More Than a Match

Despite that impact, fierce and unexpected as it was, Kat did not release her headlock, nor Jennifer her own pressure. And so they each remained, with the brunette in a toe-held bridge, and Kat folded in two at the waist, with shoulders pinned to the mat.

A state which was suddenly called out by a clearly synthesized voice that seemed to emanate from the building itself. "One..." It said with crystal clarity, hitting Jennifer with equal amounts of shock and hope. Shock at the concept of a ring that can count a pinfall on its own, and a hope that the ring and its wizardry might reach the count of three.

And though the brunette grappler held out the hope that she might end the match and prove her point early, the blonde she held resisted. As the golden goddess of the ring, after reluctantly releasing her headlock and with a two-legged kick, freed herself from not only from the pin but The Better Woman's grasp.

"Who was...? What was th-?" Jennifer asked as she sat up, trying to understand how a ring might count by itself. But rather than providing time for exploration or study, Kat, who had already recovered, attacked. She feeling the pain of the suplex but ignoring it in her rage.

"You fucking bitch! How dare you try to pin me!" It made no sense in the context of the two being involved in a match, but still, Kat said it. The blonde diving to her knees and landing between the brunette's spread legs. She, once there, locking the sitting Jennifer into a tight headlock once more.

A headlock that she squeezed tighter than before, the vindictive vessel of technical prowess wanting to punish her opponent for even thinking about escaping her last hold, let alone actually making that escape.

And so with wrong righted, and with her familiar hold cinched in deep once again, Kat stood, yanking Jennifer up to her feet.

Once there, Kat made not the mistake of charging forward as she did last time. No, instead she simply squeezed - simply walked, fully intent on dragging Jennifer around the ring to show the insolent brunette that Katherine "The Great" was truly in control.

But as they walked, one pulling and the other pulled, Jennifer again lifted her hands. She seeming to place them exactly where she had when she had lifted and then suplexed Kat before.

A telegraphed lift that Jennifer attempted after Kat had taken only a few steps. But at the second coming of the same counter, The Doll was ready. Ready to release her headlock so that she could duck her head forward, and take she and Jennifer into a victory roll.

But whereas The Doll was ready for the brunette's attempted suplex, The Better Woman was ready for the blonde's reversal. The former releasing the latter entirely as she to bend forward. A bending that was quickly interrupted as Jennifer, without a second's hesitation, threw a textbook dropkick right into the middle of the blonde's back. The maneuver sending the overconfident Queen of the Ring stumbling forward and into the corner.

It took a few seconds longer than before, but still, Kat's anger drove her to recover. Drove her to shake out the cobwebs, and step out from the corner, her face seeming to me melted by rage. "BITCH!" The Doll shouted as she stormed towards Jennifer, who just smiled.

Smiled and then spoke, Jennifer did, after she took a glance up at the clock on the wall next to the ring. "One minute, thirty seconds."

"What!?" Kat asked, unsure what the brunette was referring to.

"You said I wouldn't last five minutes. You've got a minute and thirty - ooh - twenty seconds to make that true." It was only then that Jennifer started to show her own, still-cute form of cattiness. One hidden behind a mile-thick veneer of kindness.

A revelation of both time and tone that caused Kat to charge, just as Jennifer did the same. The two wrestlers throwing up their arms and locking themselves into a hard collar-and-elbow tie-up as they collided. One that began with a mutually loud planting of feet that sent a sound of crashing mat echoing through the training facility.

The Doll was certain, she'd win. That she'd break the little brunette upstart. Not only easily, but quickly. And yet, as she dug the bare soles of her feet into the mat, and spread her tanned and muscle-etched legs. Legs which flexed hard, atop toes that splayed, she found herself matched.

Stuck.

Unable to push forward or gain even an inch of advance. She and Jennifer pushing into each other with all their force but without either gaining even the slightest advantage.

Despite that parity of power, neither grappler would let go. Each clinging to the lock-up, and their mutual pushing, as if it alone could decide something between them. The foreheads of the two women pressing together, as each fought to overpower the other. Eyes locked - or more fused together, as even those eyes and the souls they bared, seemed to engage.

