to orange. Yet -- reading their lips, she felt the exact same cue. GET HER. And that’s when she charged, took her shoulder as the spear, and rammed it into their spine. She sought to take them down to the ground, albeit, Angelina collapsed regardless to all fours. Shimmer’s back became a nesting place for her knee, between the shoulder blades where she reached for a fist-full of hair.

“I don’t think they heard ya, poser pixie. LOUDAH!”

Angelina went for their other ear, grab and a RIP, flicking it out of her hand to lay in the ring.

“LOUDAH! LOUDAH!”

A piece of their shoulder fabric, torn like pulling the chord on a chainsaw. Should only a swath come loose and dangle, the Marauder used her teeth. A bite onto the clothing and rip to unveil a section between shoulder and elbow, SPAT at the ground. The Marauder’s gaze candied with a shimmer of pure fucking gold. A smile that forgot all about her prior reservation. Just, a raw -- good, unstoppable rush. And for the finale, we returned to the neck. Her fingers curled around the neck-piece she wore, one hand at the front, trying to break the jewel from its socket, and another around the back, thumbing to get it loose somehow, all while pulling back to choke all the same.

[Malkavia]

Ayyy now, buck up cunt! Not like we didn’t see this coming, ey?

LOUDAH screamed the pillager, then Shimmer’s snout smashed CRACK into the mat. Loudah wasn’t much needed because the Pixie had cupped a hand around her nose, blood dribbling between the fingers, and gave a ceiling-toucher of a FUCK. Not that the crowd seemed to notice. Corroded, bronze-gone-green were these bleachers.

So fuck ‘em. Look—

Your girl’s hand darted for her good ear, aiming to guess and clamp down the Marauder’s next move—but Angie’s thumb and fingers squeezed the eartip. A yank and the glue unzipped, slipping off skin, stretchy and moist, except for one corner of skin-to-silicone contact. The ear dangled, upside down. No no no—The girl tried to manage the ear, grasp it, mount it back in place, but again Angie caught and tugged.

Then it was in front of your girl, a custom-ordered, molded elastomer silicone elf ear. Felt real, looked real (Feels like flesh, ladies and gentleman! Like a high-end dildo!) except now it looked like real dandruff. The sensation in your girl’s chest was defibrillator-hot, buzzing, aching. It was the kind of ache that made her throat get tight.

Of fuckin’ course someone’s gonna go for the ears, but we’re not fuckin’ props, you and I, ey?

“LOUDAH! LOUDAH!”

Think

She heard the rip before she felt it. A sound like velcro unstitching. Then cool air washed over the skin of her shoulder, except for the tape and clear plastic tubing involved with the now-exposed Gloaming Sap apparatus. Pink lava-juice faucet system, as fey as a bathroom soap dispenser. All the while your girl felt Angie riding her heavier and heavier on that knee.

Fast

Costume’s already blood-soaked anyway—oi, cunt! Get your fuckin’ head together. It’s just wee props what’re getting banjannied here, right? Fuck.

Poser pixie.

Your girl grabbed both her ears and squeezed until her nails in the cartilage stung worse than the knee in her back. When the marauder sank in with her teeth, Charlotte felt the hot breath on her neck, heard the jaws clench. Snap. A shiver ran up and down your girl like a wave through a slinky, and when it got to her mouth, the sound she made ran closer to squeal than whimper. And Angie stole another piece of the costume like a panther might take steak out of the side of a deer.

Oi, cunt! Cunt! Cunt. Cunt.

(Thing was, Shimmerlace shouldn’t have cared from the start if she had ears of different lengths. That was all your girl, acting out of character. Which explained a lot, didn't it?)

Next came a grip around the choker, making the name literal. Charlotte took the obligatory motion—grasping at her own necklace. Her throat bent until it ached anyway, breath wheezing in painful and asthmatic. The ice-blue gem (What was the lore there? Holdover from the Winter Court? Or was it a gift from some dwarf?) popped from its socket, dribbled down the mat and settled not far from the ear. Angie never did find the knack for unclasping the choker, but it didn’t matter when the hole left by the gem tore. Rip, and—now there’s two necklaces, each half your size.

