ArchivedLogs:Rubberized Meat

Rubberized Meat
Dramatis Personae Sloan, Trib
In Absentia	2013-05-07 (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a warehouse, or something like it; at least it's spacious, and was probably once industrial; at the moment it's largely just empty. There are tracks in the floor from long-since disused equipment and the construction of walls and high exposed-beam ceilings is sturdy. The center of the room has been excavated, since this place was in actual daily use. In the middle a pit has been gashed out of the concrete; it's not /deep/ and it serves more as a foundation than anything else; around its wide circular perimeter a cage has been erected. Nearly reaching up to ceiling-height, it is constructed of thick sturdy metal bars wrapped in a thinner wire mesh. Surrounding the cage there is a lot of empty space. Some nights, though, when fights are in session, the room is filled; with people, with cameras (though no outsiders' cameras are allowed in), with paper betting slips and folding chairs. The spotlights in the ceiling are bright-bright-bright, the better to illuminate the fighters within the centerpiece cage. It's probably night. It's usually night, when these things happen. It's been a while since lunch and that's about as much as anyone has to go on, given the lack of windows down in the kennels, the boarded-and-padded-and-boarded-some-more windows that are present up here. Presumably, though, many of the gathered crowd has jobs and commitments during the daytime: night is for recreation. The air in the room is almost /festive/. Some people have dressed /up/ in suits and cocktail dresses to match their expensive ticket price; some people have not bothered, jeans and boots. There's a lot of leather. A lot of denim. A lot of noise, people talking, bookies taking bets, people cheering or booing as one young man is pummeled rather /soundly/ by a girl much smaller than him but who moves like lightning. He's been wearing a glistening armor of clear glassy material studded with spikes but the beating has rendered this -- slowly, but surely -- to so many sharp-shard chips glistening dangerously razor-edged and occasionally slick with blood on the floor. The combatants here do not have /shoes/ but even so they don't bother to clean up the shards when the previous round ends. The fighters are traded out for a new pair, prodded in by virtue of shock collars and batons if they don't go willingly. The hush over the crowd lasts approximately two seconds before the callingjeeringcheering begins again. There are, predictably, jokes about liking it doggy style. Sloan is an old hand at this. She requires no shocks, no prodding. The woman is wearing a dingy grey sports bra and a pair of cut-off sweat shorts; the rest of her is a mass of bristling, floofy white fur. Possibly /extra/ floofed on purpose, to help provide a minimal amount of padding armor against blows. As she steps into the ring both head and tail are held low in classic canine aggressive stance, and her ears are pinned back, invisible beneath her head fluff. Those mismatched eyes of hers flick around at the assembled crowd as she picks her way--carefully--across the ring. Prowling through glass and blood puddles, mindful of getting herself cut this early in the match. One particularly vocal member of the audience is treated briefly to curled lips and a flash of bared teeth. In this arena, crowd noise being what it is, it is nigh on impossible to hear the woman's growl--but she certainly looks as if she's growling. Trib is also an old hand at this, and likewise requires no prodding. Not that his slow approach of the ring doesn't earn him a couple. His muzzle has been replaced, with a leather version that covers his mouth, pliable enoug to leave his face open to potential damage. His skin, under the dingy tank top, is strange-looking. As if he were covered in a thin layer of rubber that renders his movements a bit wooden as he enters. He's not as mindful of the glass as Sloan, crunching his way into the ring and /glaring/ at the crowd before raising his arms like a champeen and moving towards his corner. He ignores the taunts from the men directly behind him, focusing instead on the floofy woman in front of him. His eyes crinkle in grim amusement, and one closes slowly in a wink. Her canine hearing might be able to pick up the kissy noises he's making behind his mask. There is no arm raising from Sloan. She's back into her corner and swept her foot forward to clear the immediate area of glass shards. A few might glisten in the heavy feathering that decorates her foot, clinging to her fur and working down towards her skin, but she has /other/ things to worry about right now than a few tiny cuts. Her hands flex and then bunch into loose fists as she begins to hop in place. Small bounces! Small jabs at the air. Her head hangs forward and her shoulders lift slightly as she locks on Trib of the kissy face. A small nostril-flaring snort marks her hearing the masked taunt. "Come on then," she rumbles behind her bared teeth. "See if you do any better than last time." The crinkle of Trib's eyes at Sloan's reaction this time is pure amusement, without the grim. He nods, and brings up his fists in a classic boxer stance, and begins to edge forward. He rolls his neck, and the smile is evident in his voice when he speaks, throwing a test jab at Sloan's solar plexus. There's no strength in it, yet, although it's followed quickly by another before he's spinning on a heel around her. When he speaks, it's low, but enough for Sloan's ears. "Why'd you tell the kid my name?" It's the expected dance. Put on a good show, get the crowd hyped up. Sloan takes the first light jab on her forearm, the second overlooked as she pops her own fist towards Trib's mask. She doesn't expect it to land and it doesn't, with him already moving. She's up on the balls of her feet to circle with the man. At first it seems she might have missed the question. Then, with only the sudden sharp drop of her tail, she's rushing him to try to hook his knee up and topple him down to the shard-strewn floor. One drives into her heel. She snarls but under that primal sound is something /like/ a promise-of-death laugh. "Which /one/? We got a /few/ now." Trib's movements are