[ThePurpleVixen]

The snap of taking you over, the pop of my hips as I launch you over me - it's sweet enough to forget the yowl of protest from my right knee. When you've wrestled as long as I have, the whole body is just a symphony of aches and pains anyway. The Zen art of being as hard as it fucking gets is all about learning to shut your body the fuck up when it's time to deliver the pain. And from the car-crash sound of your back hitting the buckles and the way you flop bonelessly to the mat, splatting onto your face, it looks like the pain has been signed, sealed and fucking delivered. I roll my hips, getting to my big blood red stomping boots with a little hitch, intent on getting my hands on you and giving you heaps of ruination. Because Japan was a long time ago, and so was Seattle, and New York, and Hanover ...

... I think the reason I chose Paris for the fight is because as much history as the city has, none of it is ours. It's basically the major city place in the Western Hemisphere we didn't fight, fuck or feast. Until tonight.

And oh, I want to make fucking history out of you tonight.

But you're a wily little minx, and slither out of the ring even after the bone-rattling crash you just took. I growl in my throat and roll through the ropes, dipping between the first and second and dropping straight to the floor, landing with a little thud on the thin red mats that draws a hiss through my teeth as my knee protests softly. Shut up.

You're on your knees, one hand knuckling at your back - and my soft black-shiny lips part at that, pierced tongue glazing them like someone contemplating something absolutely delicious they've been waiting to savor - but that moment of wicked imagining of pain yet to come fades away in a sudden wash of scorching fury.

Thomas. The self-fucking-styled Lord Tantalus.

"Of FUCKING COURSE you show your fucking bastard face," I snarl, my voice all black pig iron, raw and scorched.

Lord Tantalus. Half of the wrestling blogs just think of him as some sort of Svengali, a BDSM Paul Heyman who's molded Rowan into his own personal sex-flavored killing machine. She a bonebreaking assassin in domme's boots and him pulling the strings with some sort of Venetian masque on half his face.

But I know what you really fucking are, Thomas.

Thomas is the reason we're here tonight, instead of dancing in Tokyo.

Thomas is the reason we're here in Paris with nothing but blood and pain between us and we'll never have wine on the Seine even though I kinda fucking hate wine.

But I'd have drunk it for you. Before.

But that was then, and this is now.

"So you're fucking here, Thomas. ENJOY THE FUCKING SHOW."

Your hand is still on the railing, just before him, and I lash out. I drive my right foot down, aiming to CRUSH the heavy blood red boot into the center of your back - just below the wings of the shoulderblades, where the pressure bows the spine the most, trying to stamp you into the fucking concrete just in front of HIM.

I bend down, going for your wrists, trying to snatch them, to wrap my grip-taped hands around your arms and YANK them back without a hint of mercy. The pain of flexing my right leg does my aching knee no favors, but I use that, and grind down harder, my left foot planted, grinding the heel of my boot into the center of your back as hard as I can as I surfboard your arms back hard, like I want your shoulders dislocated, so your precious Lord can enjoy the view of your perfect face and your tits thrust out in your corset.

Because that's what it's all fucking about, isn't it, Rowan? IT'S ABOUT WHAT HE WANTS.

"IS THIS WHAT YOU CAME TO SEE, TOMMY?"

I snarl, rage painting my face even more thickly than my skull mask, my teeth bared in a vicious grinding snarl as I try to brutalize you as hard as I can, like I can grind away the memories of what a night in Paris could have been.

Without Thomas.

[Rowan Chance]

"Do you know the story of Pygmalion?"

I look up from Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and blink.

He's sitting on the other side of the table. We're in the college library. He's on his laptop, typing away.

"Yeah," I say. "Sure."

He smiles and continues typing. I put the book down.

"Is that what all this is about?" I shift in my chair because of the bruises on my backside. I can't sit the same way for more than a few minutes. "You're making some kind of 'perfect woman?'"

He just grins behind his laptop.

"Goddamn, you're a misogynistic creep sometimes." I go back to my book. You can't lose your place with Pynchon, or you just have to start over.

