Catching a Ride

[CaptainL]

Every move Yuki made was a move she made with confidence. Angelina had tried to get in her head, to force her to question every little thing she thought she knew about herself - to leave her paralyzed grappling with her own inner demons, and then, while she was still and defenseless, to land the killing blow. Yuki knew what her strategy was, though. And it was for that reason that she was going to stand in its way - to deny Angelina the chance. She'd show her that she was stronger than that - that her mind games weren't going to slow her down. That she was prepared to finish what she'd started, and that if Angelina wanted to prove her a liar, then all that bravado was about to blow up in her face. She wasn't just going to deny her the chance to attack, she was going to make her rebuttal.

Everything seemed in perfect motion, with each move flowing into the next. Yuki still had her grasp on Angelina's arm, and she was going to use it. Her fingers squeezed tighter at the redhead's wrist, and she stepped off to the side, shifting her weight onto one foot and twirling around in place to pull her rival along with her. She took charge of the momentum, denying her foe the chance to make a move, and all that momentum was guiding Angelina toward the wall of the train car - where Yuki slammed her back against its surface, rattling the walls and the floor with the force of her impact. Still, Yuki didn't falter. Not a split-second later, she lunged in closer toward Angelina, pinning her in place with her whole body. Her forehead brushed Angelina's own, pushing her head back into the wall. Her shoulders rubbed against Angelina's, and their chests pressed together enough for the two of them to feel the warmth radiating off of each others' bodies.

Even if they'd been in situations like this before, now, to Yuki, it felt like she was closer to Angelina than she ever had before - enough to feel the beat of her heart, and the shudder going through her skin. She could feel the rise and fall of Angelina's ribs with every breath she took. It was almost intimate - so tight, and so impassioned. Still, though, Yuki didn't falter. She didn't move; she didn't even blink. Her eyes were fixed firmly on Angelina's, as though daring her to make her move. Now, the tables had turned. Now Yuki was the aggressor - and by her very presence, she was daring Angelina to rise to the challenge she'd put forth, to prove she too was willing to settle this. She was the one waiting to see if she'd agree, or if she'd prove she was all talk.

But Angelina was about to flip the tables back one more time. Yuki had no way to anticipate it or to see it coming. Angelina didn't say a word, nor did she make an attack. Instead, with the two of them pressed so close, their faces fractions of an inch apart...she leaned in and planted a kiss right onto Yuki's lips.

"M-MMFF-!!??" As her gasp was muffled into Angelina's throat, Yuki's eyes went wide in shock, and a blush flooded her face. Her whole body shook from the surprise. Of all the things she expected Angelina to do, this wasn't one of them. But it was for that reason she began to shrink back, and her guard began to slip. And it was because of that...that she was vulnerable.

[Monsy]

Her brain fried from the audacity of her impulses. Angelina was still catching up from Yuki’s fluent sequence that stuck her against the wall. A clean pinfall if anyone was counting. But they were for sure watching the lip-lock. Man. It didn’t hit for a moment what she did. She got scared -- the kind where she sensed some impending doom or consequence. That sort of dread as she had zero options in the altercation. Then she moved, chasing pleasure at the closest source.

It felt amazing. Felt gross. It made her feel so twisted up and embarrassed that her blush came on instantly. It made her heart race, pinch and spin. She was floating and sinking. Her toes curled in, and she stood on them, pushing her lower back out. Then, as Yuki melted away, she felt angry. Did she actually get her objective? Just like that? Was she wanting whatever the fuck she was doing? Good fuckin' question.

Yuki was faltering. And really, that’s what did it. It was winning.

Two hands came around Yuki’s neck from the sides and held it calmly. She pulled them in, slipped her shoulder out, and a leg went behind Yuki’s calf. There, in one movement, she tried to turn this around and pin them to a wall. The exact position as before, but reversed roles.

She pulled the kiss back. Her head kept slightly tilted so they didn’t bash their noses. All that impulsive confusion and lingering fear hid behind a kittenish smile that looked like it just pulled the trick of the century. “You are SO made for me, Yuki!” She said with a full chest, with a finger dragging down the bridge of Yuki’s nose. It looked, above all things, that her way of showing control was by doing nothing. No expected knee to the groin, gut or choke, even with her hand present at the neck. No headbutt or elbow smash. She was gentle and took her time, using her lighter body to pin them. Her foot, however, was searching for her bat, rolling it close to her body and placing her toes over the pommel to stomp, flick or kick that shit at a moment’s notice. “I can do this for a lifetime. Can’t you?”

