Safiyah Neferet vs. Gwendolyn DuPont Bettencourt - Reclaim The Throne

[Lightman]

The moment their bodies touched again, there was no mistaking it—this was no longer a clash of ideology nor a petty contest of pride, but a war of essence, stripped bare beneath the desert moon. Their limbs moved with the elegance of celestial choreography, each step and sweep and spiral an invocation of something older than technique, older even than history itself—a dance between avatars, between myths woven into flesh. And yet, for all its grandeur, for all the poetry of motion exchanged, this latest manoeuvre spoke of something more intimate: control. Safiyah felt her balance shift. Her arm tugged over Gwendolyn’s shoulder with expert timing, her chest brushing the noblewoman’s back as if drawn into a final, fatal waltz. Her toes skimmed the canvas, the elevation teasing an imminent downfall, as if gravity itself awaited Gwendolyn’s permission to reclaim her. The heiress’ whisper, smug and delicate like the chime of crystal, slithered back into her ear.

Golden and Azure narrowed in tandem. Fire danced in the heart of Safiyah at that moment. A flare of indignation at being tethered like some ornamental scarf to be flung on a whim. A tremor of memory, recalling past humiliation at the hands of another woman who once smiled so sweetly while leading her to ruin. But unlike then, she was ready now. Safiyah’s core tightened—her body, still aloft, twisted mid-air with serpent-like precision. Instead of resisting the motion of the throw, she followed it, shifting her momentum so that her torso arched and her lower body curved like a falling ribbon, legs looping upward as her free arm anchored briefly on Gwendolyn’s opposite shoulder. At the apex of the pivot, she uncoiled, her entire form turning in a corkscrew motion, not to evade, but to flip through the throw, and ideally, land on her feet or knees in a fluid, whip-like escape.

And even though her landing was less than pristine, even if she staggered a breath or two upon touchdown, it would serve its purpose: deny Gwendolyn the satisfaction of the fall. Deny her the fantasy of seeing the Azure Cobra shattered upon impact. The soft hiss of breath passed Safiyah’s lips as her bare feet kissed the sand-strewn canvas, her body sliding into a low crouch. The desert heat pulsed in her veins. She rose slowly, one hand circling to her shoulder where the heiress’ grasp had been, a subtle motion that didn’t wipe the contact away, but honoured it, like a mark from a worthy predator. And again, she advanced, not in haste, but with the sure-footed elegance of a sovereign stepping into battle, her coiled form poised to see whether Gwendolyn’s artistry could match her rebirth from the brink.

[killcarrion]

Basking underneath the shimmering luminescence of the moonlit spotlight above, throughout the match's inception it was as if all the world became their stage with swan feathers fluttered from the heavens amidst this midsummer night's waltz. Pure liquidity given form as if oppositional counterparts were inexorably intertwined and embodying the cosmic principles of Yin And Yang. Balance and harmony artfully achieved in spite of the contested fire fueling eachother's concerted efforts to circumvent their symphonic display in rather brutal fashion. The passage of time briefly became indecipherable to this captivated audience until every clock hand seemingly ceased when Gwendolyn seized upon Safiyah's fanged strike in the first instance of a baited trap endangering its intended prey. Prototypical approaches to this maneuver would have sent Safiyah flying overhead posthaste, yet the Conceited Highborn instead sought to balance Safiyah upon the knife's edge and relish in her ensnarement of the Azure Cobra now subjected to the role of a piece of fashionable fabric adorned over the heiress, if only but for a second. The blissful tones of an angelic utterance serving as the spark to reignite the kindling within Safiyah's consciousness, whose brushed warmth became noticeable once hefted onto Gwen's back...for however brief a time she intended to keep her there.