Each grunting and uttering the smallest, most delicate sounds of effort as they pushed into each other, without end or advancement. The two separately moving to their bare tiptoes to try and gain any advantage, no matter how small. And though they each tried - and though they each fought not only each other but the frustration of being so perfectly matched, there they remained. Lowering and rising - angling and adjusting - for minutes that seemed endless and moments that felt like their own miniature eternities.

In the middle of one such eternity, as each of the two warring wrestlers struggled desperately against one another, Jennifer, through her own exertion spoke. "Times... Up..."

That reminder of the 5 minute time limit that The Doll had placed on herself, or more accurately the passing of that limit drove Kat mad. So mad, in fact, that rather than continuing she and her opponent's irritatingly equal tie-up, Kat took action. Not by releasing her half of the lock-up, or by suggesting to Jennifer that they call it a draw.

No, but instead by leaning back, pulling Jennifer in, and then when the brunette was fully bent, driving a hard outer-thigh into her gut once again. A blow that sent The Better Woman to the mat and her knees.

A place she remained as Kat ran back, bounced off the ropes and then threw her own dropkick, right into Jennifer's face. A barefoot blast that sent Jennifer down hard, the Latina collapsing in a twist to her stomach.

There, as the hot overhead lights beat down upon her upturned back, Jennifer laid. Left cheek pressed to the mat. Her velvety soft brown hair splayed out about her head. That is until that hair was grabbed and yanked up hard by Kat.

"Get up, you little bitch." The Doll began, as she drug her once confident opponent up from the soft fabric of the mat to a stand, and then with a sudden jerk, beneath one of her arms. A placement that made the blonde's intent to suplex clear.

"You think you can just show up in my world and be somebody?" Rhetorical though it was, when Jennifer answered with nothing but the softest of groans, Kat smiled. Even as she grabbed for wrist, and lifted "The Better Woman"'s left arm up, and over her neck.

"I decide who gets to be somebody!" With a roar, The Doll made her position atop the food chain clear, just as she fired Jennifer upwards and over. Whipping her with a quickness in a snap suplex that would have made the crowd groan in unison, had one been there to see it, and cringe had they been there to hear it.

The resulting thud.

The splatter of spandex covered flesh against canvas.

Though it sounded like a mumble to Jennifer, garbled in a brain half-present, The Doll couldn't have said it louder or with more force. "And I don't choose you, bitch..."

"Huh...? What do you think about that you stupid little jobber?" The cruel question was asked as The Doll stood over the mat-bound Jennifer. The blonde goddess wanting to hear her opponent's response, or watch her fail to come up with one.

"I ... I think you're already starting to like me..." Dazed and winded though she was, The Better Woman knew she had made it. Knew she had lasted past the 5 minute promise of the woman standing above her. And though there was clearly more work to be done, and more match to have, it was working, Jennfier thought.

She was hanging...

She was lasting in a match with the best in the business. Now all she had to do was beat her, the golden goddess who shouted down at her. One with a mind of malice.

A mind that pushed Katherine to reach, grab, and then secure the hair of the brunette beneath her. Hair on which the blonde pulled to lift her opponent's head and upper body off the mat and into an upright and seated position.

Then, with her opponent so seated, The Doll moved her gloveless hands to either side of the Latina's face. They sliding tightly across cheeks before clasping hard around the chin of the same.

A clasped grip Kat used to drive a hard right kneecap into the back of Jennifer's neck. A knee that remained as its owner took to a single-legged kneel, trapping she who suffered into a painful rear chin-lock.

"Fuck you! I hate that I even know your name. That we even had a conversation before I destroyed you..." Kat continued as she pulled and tortured. The blonde brat keeping the point of her knee right at the apex of the brunette's backward bending neck.

A brunette who sat trapped on the mat. She having no choice but to endure not only The Doll's tongue-lashing, but the pressure of her head being bent back cruelly over the kneecap of the same.

"You aren't good enough to speak to me!" Kat went on, just before she heard it.

"Unnnrrrrgggghhhhh..." A groan from Jennifer, one that came as her hands moved up to try to pry Kat's fingers away from her chin.

