Somebody to Love - Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom vs Audrey Trovita

[Malkavia]

Standard Match with Hentai Allowed — Victory by Pinfall, KO, Submission, or Orgasm

"When the truth is found to be lies..."

The lights went dark; a single column of light formed a pinhole at the side of the ramp where Shimmerlace would be entering. Narrowing, narrowing, narrowing, until—

There was a burst of pink smoke from the pinprick of light that swallowed that half of the stage.

"And all the joy within you dies..."

A grinning white rabbit head appeared on the titantron. His was a cartoonish visage — a circular head with rounded ears, one floppy and the other torn at the tip. He wore an eyepatch and grinned a cheek-to-cheek crescent moon smile. The Cheshire Rabbit, pirate-style, one might say. He hung on a layer of pink shapes and textures, glowing white as he grinned joyfully at the world.

Then the electric guitar hit, and orange fire and electrical crackle popped from inside the roseate cloud, and Shimmerlace — as was by now her well-worn wont and habit — burst from the smoke.

"Don't you want somebody to love? Don't you NEED somebody to love?"

No, no it seemed they did not so want, nor need. Shimmerlace felt that like a large, cold metal ball bearing in her intestines. Normally, her pyrotechnical displays took already hyped audiences and made them roar; tonight, there was but scattered applause.

"KIIIIIIID'S STUUUUUUUFF."

Golly, but check out the pipes on that man. Our boy could have sang basso profundo opera, had he been so inclined. Shimmerlace's jaw clenched as she slipped inside the ring.

Kid's stuff— one of the lamer hashtags floating around, if she was honest. Not quite as weird as #Quimmerlace, but also not as pithy as #HangUpTheWings.

(Nor as to the point as #JusticeForYuki)

The Feychild wore her most traditional costume—long black boots up to her knees, embossed with flower patterns; a white bodice that grew around her body like a wild plant. A single white glove with jewels on the back of her hand that caught the light and reflected dazzling blue.

The Feychild

As she jumped, caught the top rope, and looped her legs over and landed in her corner, she looked over the crowd. A diverse, if...quantitatively limited crew tonight. Old, young. Suits and leather jackets and torn hoodies. Just a handful of Pinkettes, right at the front—though, she noted, they were not among the chunk of the crowd cheering.

But.

It was...

...Fine.

It was all fine. She had a strategy now. Not her own either—one workshopped with Eleanor. In other words, a campaign managed by none other than a former mayor of San Fransisco itself.

Breathe in a big load of air, and...

Shimmerlace raised a mic to her lips. "GOOOOOOOOOOD EVENING—Ladies, gentlemen, and all betwixt that make their home on this earthly realm."

"TONIGHT, we have a feast for your imagination. A unparallelled treat for your refined palettes—a conjoining of fey glamour and wrestling artistry such as has never before been presented to mortal eye."

"Tonight I will make manifest for you the thrills of flight. The exxxxxplosive, connnnnncussive power of a fey divebomber, wreathed in flame. And. AND. Perhaps most important of all. The soft...tender secrets of a wrestler reduced. Stripped. Laid bare. And put to all manner of humiliating and sennnnsual uses."

"Are you ready?"

And there it was — in spite of all that coldness. The volume swivelled up. Not as high as it could be, but. Right direction. Shimmerlace grinned, swallowed, shook her head, and took a big breath so she could bellow:

"ARE. YOU. READY?"

[ThurmanMermanPlx]

If nothing else, Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom knew how to make an entrance. Audrey could admit to that much. Even admire it a bit. The Feychild had a knack for playing up the crowd that Audrey could, at the moment, only dream of. The song choice was spectacular. The light. The thick pink smoke. The cute-in-a-creepy-kind-of-way video package. Not to mention Shimmerlace's attire, positively brimming with airy mystique... Add it all up and by comparison, it made Audrey's little sparkler show look - in a word - quaint.

It was a shame none of it mattered.