The subsequent execution of the throw becoming a piece of performance art in itself as the blueblood balanced herself on the tip of one big toe with her other leg extended skyward and fulsome hips jutting out, a breath of strained effort exuded from Gwendolyn's lips in what may have been mistaken for a lightning strike of an impact if Safiyah hadn't defied Gwendolyn's thunderous intentions. Her adversary tucking herself into the throw in a rebellious rebuke of Fate's plan with Gwendolyn remaining in her hunched over posture for several seconds. Onlookers expecting the heiress to be overwhelmed with pompous indignation from her foiled stratagem, but instead Gwendolyn arose with an elegant flair and brimming content upon her smirking facials. "Bravissimo~...Ancestral pride flows within you and serves as the fuel that drives such feckless yet admirable defiance. Entrance me further with this masterful duet, and I may yet deem you a capable competitor worthy of being in my illustrious presence~..." Gwendolyn pontificated with arms extended to the sides over the knelt Cobra. A celestial elegance as if awash in Heaven's light but coming back down to Earth as her foe approached. Stepping forward as well with hands raised in an offered lock-up but transitioned into an attempted arm wringer of the same appendage captured earlier if everything proceeded successfully.

[Lightman]

Safiyah’s body pulsed with the rhythm of momentum, blood surging through her limbs like the Nile cresting after a long drought, awakened and relentless. Though her feet had only just found purchase upon the mat again, her mind had never left the sky. That fleeting moment atop Gwendolyn’s back—used like an accessory, draped like a trophy—had sent a flare through her spine not of shame, but of clarity. Such gestures, so casually humiliating, could not go unanswered. The heiress’s gall, her ever-arrogant poise, only added heat to the storm building behind Safiyah’s steady breath. A breath that now came through flared nostrils and parted lips as she knelt with predatory stillness, her chest rising and falling beneath the sheen of sweat and torchlight. Her mismatched gaze, a palette of sun and sky, bore upward with cold intent, twin orbs glinting with all the promise of wrath made patient. Her shoulder still ached where Gwendolyn had snared her, but the ache became fuel, pain transmuted into precision. She would not flinch. She would answer.

As the imperial rose stepped forward once more, bathed in that smug halo of self-appointed divinity, arms extended in benevolent condescension, Safiyah rose to meet her. Slowly. Purposefully. Her arms mirrored the gesture with a grace that belied the simmering threat beneath. Fingers laced for a heartbeat, the illusion of communion formed between them—and then, predictably, shattered. Gwendolyn’s arm wringer came not with brutish speed but with the finesse of a dancer—twist, pull, capture. Safiyah did not resist with brute force, nor did she recoil. Instead, she flowed into it, absorbing the motion like desert wind curling around stone. Her arm bent along the wringer’s path, her elbow tucked close as she shifted her hips and rose fluidly to the ball of her foot. It was not escape—it was redirection. “Did you think I would find contentment dancing in your shadow, sayyidati? You drape yourself in silk and roses, but I was woven from stone and sand. as I shall show you...” The moment the torque peaked, she dropped forward, body folding like silk, and her leg swung from behind and upwards, sole snapping like the crescent moon with the coiled sharpness of a viper’s strike. A scorpion kick, cutting upward at a measured angle, aimed not just at beauty, but at balance - the back of Gwendolyn’s skull. Not a finishing blow, but a calculated disruption.

This cobra would not writhe to amuse. She would not lie dormant beneath a heel. And with every heartbeat that passed, she would make the noblewoman earn every flourish she dared perform.

[killcarrion]

Birthed within the prestigious echelons of true nobility was a fate yearned for yet seldom contemplated beyond reasons rife with superficiality. The breadth of responsibility incumbent with those grandiose elite bearing Gwendolyn's aristocratic opulence was a burden placed upon her shoulders yet balanced exquisitely upon the tips of her toes. Conducting herself with the shimmering brilliance of a celestial being whose perfection nevertheless seemed attainable by those casting their downtrodden eyes upon her. A beacon whose duties include ensuring her vassals know and understand their place. True nobility seeing them as caged birds who often yearn for freedom up until the exact moment they are bequeathed so and quake in awe of the endless potential before them. Perilous fates await those who are incapable of surviving outside their sheltered imprisonment, unqualified and incapable towards soaring amidst the prestigious heights they once wistfully envisioned for themselves. Similar rebellious overtones which Safiyah has seemingly become rife with and inflamed moreso throughout the match's progression, the duality within her heterochromatic iris' becoming nevertheless united underneath the sole and solitary goal of ascending to a throne whose golden curled occupant remained upright before her.

