Chapter Ten~
This time, the audience's need to vent and see carnage seemed to bolster Wild Card more. His steely transformation seemed twice as imposing as it would normally.
He gleamed like a proud colossus under the overhead lights, a metal gladiator who towered over the two women and fed on the crowd's bloodlust. If he didn't pride himself on his work as a doctor, he might have become a wrestler full-time, just for the adulation.
"Wild Card came out of the shadows to give a challenge to The Broad of Education!" voiced Commentator One to his co-host from their table situated outside the ring. "This is an unexpected undercard!"
"And what will Aboma-Mom do in this situation?" Two asked. "Go Switzerland and play neutral?"
Mayberry, Aboma-Mom, and the referee bounced as Wild Card ceased posing and turned on the teacher, his footfalls flexing the ring mat like a trampoline under his great weight.
The ref maneuvered between the two combatants to get a better view of the moves that would be employed, but Wild Card, wanting no interference, gave the official a backhanded slap that launched him out of the ring and into the darkness of the audience's higher seating area.
"Ohh! The ref is in the cheap seats!" Two called out.
Ignoring the referee's plight, Mayberry hopped back from a sudden haymaker, summoned her demonic power, and batted away the following jab from the solid block of Wild Card's fist.
He followed through with her deflection by using the momentum of the parry and where his fist went to whirl, loosening his hips to whip out his tail and catch her off-guard. However, his slower speed telegraphed the combo, and May used the springiness of the mat to bounce over his sweep.
Missing, he stopped mid-twirl, arched back, reaching out a hand to catch her coming down, but she brought her hands together in a double ax-handle chop that drove his arm down and away.
The force of the strike made him pitch forward, which she capitalized when she landed by firing off a fast upper-cut that momentarily rocked him.
Behind the fighters, Aboma-Mom stood confused. Impromptu matches were not surprising, but she didn't know how to proceed. Was this a new storyline that the writers didn't let her in on, or some strange instance of kayfabe where reality intruded on the wrestling world?
"Hey, Wild, are you calling this in the ring, like you did with Rage, or what?" she called out. "'Cuz we never rehearsed any of this."
Feeling churlish from the fight Mayberry was giving him, Wild Card spun and faced the other wrestler. Already he was tired of her prattle and eager to take his frustrations out on a convenient soul.
"Shut your mouth, you fucking jobber!" he growled.
Quickly, his tail rose by his side. He was a metal scorpion ready to strike with his arrowhead stinger. The tail wavered, then launched, ready to lance through her chest like a javelin.
Then, it reared up in reflex as Mayberry climbed up his billboard of a back, settled on his bucking shoulders, and raked his face with her claws.
Painful, thin grooves etched in screeches across his skin and fingers struck his eyes, making him see stars and lose his balance.
Through his howls of annoyance and rage, Wild Card could see an opportunity present itself. From her position, he could easily reach up with both hands and smash her in between them like a car accident.
Something Mayberry noticed too late in the throws of her attack, as broad hands rose to block out the ring lights and cast deep shadows over her.
Flinching, she didn't see Aboma-Mom back into the ropes behind her and catapult herself into a high shoulder body block that connected with Wild Card's midsection. The blow knocked him off-center and forced him to open his arms to right himself.
"Amazing!" One replied. "It appears Aboma-Mom had decided to enter into the fray. Could this be the beginning of an alliance against the monster?"
With time bought, May hopped off his shoulders, landed in a crouch behind his calves, and then shouted to the demoness, "Do that again!"
Seeing where the teacher landed, Aboma-Mom reared again, launching into another collision. Combined with Mayberry's simultaneous shove against the crooks of his knees, his center of gravity was ruined.
Wild Card pitched back like a felled, silver tree, feet kicking out into space. He partially landed on May, but most of his weight was met by the ring mat, which couldn't take the crashing ponderance focused on that one point of impact.
The mat's elasticity surrendered, and Wild Card's body tore a hole big enough for he and Mayberry to be swallowed up by the ring's new maw.
"Hang on!" Aboma-Mom yelled, diving into the pit after them, hoping they could beat Wild Card or make him explain why he was so dangerously off-script like this. Was he trying to kill like he did with Rage-a-Rama? If so, why?
The commentators and the audience couldn't see or hear the brouhaha raging in the darkness under the ring. Still, they didn't have long to wait, as first Mayberry and then Aboma-Mom were thrown out of the hole, where they landed in a heap a few feet from the rip.