"If I was different, I'd be talking to a man," he says. "It has nothing to do with the fact you're a woman. It's because of who I am."

I peer with dark eyes over the book. "The perfect mate, then."

"Companion," he says.

"Making me into what you want me to be."

Without shaking his head, he says, "No. What we want you to be." Then, finally, he looks up over his screen. "Enthusiastic willing consent is everything."

I put my book back down. "So you've found the perfect woman?"

"Person," he says, correcting me.

"Fine. Person." I'm getting agitated now. "Who wants the same thing you do."

"Has the same vision."

"What if my vision is different than yours?"

"It isn't," he says. Then, he looks at me.

And goddamnit, the bastard is right. And I've lost my place in the book. I turn back to page one and start over.

* * *

You says his name. "Thomas." Full of spite and hate and poison. As you pull my hands back and I feel the tendons in my shoulders. They're about to rip and tear. With the heel of your goddamn boot digging into the part of my spine that you know...

...yeah. You know exactly where to put that boot, don't you?

I pull against your strength, but I don't have the leverage. It's all I can do to keep you from ripping my arms out of their sockets. Just that. Nothing more.

"IS THIS WHAT YOU CAME TO SEE, TOMMY?" you scream.

My breath heaves in my chest. My breasts pushed against the leather corset. I raise my head up and scream.

Shoving me at him. Like a trophy. On display. As you punish me. In front of him.

This is just as much for him as it is for you.

Because you don't get it. You don't understand.

I'm losing my strength. I can't fight this much longer. And I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of a tap out. And I know the fundamental rules of joint manipulation. When you can't resist anymore...go with the momentum and use it.

As you're pulling me back, pulling my arms back with your boot against my spine, digging your heel into a wound you made, I look up at him. And I remember the last thing he said.

"I love both of you."

And I kick my knees out from under me, shoving both of us backward. Hopefully, we're close enough to the ring apron, because I want your head to slam against the so-called "hardest part of the ring."

(And any asshole who says that has never been in the ring. Every fucking part of it is hard.)

[ThePurpleVixen]

I'm a grinder. My fighting style has been called variously "brawling", "chaotic", "impactful", and sometimes "insane", but what I'm ultimately doing any time I'm in the ring is trying to grind my opponent down until something gets brittle enough to break. That means punching. Elbow smashing. Kicking your jaw into your brainpan. Suplexing you onto your fucking head. Grabbing a part of you and wrenching it. Pinning you down and crunching your nose under my forearm. Doing what I have to do to find the part of you that cracks.

I know you think you're unbreakable, Rowan. I've read the fucking ink. You didn't have that back in our day.

I remember the first time I saw you naked. It really wasn't that long at all after we'd met for the first time, at that little outlaw show in San Bernadino. Probably too soon, but neither of us had ever been able to wait for anything we wanted. We're creatures of pure id, and we came at each other like rare earth magnets as soon as we were in proximity. And I remember thinking how fucking perfect you looked then, even though my tastes ran mostly to to ink and piercings like mine. I remember running my hands over you on that cheap little motel bed outside Rialto, and not being able to stop grinning about how silky and smooth you felt.

But the thing about fucking entropy is that it's inevitable. EVERYTHING breaks.

The center cannot fucking hold.

Especially not the center of your fucking back. Where Gemma drilled her knees as I snapped you down in the straitjacket powerbomb when we debuted the Stroke of Midnight.

My red boot grinds into your spine, my hands wrapped tight around your wrists with my black nails digging bloody crescents into your olive skin, the grip tape gnawing at you. My burning eyes flip from Tantalus to the back of your head, your arched back bent into a fucking C-curve, your lush tits looking exquisite mashed into that fucking corset of yours and thrust out like offerings. I snarl and grind harder, my leg flexing, my knee pulsing with a pain that drives me on.

I'm so fucking focused on showing Thomas that I can hurt you that I don't even stop to consider that something a bit more controlling might have been better against someone as dangerous as you. A camel clutch or some fucking thing.