A sound and a seeking of escape, that seemed to act as some kind of signal or flare to the huntress Kat. A huntress who in a blink dropped her pressing knee, and with a surge, shot forward. Her chin-locked hands shifting with speed, as her left forearm wrapped around Jennifer's throat before it pulled tight into a picture-perfect sleeper hold. One the golden grappler cinched in by bringing the palm of her free right hand to the brunette's forehead.

It was then, as Kat's top-covered breasts pressed against Jenn's back, and as the first beads of sweat began to drip from both combatants' hair, that there was silence.

Save for the quiet chorus the two played together as a symphony. They two women at odds, as they struggled against one another, letting loose entrancing sounds of both effort and exhale - minute whimpers and near inaudible hops of breath turned voice.

The ears of each filling with those glorious and intoxicating notes of the other's presence and passion as they fought each other on the mat. The Doll waiting to see what her opponent would do, as that same opponent, Jennifer, fought just to escape the fog that she still found herself mired in.

So much offense had been delivered by the blonde pressing against her.

So many moves in a row had been both landed and endured, without reprisal. And yet it came. A sudden shift of hips and shoulders, as Jennifer with speed, moved her lower half out from under her rival, though the same kept her sleeper hold held. The pair's movement coming to an end, in their newly earned position, each on their knees - the breasts and body of one weighing down on the captured frame of the other.

And though before she had talked and taunted, seemingly without end, as the moment played out, Katherine could not have been more silent or focused. The strawberry blonde knowing that she wanted to keep the young Latina upstart not only grounded, but dominated. Held in her arms and struggling for breath.

Something the vindictive Doll would have wanted already, but especially after their maddeningly equal tie-up and the breaching of her 5-minute brag. A tie-up in which Kat found herself not only stymied but matched push-for-push and press-for-press. And a promise she found not only missed, but now almost 5-minutes in the past.

But Jennifer's frustrating equal strength and irritating resilience seemed a distant memory. As she remained on her knees, air-deprived and grasping at Kat's tanned forearm - one that pressed tightly against the brunette's throat.

Grim though things seemed for The Better Woman, with The Doll's sleeper still applied and draining, Jennifer still fought her way up to her feet from her knees.

Made it to her feet though the brunette had, after only a few steps towards the ropes, did Kat lift and press the sole of her right foot into the bend behind Jennifer's knee. The blonde using the pressure of the press to collapse her opponent once again to the mat, though on her knees, a few feet from one of the ring's turnbuckles.

In that moment, as footing was stolen and control was reasserted by Kat, it was the sound that surrounded them once more - the tiny grunts of effort that engulfed the battling pair. As with the building's AC having been set to off at Kat's insistence, only the sounds they made for and because of each other could be heard.

The delicate breaths of each, effort-drug from the blonde and weak and gasping from the brunette taking hold of their minds. Something about the softness and the fragility of those modulations that affected them. Transfixed them. And though at least Kat would not admit it, turned them both on.

Those sounds representing the essence of their mutual heavens.

Wrestling.

Struggle.

Woman against woman.

Body against body.

Who could outwit, outmaneuver, and outgrapple the other.

Who wanted it more...

Questions they each sought to answer, with actions and not words. Kat certain she was the better woman, regardless of Jenn's name. Just as the latter was equally sure that no matter how good her opponent was, she could hang with them in the ring.

But such expected belonging and brazen certainty appeared to be fading by the minute - by the moment. As Kat held tight to her sleeper, leaning in and against Jenn's back with her well-endowed upper-body. Forcing the Latina grappler to slump forward, as her breaths continued to shorten and lungs began to burn.

Mix though the golden hair of one did with coffee-colored strands of the other, in a long exhausting sleeper, suddenly such weaving waves of perfectly curly hair were disturbed. As Jennifer, in a sudden and unexpected drive, pushed herself back to her feet.

Then, when she was upright once more, she of the Guerrero family forcibly ran forward, dragging Kat along with her. The blonde cornerstone of the Women's Wrestling Network trying, with all her might, to pull Jennifer back down to the mat.

And though Kat could have, given enough time. And though she meant to, intending to finish her young upstart opponent off with the slow drain of a sleeper. Before either eventuality could happen, Jennifer threw her lower body up, out, and with the bare soles of her feet, climbed the ropes on either side of the corner's turnbuckle.

