Things were finally starting to look up for the 'classic queens' of the King of Fighters syndicate. After a gradual drop-off with elimination after elimination, and the occasional 'incident', in the first half of this stellar – if controversial – tournament, it seemed like it was going to be a rough time for King, Mai and Yuri (and, to an extent, Alice on account of recent alliances).
However, with the bombastic (and comparatively more gruesome) start to this latest round, King and Mai were intent on heading back to the bar for another round of drinks – this time to celebrate the firey downfall of one of their few rivals in the running: .
"I didn't think you as one with a strong throat for that stuff." King watched as she saw her skimpy ninja friend handle one of an armful of soft-alcohol jello shots.
"You've seen who I've been with, Kingy; can't imagine this," Mai jiggled the shot of alco' between her fingers, "is any rougher in my mouth."
King didn't want the potential image to linger too long in her head. "...Fair enough."
Mai's eyes fluttered as they continued to linger on the blonde beside her. "...You're not worried for me, are you?"
"Trust me, I think I'd know when it's time for you to calm the drinks."
"Of course you'd know better..."
"More than better," King corrected. "There's getting tipsy, and then there's getting so drunk that there's a chance you'd just burst into the infirmary and take a piss on Lien's third-degree burns."
"...King?"
"Yeah?"
"Stop giving me ideas I might regret later."
"You're not actually—"
"No, not actually," Mai made an immediate answer. "Though, again, you're the one with the most in terms of real booze knowledge – what are the odds I would take you up on that idea?"
The idea ran through King's mind for a lot longer than she wanted it to. Even letting it linger for a single second was way too long."
"Oh god." She shook her head, and her hands, and retreated briefly from where the empty glasses stood. "No. Fuck no. I wouldn't even bet 'monopoly money' on that."
Mai put a lot of heart to her laughter. "Starting to regret letting me down some now?"
King's legs crossed as she leaned lightly against the table, withdrawing eye contact for a little moment. "A little."
The banter proved to be plentiful, as it usually was; however, it was about to be pushed aside for a focus towards where it mattered within the mansion.
The catalyst of such a focus switch came in the form of the doors swinging open and the still-bandaged but recognizably active Yuri running forth in a hurried, short-breathed pace. She short-hopped onto the bar counter and brought her body over the other end, hanging nearly the whole way upside down as she scrambled to claim something.
"Mind the wounds; looks like it hurts you to be quick like that." advised King, trying to get over the confusion she had for why the karate girl had just intruded in for reasons yet-to-be-known.
Yuri answered, "Gonna hurt a lot less if the next fight goes the way we hope..."
"'Next fight'? *gasp!* Oh crap, is that already happening?" As the tournament returned to the sultry shinobi's mind, nearly stumbled to a scramble across the counter – this was something she wasn't in the mood to miss.
By this point, Yuri had finally gotten what she wanted – the remote to the TV looming to the right of the bartender's side of the counter; with a press of the visible red button, the TV blipped on and projected an image that felt it needed to be seen by all in the room.
An image of a hallway, featuring two figures. One carried an unmissable cleavage enclosed in that tight leather jacket of hers, and the other was decorated in bandages and snake tattoos.
"Oh." King took notice to just who the two-to-compete were, over there. "Now I see what you mean..."
Mai's eyes went glued to the screen by this point, now that she had a good glimpse. "Yep – this could get messy..."
Yuri wouldn't mind the mess. With a bad experience at the wrong hands of both of those ladies – one much worse than the other – she had a good feeling just who was the lesser of two evils... and she had high expectations to know that 'lesser evil' was coming out of this with less blood in their system.
THIRD ROUND – MATCH #2
Angel vs. Shiki
Despite being only a couple hours off from a previous hard-fought encounter, there was very little of a limp in Shiki's step. She shambled forward with her never-balanced stance, putting all her focus on the blades in her grasp.
As for Angel – well...
"You think your toys are gonna make me flinch?"
Even when faced with someone packing sharp steel, she was accustomed to just casually stretch in preparation, with not even a glint of fear in her eyes.