Earnestly complimenting Safiyah with a lavish assessment of her commendable efforts nevertheless came off as snobbish condescension through no fault of Gwendolyn's, whose sincere offer of being deemed a worthy adversary could not have been seen as anything other than the loftiest of commendations. Engaging with Safiyah once again came with a competitive zeal matching her adversaries until their mutually clasped hands were a sign of acknowledged equality promptly abandoned with an angled arm wringer stiffening the same appendage Gwendolyn has previously utilized as the fulcrum in her earlier attempted shoulder throw. Early signs of precision targeting an adversary's limbs by a regal tactician whose smirking visage became shattered from the quaking bludgeon of the scorpion kick, warbled senses accompanying a stuttered stumble forward alongside Safiyah's immediate freedom from the arm wringer. The Pompous Elitist hunched over with a hand shielding the back of her cranium after taking several steps in simultaneous shock and rattled head pains from what was unequivocally the first clean strike landed between them. "...Stone and sand..." Gwen whispered from beneath her curtain of golden ringlets, a whiplash spin taken with every intention of burying her foot into Safiyah's abdomen with a Rolling Sobat Kick...

[Lightman]

Safiyah felt the resistance in Gwendolyn’s arm falter, her lithe body wrenching free as the sharp recoil of her scorpion kick cracked against the side of the heiress’s skull. The sound punctuated the contest decisively, cleanly, and succinctly. For the first time, her strike had landed flush, not cushioned by the aristocrat’s finesse or redirected by her cunning hands. The Cobra’s foot had found its mark, and the shock reverberated through the golden figure, who staggered with her hand to the back of her head, posture breaking into something inelegant, something human. A rush of satisfaction flared in Safiyah’s chest, hot and fleeting, her breath deepening as though to savour this rare jewel of triumph. Yet she knew better than to mistake the stumble for submission. Her eyes, mismatched yet united in their intensity, caught the way Gwendolyn muttered beneath the veil of her curls—stone and sand—a phrase not of defeat but of calculation. A reminder that the heiress was still turning the wheels of her aristocratic machine, that every faltering step was a lead into something greater. Safiyah’s stance lowered, her core tightened, prepared for the inevitable retaliation that she could feel brimming like a storm on the horizon.

And then the storm came. A whirl of silk and sinew exploded back into motion, Gwendolyn’s frame spinning on an axis of regal precision, leg unfurling like the arc of a scythe swung with both grace and cruelty. Safiyah’s body shifted to absorb, her arms already angling to guard, but the speed of the Rolling Sobat was too sharp, too sudden, as though the heiress had plucked the breath straight out of time itself. The bare foot slammed into her abdomen with concussive force, folding her midsection around the impact as if invisible hands tore the air from her lungs. A guttural gasp burst from her lips, the sound betraying the punishment far more than her expression ever would. The Cobra stumbled back, one step, then another, her torso pitched forward as her arms clutched her midsection, trembling under the wave of pain lashing through her. Her teeth ground together, her jaw tight with the effort not to yield to the agony spiralling outward from her core. Yet through the ragged rise and fall of her chest, her eyes never left Gwendolyn. Heterochromatic, sharp and unyielding, they burned with a venomous defiance that refused to dim, a silent oath that though the heiress’s strike had staggered her, it would not bow her. Not yet, not without a fight worthy of legend.