wooden, despite the ease with which he seems to cope with it. One eyebrow pops as she misses, and he chuffs a laugh as he comes around to face the woman again. He's used to this prelude to the actual beatdown, and he tosses another punch, which leaves him open for the takedown. He catches the snarling weight, and lands on his back in the glass with 'whuff' sort of noise. "Your cagemate," he grinds out through his mask. "The superhero." He rolls, suddenly, in attempt to avoid the woman's full weight, and drives a tire-treaded foot at her ribcage with purpose. "You /want/ to get him killed?" Sloan drives her teeth towards his shoulder--a quick bite, meant to toss out just a little blood for the hungry masses--but her teeth glance off of his rubberized skin. She rumbles annoyance and then grunts at the impact to the ribs. The force of it drives her to the side and she rolls off of him, coming up into a crouch. Her fur glitters now with its load of tiny glass shards. Nose and cheeks wrinkle as she growls at him again, one arm held briefly against the bruise no doubt blossoming over her ribcage. "Didn't tell him shit," she insists. Her hands lower to the ground, fingers splayed. She's looking for an opening, tensed for another charge. There's a rumble of a laugh as Trib comes to his feet, bouncing on the balls as he comes upright. "Not you?" he seems surprised by this, even as he presses the slight advantage, leveling a sudden flurry of punches at Sloan in an attempt to drive her backwards into more glass. "Must've been that fuckin' pansy, Aiden," he grunts. "He talks too fuckin' much." He punctuates the statement with a kick that's a bit more wild than it should be and throws his weight just the tiniest bit off-balance. The punches require a sudden shift of position which opens Sloan up for them landing. Back she goes, a sudden spray of red vivid against her magnificent ruff of white where he's driven her lips against her teeth. More blood is left smeared on the floor as glass is ground into her feet. A painful predicament to be in and yet Trib provides the option to fix it. When that kick comes flying at her, she forces herself in close to topple him again. This time she tries to clamp his leg between her ribs and arm, muscles bunching hard to lock him in place as she drives him down. /This/ time, she snaps at his face with blood-streaked teeth. Maybe Trib was expecting her to take the advantage provided, because he topples easy enough, although it's a bit of a struggle for Sloan to get his leg pinned against his chest. "Bad dog," Trib grunts, and turns his head as those teeth come down at his face. A chunk of rubber comes loose in Sloan's teeth, the wound filling with blood very slowly as Trib hisses in pain. Then his fist comes up, slamming repeatedly into the woman's head, near her sensitive ears. There's no more conversation, now. Just fists and pained fury as he attempts to roll the pair of them so he's on top. Hard with one leg pinned, though. Sloan's yelping is immediate, the classic whine and keen of a dog in pain. But she's not so easily deterred. Even with her head spinning from those blows, equilibrium disturbed, she presses her advantage. She's /heavy/ and bears down at him with all of that weight, all of that /bulk/, to keep him pinned in place. Or, rather, to move him as she wants him moved. When she does roll, it's to slide onto her back and give him a /yank/ that's meant to send her steely arm around his throat from behind, legs whipping up to try to lock around his legs. Trib grunts in satisfaction as the bitch yelps, then GROWLS when his attempts to roll end with her behind him and him in a sleeper hold. His neck muscles tighten against the slow press of Sloan's muscles, and he wriggles until he's on his his hands and knees. Not an easy feat, with Sloan's legs wrapped around his, but he slowly manages it. He makes a choking sort of noise as his windpipe closes, and flings himself in an awkward sideways lunge intended to place him on his back with the woman below him. The woman is /far/ more concerned with keeping her grip on the rubberized man than with protecting herself now. If she can just...whoooooof! That is the sound of the air being driven from her own lungs as his full weight lands on Sloan. She's going to feel that in the morning, especially as the glass is pressed in through her fur, into the tender skin beneath. But she throws her other arm around him now, grabbing her own wrist to secure the lock around his throat. Her heels lock in front of his hips. The hooks are in now. She /tenses/. "...just. Go. Out," she gasps without wind. Trib gasps as his air is further restricted, and he drives an elbow into Sloan's ribs without weight behind it. "Fuck...bi..." is all he manages to choke out, and it costs him precious air to do it. He can feel the dig of her heels in the softer parts of his hips, and he manages one last growl, sucking air through his nose to do it. "Goddammi....." He gives a shudder, and his eyes roll back as the last bit of consciousness drains from him and his massive body slumps over the woman, his greasy hair probably falling into her eyes as his head rolls back. The greasy hair is probably the /best/ part of Sloan's evening. She waits until she's certain that Trib is good and out. Then, with a low whine of pain, she shoves the man off of her. Careless about where and how he lands, she rolls onto her side, and from there to hands and knees--what are a few more cuts, or catcalls about the way she looks? Her tail hangs almost limp between her legs as she fights to stand. Unsteady, now more pink and red than white, but on her feet! /Now/ she will lift her arms in proper champion stance--wincing as the room begins to rock back and forth from those blows she took to the head. Trib is well and truly out, and is completely limp when he's roughly dragged from the ring once the horn sounds. Later will find him sore and sullen, but for now, he's just a sack of rubberized meat. Sloan might not need to be dragged from the ring but it is slow going as she limps behind the man hauling Trib out. Just before she exits, she spits a bloogy gob of phlegm on the ground, inside of the cage. Then she steps out to follow along, back to her cage and what passes for "medical" care around here.