And you remind me of how dangerous it is to let a little thing like that go by in the ring with you as you get your knees under you, getting your legs into position and LAUNCHING yourself back into me!

"FFFFUCK!" I curse as your tormented shoulders slam into my tattooed thighs, your arms breaking from my grip, my knee that was folded to drill my boot into your back now thrust back into me, toppling me the fuck over, and the arena whites out for a moment as the back of my skull hits the very edge of the ring apron with a THUD.

LVK: SWEET LORD, WHAT AN IMPACT! Rowan Chance BURSTS free of that surfboard on the outside and Megan Dow pays the price with a BRUTAL landing against the ring apron!

RP: That surfboard was great for showin' Rowan's tits off to her Svengali and makin' her back creak, but Chance was still kinda fresh to be puttin' her in somethin' like that.

LVK: Fair point, Rick! Both of these women seem determined to not only brutalize each other but to do so in a way that almost HUMBLES the other woman!

RP: It's all pride, van Keel. It goeth before a friggin' fall and one of these nutcases is gonna fall hard.

I cradle the back of my head as I slump down to my ass on the mats, falling to the side, my right leg drawn up awkwardly under me and my left boot kicking at the mats in protest, boot heel thudding the red vinyl as the fans press elegantly close to the heavy steel riot barrier for a better look.

[Rowan Chance]

After a moment of snapping my arms to get the feeling back, the sharp pain remaining. You've put a hurt on my spine?the kind of hurt only you could summon, like a demon's claws straight down the nerves of my spine. And so when I stand, it's stiff. And when I turn, you can see the pain in my face. A slow, deliberate turn. The curves of my body moving slowly. My hips...my waist...

...turning to you.

You invoked him. You said his name. But I don't. I ignore him. I don't look at him. I focus on you.

"Punky, Punky, Punky." I don't whisper. Oh, no. I want your fucking wife to hear this on the other side of the ring. "Always so cock sure. Always so deliberate."

I reach down and grab your ankle.

"Always so predictable."

I tug on it sharply, pulling you toward the steel stairs.

"You know exactly how to hurt me," I say. "But I know exactly how to hurt you."

Another harsh tug, making sure to get every ounce of pain from your wounded knee.

"See, I remember losing the tag straps in Baltimore."

And I look at your face. Because I want you to know that I remembered.

TUG

That night you refused to give me the tag. You came into that match with tape and a brace on your knee and insisted you start. I never even got in the ring. And Sally Sue and Bertha Blue worked you over for a good thirty minutes. Dropping elbows on your knee. Twisting it. Tearing the tape and brace away. And even when you had the opportunity...you continued to fight.

TUG

Just to prove a fucking point.

TUG

And when Bertha Blue dropped four hundred pounds on your knee, you were done. She sat on you and pulled up 'the far leg' for the three count.

TUG

And as they walked away with our belts, I tried to help you from the ring...and what did you do?

I set your knee on the steel steps and turn back to look at you, because I want to see this. I want to see you scream.

You pushed me away, didn't you? Told me to go fuck myself. Insisted you walk out on your own.

I lift your leg, just above those steel steps. Your knee aimed right at the edge.

"One of these days, Punky,..." I hiss the name. "You're going to fucking learn."

And I SLAM your knee down toward the steel steps.

[ThePurpleVixen]

For a few blessed moments, everything is washed out in white static. So I don't get to enjoy you taking time out of your busy day to taunt me. Because if I wasn't mildly concussed right now, I'd be telling you that's BULLSHIT. You ALWAYS say everything's predictable after it happens! If Paris got NUKED right now you'd crawl out of the radioactive rubble and croak "How predictable" before you turned into one of the fucking flesh zombies from "The Omega Man".

Fortunately, I'm busy watching the fireworks behind my eyes that you get after cranial trauma, and when I clear my ringing head enough to get a proper view, you've dragged me across the mats. And I've got enough years under my fucking belt to figure out that you haven't dragged me to the concession stand for a baguette jambon-beurre and a nice Beaujolais. My fine white ass is skidding along the mats headed for the steel steps, the tattered strips of red velvet lining that make up my gladiatrix skirt rucked up around my hips, showing off my black boyshorts adorned with neon sugar skulls.

