Emergency, Part 2
"Be careful. Extra careful."
"Don't push yourself. Only do what you can."
"Your face. Watch your face."
As my entrance approached, they took turns fretting over me. Joshua had even come back to Gorilla Position just to pile on.
"Hey. I don't know why a rookie is in a match like this, but finish it clean. No injuries."
"Thanks, rabbit."
"What?"
"Three minutes and you're a rabbit, right? A real man can't even last seven?"
Only Joshua and Ryan made faces at that. The general manager, Luke, and Michael all laughed. Jane, however, gave me a solid knuckle to the head.
"What is wrong with you? A girl sexually harassing a guy? God, I'm so embarrassed."
"Come on — this is the same guy who hit on me the second he saw me last time."
The general manager and the producer, who hadn't known about that particular detail, immediately fixed Joshua with sharp looks.
"Uh. That wasn't — I was asking her to write a scenario for me…"
It was another producer who bailed him out.
"Setup's complete."
"Alright! I'm heading out. Just hold them another four minutes?"
"Yeah. But absolutely no overdoing it. Factor in the medical team's response time — three minutes is fine."
"Got it."
I grabbed the oversized Boston bag they'd prepped for me and got ready to enter the ring. Given the nature of the match, the skateboard stayed behind.
My theme song hit, and I walked out toward the entrance. The moment I hit the stage, the flashes and the roar exploded. But what really caught my eye was the black cage — eight meters by eight meters, six meters high.
It wasn't flush against the apron. There was about a meter of space between the cage and the ring, the style you saw a lot in Elimination Chamber setups these days. TPA had taken its cues from WWO, so the dimensions matched — the only difference being that this was a women's match, so the height was about a meter lower. In other words, set a 3.6-meter ladder on the ring and jump from the top, and you'd clear it almost perfectly.
Fans reached out for high-fives, but between the smell of pain patches on my body and the sheer weight of the match, I just kept walking, eyes locked on the cage.
The frame was steel. The mesh was steel. People said the ladders were flimsy, but the height was the real deal. The only real "trick" in this match was the tables.
I stepped inside the cage, flipped up the apron, pulled out a ladder first, and shoved it into the ring. Then I dragged out a table and pushed that in too, and grabbed a steel chair for good measure.
As I was collecting the chairs, my eyes met John Michaels's and General Manager Iba's, sitting right in front of me.
"Don't get excited. Stay calm."
"If you freeze up, you'll get hurt worse."
That last one came from Mac Hardy and Jet Hardy, sitting right beside them.
"I'll make sure you don't sleep tonight."
I wanted to smile, but the cameras were almost certainly rolling, so I didn't.
I shoved four steel chairs inside, then climbed into the ring with the bag still in hand. The moment I stepped through the ropes, Anne made her entrance. She was carrying the same oversized Boston bag I had, walking slowly toward the ring.
Once she was in, another referee locked the door. Originally the scenario had Anne bringing in only tables, but to stretch the time she shoved one ladder into the ring as well and left another table outside. Watching her, I activated my active skill, Timer. Factoring in the time already burned on entrances, I set it for eighteen minutes. When the alarm went off, that would be my cue to start working toward the finish.
"Nancy. Can you give me a call at ten minutes, and again at fifteen?"
"Fifteen? Isn't that too early? Want me to keep calling after that too?"
The referee pushed back.
"I'm fine."
Timer could only set one alarm, which was a shame. If I could set four or five, I'd drop one on every key spot.
Anne shoved one more ladder into the ring and climbed through the ropes.
"Tonight's main event — the TPA World Women's Championship Title Match! This contest is a Cage Match, No DQ! Introducing the challenger, from Orlando, Florida, standing five-foot-five and weighing one hundred ten pounds — Cha~~ri~~na —"
The match hadn't even started, but the crowd already sensed something was off and screamed themselves hoarse.
"— and the champion, from Lancashire, England, standing five-foot-eight and weighing one hundred fifty pounds — Anne Cle~~mens!"
The referee came over first and spoke very quietly to both of us.
"Both of you — be really careful."
"Understood."
"Don't worry about us."
Ding ding ding.
The ring bell signaled the start of the match, but neither of us moved. Anne smiled faintly and pulled a baseball bat from her Boston bag.
Ohhh—
Clang. Clang. Clang.
She swung it into the ring post to prove it was real. I grinned, opened my own Boston bag, and pulled out a baseball bat of my own. The crowd's shock was even louder than when Anne had drawn hers. I thought I caught a few muffled Shits and Fucks in there.
