L.A.W. - League of Anime Wrestling

”...What?”

Rope break?

Oh. Well—Fucka-doodly-doo. That hitting the rope would constitute a rope-break hadn't even crossed the novice's mind. She almost felt disappointment as her legs slipped off Kanon's shoulders and they separated.

...She had a keen sense of her wobbliness as her boots got flush with the mat. If her knees were springs, they were warped and stretched with a spring-constant approaching a dangerously low value, the kind of springs that would as soon bend or break as bounce. She was running out of time.

Which was all the more reason to keep her insides as obscured as possible.

Shimmerlace crossed her legs and leaned back into her corner. Her arms rested on the top rope like the chords were the golden armrests of an imperial throne. She popped a grin. She felt the forced cheekiness down to her marrow until it wasn't forced—until she really felt like a fairy sneering down on the opponent she knew to be her better.

”You know, when you came in here with that huge display of dark magic, I was under the impression you were someone important. A scion of darkness, invested, trusted with hidden, mystical powers.” Shimmerlace's eyes flashed. Her palms turned upwards, and her sneer turned into a grin bordering on the manic. She leaned her neck forward. ”And you know, Kanon?" Her pink eyes peered into the ruby red of her opponent's. "I believed in it. I felt in my soul the bone-cold flank of a nameless Leviathan—felt a beast of the Outer Reach twist its unknown analogy to flesh through. This. Ring.”

”But now...” The grin faded like a nova collapsing into sudden dead-star dust. She crooked her head to one side, frowning. She shrugged. ”Now I'm feelin' pretty stupid. 'Cause all I'm seeing is some pale girl who can wrestle pretty decently. Like half a dozen million other fuckwits at this place.”

Now that Shimmerlace had pulled herself up onto the ropes, the action of this match had come to a lull. Kanon strolled nonchalantly back to the center of the ring, rolling her shoulders to work the kinks out of her muscles in preparation for what would come next. It hadn't been the grand counter that Shimmer might have been expecting - but then again, Kanon wasn't perturbed by that. It all fit with what she had seen from her opponent so far. Shimmerlace had promise in her, perhaps - she had a future, and she could go places with the right sort of commitment. But her inexperience showed through, and it was painfully obvious. The girl hardly seemed to know how to conduct herself in the ring if she didn't realize that a rope break would have broken the hold anyway. It was just illustrating more and more that Shimmerlace had stepped into boots too big for her feet to fill at the current time. Disappointing, perhaps, but hopefully this match could stand to teach her something.

It was for that reason that when Shimmerlace looked her in the eye, and scoffed at Kanon's self-professed aptitude in the mystic arts, that it stung as much as she did.

"...Excuse me?" Kanon looked up at her, and for a moment, the placid look that had stayed on her face the whole while hardened into a glare. She was really going to say such a thing? Shimmerlace Snuggleblossom - who had, thus far, nothing more than mere sleight of hand and simple tricks to boast of? She was no one to doubt the great powers that Kanon commanded. To say nothing of the fact that this was the witch's first match in LAW, and her chance to show the world who she was and what she was capable of - she wouldn't dare let it be undermined by a mere charlatan. Kanon could pass off Shimmerlace's misplaced arrogance as something she would grow out of in time, but this could not be forgiven.

Her eyes fixed in a pointed glare, Kanon began to stride slowly and carefully toward the corner. "You doubt me? Doubt us? You stand in the presence of powers greater than you could ever comprehend, girl, and you still cast such slander upon my name?" She shook her head. "Unlike you...I am no mere illusionist, no peddler of tricks and deceits. No...you will regret such foolishness. Father will see it such."

Kanon glanced back over her shoulder at Jonathan for just a moment before she threw her arms around Shimmer's waist. With that, she ducked down and pushed her head between the pink-haired girl's legs, then rose to her full height, such that doing so would leave her balanced on her shoulders. Her head rolled back, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she began to chant, her voice low and rhythmic. "O magni domini...o inferni exercitus...date mihi potestatem ut stultorum ulcisar! Sit dolor eius magnus, et oculi eius a dolo!"

As Kanon recited her litany, the lights around the ring began to flicker, and then one whole section of the seating area was plunged into darkness. The microphones that picked up Kanon's voice glitched and distorted, making it suddenly grow deeper and more resonant. It was only then, after Kanon had uttered the last word, that she turned and took two steps closer to the center of the ring - and without any further ado, she hurled Shimmerlace straight down to drop her back against the mat with a powerbomb. As soon as she hit the ground, there was a bang and a flash, and the corners of the ring burst forth a cloud of black smoke! A few screams of shock and terror rang through the stands. Was this all merely special effects work that Kanon had prepared before? Or...something else?