She was kind of an asshole like that. Even back in Mexico, her cockiness was prioritized over the charisma she put forth for her 'home country' – which may or may not be fabricated information based on her NESTS origins.
Shiki retorted with little emotion and even less understanding to the Earth she was dropped into. "Know that this means very little to me."
"You're not kidding; I can smell the lack of fucks you give." Angel's hand wavered out with an implied disgust. "Or is it just how you smell in general?"
She had a mean habit of not taking opponents seriously for the most part, but it was an understandable habit because she would more often than not be the winner.
What that meant was that, in the face of a formidable opponent, she'd sooner lose than break that habit – even in the case where the banter was not met with more banter, like right here.
Instead, Angel had to put her arms into defensive as Shiki immediately charged in with her blades swinging out. The insults only furthered the threats that the snake-tattooed warrior wanted to make true. She wanted to bring the agony to even the most hardened of the ladies that were brought here at the start of the week.
Just this once, Angel was allowing herself to take the hint. "Right. Screw the trash talk – that comes later. Time for a taste of las garras del gatito."
The arms of the two fighters hooked around each other, Angel doing most of the strength to make sure that the twin-katana number that the newcoming foe was carrying didn't even lay a scratch on her just yet.
Angel had to rely in on the technical side of her strength, the luchadora-style maneuverability that she was gifted with by her higher power as she worked her legs into some preparing positions before committing to the spring-about all around her opponent.
Her legs crouched in as though she was going to do some more squats, before swaying out into a near-split with her legs going in opposite sides – before putting full force on the heels of her feet against the floor and lifting herself almost into the ceiling. Adjustments had to be made in order for her to skid her feet stylishly across the ceiling as her body swung upside-down over her opponent...
...and as a break was forced in the arm-to-arm clinch, Angel dropped down behind Shiki with the former's hands clinging onto the face of the latter like a cat's claws, before gouging across both ends of the face – the firm nails grazed through and formed noticeable white-ish scratches on the pale-enough face of Shiki.
Angel dismounted into a safe landing, and continued to go on the attack while there was a opening from right behind, with a swinging kick to the back, slamming the bottom of her boot as hard as possible before Shiki could fully dispute the strike with her swords.
Angel only heightened the pace from there, twirling back into a prime stance before. Having a growingly distant relationship with the floor at the start of this match, she leapt again with her legs bending up before springing out at high velocity...
…and she found herself whiffing the air with her dropkick, whelmed by the blue aura she felt herself pass through as she smacked her back on the carpeted floor – right where Shiki was standing before she teleported out of the range.
"Huh? What the..." Angel craned her neck up from her flat-back position, seeing the lanky legs of the emotionally-complicated Shiki first and foremost as she slowly reapproached – her pace gradually got quicker, and her blades shone with intent...!
"...Fuck!" Angel slammed her hands against the ground and used the pushing momentum to fling herself upside-down, her legs swinging at a wide range to keep Shiki at some distance as she twirled back to her feet with some gravity-denying speed.
"Alright, I see through your defense; teletransportación's sorta my game, too!"
With little to fear from throwing herself forward, Angel made a running start – and within milliseconds, she blinked out of Shiki's sight to prove the 'two can tango', though with a more subtle way of translocation what with the brief afterimage that lingered with no flashing lights necessary.
Shiki's guard locked down hard as she stood her ground, watching partially as Angel's presence bounced here and there in positions all around the premises of the battle. Shiki knew that playing along with the teleportation arms-race wasn't a good plan since Angel's methods were equally if not more unpredictable than her own methods.
As the open windows to direct hits became narrower with each successful strike, Shiki's swords started to grind together as she settled her feet deeper – only to feel the arms looping around her from behind just a moment too late.
Shiki was slammed straight down on almost every bit of real estate between her head, neck and shoulders as Angel's strength confirmed zero struggle throwing her about in a backdrop suplex!
But Angel wasn't letting go just yet – she rolled herself backwards over the lawnchair-folded body of her opponent and continued to deadlift the dead-eyed outlander...