[killcarrion]

Where once shimmered the infallible purity of Gwendolyn's transcendent imperial portrayal, now only shattered remnants remained. Littering the depths of Gwendolyn's subconscious after having endured the minute albeit vexing sully of taking the first clean strike of the match. The time taken to cultivate her pristine portrait undone in one split second by the rambunctious roustabout’s flexibility enabling a counterstrike unforeseen given it's concealed targeting of the heiress' blind spot. Deceptively conniving. Devious in its ingenuity. And therefore, suitably on-brand for a serpentine whelp brandishing the moniker of Azure Cobra. Adamantly aware though Gwendolyn was that the odds of remaining unblemished for the abject entirety of this match were minuscule at best, the imperious standards with which the pompous aristocrat judged herself upon decreed she chastise and castigate her subpar decision making. Unbecoming of a lady bestowed with such regal prestige, yet still contingent with a vengeful desire to seek retribution. A hushed pall of silence blanketing the previously vocal adulation as Safiyah reveled in the victorious exchange. Time seemingly stood to a standstill alongside Gwendolyn's unyielding stance as if solidified from the poison of the Scorpion Kick...

The wind seemingly sheared in twain from the twirled rotation accompanying Gwendolyn's bare-footed rebuttal, buried within the succumbed crumble of Safiyah's breadbasket. Whose bellowed breath simultaneously sundered her confident aura and flaunted the precise perfection of Gwen's striking expertise. The Affluent Imperialist posturing upright on one leg with the striking leg bent inward by the knee as Safiyah backpedaled in rasping discontent. Snobbish disdain within the hazel eyes fixed upon the juxtaposed heterochromatic vitriol within the Azure Cobra's irises. A flourish of her regal ringlets and soothing breath thankfully aided in regaining her pompous composure as Gwendolyn now approached her huddled over adversary with an elegant gait. "Stone and sand, you say~...As apropos a comparison there can be for one whom I consider to be naught but earthen filth and fetid dirt when compared to the beauteous resplendence of the diamond you bear witness to~..." Gwendolyn's dainty hand perched upon her bosom accentuated her parting words before swiftly situating herself beside Safiyah, spreading her foes legs to the side with a hooked leg draped over one. Capturing one of Safiyah's arms behind her with clasped hands around her neck torquing Safi backward in a Cobra Twist~...

[Lightman]

Safiyah staggered back with the air shorn from her lungs, the fiery sting of Gwen’s rolling sobat reverberating through her core, each breath a rasping ache that scalded her throat. Her hand instinctively pressed against her abdomen, fingers curling into trembling claws as she hunched forward in a bid to disguise the wound. Though her body quaked, her pride compelled her to steady herself, rising with a serpentine defiance that refused to gift Gwen the satisfaction of her pain. Her mismatched eyes, one a piercing blue and the other a molten gold, narrowed upon the heiress’ immaculate frame, their burning vitriol clashing against Gwen’s smugly composed poise. The disdain dripping from Gwen’s tongue was no less venomous than her strike, each word fashioned into an aristocratic lash meant to scour away Safiyah’s dignity. The hush in the arena only sharpened the moment, as though the audience leaned collectively forward to see whether the serpent’s pride would falter beneath imperial scorn. A dry laugh, jagged but deliberate, escaped her lips, curling upward into a scoff. “You think me filth, Gwen?” she rasped, her voice cutting through her own pained breathing. “Then you have gravely misjudged what thrives in the sand. Cobras strike fastest in the dirt beneath your precious diamonds.”

Her retort, however, was silenced not by Gwen’s voice but by her movement, a dancer’s cruelty woven with predatory grace. The heiress enveloped her like velvet steel, every limb moving with an aristocratic precision that revealed years of cultivated training disguised as elegance. Safiyah’s body was wrenched sideward and back, her spine arching in a cruel bow as Gwen entwined her in the Cobra Twist. Her arm was trapped behind her, stretched taut against her own frame, while Gwen’s hooked leg pried hers open, exposing her stance and leaving her wholly ensnared in the heiress’s artistry of control. A guttural cry ripped unbidden from her throat, muffled by clenched teeth but sharp enough to pierce the suffocating silence, her blue hair cascading in dishevelled strands as her head was forced backwards. The bitter irony bit deeper than the pain itself, a mockery that stung her pride as much as her flesh, for to be trapped in a hold bearing her very moniker was humiliation entwined with agony. Yet through the searing ache, the fire in her heterochromatic gaze refused to dim. Even with her body bent to Gwen’s will, Safiyah hissed defiantly, strained, yet venomous.