Breathe.

Shimmer's hands balled into fists. Pressure bent in her back as she pushed herself up, bucking at the knee in her spine. "...Now look here you wee fuckin—"

"BUILD THE STREAK!" Clap clap, clap-clap-clap.

Charlotte's face went ruby.

Fuck 'em, they're just—

"BUILD THE STREAK!" Clap clap, clap-clap-clap.

Whatever she had been about to say, she choked on it.

[Monsy]

Ya know what would go well with this fuckin’ bitch-slappin? Music.
This chick didn’t look like she was in any stage to bite back anymore. Those teeth, much like her ears, started to feel like plastic than anything flesh and bone. And who can fuckin’ blame ‘em, yo? She was TEARIN’ into that fucka’ -- one move afta another. Ears, shoulder and necklace. Two necklaces on one pull. A gem that sounded like glass. Aye, she wanted to just stomp it.

Angelina mounted her feet, one on each side of Shimmer, bent over, looking to the bleachers that shouted a tune that prompted her to nod to each word.

YA. YA.

Looking over again… Hey, she found something out of that ripped shoulder. The machine parts of our lollygaggin’ plastic pixie, juicin’ pink shit like bubblegum blood. Heh. Angelina reached with waggin’ fingers, “No-no, go on. If ya got somethin’ to say, just spit it already!” Her hand clasped the tube, fit into her palm, fingers wrapped around, clenched to white knuckles, and pulled, pulled, and pulled again. She wanted to force some slack, enough to form a loop that she wrapped around Shimmer’s throat, overlappin’ an inch or two at the back and yanked ‘til her elbows pinched. “Say it!”

Already on her feet -- she walked. Heavy on her shoulders and arched over spine, to drag and try to pull the Seelie Scion over to one side of the ring, where she crouched underneath the middle rope and torqued Shimmer to pull her over the bottom rope, her upper-half hovering the apron -- and the chlorine-rich water below. Angelina placed herself as god, standing over Shimmer’s head. They faced the bleachers. Spotting the fattest fuckin’ marks was easy here. Ears. Paint. Anyone with a frown and a thumbs down. Even just the apathy and dejection. She knew what they needed. And when she meant fattest -- she’s talkin’ about a beach ball who neva’ sees their own toes. Hello Poe.

“This one is for YOU, FATSO!”

Angelina dropped the knee into Shimmer’s back and dunked their head beneath the chlorine waves. Her eyes never left the crowd -- her tongue out and grinned, oh so self-satisfied.

[Malkavia]

A garrote around the throat made Charlotte feel every puh-pum heartbeat inflate her head. “BUILD THE STREAK!” Her lips tingled, going numb. She’s dragged across the mat. “BOOOOO!” Up on the rope the pixie goes. “BUILD THE—” “BOOOOOOOO!”

It’s so, so, so, so, so loud. Charlotte curled into her staff, straining like a dog against her collar. The golden staff, the staff of the Court. The bleachers don’t know it, but it was a staff of pure honey—Seelie nectar crystallized into pixie dust steel. It’s her secret from Angie and Rabbit-head geek and everyone else. Hers.

Awesome, right? This is awesome. This is awesome! Yuki’s chorus, Angelina’s chorus, the chorus for by the minute, tear your hair out color. When one comet like one of those two got pulled from their sky, the thunder made your heart stop, made the whole crowd go quiet to watch the CRASH. Fuck. For all the pixie dust in the world, let Shimmerlace crash. Let her immolate and crack and bleed and burst apart at the seams, let her fairy guts splat across the stage and rot, let her fans see, even dissect her unwanted blue insides, but fuck sake please, please at least let her crash.

The loop pulled dizzy-tight. She tasted chlorine burning on her throat, and she could still hear, jumbled by the water—BOOOOOOOOOOOO—an audience whose eyes fixed not on the puppy but on the scarlet marauder kicking it.