...into ANOTHER backdrop, with an identical shared focus on the upper-third of Shiki's body as it was driven again against the floor! Even with the little bit of carpeting providing a thin padding, it was too thin to do much of any protection.
The condition of Shiki was already bringing her at a slight disadvantage – she may have taken too much force already on the head as her mentality to just warp out of the arms of the white-haired wild sport was a little too far gone. Instead, she was enduring for as long as she could take...
Angel had a tiny bit more on her sleeve before she could consider letting Shiki free from her clutches – from where her eyes lingered, it seemed to involve a little more of the environment; so much more than just the thin hallway that has seen several bouts before in the previous days.
She started to turn course with the 'sad snake' wrapped within her arms...
…and she risked flinging herself into harder territory as she completed the trifecta of wrestling suplexes, slamming Shiki against a nearby door with enough force to smash it open and allow the victim of such a brutal throw to tumble into the room contained – which happened to be a slightly cramped bathroom.
The most Shiki's body managed to get rolling across into the room was about halfway until she was left sitting onto her shoulders, upside-down with her legs fumbled forwards, knees slightly grinding against her chest.
Her body already sharing company with the carpet beneath, Angel dragged herself ahead, resting in a push-up position as she gandered closer on her opponent's placement.
"I dunno about you, but I wouldn't let myself get into a position like this for too long~" Angel's breath was grazing over Shiki's own face as personal space slowly broke away.
The tight-jacketed NESTS prospect was top-notch with reflexes, however – as she could see Shiki's body start to lurch forwards over her...
Angel scattered away before she'd get the brunt of Shiki's knees stacked onto her back and neck – but the distance kept meant she quickly backed herself against the wall, and unfortunately for her, was not done maneuvering towards her.
The swords stabbed into the ground as Shiki leaned back and started lifting herself into a backflip that ultimately landed her feet against the wall. Eventually, she was now nearly 90 degrees flipped from what would be normal for a fight, curved down towards the wall as she maintained the balance between her resting swords and her feet against the wall.
It felt like no worries for Angel even as the raven-black haired opposition loomed her feet inches from shoulder contact – seeming to think wider than her opponent, Angel simply evade out of the depth of Shiki's reach.
It quickly became a bit of a bad idea once Shiki's body shifted out to the right and caught up with equal speed – as soon as legs wound around Angel's neck, the white-head was quickly swung by the momentum into the right-side wall. Shiki let go as soon as she did the damage, spinning most of the way through into a soft landing as she retracted her swords and flung herself forwards at full speed.
Angel continued to play it easy with her evasive maneuvers, and again flash-stepped to safety behind the assailant – but she was not letting Shiki off with any more freedom than she felt was deserved; she hooked an arm around the right leg and dragged the joyless warrior over, briefly plopping her neck and shoulders against the carpeting as she was rolled over. Angel got back on top of her with a grapple that was sideways yet inching around the back-end – as though the NESTS-engined grappler was going to continue her travels through 'Suplex City'.
Shiki was adapting well, though – she blinked off in a cloud of blue that blew forwards past her opponent's eyes, obscuring the vision ahead.
Angel flapped her arms defiantly against the dark blue aura like a mess of second-hand smoke "We can't go on warping over each other for too long, perra! Take a hit for once, and take it like a woman!"
As to answer the call, Shiki returned into physicality, wrapping her arms around from behind Angel to fully bring attention.
"We're both women here," she whispered back. "What are you to question?"
Angel was down to cut the clutch off at the core; she jabbed back with an elbow to Shiki's face, then quickly swooped her under an arm into a headlock.
"You got a lotta nerve when you're trying to question me...!"
One of Shiki's swords quickly twisted around to bring itself into the wedge between her chin and the hooking forearm of Angel's arm torquing beneath. Her blade threatened to scratch the folding leather – but Angel put a little more of a squeeze as she bent the elbow further, forcing Shiki to eventually retreat her arms from around the body. It was a little of a shame that she took a little bit of a chin-side cut along with her as well, in the midst of retracting her blades back to her sides – but the light burning scratch only did so much to add to the dull depression feeling that was always present in her body, internal and external.
