Angelina Tarrant vs Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom - Gibbet Match

[Monsy]

Wasn't about to be a stupid idiot and just invite that pain.
This side of the cage. Having to climb up. Looked like she all but pulled herself to a stance and had her fingers welded to that bar, keeping it just slightly open. That's everything but the truth, yo. It's all fuckin' gum and wet paper. Her fingers stick - aye, but they can be peeled off. You can smash them too. Not like they weren't already. And that marvellous stance? Just peep where her hip and shoulder rest gibbet-side.

So as she said. She wasn't about to be a stupid idiot. Yet -- here we are.
At behest of Shimmer's dork-soap and twin bitch-thumbs, sinking into her eyes like teeth. She beat a foot on the floor. Out came a circus of screams she didn't know the pitch for. Shits like having two heartbeats, each rushing blood, inflating your head, drowning your brain in pure suck as you grow dizzy, blind, sick, and wilt. That soap adds a nice fire. Sure, let's just pile on more. Fucking caught her on the iris and slipped under the lids. Shit-Shit-Shit.

One point you're holding that key, the next it's dangling beside that upside-down cross. And down she went too, lower, looking higher, whimpering like some worthless loser who can't take being shoved on the playground. Difference is someone comes to belt the other cunt's ass. Aye, and it’s about time to get the leather yourself and get to whippin'. It got her down to one knee, though. Those thumbs made a good run on her gold-detectors. But with her head flinching down, her eyes kneecapped with throbbing and dancing vision, its all a fucking swamp. Still got one thing. A little somethin' as her horns knocked and rattled between the bars. Call it a dying slice of fuck you as she jerked herself forward, head between the bars, her horns aimed at Shimmer's midsection til her collar banged against the bars itself.

[Malkavia]

That’s a good wain. Shimmerlace bit her tongue, half-grinning as if she were making progress on a head-twister of a math problem, shoulders hunched and working. Her thumbs levered into eyes, Angelina screamed, and the key came toppling out. Now to whip out magician fingers quick as eldritch silver and—

The Pixie wouldn’t be able to see it, the way Angelina’s horn found the wound, slipped between swollen lips, then thrust inside and into the half-clotted red. But she would feel the blood start to trickle, then ooze down her side.

The girl’s breath guttered in her throat, almost choking on her own tongue. Every ounce of Shimmerlace ached to squeeze, but her hands shook. Angelina’s thrust became a buck. Slender as a scarlet wyrm, Angelina bucked with bull-like fire. The sense of flesh splitting, wounds cleaving deeper made Shimmer’s toes curl.

Her thumbs were two scabs over Angelina’s eyes, ready to flake. Her own eyes pressed shut, mouth went jagged. One more thrust with the horn sent Shimmerlace staggering. Mind the gap! There was a space of about three inches between the gibbet’s base and the gibbet’s platform, and Shimmerlace’s heel found the space exactly between the two. Her ankle twisted, her arms windmilled, and she toppled.

When she hit the deck, the force knocked the air out of her lungs, and the scream she’d been choking on finally got free—one firecrack of a shout for the shock followed by a sick moan as she, gasping, cradled her side.

[Monsy]

Call this shit whatever. Devil-thrust. Bull-charge. Goat-Go. Get Your Thumbs Out Of My Fucking Eyes.
It worked. Took three goes. Aye, ripped that scream outta' that devil dork. That gate opened, the vertical bar catching her under the jawline and pulling her forward. It stopped after an inch or two, but it put enough weight on her shoulder and grape-busted hand to waver and flop face first, tummy flat. "Bughhhh…."

Fuckin' told herself never to lay flat, and here it is. Tired as a fuckin' sloth. Moved like one too. Gotta just pull in those elbows under your chest, remind yourself that you're half-naked in this hot pink bra. Which -- was kind of funny. Not enough for her to laugh. But it's amusing enough to distract against all the plethora of pain-nippin' and cut-drippin' factors. "Aaagghh---..." Quiet, wide-mouthed, but painful all the same. The outside world was all pink. Objects are cluttered, fuzzy -- like a pair of drunk goggles. She can't keep 'em open for longer than a few seconds. Yet, with her knees tucked underneath, she had to peep at least through a slit to crawl, turn around and grab hold of a horizontal bar. The strength came from her arms, slinging herself against the Gibbet, pulling and standing with one knee bent in towards the other, slumped shoulders, dipped head, and trembling. Deep breath -- reach higher, grab and yank it towards you. Use your foot, aye, hop, hop -- and fuckin' JUMP UP.

She got it.
A small win, but she's off the ground, standing on the bar, scaling the Gibbet. Trying to anyway. After one, it became instinct. Easier. Second one overcame after one slip of her foot, but the third and final bar are conquered, alas, grabbing hold of the top ring. Her fingers didn't have much grip left. She swore her knuckles could explode when she did that final mantle. But enough bitchin' and more sittin'. She took that mountain top like a throne, wiping back her sticky hair, using the top horizontal bar like a footrest, re-adjusting herself to point at Shimmer. Moments like these gave her conscious just how hard she could pant.

