Saldano vs. Rodriguez - Queens of the Ring

The crowd was starting to count now, but it was in Japanese - Carmen had learned the language a bit, but not nearly well enough to recognize the count while her skull was being caved in. It was just random noise, something rhythmic to time herself with, like the steady tap-tap-tap of a metronome. A countdown clock that she couldn't see, but could feel instead, like a pressure drawing down on her. Close. So close. Just a little while longer.

Both blows landed right on target, knocking Lorenza back and putting her on wobbly knees, for a moment - but not a long moment. Carmen moved in to try and take advantage and nearly walked right into a straight aimed for her face. She just barely managed to jerk away and let it slid across her cheek, missing a deadly blow. With the force of her own movement adding to it, that would have been a knock down for sure. She was sure the damned thing shaved a year off her life.

Her bad eye came back to bite her, though. Her dodge put her in prime position for the hook, which landed clean and almost gave her whiplash from the sudden turn, hitting hard enough to hurt her neck. A right cross followed it and slapped against Carmen's face as she stumbled back, loosening up her jaw and putting her on the outside.

No - she couldn't stay on the edge. Her eye was too messed up for outboxing. The pool was too far away - she had to get back inside. Stake a claim. Defend it.

Carmen brought her guard back the second her feet touched down and almost did a full leap back to Lorenza, moving in so fast that she nearly crashed into her. Instead of coming with her guard, she opened it all the way and just started swinging, daring Lorenza to see who could unleash more hell, giving it all to offense.

Right hook. "Drop!"

Left hook. "Drop!"

Right hook. "Drop!"

Left hook. "Drop!"

She swung and swung and swung, not even able to see where some of the punches were landing, trust in her body to know where to put them, leaving herself open for Lorenza to do the same. It didn't matter. The belt didn't matter. She never wanted the stupid thing, anyway. All she wanted, all she ever dreamed off, was giving everything she had to give in a match, going the distance and coming out with head and hand held high. This was it. This was that time.

Lorenzaâ€s swift recovery had evidently caught Carmen somewhat offguard, because the Puerto Rican boxer very nearly walked into what surely would have been a knockdown blow, had it hit head-on with full force. While Carmen did manage to dodge that punch, the next two punches in the combination landed just where they should, throwing Carmen back and forth, jostling her, loosening up the joints between her bones.

Carmen stumbled back, but she didnâ€t stay back for long. She leapt forward to meet Lorenza again. As soon as she was within striking distance, she started swinging, giving it all to offense. Lorenza knew she couldnâ€t block the blows, and so she would open herself up as well, launching punch after punch after punch of her own into Carmen. Right hook, left hook, right hook, left hook. It was like a battle of the gods, now, with each woman showing off her full power and her remarkable endurance as they traded blows which mutilated faces and shattered bones, struggling to determine which one was the mightier.

“You first, hermana!” Lorenza yelled in reply to her opponentâ€s insistent mantra, as she threw yet another right hook. “Drop!” A left hook, now. “Drop!”

She ignored the punches which were raining down upon her, though every one made her want to cry out in pain. She bit down on her mouthguard, not blinking, even as her eyes began to water, even as they began to be clouded with blood.

Lorenza pulled back her fist for another punch. “Go…down!” she roared, swinging her right fist down, then bringing it back up, trying to send Carmen flying with a hard uppercut right to her chin.

Time slowed down, and with it came a heightened sense of things. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Army pounding the mat like a madman while her father looked on with a stone visage, arms folded and approving. The crowd looked ready to storm the ring, as popcorn flew around the stands, a few stray kernels even finding their way to the ring. The smell of blood was heady in the air, and Carmen couldn't even tell how much of it was hers, anymore. It was all mixed. On their clothes. On their gloves. On the floor.

That was them, after all. Tied by blood. Inseparable.

Lorenza went blow for blow with Carmen. Hook for hook, bone for bone. Not a single inch passed between them, their feet practically nailed to the floor. Each second was like a battle in itself, a furious exchange of blows that landed with enough force to crack wood and bend metal.

The Mighty Mexican broke away from the exchange and reeled back, screaming her wishes as she lashed out. Carmen wasn't even sure what punch she threw. All she saw was blur of red, green and white, a flash across her face, and a wave of pain only a second later. Her head dropped, but Lorenza snapped it back with an uppercut, flying right into her chin. Carmen knew that broke something, but she couldn't even tell what - a tooth, maybe. The jaw itself?

Her body flew up then started to come down, and Carmen's knee dropped, only inches from the floor. Just touch - the barest tap - would be a down. A fraction of a second to take out two years? No. Never. That leg was straightening. Her body was going to fight, whether it wanted to or not.

She rose back up with a right uppercut of her own, bringing it up into Lorenza's side while she buried her head in the tigress' chest, pressing the top of her skull in there. She leaned on Lorenza, partly to drive her back, partly to use her as a living crutch, partly to keep her close while she pulled her left down and went for her third liver blow of the match. A new, personal record.