Those fucking steps. They've never done anything good for anyone. I think they were designed by engineers who like to see people get fucking crippled.

Oh, you're still talking. I shake the broken chimes in my head and narrow my eyes up at you. Your sultry voice is a demonic echo chamber.

"See, I remember losing the tag straps in Baltimore."

My lips draw back from my teeth. Fucking Baltimore. You're not the only one who fucking remembers.

Scrappy little fed, Maryland Championship Wrestling. They'd been a bigger deal back in the NWA days. In fact, Rick "Precious" Perle, our erstwhile color man in FTW and here tonight, was a top heel there for a long time. We'd come in for a tour of the east coast and gotten picked up by the promoter there for a run at the tag straps - I was a Known Name on the indies with my own fucking cult following and you were a rising star with a strong support online. They loved us and loved seeing us together. We had a cute little Daughters of Darkness thing going.

The night we took the belts was fucking glorious. Our first defense I didn't enjoy nearly as much. I got jumped while I was on the apron waiting for a hot tag and fucking chloroformed, so I was unconscious for most of the main event and only staggered to my feet long enough to hit a bleary superkick and stop the busty valet from interfering as you pinned one of the Diamond Dolls, the other one still twitching from your split-legged piledriver. You were still calling it a Stone Splitter back then, before you embraced the spider thing.

You'd won that fucking match all alone. Which, y'know, fuckin' impressive, but it bit at me. It gnawed at me.

So yeah, when we faced the Hill Folk, that fucking haystack Bertha Blue and her fireplug cousin Sally, I tried to tough out a lot of the match. My knee was still tweaked from a grudge match in Texas a few weeks before where I'd had my fucking ACL stretched like piano wire in some vicious blonde cxnt's Figure Four that I'd refused to tap out to. Because fuck that, it's a fucking grudge match, I'm not gonna tap out. So I had my knee taped and braced.

And even hillbillies notice that shit.

It had gone south when the little one ripped the brace off and stomped her bare feet into my swollen fucking knee. But I'd gritted my teeth and held the fuck on, because I wanted to show you that I was worth your time, that I was a fighting partner.

And when I couldn't take any more and went for the fucking tag - you were looking away. Like it wasn't even worth looking into the fucking ring. Later, after a lot of shit and after I'd shoved you back when you wouldn't stop fucking mollycoddling me after the match as if you fucking cared, you said it was because you didn't want to see me hurting.

Yeah. Fucking right.

Everything almost broke that night.

But not quite. It lasted a bit longer before it went to fucking pieces.

Of course, now it's tonight, and all that's left between us are jagged shards. And you hiss down at me and I feel the cold steel pressed against my calf and the back of my thigh, my thick black Lycra stocking with the grinning skull on the knee looking especially ghoulish. And you DRIVE my knee into the edge of the fucking steel.

The pain is immediate. Gigantic and intense, the metal fucking biting into the little moving bits of bone and gristle that let you walk upright.

"NNNNYYYYYYAAAAAAGH!" My scream is ferocious and piercing, poured through teeth locked in a brutal wounded animal snarl, tendons standing out on my neck as my body whiplashes on the concrete, purple punktails viciously snapping back and forth as I clutch at my brutalized knee and writhe on the floor, feeling thousands and thousands of eyes on me, watching me hurt.

None more avidly than yours.

[RedEnforcer]

You would think front row seats would be a blessing.  I?m here to tell you that they aren?t. Especially right now. I?m too gawd damn close to this action. 

First, Meg, no Punky. That level of violence was all Punky. Yelling and screaming at Tantalus while brutalizing Rowan?s back.  And now Rowan savagely attacking Megan?s knee. It?s like you two are bound and determined to relive a lifetime of hard memories in this one match.