Audrey wasn't one to hyper-focus on the upper tiers of the competition. Her skill level wasn't nearly up to snuff to compete at that tier, and more to the point, they weren't why she was here in the first place. But she was online enough to see the drama that had unfolded in Shimmerlace's last match against Angelina Tarrant. How could she not? It was everywhere. Some of her own followers even tagged her in a few video clips and recaps, as though she wasn't aware of what was happening at her own place of employment! (Although to be fair, Audrey reasoned, that wasn't nearly as uncommon as it should be.)

In even the most brutal of hardcore matches, there were still lines that weren't to be crossed, no matter what the promoters would have people believe. And as far as Audrey was concerned, both of them had crossed that line during that match. The redhead, admittedly, wasn't fully versed in their history, but she knew enough. It took a special kind of psycho to literally try to pop someone's eyes out of their sockets in front of a live audience. And then Yuki... poor, brave little Yuki, who had simply wanted to help save her friend from their shared enemy as they attempted to murder each other, only for Shimmerlace to turn around and attack her?

There were no winners that night.

Had Audrey known in advance she'd be facing down Shimmerlace herself, she might have slapped a #JusticeForYuki on her own Instagram.

Ah, well. Probably for the better that she hadn't been so open about her opinions on the matter. She might have had some serious public obligation to hand Shimmerlace some punishment on her shoulders that, frankly, she would not have been able to bear.

As it stood, her trot down the ramp was stressful enough. She twirled and flared her skirt and waved her sparkler like nothing was wrong, like this was just another Tuesday at the office. But clever observers might notice the way her feet were just a tad unsteady. How the sparkler wobbled in her hand. How her eyes weren't quite making contact tonight. Thankfully, those weren't the details these crowds were often looking for.

Audrey's own wandering gaze, as well as her mind, were elsewhere. Shimmerlace still had a number of adoring fans out there, a smattering of pink amidst the faceless hunger. But so too did she have enemies - more than once, Audrey's eyes lingered on a fan's sign with a familiar hashtag, as well as a smattering of others she hadn't come across before. It was an odd feeling, to know there were those out there who were, for once, here not to see her lose, but to see her opponent take the fall, and were, for whatever insane reason, pinning their hopes on her to do it.

There was an unexpected, oppressive weight lingering over this match that set her nerves on edge. And not all of it had to do with the crowd's expectations. In a dark corner of her mind, a thought lingered, one Audrey was vehemently bashing with a bat and covering with tarp: What might she do to me?

Yeah, it was definitely better that she kept her virtual mouth shut.

Audrey had been prancing down that ramp for what felt like a week by the time she made it to the ring. She doused her sparkler, crawled through the ropes, and fixed her opponent with a stern neutral glare. Someone tapped her leg and offered her a microphone. In all that time, she hadn't once considered what she'd say when she got here.

Petty back-and-forth diss wars weren't her strong suit. But then again, it was about as strong as any other skill she had. Thankfully, they Feychild's introduction gave her something to work with, a little speech conveniently void of even a reference to what she'd recently done. As though she could just move on with her career and pretend it never even happened.

"Fey divebomber, eh?" A small pause to let the crowd die down, as they realized she actually was going to respond. Meanwhile, she forced a chuckle. "The only explosive power they're going to see tonight is from watching you crash. And. Burn!" That got some cheers from the haters, forcing another pause. Her eyes caught sight of another sign. "I hope you enjoy hospital food, because that's all you'll be getting once I'm done clipping your wings!"

[Malkavia]

Shimmerlace squinted at the far end of the arena. Most horrified viewers fixated on the long, brown scars raked across Shimmerlace's face, but she didn't mind them. More gristle for the mirror and terror for the opposition, she said. What stung, and stung fiercely, was the degradation of her vision. Images at far distances now swam together, blurred like watercolor dabbed with wet cotton.

But once Audrey was about halfway down the ramp, Shimmerlace could see enough. The sparklers, the twirling. A bit green mayhaps, but—fuck if she weren't trying. Shimmer drummed her fingers along the second rope as she leaned, cross-legged, into a turnbuckle and grinned. Entrances had long occupied a special place in the cockles of the Feychild's heart, alongside street performance and the elevated arts of professional illusion. Blessed be we sad fucks who crawl upon the stage, as she liked to pray.