Their noses broken, lips split, faces cut, the two pugilists spilled their blood into one conjoined puddle in between them on the canvas. It was very fitting, after what the two of them had gone through together over this half hour of shattered bones, bruises, and pain. No one else could share in the emotion of the moment as the fight wound down like the two who had participated in it could.

Of course, that didnâ€t stop the crowd from trying. The fans were going crazy as the two women traded blows, battering each other with no regard for their own health or wellbeing. Blow for blow, hook for hook, the two bled away the final few seconds of their match.

Lorenzaâ€s uppercut snapped Carmenâ€s head back, and the Puerto Ricanâ€s reaction told Lorenza that she had definitely inflicted some sort of unseeable wound with that punch. She did not have time to feel too good about it, though, because, though Carmen wobbled and her knee began to plunge towards the mat, she did not fall. She steadied herself, and came right back up, driving an uppercut of her own into Lorenzaâ€s liver. The Mexican boxer groaned and swayed on shaky legs as Carmen pushed into her, but she still held her ground. Her liver was now throbbing madly, and she was almost certain that something was wrong with it. She just bit down hard on her mouthguard, choking down a cry and assuring herself that, whatever it was, it was not so much that modern science could not repair it.

She started up with the hooks again, throwing them to the sides of Carmenâ€s head as the countdown hit ten. She wanted to inflict as much pain on Carmen as she could before the bell rang. Not out of malice or out of hate—quite the opposite, really. She would not be satisfied—and she knew Carmen would not be satisfied—unless she gave her rival everything she had.

Carmen sometimes wondered what this would look like to someone from another planet. If some alien just happened to catch this fight on a frequency, what would he make of it?

He'd see two women beating each other bloody for no real reason. No money. No prize. When it all came down to it, all this blood had been spilled and these bones had been broken in the name of things that you couldn't put in a bank or sell or hang up on your wall. When they were dead and gone, it wouldn't matter one bit. The universe on a whole could not possibly give less of a care about the honor of two little insects slapping each other around on a giant ball of dirt.

But to them, it mattered. To them, it was the entire world. That would have to be enough.

The liver blow landed for the final time, a blow that might have sent the physician running if it had happened earlier. Didn't matter, now. They were too close. There was no stopping it, even if the referee tried. Besides, Lorenza was hurting, but it still wasn't enough to stop. Not even enough to slow her down.

Lorenza was looking to pack as much pain as she could into the final moments, and Carmen had to do the same as they careened towards the finish line with both their cars on fire. For every blow to the head, Carmen threw an equal hook into Lorenza's middle, trying to cut the blue-haired bruiser in half before she could decapitate her. Carmen was screaming, she knew that, but she couldn't even tell which screams were hers or Lorenza's.

Her eyes slammed shut. Her hearing muffled. There was just pain. So much pain.

Through it all, she tore on and gave everything she had to give, pulling back and letting a right cross fly, praying that Lorenza was still in a position for it, praying her body had just a millisecond left to give before she was done..

The bell rang.

Ten seconds left. Ignoring what had to be a perforated liver, Lorenza threw hook after hook, left and right, into Carmenâ€s head, battering her rivalâ€s skull as if she were trying to smash it like a peanut. At the same time, Carmenâ€s gloves were pounding away at Lorenzaâ€s broken body, sinking into her stomach to drive the shattered remnants of her ribs into the lining of her stomach—or that was what it felt like to Lorenza. She let out a low, pained, but determined roar, which gradually grew louder until she was screaming at the top of her lungs. The violent sound melded with Carmenâ€s screams into a single note as the crowd began to count down to the final bell.

“Five!” They shouted, jumping up and down, shaking each other, pounding on the backs of their seats. “Four!”

After the match had ended, everyone who had born witness to it would go on with their lives. They might forget about it. Many people—many billions of people—would never even hear of it. Even boxing fans would let it slip into history, for it was not for a title, or a gold medal. It wasnâ€t even sanctioned by any of the major international boxing agencies.

But for Carmen and Lorenza, their lives, for better or for worse, would be irrevocably changed when that final bell rang.

The pain was growing more intense by the second for Lorenza. She couldnâ€t even list everything that was wrong with her body. Her ribs, her liver, her face…even her wrist, now, was starting to throb. It was sprained, at the very least, if not broken. The toll that hundreds of thrown punches had taken. But, throwing caution to the wind, she would launch that glove forward again, roaring right in Carmenâ€s face, delivering a right cross straight to her opponentâ€s head. At the same time, Carmenâ€s cross caught her on the chin, snapping her head back painfully one final time.

The bell rang.

Immediately after it did, Lorenza would spit out her mouthguard. The chewed-up plastic strip, covered in both spit and blood, fell to the canvas, splashing in the pool of blood that had formed between the two boxers. Lorenzaâ€s eyes never left Carmen. She didnâ€t break body contact. She leaned forward, pressing her sweaty, bloody forehead against Carmenâ€s, staring into her rivalâ€s eyes, her whole body heaving against the Puerto Ricanâ€s as she tried to catch her breath following the match.