I admit, I don?t know the full backstory here. A whisper or two after drinks with Rowan or an angry growl after a tough spar with Megan. But I?ve seen and heard enough to know this.  This level of hate doesn?t spring out of nowhere. This single minded determination to annihillate the other person comes from a deep love.

You two connected and are passionate together. One is the Yin to the other?s Yang.  Yet somehow from that passion, a catalyst was introduced and changed the flame of your passion into the blazing conflagration that is nearly melting this arena with its intensity.

I tear my eyes from the sight of two women I?ve fought with and against and shared more personal, private times than I can count. And I stare back a few rows at what I believe that catalyst to be. Wondering how he must feel seeing these two raging against each other.

And there?s nothing. Nothing there in his eyes.

[BustyTiffany35]

"NO!"

The word erupted from my lips like a volcanic blast, piercingly loud it carries across the ringside area before it's drowned out by the massive sea of groans and gasps that resonate from the audience all around me. I grip the guard rail so tightly I could almost feel the callouses begin to form on my palms as I watch with widened, horrified eyes Punky's leg go crashing into the unforgiving steel of those ring steps. Rowan slams her battered knee so violently hard into that cold steel its as if she wants to split those steps in half. The pain that surges from Megan can be felt by everyone watching, from as close as those in the front row, to the very edges of the arena, to anyone watching on a TV or Internet feed around the world. That agonized scream that bellows from her gaping mouth is nearly enough to make me hop over the rail to come to her aid. I'm overwhelmed with emotion, and for that moment I just want to ram my boot into Rowan's face and stop her from hurting Megan. But, I resist the urge, I let that moment pass, this ain't my fight and Megan will retaliate. I know it. Somehow. She always fuckin' does. I bite my lower lip and calm my nerves, breathing in deep, doing what all of us on the other side can do and watch and wait for Rowan's next move.

The tension between these two women, the anger, the hatred that fills that space between them could be felt even before the match commenced. It only grew stronger, more palpable, as the fight wore on. And beyond all that spite and rage and violence, there's something else going on between these two, a connection that radiates so brightly, something that bridges them so intricately it goes far deeper than any of that anger and fury that's on full display. I certainly don't know the whole story between these two, but ya just know there's something there, ya can feel their history, see it in the way they glare at each other, how they mutter and growl taunts to one another, to even the way they react to the other's moves. It's something so mesmerizing to behold, there's a story playing out behind the one that's happening right now.

But also, there's something else. Something..unsettling..sinister, almost, that I'm starting to sense as these two continue to tear each other apart. A ghost of a bad feeling, an aura of dread..whatever it may be, it's starting to creep into the arena and shroud the ring area. I tear my worried eyes from Punky's writhing form, and look around the frenzied crowds. I can't put my finger on it.. but I got a real bad feeling 'bout all this..

[Katherine The Great]

The Large Man and Athletic Blonde sat mesmerized in their seats. Well, at least he did. His fingers steepled under his nose while he leaned forward and watched the carnage unfold.

"Oh Em Gee, Daddy. What is this shit? I mean really. This isn't "wrestling", this is a mugging! These two bitches are going to murder each other and we're all gonna be accomplices!!"

"Quiet Katherine..." the Large Man growled before his voice trailed off and he studied the two combatants and their symphony of violence. If he could get one, or even both, of them booked at the Dahl House it would take the level of competition to such new heights. If any of the other girls lasted that long, that is.

The Athletic Blonde shook her head and made a face at the Large Man before scanning the crowd.

"Oh, Daddy", she said, tugging on his Armani sleeve, "I see Tiffy down there. I'm gonna go say hi!"

"Stay in your seat, Katherine." Daddy said, almost mechanically, as he continued watching the action.

"I don't wanna 'stay in my seat' and stop calling me Kit-....oh...." the Athletic Blonde said before cutting her sentence off

The Large Man kept his eyes on the ring, intent on catching every move, every nuance, every breath. Lost in his own world of business and pleasure, he barely heard the din of the crowd as they roared the approval and boo'ed what they didn't like. Another tug on his arm...