Come to. Or when she stopped babyin' about her bodily woe-is-me, she stood on those feet, leaning back a tad, still holding one hand on that ring. She pulled down on her cheek to pry open an eye, glimpse at Shimmer and bust a slight corner smile. This is gonna suck. Yeah. But it'll be cool as shit. Let's go. And go she did. She gave a little push to make herself straight, bending her knees as she teetered forward. When she hit that sweet spot of slightly tipping forward, she sprang underneath the lemon sun and minty clouds. Her body went into a backward arch, arms tucked close for flight, one twist for kicks, full circle, and full flip, knees close, boots together and charged as she came down -- and stomps at Shimmer's belly. Comet-style.

[Malkavia]

When Shimmerlace hit the deck, one of her first sensations was how cold the wet wood felt against her back. The combination of pool water against the heat from her side and her face left her feeling febrile and shaky—a malaise made only worse by the gut-deep burn radiating from her wound. Clutching her side, she breathed in short, shallow gasps.

When the pain crested, she squeezed her eyes and grit her teeth and groaned, but when it sank—boat on a wave—her eyes searched through the blear for the key. She watched Angelina jump. Struggle. Climb. Shimmerlace found a magnetic tug, an instinct to chase. Just get a handle round her ankle. When she tried to sit, however, the slightest twitch through her torso made the laceration in her side fold in on itself, wet and agonizing. She fell on her back puffing and glaring.

Angelina pulled herself higher. Lazarus, Shimmerlace realized, no longer rung true. Lazarus, he cut a maggot-stiffened corpse, and one that rose only at the miracle-call of Jesus. But Angelina had no Christ to tug her desiccated body from the dust. Every slip, every cramp along her back, they were enemies, for her alone to punt. When she punched through Sky and took the top of the gibbet, Shimmerlace could see the sweat gleam alongside the grin.

Then Angelina gave that little lean out over the edge, her hips sank, and Shimmerlace felt her whole body clench. ”Shit.” She could see the strike coming, could name the time and the place, and from the brief moment of eye contact, violet on rose, Angelina knew she could see it—and was powerless to stop it.

Not that she didn’t try. Shimmerlace’s hands gripped the deck, her torso twisted, but her body responded like mud, except for the molten silver screaming from her side as she smeared red across the deck. Overhead, Angelina was pure Sky, scarlet streak, carving ribbons into the air like a leaf elegant on fall wind. Hot pinpricks shivered across Shimmerlace’s face and she cringed and—

Impact. Shimmerlace’s eyes bulged, spittle sprayed, her fingers splayed. She dry-heaved, a sound as sick as the stomach flu. Her leg’s curled in like a dead spider’s while her arms levered sunward against the cataclysm of force crushing her back against the boat. Her lungs collapsed like twin accordions, then stayed glued shut when the boat did a Newton’s Third and rammed her ribs with freight-train force. Then, her side erupted with pain she could not tolerate. Impossible. Time to find the wee escape hatch and launch on burning wings.

Shimmerlace grabbed her hair and ripped and tried to scream, but couldn’t because her chest was empty and sealed, so instead tears squeezed through her eye corners and her throat went taut, all while Angelina stood on top of the exploded and pasted confetti. Violet and Scarlet as the sunset in Paris. Then, finally, Shimmerlace's throat came unzipped and she heaved in the air and pushed out on the pain and gasped out wretching, animal sobs.

[Monsy]

Landing is soft, til it’s bricks and knee splitters. Gotta roll through when ya land. Absorb, transfer that shit onto your shoulder and back. Tuck that head. Pull everything in to not bust it. Just don’t take it straight on your feet…

Fuck.

Call her an eggshell that had a few cracks. All nerve-knots that forced her face to scrunch. That roll? Was a goddamn splat. Clean connection, crisp and cleaner than your daddy’s whistle, then some momentum, a push from Pirate Jesus himself sent her tipping to the ground with a thunk. Elbows dug and she hissed through her teeth. Felt like ya could spit out your stomach at any moment. Just gotta turn yourself on one side, yeah, onto those hands and knees, look at the sweat grip through foggy lenses on this hardy deck. Ya got a little somethin’ in your ear. Fairy screaming. Cut from the purest Seelie Scion.

It’s not pleasant. But it’s bleeding gold. Bleeds enough to call her over, knee-to-knee, hand-to-hand, over and yonder. Her leg threw itself over Shimmer’s midsection, knee to the other side. Her face, especially around the eyes, are tomato-skinned and a bunch of old drool and shimmering sweat. Didn't really even look. Not until she put her purpled hand into Shimmer’s hair, clutched and yanked it just off the ground.