[CaptainL]

What had happened?

One moment, it seemed, Yuki was in control. She had Angelina right where she wanted her - she was finally standing up to her, no matter how many times Angelina had tried to talk her down; to embarrass her in front of the world, let the wind out of her sails, and leave Yuki herself questoning as much as anyone what her future would truly be. Now, Yuki was making a case that she was here to stay, and no one would get in the way of that. She had Angelina pinned. She had her eyes locked straight onto hers, and she could see the hesitation written on the redhead's face - that knowledge she had been beaten. And she had a whole audience to see it, to make sure no one could deny who had come away the victor. It seemed as though everything Angelina had set in place was about to blow up, right in her face...

And then, the moment she went for the kiss, everything stopped.

Even if Yuki had been on her guard for a sudden attack, even if she was ready to counter even the slightest of movements, she couldn't have ever anticipated that Angelina would do this. But that moment of surprise shocked her to her core, and it caused her to let down her guard even if just for a few seconds. And for Angelina, that was enough. Those few seconds were those where she could spin Yuki around and pin her in place - and when she'd already been lost in her own thouhts, the dark-haired girl could barely tell what was happening to her until it was too late. But the reversal was almost frustratingly perfect. Now, it was Yuki who was pinned in place, and it was Angelina who was bearing down on her. And it was precisely for this reason - that it had left Yuki in such a predicament, when she'd been dominating just a moment ago - that Yuki truly felt the frustration set in.

No matter how Yuki tried to move, she was caught in place - the wall held her from behind, and Angelina's body held her from the front. She could feel the warmth radiating off the Marauder's skin, and the pressure of her hips, her shoulders, her chest; wherever their bodies met. She could feel every breath from Angelina against her face and her neck, and no doubt Angelina could feel it too as her own breaths slowed to measured huffs. No doubt she could feel it, too, as Yuki's body stiffened and trembled with a shudder running down her back, raising the hairs along the back of her neck. She felt trapped. She felt powerless. And that, more than anything else, stoked the fires in Yuki - made her that much more determined to strike out, to do something.

Everything else Angelina did - the smug look on her face, the rise of her chest driving her even further into Yuki's personal space, the touch of her finger under her nose - was only making the tension in the joshi wrestler's body grow tighter and tighter, becoming more and more unbearable. Every bit of it was a reminder that Yuki could do nothing to save herself. That she was at Angelina's mercy. It was exactly the last position she wanted to be in. Angelina wasn't attacking, but if anything, that just made it worse. She was gloating. She was making sure Yuki knew just how she could assert such power over her without having to do so much as to lay a finger on her, and she wanted Yuki to feel how powerless she was to stop it.

But if Yuki was going to be pushed that far...sooner or later, she'd reach a point where she would have to make a change. And that time was coming now.

"Oh...I can do something, alright..." She muttered a few words curtly under her breath. But, from where she was pinned against Angelina, Yuki began to move. Her hands snaked upward along her body, reaching for the wrists that held her neck. If she could do that, her fingers would squeeze down hard to anchor her grasp on Angelina. And then, she would try and kick off her feet to fall back. Instead of throwing her head forward into Angelina's, she'd fall so that the redhead would be pulled toward her - and her head would hit the wall just behind them. A wall that, even if Yuki wasn't consciously aware of it, had a window.

[Monsy]

Yuki was a bottle of alcohol. Hated at a distance. Bad for her physical and emotional well-being. She put you on your ass in high doses. And the times when it gets too much, she runs you scared. You talk ill of her from afar, even up close. But taking another swig is like fructose. The bottle is pretty, fun to hold, body-to-body, bare stomach on clothes, breath into breath, feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling and touching the alcohol made her drawn to its bite. She never felt like she had control over this bottle, but it was fun pretending, challenging and then watching her growl, loathe and plan around you.

Angelina sipped the seconds, feeling like a momentary winner for making this little comeback. Her goose was cooked. But a lot can be achieved when you just take a shot. She earned this swig of the bottle. She got to say a tinge of honesty. It felt amazing. Fructose. Short-lived fructose.

The grab onto her wrist was simple, expected and Angelina already had her head retreating. She didn’t need it there anyway. Pushing Yuki’s head back would also be an easy counter. Maybe she did have control. Not at fuckin' all.