"Geez Daddy, they'll let anyone into this thing! I think I see that bitch Gemma Roxx down there. You still talk to her?"

Suddenly, the Athletic Blonde had his full attention.

"Gemma? Where?"

[Becca Blast!]

Damn.  Just.... damn.

I thought I knew Punky.   Hell, I knew her enough that I thought I knew MEGAN.  But this... this is something of a level I had only heard in whispers.  Or in late-night drinking sessions that went past closing in places that didn't close.  The kind of places that Gemma could always find, and Becca would always regret finding when I woke up.  The kind of stories that had me wondering just what was it IN us that made us do these things.  And they always revolved around some mystery figure called Tantalus.  The lit major in me wondered why someone would pick a name that indicates that he was doomed to never be satisfied.  As near as I could tell, he didn't suffer that fate as much as he gave it to others.  And then I take a look around... fuck.  We're all infected with it.  Every one of us. 

The test-tube Doll -- the Marinovich of female wrestlers, who never had a chance to be anything else other than a pampered mayhem machine and heiress of the ramshackle Haus. 

Tiffany and her shriek -- must be amplified by those echo chambers a foot below her chin. 

Red -- whoever he is under that mask; another legend in what seems a crowd of them...

Is that Lisa Starr?   If so, she's had work done... a lot of work.

And Gemma... god,what I would STILL do with Gemma if we were back in that old brick gym... I may have told Danny everything, but I don't think he BELIEVED everything.  God, I hope not.

And me... why am I here?   Why have I done this?  So I can watch Punky... Megan... throw away every last shred of humanity she has left in some berserk drive to tear her own pain out of Rowan and be rid of it for once and all?  Is that why we're here?  No... there has to be some way out of this... some way they can resolve this without a total descent into feral destruction.  My roving eyes pass over what seems to be an exceedingly dark patch in the otherwise sparsely-lit seating area... an optical illusion.. must be.

Or are the legends true, and that bastard really exists?  Something eldritch, enticing, ancient, and well, tantalizing?  Truly evil, but irresistible?  As I watch the palsied brutality of these two... I have to bet the latter.

[Rowan Chance]

The heavy CLANG tells me the strategy worked. Seeing you roll around on the mats confirms it. Clutching your knee. Your face a grimace of pain. I'm standing there, all black leather and olive skin, leaning against the ring apron for balance. Wet hair on my brow. The rest of it rolling over my glistening shoulders.

"Can you get up, Punky?" I hiss the name. "Even if you can...you'd better stay down."

I turn to the crowd and find Tantalus, looking at both of us behind his mask.

"Here's your tattooed poetess!" I point down at you while I yell at him. "Your Foxglove Queen!"

I see you struggling on the ground and send a kick at your belly. Then, I turn back to him.

"How magic is she now?"

I turn back to you, kneeling down. I grab your hair and pull your face up. Right into mine.

"I made a promise. And you asked me to break it. And when I said no, you FUCKING BETRAYED ME!"

Just saying those words sends me back to Vegas, high in the tower overlooking the city. A suite that cost me $1,200 a night. We lay in the bed in the center of the room?a room that was bigger than that little shit building you lived in?and we looked out at a window that was four stories tall. The city was below us. The whole world was below us. My sexfighting championship was on the floor next to your wrestling belt. It was the world. It was perfect.

I held you so close, feeling the warmth of your body. The strength in your arms. Our breasts pushed together as we lay still after so much movement. I was thinking, I'm gonna have to replace the sheets because I'm pretty sure the whole bed is a wet spot. And I was about to say that when... you... ruined everything. You fucked it all up.

"It wasn't enough, was it, Punky?" I squeeze your hair in my hand, screaming in your face.

"It WASN'T FUCKING ENOUGH!"



LVK: This...is getting a bit more personal than I'm comfortable with.
RP: Nah. It's just gettin' started. Hey, youngboy! Get me a beer and some popcorn! This shit is getting good!