Angel's most-approaching leg bent up and raised to bring a knee near her face as she cocked it and
'loaded the chamber' to eventually fire off a quick rough-heel shot to the face in the chance that ever tried to approach from the direct front.
Shiki eyed for an opportunity until it was open for a slicing strike – she didn't care what she had to put her blades through. She could easily slice a foot off in a swipe, though one could imagine that with the type of cowboy boots that Angel was wearing at the moment, the layers would probably prove too thick to cleave through cleanly.
She tested the attention to timing in her opponent's eyes and her kicking leg, and kept distance with the blade pointing most outwards, making sure that the boot of the Mexi-babe could mostly only graze the opposing metal.
As soon as Angel committed to a swinging kick, allowing her sight to drift away if only briefly, Shiki pursued with a low strike from behind. Angel did a quick leap over the crossing blades coming for her toned legs, smiling back with the ever-growing arrogance she set herself with – and Shiki was promptly given a bootprint upon her neck and chin with a jabbing high kick out of Angel's arsenal.
Didn't stop the momentum, however, as Shiki's body slumped backwards for a moment, resting into a half-kneel. Angel didn't wait to let her recover, pressing her right foot against Shiki's stomach to bring the pressure. She was more than willing to outright walk all over Shiki in a literal sense in this brief moment of dominance, but she instead put her footwork into one big double-stomp down onto the blue-clad warrior's body to flatten her further against the floor.
Shiki's knee buckled further as she was bent even more over her own self, and for a moment she was struggling for air. In a way, it felt deserved to be crunched down the way she was – she was more than accustomed to the varieties of pain.
Angel rolled off to the left of Shiki's pained body after the stomp, quickly collecting herself back into a position primed to face a response attack as she watched Shiki awkwardly curve her body around in the efforts to climb back into action herself.
Angel straightened herself back up and properly started standing, but she took no time to continue laying into Shiki.
"Get up, puta." A thwacking punt-kick to the stomach sent Shiki bouncing a slight upwards – this snapped her attention towards the white-haired bother, and she clutched her twin katanas harder.
The left-hand sword swiped low, and Angel raised her leg accordingly to avoid it – before bringing that leg against the lowered left shoulder of Shiki. The force rolled Shiki onto her back, but instead of keeping her down on the ground for longer, it ended up making her more motivated to get up and try again to wreck shit.
Angel knew she had to bring back the defense real fast as soon as she saw the tattooed foe suddenly get in that second wind and climb the opposing wall to her feet...
Shiki's pursuit started again, swords outwards at her side – and then ended within the arms of Angel as she drove her head-first against the wall ('big dent from impact' included), and kept holding on as she dragged Shiki backwards and slammed the back-end of her head in a Russian legsweep-style smash.
Angel twirled into a near-360 spin as she clung onto one of Shiki's arms, and Irish-whipped her into the wall again with enough force to bounce on both ends. Shiki stumbled backwards, again unconsciously returning into Angel's arms as she clutched tightly, priming for a suplex that could very likely smash open the wall behind and cause an indirect ring-out.
Half-way through the lift, however, Shiki was more conscious to the combat against momentum. Her legs caught the top of the neighboring window that could easily shattered upon contact with the bodily harm, putting herself to a halt while Angel nearly stumbled, having to cling on and try to adjust to the unorthadox conflict against gravity.
As Shiki clung on tightly to the wall, looking down on Angel like a human arachnid, she watched as Angel kipped back up to her feet, sprung up even higher on the second leap, and she swung her leg at an angle intending for neck contact, curving her body along the way...
All Shiki needed was to shift her upper body and the kick would completely whiff – allowing the opening she had upon Angel so that she could drop down onto the human-weapon's shoulders, legs crunching down on the neck as Shiki straddled the back of Angel's head like a lover would. A fair reminder that what Shiki planned to do with Angel was not going to be love in the slightest.