“For Thistle-sake, quit ya fuckin’ sobbin’.”

She took her thumb and index, pulling down on her cheeks, then up on her lids. Those eyes, red and purple. Vessels like rivers and deltas. The sclera almost looked like paste, dripping in her own tears and lingering soap that you saw oozing out the corners. She smiled.

“And give me what ya got left, comet.”

Her other hand wasn’t better off for this upcoming job. Aye. But when everythin’ feels kinda busted, it couldn’t get much worse, ya? So she punched. Right to the face. Knuckles aimed like five-faced cudgels. The points went for the face, on the teeth. Again, on the cheek. Again, on that mangled nose. Again, the jaw.

[Malkavia]

Shimmerlace shuddered. It was an involuntary feeling and she regretted it immediately—another ounce of stolen goods. Part of the hot, slithering feeling was the carnage, plain and simple. An eye in ruin. But beside disgust curled other hot and slimy feelings. Shimmerlace’s lips quivered, barely open, as her body went a quarter-twist loose.

Breathe and crack and gasp and splick. One strike after another came faster than Shimmerlace could react. Each crack left a dent—first numb, then a buzz, then eye-watering heat. The first crack made her ears ring, and the fist came away slick and red. The second put warped stars in Shimmerlace’s vision, and went plap, a sound like a sponge slapped on linoleum. Shimmerlace bucked, threw her hands to the sun, craned her cheek into the deck. The third blow made her grin like a skull and the fourth made her mouth form an 'o' as her chest, rabbit-like, heaved up and down and up with adrenaline speed. Drool ran down a cheek fast swelling like Shimmer had stuffed her face into a beehive. The only sounds she managed to make were wet gasps as she heaved in breath. Her feet kicked, then went limp.

On the fifth strike, the world slowed. The fist arched fifty degrees, forty five degrees, ten degrees, then slammed into Shimmerlace’s lips and sent another ripple through her head, but at the same mark her hands slammed in like a trap. She caught Angelina’s wrist. Yank it in, catch the fingers, bite for all your worth. Pain compounded on pain. At its root, it glowed white and orange and ached, and at its tip it buzzed something lovely and blue, like electric harp strings. Her pain? Angelina’s? It became hard to find the boundary, hate and self, rabbit and dragon, as Shimmerlace threw everything into roll. By the time she got to the top, the pain in her side felt worse than her face. Head still bent in Angelina’s grip, Shimmerlace shook as violent as glass rattling on a train.

One hand found Angelina’s face, pressed down. The other rose like she was swinging a hammer, then arched to slam like a rock into the girl’s ear.

[Monsy]

One can wonder how a magician fares when their look is ruined. Clothes can be replaced. Devices and gadgets. But what about that face? What if she knocked a tooth out? She got a messed up nose already, a tooth wasn’t so far beyond. One-two-three. Her knuckles felt less like bricks and more like a sloppy joe. Discomfort is liquid, pouring up the arm to the elbow. You can feel shake up and rattle inside, tense at the nerve endings. It isn’t the pain to make you stop. It’s the kind that makes you hit harder, pull back that shoulder and punch farther. Swing yourself into it. Four. Heave in again. The work was almost done. Throw the next like a dynamite stick, shoot for the mouth and get that toothy gold. Fuckin’ GOT HER.

“Eh?” Got snagged in the fishnet. You got another hand, so she gets ready to pump that other hand. Then, right on the mountain-range tips of bone bruises and black blisters, Shimmer’s teeth flattened them. She can feel the bone squeeze on both ends of her palm and top. Index was the first, almost like it wanted to crack. The pinky was a dozen bee-stings. It had her back arching, leaning to the side and twisting. Her eyes closed up, lips curled. She gasped, choked on spit, blinked once and Shimmer rolled Angelina onto her back. Shit turned heavy a moment too soon. Her face, pushed down like a mounted anvil, and the hammer came down on her ear and drew scream-reaping sparks. Her eardrum could feel itself ballooning. Red in a moment, right down the canal. It’s left itchy. Her cartilage crushed like denting sheet metal jammed against the skull in space it cannot give. Thunk-thunk. She feels her head start to bite itself heavier than before, like when she took those whacks from the court’s staff. It got her legs kicking, shoulder lifting and Angelina clawing.

One thing about anchoring your hands -- it allowed her to take the wrist, just as Shimmer did before. Yet she put her whole arm around it and reached for the hand, picking Shimmer’s ring finger and wedging it up, hooking over with her thumb so it’s clamped in the pocket between her thumb and index. She took a fist, no need to see, and thrust it at the top half of the digit.

