Anne Sachman vs. Lorenza Saldano

Lorenza wished she was a more skilled chess player. As they continued to play, she got the feeling that Anne might never have played the game before in her life. In that respect, Lorenza had a leg up on her foe—her uncle was quite the chess player, and she had played several times with him over the years. She had never once beaten him, and always had to be reminded of the rules when she played, but at least she was passingly familiar with it.

As she stared at the board, though, Lorenza realized just how little she knew about chess. She saw a dozen moves that could be made, but how many of them would lead to wholly unexpected ruin? She felt like she was striking in the dark with every move she made.

As frustration started to set in, anger and hate started to wane. Lorenza was still irritated with Anne, to be sure, but not quite as furious with her as she might have made it out to be. She hadn’t really minded the kiss at all, though the mention of it sure did get Anne riled up. Lorenza wasn’t going to rule out using it again, if it suited her.

She smirked as Anne made her next move, trying to let on that she knew something Anne didn’t. “You ever played chess before, chica?” she would ask, before grabbing another one of her own pawns from near the center of the board and moving it forward, making sure not to put it in harm’s way. The crowd was starting to get restless, and Lorenza was right there with them. She wanted to kick Anne’s ass. She had no interest in chess.

Anne bit back the sharp retort she was gonna spit out at Lorenza. She didn't even wanna hide it, really; she was shit at this, and Lorenza didn't seem all that much better.

"Not much," she said. "Thinking you're on the same boat too."

She advanced the pawn at the far left forward again, as clueless as the crowd was restless. She wondered how those chess boxing matches sustained any interest in between rounds, because she sure as hell wasn't feeling it.

“Same boat? Not quite,” Lorenza would reply. Truth be told, even if she had more experience with the game, she doubted that she was any better at it than Anne. Lorenza had never had the patience for chess, and she had only ever played it to appease her uncle. Now, she wished she had paid more attention. It would have been really something to checkmate Anne and watch the younger fighter squirm, losing in the chess round after acquitting herself so well in the physical rounds.

As Anne moved her leftmost pawn forward again, Lorenza would now move her own pawn outward to face it. As the chess match continued and the seconds ticked away, Lorenza’s initial strategy was to mirror Anne, blocking her pawns’ movement, preventing them from getting behind her lines where they might do some real damage. Lorenza would then move out more pawns just out of the reach of Anne’s pieces, trying to bait her foe into going after them and exposing her pawns to assault.

After a few more moves, Lorenza would begin moving pieces beside her pawns. She would move the black-space bishop out, and move the knight that had stood beside it out, as well. Lorenza would then pull out about the fanciest chess move she knew, moving the rook in to castle her king, scooting him into the relatively protected corner.

Anne stared hard at the board, snuck in a quick glance at the ref, then stared back at the board again. Apparently, that fancy switcheroo thing she did with the king and the castle piece was legit. Now, Anne had zero actual idea what to do, but she could see a lure when she saw one. She moved out her black space horsie, again sneaking over a quick glance at the ref to see whether she got it right. She made a few extra moves between turns, bringing out her white space bishop, and pushing her right rook forward a few paces.

Uh, that was something.

"I watched you on TV when I was a kid," Anne started again. The earlier verbal brawl was still gnawing on her a little, and she wasn't quite ready to let it go. She said some things, yes, and it didn't feel right, but... "Watching from home failed to convey the absolute smugness that is Lorenza Saldano."

Lorenza would watch carefully as Anne responded to the moves she had made. Obviously, Lorenza's castling had been a surprise to the younger competitor. That was good. Lorenza knew more about chess.

She still doubted that she knew enough to actually finish Anne off, though. They had twelve total minutes of chess during this match, and she had never finished a match in twice that time.

Lorenza watched Anne move out her white-space bishop and black-space knight, the opposite of what she herself had done. Hoping to capture a piece at last, Lorenza would start to try to maneuver her black-space bishop after Anne's knight, trying to capture the horse and draw first blood. She would continue moving her pawns forward as well, trying to gum up any plans Anne had with them, though by this time many had already run up against each other, making the board rather difficult to navigate with the other pieces.

Anne started talking. Lorenza would meet her opponent's gaze, trying to peel off the layers of bravado to figure out just what Anne was trying to say. "It's always nice to meet a fan," Lorenza would reply, trying to sound a little more smug than she might otherwise, since that was who Anne seemed to think she was. "Seriously, though, I was a little piruja back then, spoiled by success, you know. But now...I'm a mirror." She hoped the analogy didn't sound weird coming out in English. "I just reflect what you give me back at you. You're pretty fucking smug yourself, you know. If you don't like it, well..." She shrugged.

Anne rolled her eyes at the 'fan' jab. Always struggling to climb on top, always trying to be the alpha in anything that mattered. She just hated people like t- Okay, she had enough self awareness to see the hypocrite embedded in that sentence. "You're wrong. I'm not smug," she said, like a child trying to hide a folder that said. in bright red letters: CASE FILE - Smug acts of smug smuggery sanctioned by the chancellor of smug in smugmany. "I'm confident. I'm sorry if you don't like that. Maybe I'm a mirror too. You started this shit."