Audrey's barbs weren't without their bite either—plucked though they might be from the...gentlemen in the seats. Shimmerlace laughed appreciatively. "Oooooh, clipped wings is it now? Well..." She peered up at the ceiling, rolling her head to the left, humming, then lolling it back to the right. As her smile grew wide enough to match the rabbit from her entrance, she imagined her comet descending, smoking like a helicopter with its tail blown off. "I think I might be at peace with that, so long as you were on my back, sweetling. I have a sense when the crash comes, I'll have a mite more tolerance than ye for the flames and smoke."

The Feychild's pink eyes lowered to meet Audrey's. She could hear the crowd starting to churn in their seats. Ever the impatient ones. Always wanting the taste of blood, never savoring the smell. "But we'll see soon enough, ey? In the meanwhile—best of luck kiddo."

Shimmerlace pushed herself out of her corner, the black coattails of her springtime jacket trailing behind as she stepped forward with her hand extended. All smiles. And she'd stay that way—until Audrey got close. Until Audrey hit striking distance. If Audrey gave the Feychild that treat, then Shimmerlace would palm into her fey hand what at this moment rested up her sleeve:

A silver needle, with a point as thin and dangerous as a wasp's sting.

[ThurmanMermanPlx]

Taunts were never something Audrey had been good at. Even before starting down this path, it just wasn't in her coding to be mean. Even to those who had earned it. Sometimes it still happened, when she was angry for example, but rarely was it a targeted dart even then. So Audrey was not surprised when Shimmerlace leaned into her jab and reversed it as deftly as if countering a submission move. The fey was tricky, devious, and oh so used to this game.

And so, Audrey couldn't help but doubt her words.

More tolerance, she says. A bold declaration coming from the girl who pretends she's not standing alone in the middle of a room set ablaze by her own actions. But pretending she doesn't see it anymore will not make the heat go away. And the longer she stands there ignoring it, the easier it'll be for the flames and smoke to consume her from the inside out.

Audrey laughed aloud. "I don't think you know what tolerance is. Pretending you didn't start the fire you're now trying to walk away from isn't the same as tolerance."

Audrey cut herself off there, picking up on the restlessness of their audience and their desire to see carnage rather than a show. Shimmer moved their little chat along with a token of luck and a gesture of good will. The redhead set her mouth in a firm line, debating how to proceed. The handshake was her thing, usually. A sign of respect for her opponent. The only times she'd foregone that nicety were against those who didn't deserve it; those sex-crazed, egotistical, musclehead types.

She hadn't planned to offer one tonight. Shimmerlace fit an entirely different mold... and yet, there existed more than one way to destroy respect. She had shown who she really is, behind all the pink smoke and fairy dust, and someone who showed no respect deserved none in return.

And yet, and yet... here she was, offering it now. Offering it to someone she had no history with. A stranger. Just another opponent. What would it say about Audrey if she refused? Shimmer's past wasn't any of her business. Not accepting the handshake now, especially when she'd made a point of note on her own record to do so... Would she be any better, not returning to her opponent the respect she was offered? The very thing she was holding against the feychild?

Her green eyes searched Shimmer's for a hint of something. Anything. Some idea of what she was playing at. She found nothing but a sickeningly sweet smile, like the girl was nothing but a ball of cotton candy; sweet and pastel and harmless. Meanwhile, the crowd was growing rowdy; she couldn't simply stand here and delay all night. She took a deep breath and, slowly, reached out her hand.

Her eyes left Shimmer's face just in time to catch the glint of light off the metal in her palm. A trick. Of course it was. Audrey felt stupid for even considering it now, for it could never have been anything but a trap. Shimmer built her whole gimmick on tricks and magic. Disappointing, but she shouldn't have expected anything less.

Too late to pull back. Instead, Audrey adjusted course, snatching the feychild's wrist instead and gave it a yank. She'd lurch forwards, right into the elbow that the redhead launched up at her face.

The strike drew sudden gasps from the peanut gallery. The redhead ignored them, instead shaking her head in the direction of her foe.

"You'll have to try harder than that. I know all about you, and I'm not gonna fall for your smoke and mirrors like your previous suckers."