The two exchanged blows in an explosion of sweet sweat and blossoming blood. Carmen took it hard right in the face, but so did Lorenza. Carmen couldn't see how the blow landed from her position, but she frankly didn't need to. She could feel everything she needed to know.

That was it. For both of them. They simply had no more left to give.

Carmen could barely see Lorenza through her swollen eyes, and she just happened to see the mouthguard slip out. A good idea, really. She need to get in as much oxygen as she could. She fell forward, almost ready to collapse, and if Lorenza's body hadn't been there she just might have. They both slumped against each other as the applause started to echo around the room, thundering, mixing in with the cheers.

She appreciated them, sure. But they didn't register. For the moment, she and Saldano were in another universe.

The two were locked in their favorite pose, forehead pressed against each other, their breathes mingling and mixing between them. Lorenza's face was a misshapen mess of bruises and bumps,with red streaks running the side. It was a sight that would turn most away, make them cringe...but not Carmen. To Carmen, it was just a clear sign that the woman before her had all the qualities she believed in. That she was tough. Strong. Fierce. Unwavering.

In other words, Lorenza had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment.

Carmen just smirked, no doubt an odd look with her swollen lips. "So." She sighed, her chest pushing into Lorenza's with a perfect rhythm. "Was that good for you, too?"

The two boxers slumped against each other, foreheads pressed together as they stared into each otherâ€s eyes. No matter what, they always seemed to come back to this pose—a pose which kept them close, kept them body to body, kept their breasts pressed together and let them feel each otherâ€s warm breath on their faces. A psychologist could probably write an entire paper on the body language which Carmen and Lorenza displayed towards each other while they were in the ring.

At its most simple, it was skinship—camaraderie between opponents in the ring. There was always a strange intimacy that one felt towards oneâ€s opponents, and, for Lorenza, that intimacy was stronger with Carmen than with any other opponent she had ever faced, and by a very wide margin, too.

Lorenza, too, was ignoring the audience. The part of her brain that heard them and recognized them was being shunned in favor of the part that would focus on more immediate matters: her pain and her opponent. Their chests rose and fell against each other as they breathed heavily. She gave Carmenâ€s face a quick looking over. It looked like hamburger. Swollen, bruised, and bloody, deformed into unusual shapes and colored in wholly unnatural hues. Still, Lorenza had not punched all the pretty out of Carmenâ€s face. She could still see plenty of it there.

When Lorenza laughed at Carmenâ€s joke, it was a soft, genuine laugh, coupled with a smile that tried its best to be pleasant, despite her fat, bloody lips. “Best I ever had!” she replied. She paused, then, continued: “You look like shit, Carmen.”

It wasnâ€t even really an insult, but a compliment.

"Oh, this?" Carmen gave her face a pat, joining in the laugh. "This is nothing. You should see the other girl."

Carmen had a lot of things she wanted to tell Lorenza, conversations they needed to have, for better or worse. She had the strong feeling that this wouldn't be the end of it. The pull between them was a weaker now, but it was still there. Still noticeable. That little itch at the back of her mind, pushing her on and letting her know there was still something to be left on the table.

But that was another thing for another time. For now, the match wasn't quite over . It was going to come down to the points.

Army and their father moved into the ring as Carmen stepped back, and her big brother draped the towel over shoulder, pulling her back, nice and slow, to their corner. She stayed smiling at Lorenza the whole way, save for the occasional glance to announcer as he started to make his way into the ring, card in hand. This was it. The part she hated most when it came to boxing - the judging. With games like basketball or football, you always knew who won and who lost when the game itself was over. With boxing, there was the wait. That anti-climax, a jerk in the heart as it slows down. Every fight in the Olympics had been like that, and it was a monumental pain in the ass now, giving her deja vu from the last time.

Come on. Just read it. Just read it and be done with it.

Lorenza laughed at Carmenâ€s second joke as the two of them separated, Carmen backing up into her own corner. After a secondâ€s hesitation, Lorenza would do the same, still smiling at Carmen as she did. Her corner team was there to give her a pat on the back and to wipe down her face as they waited for the scores to be announced. The announcer could not read those scores fast enough for Lorenza. Not only did the uncertainty gnaw at her, but, now that the adrenaline which had kept her going during the bout was wearing off, she was being forced to endure the full agony that a dozen broken bones and a perforated liver could bring.

“Uuuuhh…” Lorenza groaned. Her cutwoman patted her on the back again and handed her a bottle of water. Lorenza drank greedily from it as the announcer took his place in the center of the ring, halfway between the two boxers, the referee going to stand beside him as the judges†scores were announced.

As the announcer cleared his throat to speak, Lorenza would lift a glove and point it at Carmen, a gesture which was at once both friendly and competitive. Whatever happened, neither of them could change it now. It had been a hell of a match.