"I don't get it," the woman wrestler moaned, feeling every bruise she earned tussling in the dark. "Why is he trying to shoot us?"
Mayberry perked up with fearful confusion. "He was? I-I didn't see a gun!"
The wrestler shook her head. "No. I mean, he's trying to hurt us for real! Why?"
"He wants to suck out my essence."
"You guys are dating?"
A thought struck Mayberry. "Wait. What time is it?"
The mat began reverberating like a drum under their bodies, alerting them to stand and face the new wrinkle this fight would bring. It wasn't long in coming.
A sound came from the shadows of the tear. A low, heavy gurgle...
A roar heralded a towering fountain of gore, a crimson geyser of human blood painting the ring mat red and almost reaching the scaffolding that held the lights above.
As the two demonesses looked up with stunned, blood-speckled faces, they could see the apex of the plume shape and twist to form the demonic head, arms, and torso of Wild Card.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Two remarked in awe. "Wild Card isn't wearing the crimson mask. He is the crimson mask!"
"Let's give them a show," the mad scientist mocked in a voice that gargled like the eddy of a swift river. "The crowd wants to see blood, and the customer's always right!"
"We have to keep him busy for six minutes!" May informed her partner. "Then, he'll change again!"
"I-Into what?"
"Damned if I know!"
"Watch out!" Aboma-Mom yelled.
Both scattered as a gory, fast-moving wave crashed around them, quickly flooding the ring and spilling from it in cataracts that pooled around its periphery.
When the two females made a break for the ropes, Wild Card was ready. The bloody run-off flowed back up the ring apron, congealing under the ropes. It then rose around them to form a wall that encircled the ring and contained the now ankle-high hemoglobin.
That was bad enough, but then the walls sprouted dripping, clawing facsimiles of hands that groped and grasped at the air, stopping the duo in their tracks.
The next few minutes for the pair were devoted solely to fighting defensively.
Wild Card's arms became long, sweeping columns of plasma, slashing and clutching at the two. Weaponized torrents of cruor erupted from his mouth in gouts.
Evasion soon became more challenging as the blood level rose to their knees, adding resistance to the women's movements and threatening to pull or knock them prone with its deliberate ebbs and flows.
Wild Card upped the ante as it was hard to anticipate an enemy who could strike at them in three dimensions. Thick, tentacular lengths of ichor reached from the depths and lashed around the women, endeavoring to pull them in to drown. Despite the red waves hammering against their centers of gravity, they splashed and severed the liquid limbs with their claws as new ones replaced their numbers.
In her demonic state, May acquitted herself well enough. Still, she had limits, worrying that her stamina would fail before Wild Card had exhausted forms to change.
And all the while, the crowd loved every second of it.
While focusing on a tendril that wrapped around her neck, Aboma-Mom couldn't counter a gripping force around her ankles fast enough.
With a yank, she slipped off the slick mat, falling face-first into the vermillion. She could only manage a yelp to Mayberry before that same force dragged her to one side of the ring and lifted her high in the clutches of a giant, hematic fist.
A fist that casually tossed her over the ring's barrier and dumped her onto the commentators' table.
Rallying herself to re-enter the ring, she stopped when the barrier surrounding it began to grow higher. At the same time, Wild Card's body grew smaller, became more fluent, and filled the space within with even more of his blood form.
Eventually, the edges of the barrier converged above. The whole structure formed a rubbery, coagulated dome with Mayberry held under the ubiquitous grip of Wild Card's liquid body, holding her in the center of a sanguine sea.
May barely had time to hold her breath and shut her eyes. But, amidst the muffled sounds of the thick currents around her, she could make out one sound that startled her.
A deep, derisive laugh came from the outlines of a broad, smug, ruby face that watched her struggle within the depths.
"I like your fight, Sinner," he intoned, his low-frequency voice carrying through the blood to beat against her body. "Perhaps I'll...No! Not now!"
The face gnashed its teeth, and the fluid around Mayberry quaked and receded. Time was up, and the dome began to shrink away as more and more blood was drawn back into a solidifying maroon body in the center of the ring.
May settled back on the stained ring mat, erupting in a fit of coughs that purged a small amount of blood from her lungs. Meanwhile, Wild Card's body, now at regular height, absorbed the last of his blood form, leaving dripping ropes and rosy puddles both inside the ring and out.
Braving a peek when she felt a caress of cool air, she found the blood gone and, with a wheeze, stood, ungainly, to face the killer scientist again.