[Malkavia]

Out in the audience, Takeshi was just returning to his seat. He had popcorn (for his girlfriend, extra butter) and a hotdog and coke (for himself). He groaned as he lowered himself into his chair, savoring the sensation of stretching out into his weekend escape from life and work.

True—he might have preferred to be in a baseball stadium watching the Chunichi Dragons face off against the Giants. But hey—as much as he might have cheered for Yudai Ohno, he had to admit the pitcher wasn't as cute as a lot of these girls. And he was looking forward to some of the matches later on this card. He had his eye on Ambre versus The Rising Sun, in particular. Ambre was a mountainous woman who exuded power in all of her promotional photography — not only because of her incomparable size but also in her take-no-prisoners attitude. True, she was one to boo, but even so.

"The only explosive power they're going to see tonight is from watching you crash. And. Burn!"

These lower card matches though...He could never quite follow their drama. There were so many of them, and most people at work would know nothing about them, so there was little point in knowing the names. Takeshi leaned towards Miyuki, handing his girlfriend her popcorn. "Who's this?"

"Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom and Audrey Trovita!" she hissed. Excited, as she crammed her mouth full of popcorn. She began in a rush to explain both wrestlers' histories to him, and Takeshi nodded, listening just enough to know when to nod, when to say I see, and when to gasp. Her enthusiasm contributed to her attractiveness. Her eyes shone, never leaving the ring below, and her T-shirt — which was emblazoned with a detailed splash of art for a wrestler he'd never heard of — was tight against her bossom and torn artfully along both sides of her waist.

By the time Shimmerlace offered her handshake, he was more than ready for the action to begin. He did not have to wait long. Audrey pulled her opponent into what looked to be a devastating elbow right in her snout — a cheap shot! Perfect. Baseball or Wrestling, Takeshi knew how to be part of an audience.

He cupped his hands and bellowed: "BOOOO!" — until his girlfriend's elbow caught him in the ribs. "Ow!"

"Dumbassssss!" As if the blow to his ribs were insufficient punishment, she smacked her palm against his scalp. "Don't boo Audrey!"

He grinned, sheepish, and ran his hand over the spot where she'd smacked him. "But she..."

"Tinkerbell had it coming." Miyuki's eyes were already fixed back on the ring. Tinkerbell was reeling. Hand to her face, back to the ropes. And no wonder, with how brutal that elbow had looked.

"Has she..." He found it difficult to believe of the pinkette, whose outfit reminded him of some Sailor Moon protagonist. But the crowd's opinion was...mixed. He was not alone in booing, but just as many cheered. He hummed, then took a bite from his hotdog. Perhaps wrestling was simply an uncrackable mystery for him.

"YES. She's shameless. And full of herself. And anyway, Audrey's earned a cheap shot or three, after everything the creeps in this promotion have put her through. You know her career started with—"

Before Miyuki could dig into the details, however, the bell rang —

DING DING DING!

— and as soon as it pealed, Shimmerlace was off like a bullet from the blue. Or pink. Takeshi blinked, and in the space of time it took him to squint and lean out of his seat, she was on Audrey. Her hands reached out for Audrey's head, grasping for two fistfulls of red hair, and she jumped and tucked her knees into her chest.

Even Takeshi could see she intended it to go — to fall, to drag Audrey down, to hit her fey back on the mat, to crush the redhead's face against her knees. Miyuki knew it as a codebreaker. Shimmerlace and her Coterie called it The Starlight Impact.

Spoiler

[ThurmanMermanPlx]

Coming into this match, Audrey had been more focused than she ever had. There were, of course, multiple reasons for this. Her own feelings towards her opponent, for one thing. Anger and spite were powerful motivators, and she was now in a position to do something about it. But she knew Shimmerlace was a trickster, always with some crafty little cheat waiting to be pulled out of thin air.

She'd almost let that caution go to waste. Lost in her thoughts, she'd just about stabbed herself on the needle that had been hidden in plain sight, but perhaps thanks to a little luck, she'd spotted it just in time not only to avoid it, but use it to her advantage. Audrey didn't consider herself a dirty fighter; she'd never attacked someone before the bell before, not ever considered it, but for a case of self-defense, she'd make the exception this one time.