She was the one surprised. Her feather-form was swept into a forward fall, tripping and careening toward the glass window. Her horns hit that shit hard. Then her skull. You can hear the crack and stiff solid thunk like kicking a tree trunk with your bare thigh. Her horns pierced and the glass spiderwebs instantly, breaking into chunks and rain, then dribbling down to the floor and hanging on to the window frame awkwardly. Angelina’s body sandbagged like she was a middleweight. Her face glided down the wall til it was face-down on the floor. One arm was caught underneath her chest. The other was spread out shoulder-height. Her legs were slightly spread. She didn’t make a peep. The train's rumbling became louder now that the window broke. The other passengers had a collective gap. This level of violence was beyond a simple altercation. They didn’t know how to react. To the girl on the floor, or the one who did it. Yuki. But one thing’s for sure: That shit is on camera.

[CaptainL]

For Yuki, too, there was something intoxicating about the contact she shared with Angelina - the thrill that came from standing up to her, and the adrenaline rush of knowing she was proving her wrong; that her mere presence here was a rebuttal to every ugly accusation the Marauder had thrown her way. She felt like she really was as powerful, as capable, as she had always wanted to be. Everything else seemed to fade into the background - the rest of the train didn't matter, and neither did the passengers taking up space around her. There was only her and Angelina. The redhead was pushing her, yes - every moment they spent in contact, it made Yuki's heart beat faster, and her muscles tense with the will to strike. But all that energy was making her all the more determined to stand up for herself; to make a change. Ordinarily, she feared this aggression in herself, and she had tried to push it to the side, to keep it under wraps for fear of it consuming her. But Angelina left her with no choice. And now that that aggression had been let out, there was no turning back - and Yuki had come to embrace it.

That was, until Angelina's head struck the glass - and the loud sound of shattering broke through the air. Yuki dropped to a seated position against the floor, then quickly rolled over to the side to get her bearings. Panting for breath, she shook herself out, looking around...but when she looked back up at what she had done, her eyes went wide, the color draining away from her face as her mouth hung agape.

She saw the broken glass. She saw Angelina fallen flat on the ground. She saw the looks of shock on every face that surrounded her, staring back at her in silence, and all the cameras that were trained on her. They had seen everything. Once again, Yuki's aggression and her instincts had gotten the better of her, and she had given into the temptation, only snapped back to reality when she was reminded by the sound of breaking glass that she had gone too far. But at least that time, it was in her own home, with only her parents there to bear witness. Here? Everyone knew, now, that Yuki Kazikura had lost it. The cold sensation of a thousand goosebumps standing up all over her skin crept across her, sending a shudder down her spine. Not even in her proudest moments did Yuki feel so seen, and now it was for all the wrong reasons.

Angelina was down. She wasn't moving. By all means, she was set up perfectly for Yuki to move in and take the dominant position. But Yuki didn't. She couldn't. Confronted with the reality of what she had done, she was paralyzed. All she could do was stare back blankly, knowing she had done this.

[Monsy]

Angelina was half out. Her brain was sparking on water-dipped expired wires, but still functioning. It was her body. That wasn’t firing. All actions were placed on hold and took an inconceivable ping. She can FEEL herself willing her body. But she didn’t feel the strain or the effort, or really that her body heard the call. There was weight, but no feeling of being crushed.

Her middle finger then moved.
She was still kicking.
Slowly, the pain sunk in. Her brain pulsated and she could almost hear the blood going up her neck and creating a swelling. Sound came next and was horribly ambient. Everyone was silent and staring at Yuki. The train clanged on. She took a big heave of tunnel air, which was cool and almost thin. Her fingers practiced hitting the train floor for a moment, built up into a claw and she soon raised her elbows.

Angelina pushed down. Her groan was loud. By all means, she looked like a defeated fighter, clutching a slice of dignity by at least leaving the scene on their own power. But Yuki didn’t capitalize. There was no bell. She was cheated out of what she wanted. Yuki didn’t keep her word. She. Fuckin. Stopped. Again, when faced with the cameras, Yuki was a deer in the headlights. It made her quietly snarl.

Coward.

While on all fours, Angelina turned and saw three Nutcrackas on the train floor. It looked open. She had little power to make a roll for it, so she reached. Three quick attempts were needed as she teetered and tottered. But she had it. Angelina sat back on her calves, still curled over and her hair shuffled away to reveal her face. There were glass bits wedged into her cheek, forehead and one in the upper lip, creating tear droplets of blood steadily streaming down. Her pupils were nearly pure black. She glanced at Yuki.

“You fuckin’ coward.”

She swung. A winding arc that was aiming to damage the prone Yuki right on the collarbone, and taste the razor wire. The only problem: she can’t aim for shit.