Safiyah’s lithe frame arched and twisted within the imperious confines of Gwendolyn’s Cobra Twist, every sinew strained as if the heiress sought to sculpt agony itself upon her rival’s body. Her bare toes scraped helplessly at the canvas, the cruel torque upon her spine and the ensnared arm sending waves of anguish coursing through her trembling figure, yet her mismatched gaze of sapphire and gold blazed unbroken through the veil of sweat-darkened azure strands. Each ragged exhale was accompanied by the hiss of a serpent refusing to succumb, her lips curling into a pained yet defiant sneer as her foe basked in the grandeur of control. Safiyah hissed in muffled defiance, her words slithering between clenched teeth. “You forget…A serpent thrives within the coil... and even bound within another’s grasp, she waits... she endures... she strikes.” Her body writhed as though folding beneath aristocratic elegance, yet beneath the gilded snare lingered the coiled promise of reprisal, venomous and inevitable.

[killcarrion]

Fastidious as Gwendolyn is in regard to properly sustaining her immaculate countenance through multi-talented beauticians and skin-care specialists, one should expect that she would be equally as meticulous when to comes around to avoiding strikes, especially ones aimed directly at her flawless facials. A target that she was loathed to ascertain was a frequent bullseye in the eyes of those contemptible curs wishing to do the heiress harm within the squared circle. A byproduct of abject envy on their part, Gwendolyn is assured of. The only manner in which Safiyah would have been subjected to Gwendolyn's aristocratic ire moreso would have been if her serpentine adversary's strike cleanly connected with her noble visage and committed the cardinal sin of leaving a sullied blemish of some manner. The quivering prostration with which Safiyah was conducting herself was deemed a suitable position for her foe to assume in order to plead forgiveness for her transgression. Gwendolyn assured herself that the impertinent Safiyah would have assumed this pitiable position regardless, even were she not quivering in breathless bewilderment thanks to a balletic spinkick buried into her breadbasket. Safi salvaging gasped inhalations to voice her spiteful defiance in the seconds before becoming interwoven with that whom she despises. As if whisked by a whisper in the wind but solidifying once corporeally cloaked around the dancer from behind, creamy thighs draped and interlocked hands hooked like a noose around her neck...

A heavenly figure whose sublime warmth betrayed the tightened tautness of the submission being the contradictory dichotomy anchoring the serpentine dancer to this grim reality wrenching at her joints. Gwendolyn painting an artistic tapestry of beauteous misery with Safiyah as her unwilling canvas, rippled with quivering instability and miserable anguish via the Imperial Deity shimmering brilliantly behind her. Suspicions towards the coincidental nature of Gwen's choice in submission would be well-founded considering she intentionally sought to debase her adversary via entangling Safiyah in a submission bearing her slithering moniker, a blatant mockery of her heritage by the Aristocratic Coloniser basking in smug superiority. A dignified highborn whose steadied breaths through her beaming countenance, a smile which brightened from her writhing foe's pitiable defiance. "...she writhes...she squirms...she yearns for subjugation~...It seems as though you're the one stricken with misjudgment. You see, even earthen filth can become ripened into immaculate diamonds once underneath exquisite handling..." Whispered words panted into Safi's earlobe alongside the fingers of an unlatched hand now beginning to trail down from the Cobra's neck, ceasing to bestow a blissful caress of the Egyptian's bosom. A masterful delicacy to her serene swirling and elegant kneading with Gwen's other fingers swathed over Safi's tender lips to feel the warmth of her breathe and as offered oral enticement should her foe find the bravery.

[Lightman]

Safiyah’s breaths tore ragged and uneven, muffled beneath the perfumed palm pressed across her lips as her spine strained in a punishing arch against the Cobra Twist. Pain radiated through her joints in burning ripples, every inch of her torso forced to bow in agonised tribute to the aristocrat’s cruel artistry. Yet within the torment, calculation simmered. She had lived her life in the delicate crucible of pressure and control, bending herself beyond human limits for the stage, twisting her body into shapes both admired and feared. Suffering, she had long ago learned, could be reshaped into survival. Her frame trembled, feigning collapse into the heiress’s embrace, letting Gwen drink in the illusion of victory. Her captor’s whispered arrogance washed against her ear like poisoned silk, and the trail of delicate fingers that drifted from her throat to her chest sought to erode her resolve further. Safiyah’s jaw tightened as the caress teased her bosom before the second hand dared to wander higher, swathing over her lips as though she were nothing more than a trinket to be toyed with. A muffled growl rumbled against the palm, each breath seething heat as the dancer twisted and jerked, body arching defiantly even as every movement sent lightning down her strained joints.