The element of surprise worked in her favor, for once. When Shimmer set her trap, she certainly wasn't expecting an elbow to her face, but that's what she got. Audrey made her blow count, not just to get the early advantage, but to make a point. To send a message. I will not be fooled.

Actions often spoke louder than words, but she said as much aloud for good measure anyway. Not that anyone but Shimmer heard her. The crowd response was mixed; quite a bit of cheering, which surprised the redhead somewhat, but then, who wouldn't want to elbow Shimmerlace in the face right now? Flurries of boos could be heard just as clearly, however, whether from Shimmer's fans, or people who considered the sneak attack cheap, or people who didn't appreciate one combatant taking advantage of the handshake. (That being the option she didn't want to acknowledge, because she had not done that, she kept telling herself. They hadn't seen the needle.) Audrey did her best to ignore them.

The blow, regardless of its legality, did what it was intended to do. Shimmerlace stumbled all the way back to the ropes, hands tending to her pretty, scarred face. Audrey, meanwhile, crossed her arms, looking pleased with herself. Then the bell rang, and Audrey almost felt guilty for a moment, before reminding herself who she was up against. She didn't except that to be the end of the trickery, but maybe it would make the fey think twice about trying anything before actually doing it.

But when that bell went off, it wasn't a trick that caught Audrey by surprise. There was no way she had been faking that injury, not with the crack her elbow had made upon impact! No, it was Shimmer's speed as she dashed from the ropes, payback on her mind, that caused Audrey to stumble back a step. She'd only had time to un-cross her arms before Shimmerlace grabbed two handfuls of hair and dropped to the mat, letting her body weight and gravity pull the redhead's face into her knees!

Audrey landed on her own at the same time, but the recoil snapped her head so far back that she flopped backwards, crashing to the mat with a thud, now mirroring Shimmer's response to the ache in her nose. She rolled onto her side, away from where the fey landed, an instinctual move to shield her face from a follow-up.

Rolling with the motion, Audrey continued onto her stomach, beginning to try getting back to her feet and shaking her head to clear the stars in her vision. If ever there was a match to push through the discomfort, it was this one, and so early on at that. Keeling over this quickly wouldn't just disappoint millions of viewers, but herself, too. Not an option.

Her brain went into overdrive, working faster than her body as she analyzed the situation. She knew just from how the move was performed that Shimmer was on the ground too, but likely in a far better condition to spring back up, which gave her precious few seconds to try to recover. For all she knew, Shimmer had already started attempting a follow-up. Ignoring the pain in her nose, Audrey pushed herself to her knees. She had to see where Shimmerlace was in her own recovery efforts before deciding how to move.

[Malkavia]

How did the song go?

Ba-da ba-da ba-ba —
Audrey's got an elbow of brass
But her maiden jaw cracks alike to glass
So now she falls and rolls upon her ass —
tra-la da-ba da-doop!

The mat bent and bounced, and Shimmerlace could see for a split second the way Audrey's face disappeared into her knees, compressing like an accordion while her hair whipped against the Feychild's thighs, and then — as the Panda had it — SKADOOSH. She went rolling! Curling! A pill-bug in its shell, clutching her face. A fine enough painting, though one the Feychild thought she could improve. A kip brought her to her feet, and a dash and a hop brought to the first rope—
Second rope—
Third rope!

(What, exactly, was Eleanor's plan? Her scheme? Her wile?)

Shimmerlace's hands and her bruised cheek went out to the coteries of pinkette girls and (singular) boy, the blonde in a white sweater with her hands cupped about her lips, the balding round man unaccountably bedecked in black spectacles in the back. The arena's ceiling was low, its bleachers of limited capacity...and thin at that. But the white, fluorescent spotlight was still starshine. Her arms went up, forming a triangle with her elbows, fingers at her lips, all while her shadow loomed over Audrey.

(It was a simple enough dictum: They needn't love you. They've just got to hate her more)

"Aight kiddos mine—Let's scrape the sky!"

Her heels bounced left, and right. Then she grinned and leaped and soared on the noise from the crowd—a moonsault. Her favorite gift from Angelina, trotted out early to bury the girl she'd baited into a cheap shot.