[CaptainL]

With Angelina's head meeting the glass, the whole world had ground to a halt. Everyone was so stunned by the outburst of brutality they had witnessed that they had stopped to stare back at Yuki in stunned silence - no one could even find it in them to speak up or to say a word. Yuki, too, was just as stunned. Every muscle had frozen in place, rooting her right where she sat on the floor. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, and the only sound she could hear was the frantic pumping of her heart in her chest. She couldn't even look back and forth at the people staring. Everything had locked up, and besides, she already knew, from the weight of their eyes on the back of her neck, how aghast they were.

She had done this. She had done this. She hadn't even wanted to do this, but then, the fact that she'd been able to bring it out of herself at all was proof she was too twisted and crazed to trust herself to keep her composure. In that moment, the very fact that Yuki had been capable of such an act seemed like a vindication of everything Angelina had tried to argue...and that was something Yuki never wanted to believe could ever be true.

But if the fact that Yuki had been capable of smashing Angelina's head through the window was enough to frighten her, what Angelina did next was enough to terrify her. This wasn't over. Angelina wasn't done. And now that Yuki was paralyzed with fear, she was doing nothing to defend herself against the woman who was looking back up at her with a baleful glare, her eyes burning with the intent only to see to her end, and her face jutting with glass - glass that Yuki cringed to remember was her doing.

Angelina reached for the bat, and as she felt its shadow fall over her, Yuki's heart would only jump even harder in her chest. There was no time to contemplate this any more. It didn't matter if doing so would enable Angelina's judgment of her, or that it would confirm that, just maybe, she was a coward. Perhaps she'd have to be a coward, this once. She just wanted to survive!

As Angelina was about to slam the bat down on top of her, Yuki threw herself to the side, looking to dodge. Shifting her weight onto the palm of one hand, she pushed off the floor as hard as she could to try and roll herself out of the path of the bat. There was no use in trying to be brave any more. She just had to get as far away from the Marauder as she could!

[Monsy]

Her brain kicked out at two.

Thank fuck. It had that effect too, rising, squirming, then stun-locking Yuki into a state Angelina wanted to punch in the most. She reigned down wood and metal wire instead, hoping to take a bite out of their clothes and skin! Some colour would go wonderfully with their fear-stricken pale face. But it slammed wide. The end hit the ground and Angelina slipped onto her elbows and thighs, disoriented. “FUCK!” She yelled with a scratch in her throat, nearly ripping her vocal chord. Her patience burned like plastic.

And it wasn’t because she missed. That was MORE than ok. It was her fuckin’ head still being knocked loose. She was playing with fragments. A neck that didn’t listen. Her limbs needed conscious aiming to situate right or she ate shit. Couldn’t roll or lunge. She doubted her sprinting would go more than a second. Just needed time. Time Yuki could use to wear off the shock and get her act together. Nah-Nah!

“Y-You!…” Her hand went over her face, clawing and groaning from her pulsating cranium. One eye was stuck at half-open, while the other was wide, twitching constantly with absolutely no control or feeling. It curdled her gut into wet outdated cheese just by keeping them open. Rising off the ground made it worse, and it was all this fuckhead’s doing. Yet she couldn’t just finish it there, like she should’ve done. “Why don’t ya come over here... so I can slice that — Ghht! T-Tch! H-Hah-Ow!”

Angelina rose on her knees, putting them on the broken glass. She reached, put her hand over on the broken window ledge and started ripping hand-sized shards of shattered glass that were still lodged in the frame. One, two, three and four. One piece between each of her fingers from index to pinky. She breathed heavily, then held the weapon, arm across her chest and…

FWIP!

One shard whipped, thrown like a ninja star. Her arm locked in its place. Then she consciously slammed one foot down, with burning in her thigh, wobbling before biting tongue and pushing up to her feet.

FWIP!

The second one flew in an opposite motion. Angelina started approaching with a zombie-like slouch, her bat begging to hit them, but dragging along like a misused cane. “Fight back, Yooks! F...Fight me! Show me that inner-fuckin’-psycho again! I neeeeed to beat it! Sooooo.. very-very-bad! You have absolutely no idea how much..." She inhaled, her voice giddy. "It means to me! And like Friday the 13th! I’ll jusssst keep comin’ till I get it!”

FWIP!

The third. Angelina was running short of breath after working herself up. But her smile was there, pretty, wide and one tickle away from laughing. She muttered softly, “Make her come out again, please?”

FWIP!

She threw her last shard, then prepared her last overhead bat swing. Any moment…. It’ll fly at their head.