Just needed that moment. Panic or a sick crunch. Who cared, whatever got that ear drumming to stop on her eardrum, to plant her boots and shuffle her legs from underneath to the outside, where they can wrap around Shimmer’s waist and lock. Then she rolled her shoulders up and off, crunching to grab at Shimmer’s hair, drag it down to her bottom level, put that arm around her nape, lynch under the throat, then roll again, not once, but twice. They’d end up sitting upright, with Angelina in the fairy’s lap, choking the very same with a guillotine.

[Malkavia]

Slick and hot, Angelina's thumb hooked the finger, Shimmerlace bellowed and grabbed the arm, tried to tear it free, but the fist struck, and the digit went crooked at the knuckle like the letter N. Something like paralysis seized Shimmerlace. The mutilated, swelling knuckle held her vision like hypnosis. She could scream all she wanted in her head, but her body only clenched, jaw tight, eyes popping, toes curled, a sound like an over-pressurized boiler hissing between her teeth.

It was a long field of freeze before her muscles loosened and Shimmerlace guttered and thrashed, and by then she found herself in a new position in Angelina's lap, going dizzy from the elbow vice cordoning off her brain. When she slapped at the fleshy collar, she realized she was splatting with the bad hand—not because it hurt but because it was numb, as if instead of a finger she had a dead fish flopping against her cheek. She tried to heave a throat-scratching groan to beat back the nausuea, but what came out was a gurgle. Spittle ran down Angelina's ribs as one second, two seconds clicked by. An ocean roar crescendoed in Shimmer's ears. Which way was down?

If she didn't grab that rabbit soon, her brain would melt, and the puma round her back would start stripping off steaks, big bloody Serengeti chunks until she was nothing, and it would be black black black. She had to charge or bite or spit or claw, except not one handle offered itself for purchase, so she pushed the only wall available. Her boots found the ground. Her back split, hips trembled. Her skull sagged like bruised fruit, and every ache tore another few agonized millimeters. It was like lifting the sunrise after an all-nighter, but she pushed herself to stand and exploded forward. One leg piston after another, until either they crashed or she collapsed.

[Monsy]

Angelina’s arm is a python with chunks missing out the sides, stapled together but still lynching until it quit. Her face was scalding red, hot as the molten iron as she took shots to her ear, exerting longer than her little limbs can muster. She heaved out breath like a commercial fan, so plentiful was her exhale that she nearly coughs, but sucks in twice as quick. Her chin rests over Shimmer’s collar, taking the beating with winces and grunts. Spittle might as well join her lacquer layer of sweat. It came to a finger grip to hold. Already got the waist with her legs, now, she just needed to ride this. She knew enough. This wouldn’t last a minute. And was right -- in all the wrong ways.

“Shit-” She peeped over shoulder, looming higher than her full-height. Her weight sagged and stacked on Shimmer’s neck and collar, trying to lean back. Save for her legs around their midsection, she wanted Shimmer to collapse under her deadweight. Instead she got a bar of metal, crunching into her back. A section of her lower spine is flattened to paper. It moves, almost three inches. Angelina is bent to shape. Her legs collapse and fall, limp, her feet dangle. Her upper-half lurches back, making the left prong of the letter Y as she gasps and groans through it. It’s like taking a bat. She couldn’t exhale to scream, so mostly sucked in deep, tightened up in the face and nearly leaked tears like a crying child. Then, through heaves, worked up that glare and soldiered on.

“Ghk… H-Hahh… HAAGGH!!” She put her hands together and brought it down between her shoulder blades. Once, twice. “HAGGGGH!!” Yelling each way. Her knee lifts and tries to strike Shimmer right in the belly, then cut her fingernails into Shimmer’s scalp, pushing her back, rearing back one more fist and throwing her five bubbling-bruised knuckles at their cheekbone.

[Malkavia]

One crash after another shook Shimmerlace. Angelina crumpled against the barricade, blood pumped through Shimmerlace’s jugular. Breathe—that made her dizzy, made her ankles wobble. Vision went black at the edges. But the pain from the fists in her spine made her groan and stumble forward and tighten her legs. Keep this cunt fucking pinned. Ringing and shouting and shouting and ringing were the only sounds getting through, and Angelina’s squirming turned into the kind of gut kick that leaves a girl wheezing. Then the fist exploded into Shimmerlace’s face.

Hit her back harder. Her face was still buzzing when she swung back around. Lift the elbow, drop it onto her sternum, crush her against the barricade. Grab her shoulder and squeeze and push. Squeeze, fuckin cunt, get the fuckin grip, it didn’t matter how the crooked finger yelped or if bite divots on the hand oozed. Her mouth was full and sticky, so she spat a gob of dark red across her opponent’s face.

And then—tunnel. Vision black at the edges, ears full of ringing and far-away screaming, throat aching, she leaned in, hunched her shoulders, grit her teeth, grasped the cunt’s throat, burned all the coal in her boiler, and heaved down on the windpipe.