The wall was put through further abuse through the moment in the battle, as Angel tried to buck her clingy opponent off her shoulders by throwing herself – and through indirection, Shiki – into the hard white-painted walls of the hall. Didn't matter if it only brought more cracks to the scenery, as long as she got what she wanted out of this.
But Shiki was never one to really reject – the crunch of her legs against Angel's durable neck only grew tighter as she kept her grip strong on her weapons in case the resistance got too bothersome for her to let slide by.
Angel ultimately decided on just throwing herself against the floor to ground them both and hopefully get the roll-over along the way. The efforts put a bit too much of a tweak against her neck, but she was enough of a risk-taker – and enough of a successful NESTS project – to combat against it with little regret.
She managed to flip the whole situation onto its face, both women now facing down as Angel got a few steps closer to prying out of the predicament, being between Shiki's legs.
However, Shiki would quickly climb back into the thick of things, first sliding backwards between Angel's legs with the slither of the symbolic snake tattooed across her body, and dragging the biker-jacket grappler down onto her front on the floor. Shiki rolled forwards, sitting firmly on the middle of Angel's spine as she spiked her swords down in a crossed position right beneath the shoulders so all the white-haired bombshell had was a tight, sharp tunnel to struggle through.
Now this simply felt like a moderate annoyance to Angel, but it was nothing she was unable to escape from before if all her pro-wrestling experience in her home country taught her anything – but what made her struggles develop as they did, originated from how she felt in other places.
Two handfuls where it probably shouldn't be – grasping around bosom-level as they pulled down on the jacket, to the point where the zipper started being unzipped by the pulling force trying to split the jacket open.
In the hardest case of retaliation she thrusted upon this opponent, Angel flung her upper body backwards, extracting the swords from the floor with just the pure strength and sending them handles-first against Shiki's throat – the snake-tatted vixen was sent into a brief tumble, needing a moment to recover and re-arm herself...
Angel subtly growled as she readjusted her jacket to where she suited it... "Appreciate the hustle – but there's no touching this merchandise!"
She charged back in with some of those no-business Muay Thai-style kicks, first managing to level away one of Shiki's blades before making a couple clashes with the one sword the blue-clad pale dame managed to maintain, clashing leather with previously-stained steel.
Shiki alternated from high to low back to high and then low again, swinging with barely an aim at this point as she pursued forwards, while Angel distanced backwards, teasing with light taunts as she tried playing the 'zoning' game with her opponent.
Up until Shiki spiraled overhead with a surprisingly wide leap past Angel, her sword swinging with wild abandonment to gravity and air among other things, before landing in on the other side of her opponent and blindly swinging her sword backwards against Angel's legs before she could get a chance to fully turn around.
The grazing blade riding past the skin didn't just catch a scratch on Angel's right hip – it clipped almost the right amount of the string holding the chaps and undergarments of the sparingly-clad attire. Some of the blue fabric did away in front of the forming cut, and it was now just hanging by a thread making sure her didn't fall halfway off.
It only stopped Angel for a second as she briefly checked herself before remaining persistent and continuing to bring her leather-gloved fists to the sword-fight. She blocked away the swinging katana Shiki brought to a wide curve, and managed to get in three hard-knuckled punches to the gut and a headlock takedown.
It didn't take long for Shiki to again phase herself out of the hold, translocating a few feet away – and at the same time getting closer to the briefly discarded twin katana that she more often felt incomplete in her 'conquests' without.
This was promptly followed by Angel flash-stepping even further down the hall, intentionally getting herself in the way so that Shiki had a whole lot more to try and drag herself past.
As soon as Angel reached out and hoped for a grasp at her enemy's weaponry, it was quickly swept out from beneath her – the stray katana went flying out of reach and was caught into Shiki's free hand with near-perfection, and as she spiraled about in her crouched position, she directed her blades to be pointing into danger, and as Angel threw herself forwards...
Shrrrk~!