“Y-you will not have me kneel as a jewel for your crown...” she hissed between ragged inhalations, words breaking through the gaps of Gwen’s grip with every ounce of willpower she possessed. The heiress might have believed she held the Cobra tamed and docile within her coils, yet beneath the trembling frame there stirred a viperous storm waiting for its opening, one that would bite with twice the fury once granted the chance. Then, without warning, the Azure Cobra struck. The crown of Safiyah’s blue-haired head whipped backwards in a sudden snap, seeking to jar against the blonde’s chin, while her hips rolled with whipcord precision, the sinuous contortion of her lower body pressing a bare foot into the canvas to spring her weight. In one flowing motion, she sought to coil inward and unwind herself, serpent slithering to freedom. Her free arm clawed at the tyrant’s wrists with desperate insistence, nails raking and fingers wrenching at Gwen’s clasp in an effort to pry the noose from her throat. A guttural cry escaped despite the muffling hand, the sound somewhere between anguish and defiance, vibrating against the palm that silenced her. Yet whether this rebellion heralded liberation or only deeper subjugation remained perilously uncertain, for the Imperialist’s hold was not merely technical but fortified by entitlement itself, as if her very birthright had lent iron to her delicate hands.

[killcarrion]

Cultivating obedience was a task reserved for those possessing the patience and fortitude to methodically quell defiant uprisings in a manner conducive to ensured compliance...Such pearls of wisdom enabled the Imperial Rose to helm her families omnipotent conglomerate and veritable zaibatsu whose name instilled fear and veneration wherever uttered. Gwendolyn's business acumen played some part in how she sought to culminate this match with a tamed cobra capable of being beckoned at her master's call rather than the fanged viperess writhing in pitiable defiance beneath her. Contorted into a misshapen tree yearning for freedom from the imperialistic presence masterminding the situation from behind the scenes until unyielding capitulation is the only feasible choice to make. Safiyah's visceral rebellion acknowledged and somewhat admired through the viper's squirming quivers, pining to awaken from what was once a tormenting nightmare now altered into a blissful dream once the delicate kneading was peacefully settling in. Rasped breathes whisking past the fingers traced past her lush lips nevertheless carried a disobedience voice, a mirthful smile beaming down from Gwendolyn's commanding position seemingly securing and reapplying with a buck of her hips compelling Safiyah to do the same.

"...*giggle*...Oh, you speak as if I meant some manner of dishonor by the insinuation. A trifling bauble refashioned into an immaculate gemstone, embracing one's rarefied purpose as a subservient showpiece and prized possession. Certainly, a beauteous fate which scores of others would deign to become gifted with~..." Gwendolyn's snobbish pontification accompanied with a luxurious flick of her flowing ringlets, fans in attendance certainly appreciating the writhing spectacle unfolding before them. All of whom being oblivious to the tempestuous cyclone beginning to whirl beneath Gwendolyn until the coiled viper beared its venomous fangs. Gwendolyn learning from previous miscalculations enabled the awakened heiress to angle her head sideways in a last second evasion of the concussive backwards headbutt, but the viper's ceaseless resistance succeeded in earning Safiyah's freedom with a rebellious upheaval taking both competitors to the canvas. A vexed heiress abandoning her submission in seated discontent behind the newly liberated cobra. Arising with newfound purpose and the seething displeasure of having her plans subverted, Gwendolyn would take a page out of Safiyah's book and patiently bide her time. Safiyah standing upright being succinctly followed by a tightened waistlock from behind and attempted German Suplex...