[Vivianne]

What am I doing here? Why did I come? It's a good thing I am sitting so many rows away, because nobody will pay any attention to how I am squirming in my seat or the number of times I look at the ceiling in an attempt to stop watching...only to look back down almost immediately to be sure I don't miss anything. Even from way up here I can see and feel the hatred burning between these two women. I can feel the passion that fans those flames as they are already beating the hell out of each other. Rowan told me just a little bit of the story, back when we first met and I was immediately smitten with her. Back when I thought maybe...just maybe I could have a chance so I tried to be around her as much as possible. While I don't know everything...far from it...I learned enough to know I would never have a shot with her...and to know I would never rid her from my mind.

I see Tantalus when Punky yells at him...or I think that must be him. I've never seen him and he's so far away with his back to me, but who else would elicit such a response from Punky...except for Rowan herself? Is this all his doing? I'm guessing there are only three people who will ever know the answer to that...if even they know themselves.

I see Rowan pull Punky's leg toward the steel steps and I find my self muttering softly under my breath, ?Yes...yes...do it Rowan...yes..." My heartbeat quickens as I see Punky's leg lifted and suddenly, as Rowan does exactly what I am hoping she will do I find my mind screaming just the opposite. "NOOOOOO!!!" Did I scream that out loud? I would swear my lips did not part, but I also swear I heard the scream. No...no...it was a woman's voice, not mine. Surely a Punky fan down closer to the action than I am up here.

So this is how the rest of the match is going to go? Me squirming whenever Rowan takes a beating and cheering for her to dish out her out brand of pain...only to squirm yet again when that pain is delivered to Punky? Pulling for one, while at the same time agonizing over the pain of the other. I don't think I can watch this...but I can't pull my eyes away either. What the f**ck am I doing here?

[Emily Layne]

Silence is precious,
Silence is priceless,

I don't get why all these people around are screaming, buzzing, spitting comments.

Damn I want to hear the sound of that knee slammed against the metal, I want to hear the screams coming from Punky's lips, I want to hear Rowan growling and roaring

And there we go, here is the silence, everybody in the arena are now quiet, only for few seconds

Let me enjoy..

Until

CAPPUCCINOOO, MOCCHACCINOOOO, WARM COFFEEEE, COLD COFFEEEE, POP CORNNNN, COLD BEEEEER, STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKEEE,  BREAD WITH CAMEMBERTTTT (bread with camembert??? Really??)

*shrugs*

[Lord Tantalus]

"Here's your tattooed poetess!" Rowan points at Punky while she yells at me. "Your Foxglove Queen!"

And under the mask... I flinch.

[ThePurpleVixen]

My knee crashes into the steel steps like a moped hitting a semi. You weren't fucking around just now. We've both been going at full fucking speed since the bell rang, but this is the most hurt I've felt in one shot in quite some time. The angle of it, the control of my ankle as you bullwhipped my leg into the very edge of the steel - you make an art out of pain, and I'm the fucking canvas as I clutch my devastated right knee and twist on the mats, grinding my face into the cheap bright red vinyl that matches the Zenith's distinctive red seats as if I can burrow away from it, greasy smearing across my intricate calavera facepaint.

You glare down at me, your mouth still bloodied from my right cross and a bruise between your eyes from my skull crashing into your face, sweat glossing on your olive skin - all that black leather doesn't breathe too much - and you hiss at me about not getting up.

Ha. I'd laugh at that if I wasn't currently trying to press the pain out of the fireball that's burning where my knee was. I NEVER stop getting up. Unless I'm fucking dead. And even then. I'm a god-damn revenant.

"Here's your tattooed poetess! Your Foxglove Queen!"

THAT distracts me from the rusty screeching of my battered knee. That distracts me from the whole fucking arena, the Zenith Paris vanishing like a magic trick. There's just you, looming over me, a finger jabbing accusingly down, and me twisted in pain on the mats, and Thomas, watching us impassively behind his mask - except for that little flinch at that name being invoked. Such a tiny thing that speaks so many fucking volumes.

Foxglove Queen.