He looked feral as he watched her gather strength. "No more games, Sinner. You're coming back with me on your feet or on your ass."
Raising his arms like a supplicant, Wild Card's body quickly became transparent and indistinct under the lights and the views of Mayberry and the others, as if he were a phantom.
In truth, he succeeded in alternating into a thick, broadening cloud of yellowish-green vapor.
May thought it was a trick of the eye until her nose caught the arriving pong of something acrid and vile that smelled like an overflowed outhouse. Like a long-dead beast bloating in the sun.
Like a repulsive, relentless...fart.
At ground zero, May had nearly wretched from the atmospheric assault that met her.
"God, that's rank!" she yelled. Then, a ridiculous thought made her laugh through her choking. "Hold up! A fart? That's how you grabbed Marcus and killed the kidnapper? You turned into a fart? Damn, you're cruel!"
A non-plussed Wild Card shrugged his misty shoulders and explained with a whispery hiss. "That Sinner was some stupid frat boy rapist who lit his farts on a dare. I agree that accidental self-immolation's not the best way to go out, but beggars can't be choosers."
The reek around Mayberry was too much to bear, and she couldn't hold her breath long enough to wait until he changed back. She turned to bolt for the ropes behind her, but a pair of nubilous hands manifested within the fetid veil and, with ironic solidity, held her into the center of his growing flatus.
"Can't have you flying off, my lovely," Wild Card admitted. "Chances are that reporter got away, so I'll have to lay low and be more careful. But, don't worry. After I take you away and harvest you, I'll cut my ties with The Crown."
Despite her predicament, the teacher looked confused.
"Surprised?" he asked. "When I asked for their protection and funding for my research, they said yes, but only if they were the ones given Sinners' powers so they could become Overlords."
"I was betrayed, but I bit my tongue and went to work, biding my time. And when I'm ready, I'll give my gift to the true inheritors-the common Imps and Hellborn that people like The Crown, Overlords, and the Higher Demons have shunned and turned their backs on!"
Head pounding, Mayberry gagged and gasped, tasting the foul, chemical bitterness in her mouth. She prayed that the suffocating stench hadn't driven her partner off because, without clean air and help, she was running out of options.
Outside the confines of the ring, however, Wild Card's dense miasma had expanded and enveloped the seating areas of the venue, causing staff, Aboma-Mom, and patrons to choke and puke in their collective, fleeing panic.
Ignoring the chaos, he could feel Mayberry's struggles start to lessen now, and she sagged, dizzily, to her knees. "Starting to tire? That's good. I don't know who you are, Sinner, but I don't think anyone will miss you. Just keep breathing it in. It'll be over soon, I promise."
From a murky recollection of what her foe gloated earlier, an idea flared in May's addled mind.
With equal parts desperation and stubborn will, she summoned every scrap of demonic power left and gripped her claws into the ring mat. Then, she pulled against Wild Card's grasp as she crawled with every trembling handhold towards the closest ring post.
"Where are you going? Stop fighting me, dammit!" he growled, regretting the lack of enhanced strength his steel form gave him as she inched farther along in this fierce tug-of-war.
Finally, a hand touched the base of the post, and Mayberry blindly used the ropes attached to climb up to her wobbly hooves. Turning, she confronted the mad radical, baring a clawed hand high in a stance that suggested that she was about to strike him down.
"I'm gas, now," the nebulous face within taunted. "Is kitten gonna scratch?"
May gave a weak, triumphant grin. "Meow...motherfucker!"
She spun back to the ring post and slashed against the metal with a mighty swipe, claws spewing a plume of hot sparks into the putrid air. Sparks that fell through Wild Card's gaseous body.
He had enough time to bitterly admire her cunning before his myopic cause, his life's work, and his consciousness was obliterated with a fearful wail.
His vaporous body's hydrogen and methane-rich molecules ignited, expanding into a booming, exothermic mushroom cloud that bathed the screaming patrons in its fiery winds.
Recovering from the blast, Aboma-Mom awkwardly slipped back into the ring and knelt beside a prone Mayberry, carefully propping her head in her lap and fanning clear air into the Sinner's face with a free hand.
"Hey! Hey, are you all right?"
"I...Let me...catch...b-breath," May slurred.
"I don't know what when down, but that was an A-show for the history books," the pro wrestler muttered, astonished. "What the hell did he turn into? A fart?"
Looking around at the damage caused by his passing, Mayberry muttered dismissively, "Yeah. But, he wasn't shit."