The little sounds of leather being torn inwards sounded as the blades swung upwards through Angel's jacket – and stood out in yet another crossed connection of steel.
Shiki gripped the swords and buckled backwards against, bringing a slight upwards force as she attempted to lift Angel off the ground, but to no noticeable result. If anything, it was more likely for the leather to just split apart into a looser, badly damaged condition than for Angel to let herself be lifted like that.
Angel didn't take well the thought of being carried around like baggage – she reacted as one like her would, with a dropkick against Shiki's ribs, forcing separation.
Thwack—!
…
Vrrrrip!
There was more than just the indirect connection between the competitors that got severed from the exchange.
From where the katanas previously stabbed, there were now two wide tears in the front of the leather. The two openings in the jacket met parallel to around where Angel's breasts would 'point' from beneath – and gravity let the middle section simply flop flaccidly from the rest of her tarnished garb, like a flap of leather junk.
"Ugh... whatever..." The cat-blooded NESTS alumnus met with this problem with very little bother – she shrugged and allowed her body to shift out of the loosening leather, as it ended up falling down her body, laying on the carpet like a piece of discarded laundry. All that was left on her upper-body was the very tight bra wrapped around her breasts.
"Those blades could've sliced through much more, you know..." said Shiki. "What makes you so unflinching to danger."
"¿En serio?" ["Really?"] scoffed Angel.
"What makes you so angsty? Even I like to smile once in a while – and they have the nerve to call me an asshole?"
Shiki didn't know whether to feel for Angel or learn to possibly fear her by the coming end of the bout...
"From what I can gather... we're both awful people for what we've had to do..."
All Angel opted to do was make a giggle at the snake-tatted fighter. Shiki didn't have a clue about all the shit that Angel has ever done, especially under her former employer's operations.
"The first step is admitting you have a problem – and do you wanna know how I solve my problems?"
All of a sudden, the grappler was suddenly wrapped around Shiki in a vice-like hug as she promptly approached her with her complete intent to maim ever so present.
"I break them in half," Angel answered herself. "Plain and simple."
"Enough of this..."
Shiki swung her sword overhead, completely abandoning any idea of holding back her lethal strikes for just this moment as she threw herself forward, her eyes darting away as she hoped for something between the best and the worst.
She found resistance upon contact, but as she looked up from the floor, she didn't see even a single new droplet of blood. There was no doubt about it – the opponent managed a lucky catch against her blade for sure...
...but as she looked ahead again, she took notice to the point of the sharp steel mere inches beneath making contact with Angel's face.
And some of the length beneath that being hidden within Angel's... squishing breasts...?
Aside from a slight central tear into Angel's bra, the pair of 'goods' proved a surprising catcher against the katana, and it left Shiki... not exactly 'surprised' per se, closer to... 'confused'?
One could figure it was probably quicker for Angel to slam her forearms in from the sides of her likely NESTS-given gift than it would be to grab it in two handfuls – even though with the type of work she had done by them to make her the superwoman she has certainly proved herself to be, she would have the reflexes to catch the blade however way she'd please.
To presume in short?
Angel was just being cocky.
Shiki grew not to take the hokey display well as soon as she realized the affected blade was being brought down to uselessness within the confines of the soccer-ball sized goods.
She threatened, "If you break my blades, I break your limbs."
Angel smirked with an evergrowing 'turd-consuming grin'.
"Bet?"
That feel when you worry you might overfill a chapter with too much fight. I'd say there's never 'too much' but I can leave you waiting for a new chapter for so long. Also I did have a little more written at the end before I started to split it off - the main problem was figuring out when was a good time to cliffhang for the next chapter.
Also hopefully this 'return' to my fanfic writing will be a longer, more content-filled tenure than my 'return' during May. I've got a couple of oneshot ideas on the mind, too; some slightly more thirsty than others.
Next Chapter: How will the war between the two lethal beauties turn out? The chains tighten as the bout starts to reach a crescendo – only one will be forced to suffer a scalding bowl of karma for their past sins in the tournament...