Her horsie was taken. Good riddance. She never liked that horsed-faced sack of crap anyway. Couldn't even walk in the right direction.  A first pawn was taken by Lorenza's bishop. She took one of Lorenza's pawns, caught another suspiciously easy one, then brought her queen out.

"Can we just move back to killing each other?" she said to the referee, who shooked her head apologetically. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Anne's act wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Lorenza. The Mexican boxer knew that her opponent was smug, at least as much as she herself was. Anne was in the stage of her career where she was young, and she was a champion. She must feel invincible sometimes. Lorenza knew the feeling. Hell, Lorenza still felt invincible sometimes, despite recent evidence to the contrary.

"I didn't start any of this shit," Lorenza would reply, as one of her pawns was taken. It was a necessary loss, or so she told herself, as she would move two others on the other side of the board forward. She took one of Anne's pawns, too, and then sent one forward to let Anne take it. When she did, Lorenza's horse hopped forward to take that white pawn. "How the hell could we both be mirrors, eh? Doesn't make any sense."

When Anne brought her queen out, Lorenza would move her own queen forward, but not too far. She would move her bishops forward, keeping them out of range of the white queen, but trying to maneuver them so that they might either catch the queen if Anne made a wrong move or, failing that, wreak havoc behind her foe's lines.

Time was ticking down in the chess round, but not nearly fast enough for Lorenza's liking. When Anne asked if they could go back to killing each other, Lorenza, too, would look to the referee hopefully, and then turn back disappointed when the girl shook her head. "If we don't get back to killing each other soon, this chess thing is going to kill me through boredom first..."

"You didn't start it?" Anne scoffed, but deep down she wondered. The start of the match seemed like such a long, long time now, hurt and spite and sweat putting so much distance between the recent then and the now. "Whatever, okay?" she shook her head, and knew it was a mistake; it hurt. "I don't need your respect." Now wanting it on the other hand... "And I don't need my round to beat you. You're gonna know how it feels today, champ. You spent your days putting lesser girls down; it's time you know what it's like to hit the curb and not get up."

She knew she couldn't look Lorenza in the eye when she said that, more so since Lorenza wasn't actively antagonizing her, so she focused on the board, trying her best to make it sound like a casual threat. Smugness was her shield, she guessed. She kinda gave up on the assertiveness on the board awhile back, instead focusing on wasting as much time as she possibly could within the alloted time limit of each of her turns.

Whether by a stroke of unconscious genius, or sheer dumb luck, Anne managed to maneuver her white queen into the path of Lorenza's black one - with a bishop within the tile range...

Lorenza rolled her eyes. "You're never gonna get my respect by acting like a pissy little culo, you know? If you want my respect, you better fucking give me as good a match as you can once we're finished with this chess crap."

Not that Anne hadn't already been giving her a good battle. Anne had kicked Lorenza's ass in the muay thai round, and had even gotten in a couple good shots in the boxing round. Lorenza felt that, if it came to a decision right now, Anne would have an advantage, albeit a slight one. "If you think you can beat me boxing, you are fucking insane, you know that? I beat some of the best boxers in the world—I'm not losing to you. I think you're the one who's gotten too smug, eh? You're young, always been successful...don't have the benefit of the extra years I've had."

Lorenza almost laughed at herself. She was sounding like an old woman. All of it was sort of true, though.

The two of them kept maneuvering their pieces, a couple of pawns being taken, Lorenza moving her queen slowly on her side of the board, while her bishops would try to follow and contain Anne's white queen. Soon, though, Anne had managed to move her queen into the proximity of Lorenza's queen, neither piece quite in a position to take the other just yet, but close. Lorenza would move her queen very cautiously, hoping to lure Anne into putting her own queen into a capturable position instead. At the same time, Lorenza would begin to move a bishop and a knight back to try to surround Anne's queen...

Anne had no idea what culo meant, but she was pretty sure it was the opposite of respectable statesperson. "You sound like my mom," she said, pegging Lorenza with a sour look. "And all offense intended, you're full of bull. You've never fell. You've walked over every obstacle. Sure, that last tone -that olympian- gave you some pause, but you bested her too. You've never fuckin' lost, so don't give me that 'I'm a little older now, my name is Yoda.' crap. So don't, okay? Don't pretend you fell off your bike, hurt your knee, and got back up stronger and wiser."

Behind the worship that she would probably never ever talk about now, there was a lot of resentment towards Lorenza. Like the kind of picture-perfect model you saw in the ads, she represented a near-unattainable standard to reach up towards, especially for Anne during her last-than-stellar start in muay thai. Lorenza had that kind of dominance in the sport that came only once or twice in a lifetime; the female Mayweather or Muhammad, if you will, and that Lorenza would try to lecture her about that sickened her.

Fuck it.

Anne saw the queen within reach of her own. Anne saw the the little countermeasures that Lorenza took to ensure mutual destruction - and did not care. She lifted up her queen piece, stared once at Lorenza, and took her opponent's queen out, putting it in a position to be killed in several ways over.