I've had a lot of nicknames over the years. Most of them I've trademarked for use on shirts. The Purple People Eater. The Brutalist. The Human Trigger Warning. Monster Queen. Whatever, I'm good at nicknames and at selling shirts. But I didn't come up with that one.

Thomas did.

And that's fucking maddening, because he shouldn't have. That name shouldn't exist. He gave me that title on a night when I was supposed to take his fucking head off after what happened between us. After that night in Vegas with you when everything broke, when I was done with a straight week of drinking and getting in bloody barfights with people who didn't even know they were about to get their face smashed in, I had tracked him down. It was tricky, but I had connections even before Gemma. Indy wrestlers, carnies, greasy promoters, club owners, vagabond musicians, itinerant tattoo artists, defrocked priests, the vast mass of punkdom - and I'd tracked him down.

I'd wanted his head, you understand. I was gonna take my fucking roque mallet and bash his god damn head in for what he did. For what he took from me.

But ...

... I didn't.

And before I left he gave me that name. It's never been on a shirt. Never been a pet name I use in bed (I prefer it when Gemma calls me "crumpet"). Never been anywhere but in that room with Thomas and I, that one strange night where I didn't solve my problems with violence for some fucking reason.

And now you throw it back. And you drive a boot into my belly, folding me up on the mats. "HUNNNHHHHhhhh ..." I clutch at your boot like a maddened alley cat, but you're on a righteous crusade now, flaunting me in front of him.

You drop to your knees, snatching a fistful of purple hair, yanking my face up to yours. My painted skull face twisted into a furious snarl, hazel eyes burning into your dark ones.

I betrayed YOU?

I FUCKING BETRAYED YOU?!

"It wasn't enough, was it, Punky? It WASN'T FUCKING ENOUGH!"

You scream right into my face, and my answer is a roar, a sound of pure rage as my hands come up, taped fists SNATCHING at your throat, thumbs crossing over your bruised windpipe as I yank myself up closer, twisting my hips to get my left knee under me, my forehead crushed into yours.

"IT WAS FUCKING EVERYTHING!"

I drive myself forward, crashing into you, trying to slam your back to the concrete with me on top, pressing my left knee into your hip to try to hold you down, my brutalized right knee off to the side, pulsing with pain.

"I PUT EVERYTHING -"

My left hand clutches your throat, right hand coming up to triphammer down a blow aimed for your face. It's not a precise blow. It's not aimed at anything except you. All I have is a sledgehammer and you're a fucking nail.

"- I HAD IN YOUR FUCKING HANDS -"

My fist drives down again, frenzied, furious. Unheeding of my knuckles, of the concrete, of your beauty, of the crowd, of the fucking ring, of everything.

"- AND YOU SPAT ON IT!"

[Rowan Chance]

RP: Whoah! Punky just... Wow...
LVK: You just spilled your beer on me, asshole!
RP: That's the first time I've heard you cuss in a long time.
LVK: Get a goddamn towel.
RP: You heard him, youngboy! Towel!
LVK: I meant you!


The blur of motion, fury and violence thrown against me slams my back into the concrete. Suddenly, all I see is a skull screaming down at me and a single fist hammering my face without skill or discrimination.

The fist pounds downward like a bolt of lightning, knocking my face to the side, sending spit and blood across my cheek and the floor.

Then another.

And another.

The screaming from your lips and the ringing in my head become a chorus, each complimenting the other.

And another.

And another.

My arms sway, failing to protect me from your strikes.

And another.

Hands falling to the concrete, palms up.

And another.

My body shudders with the next blow. Like 80's Hulk Hogan selling some monster heel's splash in the center of the ring.

And another.


LVK: Good God, Rowan can't even protect herself!
RP: Is this falls count everywhere? Because if it is, Punky should go for it!


I'm limp under you. Unmoving. Blood smeared across my lips. My eyes shut. Wet hair splayed across my sweaty skin. My mouth open. My breath heavy. If it weren't for the blood, I'd look like I just suffered a different kind of defeat.

My arms flat out, legs bent under you. All I can do...

...is take it.