I had a bat too — but unlike Anne's, mine was wrapped in barbed wire. I'd blunted the ends, sure, but scrape yourself on it and you were still going to bleed.
"Ha! Fine. Let's go."
"Gladly."
We walked slowly toward each other. At about two meters, we both swung hard. The bats cracked together in midair like crossed swords.
CRAAACK.
Harder than in practice. If I could feel it in my palms, Anne's hands had to be ringing — but her expression didn't change at all. The bats collided again.
CRACK.
The impact kicked my arm upward, and Anne drove a kick straight into my stomach.
"Hhk—"
I gasped and dropped my bat. She immediately jabbed the head of hers into my gut, once, twice, three times. I clutched my stomach and collapsed onto the mat.
"Going."
Anne said it quietly.
"Yeah."
The second I answered, she cracked the bat across my ass.
THWACK.
"AAAGH!"
The sound was wet and loud. Fans had seen steel chairs plenty of times, but a baseball bat was genuinely rare — and we'd already crossed bats more than once to sell that this was the real thing.
Ohhh. Shit!
Noooo—
The crowd reaction was electric. Their faces looked like a home crowd watching a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth. I grabbed my ass, screaming, and rolled across the canvas. Anne threw the bat at me; it caught me in the back, and I curled up like a shrimp, thrashing.
She tried to haul me up for a fireman's carry. I hammered her in the head, slipped free, and immediately headbutted her.
"Ah—"
"Hhk."
We both clutched our foreheads and dropped. I got up first, bounced off the ropes, and charged. Anne went for a back body drop — and the second she ducked to flip me over her neck and shoulders, I planted my hands on her like a vault and pushed off. I soared, turned a full half-rotation in the air, and came down on my back — right onto a steel chair.
THUD.
That had hurt in practice. The meds must have been working, because it was bearable now. I still screamed like I was dying.
"AAAAAGH!"
There was no cheering now. Just gasps and screams.
Hhh—
Shit!
Oh my God!
Anne laid a ladder across the second rope in the corner. She grabbed me by the hair, hauled me up, and tried to shove me toward the corner — but I spun another full turn and shoved her into it instead. Anne hit the ladder rail, not the flat face of it, chest-first, and let out a strangled scream like the air had been punched out of her.
I hoisted her up and powerbombed her down onto the ladder.
"AAAGH!"
CRASH.
I scanned the crowd once, then climbed to the top rope and launched a shooting star press at her sprawled body. I landed clean, chest to chest.
THUD.
And the cover.
One—
Two—
Anne kicked out, thrashing free.
"Haaah~"
I exhaled, hooked both her legs under my arms, and slowly turned my body. Anne was face-down, her lower back folding the wrong way — bent like a shrimp.
"AAAAAGH!"
Boston Crab. The Walls of Jericho. Now it was the Walls of Charina.
Had I never hit this before? The crowd went absolutely wild. Anne thrashed and twisted; I sat down a little deeper into the hold.
"AAAAAGH!"
Her scream got worse. Then something cracked across my arm.
"Ah!"
I yelped and released the hold. Anne had snatched the baseball bat off the mat and swung it behind her. She was panting hard as she swung again, wild and reckless. I took shots to the shoulder and thigh, screaming with each one, and when the bat head finally jabbed into my stomach I crumpled, clutching my gut.
Anne hoisted me for a power slam and drove me into a steel chair.
THUD.
"AAAAAGH."
As if that still wasn't enough, she set up a table and a ladder, then locked my neck into her side so I was staring at the ceiling.
"You okay?"
"Keep going. And be careful."
"Yeah."
We checked in with each other, quiet and brief. We hadn't rehearsed this match, but we'd run similar sequences plenty of times. Everything so far had clicked perfectly. Neither of us had anything to worry about.
The second I answered, Anne gave a light palm-press against my side as a signal — then grabbed my neck and spun. My body flipped a full one-eighty, and my face drove straight into the canvas.
One of her finishers: the Spin Reverse STO. The Death Spiral.
I deliberately didn't scream. I just let my body shudder. Anne took a short breath, then laid me out on the table. Through half-lidded eyes I watched her climb the 3.6-meter ladder, slow and deliberate.
We weren't even ten minutes in, but the action was already too brutal to call a women's match. The crowd had no idea what was coming next, and the energy kept climbing.
Anne! Anne! Anne!
Charina! Stay with us! Charina!
It wasn't so much cheering as people just blurting out whatever they felt — which meant they were fully locked in.
Anne took a deep breath at the top of the ladder — and launched herself into the air.