[ThurmanMermanPlx]

As far as Audrey had been able to tell, there hadn't been any kind of trickery with that last move. Whether that was from Shimmer being frustrated or simply seeing an opening, the redhead wasn't sure, but it mattered little. Turned out, tricks weren't the only thing the feychild was capable of, and Audrey's face learned that lesson the hard way as it impacted her foe's knees.

However, being frequently on the receiving end of her opponents' onslaughts had offered Audrey one advantage; she knew firsthand that the longer she stayed down, the more likely it was that she was going to suffer even further abuse. While she hadn't really built up much in the way of pain tolerance, her reaction time had improved in exchange.

She spent mere seconds on the mat, reeling from the knees to the face, before Audrey was rolling back into action. By the time she'd scrambled back to her knees, she'd mostly blinked away the daze, which had the handy side effect of clearing away the forming tears and clearing her sight.

And what she saw was... an empty ring. Shimmerlace wasn't anywhere within her line of sight. Thankfully, her brain was still operating faster than her body. The ropes shook, and the shadow moving along the ground told her exactly where to find the fey. Her instinct then, of course, was to get out of the comet's way. And so the redhead, still on her knees, threw herself backwards, tumbling along the mat and, with any luck, leaving Shimmer to fulfill the redhead's prediction of a pretty pink crash and burn for the audience's viewing pleasure.

[Malkavia]

She was quicker little fuck than Shimmerlace had anticipated. So much for the fluffy fleshy pillow meant to absorb the comet impact...

...which instead went straight to the Feychild's knees, as her boots slammed into the mat. She clenched her teeth, bent her hips like she was squatting up to sumo-wrestle, and threw her arms out in a wide circle. Her center of gravity warbled around her hips enough to make her stumble back a step, a second step — then grinned.

The momentum was a big wobbly arrow backwards, like God wanted her to plop on her ass, so rather than battle fate, she danced with it. She leaned into fall and jumped. Her head arced up, over, then down towards the mat, her hair a pink arc behind, until her palms caught the ground. She clenched her core—and up she popped into a handstand. The toes of her boots pointed straight up, scissoring lightly in the air.

Funnily enough, with Audrey on her backside and Shimmerlace using her palms for feet, their eyes were just about on a level. The Seelie Maître didn't hang there long, eyeing down the pale red-head languishing in her own skirt, but it was space enough for Shimmer to slip her tongue out. Nyah! Then she twisted her hips and performed a handstand legdrop aimed at the now once-missed gut of Miss Audrey!

Legdrop

[ThurmanMermanPlx]

With Shimmerlace in the air and no way to alter her trajectory, Audrey, mercifully, managed to roll out of the way of the incoming fae-themed meteor. Successful though it was, her escape had been hasty, and therefore, clumsy, which left the redhead somewhat disoriented on her back and leaning on her arms, halfway between lying down and sitting up - and also gave her a perfect view of the fae soaring overhead and hitting the mat! Which would have been a nonissue, had Shimmerlace simply crumpled upon impact.

Alas, she did not. While Audrey was busy observing rather than trying to recover her bearings, Shimmer stumbled, practically falling into a handstand. Their eyes met for a brief moment, and the fairy had the balls to stick her tongue out! Audrey should have been angry or annoyed or anything else. However it was there that the panic she expected to find in Shimmer's eyes, yet did not, flooded through her instead, as the realization that her narrow escape was just a bit *too narrow, and she'd failed to push through that last crack.

What to do? Lay back down and roll, trying to lessen the blow? Try to absorb it? Try to sit up and move again? Instead of spurring her into action, that panic caused the redhead to freeze up. Too many options pulling her in too many directions, and not a single second to consider which of them were even viable.

Any yet, any them likely would have been preferable to reality. The redhead's hesitation left herself fully open and exposed for the full force of Shimmerlace's legs to crash down on her like two pink steel beams. Audrey's arms gave out, but instead of falling back to the mat, she first bent forwards into herself, the familiar, terrible sensation of air being pushed out of her lungs once again drowning her. Flailing limbs then returned to the mat, where the redhead again tried, more voluntarily this time, to curl inwards... a task made difficult by the pink limbs still pressing down on her gut.