The brunette mounting one step after another, until she reached the top rung. And when she did so arrive, she pressed and pushed off with her legs, driving herself backward, as she curled herself up.

The force of such a launching was too strong and the application too unexpected, for Kat to resist. And in that inability, she found herself drove not only back, but then down. The golden grappler collapsing back to the mat, even as she, with every ounce of her being held tight to her sleeperhold.

And yet as she held to it, and as Jennifer's body rolled up, over, and then in half on top of her, The Doll's shoulders pressed down against the mat. The brunette having drug the move from her memory of watching her favorite wrestler, Bret Hart, turn the tables on Roddy Piper at Wrestlemania VIII.

"One..." Came a synthesized voice over the loudspeaker of the gym.

"Two..." Then came another count, one Kat could barely hear as she laid beneath her bent-over-at-the-waist rival.

Muffled though the count of 2 was, and as effective as that reversal had been in the hands of the Excellence of Execution, at the last possible moment did The Doll find the presence of mind to kick out. She releasing her sleeper and firing her right arm up into the air, her shoulder lifting from the mat with only a millisecond or two before the count of three would have sounded.

In the wake of such a close call and count, Jennifer rolled off and away from Kat as she weized. Her hands reaching for her throat as she fought to regain her air through one cough after another.

"You stupid BITCH!" Raged The Doll.

"You don't get a two count on me!" She roared once more as she rolled quickly to her feet, and began to storm over to Jennifer who had only barely made it back to all fours.

"Do you know who I AM?!?!?!" Indignant beyond measure, Kat reached and grabbed for Jennifer's brown curls. And though she did reach them, and with her hands did grasp them, before she could even pull, Jennfier spun, coiled, and rolled her into a small package.

"One..." The loudspeaker announced again, as Jennifer and Kat, rolled into a small ball of limbs mirrored bodies jostled. A ball which teetered slightly from side to side, though it was Kat's shoulders that remained pinned.

"Two..." That dreaded number rang out again, and as soon as it did, The Doll kicked out. Her normally beautiful face a rictus of anger and momentary hatred, even as she sat facing away from her opponent. Her mind running a mile a minute thinking about how badly she would hurt Jennifer for not only one two count, but TWO OF THEM!

Retribution she sought to deliver as she spun both to her feet and around.

Vengeance she looked to carry out as her dark, hazel eyes searched for her rival.

A rival she did not find standing or laying, but instead in mid-air, in the middle of throwing a textbook dropkick - one that would have made even Hardcore Holly jealous. The bare soles of the Latina landing in the deadcenter of Kat's pretty little face.

The half-strike, half-pushing-off sent The Doll down to the mat in a pile of rejected expectations and head-circling birds.

And as those cute little birdies chirped, Jennifer took to the offense. The Latina quickly turning, running, and rebounding off the ropes of the ring. Using the momentum they gave to come back fast, and then, just as Kat rolled onto her back, to hop into the air and drop the underside of a knee across her opponent's upturned face.

Sexy and toned though Jennifer's leg was, it still landed hard, stealing away what little sense The Doll had recovered since she lost control of the match.

Unfocused and hurt though the blonde was, they still came. Words, mumbled though they were, still dripping with derision and insult. And though Jennifer could barely hear them, let alone make them out, the brunette still knew. Still understood that The Doll, even in her momentarily capsized state, was mocking her.

The golden goddess' slurred and slanderous words continuing, as she laid on the mat beneath The Better Woman's bent lower limb. Attacks of verve and verbiage that continued until Jennifer suddenly lowered her already dropped leg, and sealed closed Kat's mouth with the sweaty underside of her knee.

And whereas Kat's eyes had been half-closed before and glazed over. As her opponent's knee pit came down in a quick and silencing smother, they shot open.

"You're GOING to like me..." Jenn insisted as a mischievous smile took to her lips. "Might as well, just give into it..." Sincere though the words were, as The Better Woman spoke them, leaning back on extended and straightened arms anchored into the mat with pressed palms, Kat began to flail. The blonde grappler kicking her legs, and swinging her arms - throwing her own form of a tantrum as she tried to yell through tightly-pressing flesh and insult through lip-smearing sweat.