[CaptainL]

Yuki's teeth clenched in a wince. She didn't know what frightened her more - the fact that there was broken glass littering the floor, the fact that Angelina was somehow still managing to fight back even when her body looked like it was in the midst of breaking down on her, or the all-too-nagging knowledge that whatever was happening, no matter how much the action was escalating out of control, it was her fault. Whatever it was, it had kicked her adrenaline into high alert, sending her heart pounding as a shiver ran through her body. But Yuki knew that to sit here and dwell on it was useless. She needed to act - and she needed to act fast.

She slipped out of the way of the swing of Angelina's bat with only moments to spare. Her body quaked with every thunderous pound of her heart as she pushed herself back up to her feet, and her chest and shoulders rose and fell as she heaved for breath. But she had to move. She didn't have time to stop and stare - no matter how afraid she might have been, or how much the manic tone in the redhead's voice made her teeth chatter nervously. Even when Angelina shuddered and convulsed with pain with every movement she made - and when Yuki shuddered at the thought that she was the one who had done all that - she was no less a very real and very present danger that Yuki needed to stay abreast of. That much was apparent when she ripped the broken glass out from the windowsill, and hurled it Yuki's way! At first, the girl's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped in a gasp. She could hardly believe this was really happening - that Angelina could really go this far. But she didn't have time to think. She had to move.

Her teeth clenching in a grimace, Yuki swerved left and right, trying to dodge each shard as they came hurtling by. She dodged the first, and then the second. The third clipped her in the arm, and she hissed through her teeth, her eyes running with water as she grabbed at her bicep to try and staunch the blood that was trickling between her fingers; then, the fourth whizzed by her side, cutting a slit in her shirt and nicking the skin beneath. She shuddered from the pain - but when she looked up, all she could see was Angelina looming above her, about to bring the bat down on her head like the stroke of an executioner's axe. She couldn't afford to take it, and yet, she knew that fighting back was giving Angelina exactly what she wanted. So Yuki had to go with her final option.

She ran. Turning and sprinting as fast as she could toward the end of the car. It didn't even matter that it was moving, or even that the car shook and the floor threatened to give way beneath her feet as the train took a turn. She needed to put as much distance as she could between herself and Angelina, and she couldn't waste a second!

[Monsy]

Always came so… SO close.
Yuki was a bitch to hit. Every time, so many times, she swung her bat, glass, thrusted her legs, head and punched her fist. Air, a graze. Nothing. She was playing the lottery with herself, fuzzled eyes, where the ringing was ever-present in the back of her focus, and where leaning a certain way made her more disoriented. When she found the working formula, she walked, stalked and talked weird. But it worked. She got closer. All shards were spent now. It comes down to her bat.

It misses. Again.
Angelina struck the train floor with the tip. At first, she huffs out her nose. Then, she finds Kazikura running, a mode she simply can’t match. Her legs simply weren’t focused enough. They wobbled more and still had to be aimed. Angelina let out a frustrated scream.. “YOU'RE FUCKIN’ JOKING!”

She swung at the ground once, then shrieked again and hit another window, shattering it. Her heaves got more drawn, animated and constant. The veins in her neck bulged into prominence. Teeth dug into her tongue. And there was hair in front of her eyes but she no longer cared. Instead, she pointed her weapon at the crowd, then down at the yearbook. “Give. Me. Thaaaat.”

And so, someone shot it over with their feet. Angelina squatted, picked it up and endured a blistering split in her headache. She whined, then placed a hand right on her scalp, and checked the palm to see faint red in her palm and over the creases. “Yaa do me likee this, YOOKS?? And ya fuckin’ RUN?!”

She chomped her teeth together, forced up a toothy grin, then started her limping pursuit. The train’s racket, toss and turn made her path more like a slither. One foot crosses the other, then it comes around. She surfs, then the next step plants awkwardly correct. Her arms sway. The bat drags, and the yearbook’s pages were wide open and flapping as she merely pinched the hardcover.

Yuki was getting farther away. The desperation in her tail wind was worse than the headache. “Geeeeet back hereee!!—” Angelina coughed, sucked in deep, and starting glancing towards the ceiling, "Only losahs run when the skin gets cut… LOSAHS!" Her voice was giving, capped off by another cough after her bark. She'd just about say or do whatever would draw Kazikura into the fight she hungered for. The struggle, even at this state, needed a conclusion. Her comeback needed to come true. So she mustered up one more scream. “HAGGH!!” And she threw the bat in an overhand axe-style. All that razor wire and wood now hurled and spun towards Yuki’s back, far faster than Angelina could hope to run.