SD III: The Dasher Challenge

Carmen was starting to seriously hate Dasher. True, there was little chance of her ever even coming close to liking him, given his chauvinistic attitude and the utter lack of any respect to her, but those were things she was used to putting up with in her career, from various sources. No, what was pushing her over the line was the way he seemed to want to make a point, and use her as an example.

She could tell it in the way he moved, the way he carried himself, and more immediately, in the way he twisted away at her leg, making every moment of her life a living hell on the way to the ropes. She knew it was no accident he was targeting her lower body, either. Her fists might have been the main method of dishing out damage, but her style relied on movement. With aching legs, she’d glide across the mat slower, hit with less force.

Smart moves. Veteran moves.

He had the wisdom to milk the five-count for everything it was worth, too, holding and wringing every last bit of energy possible from her thighs. The relief was momentary, since the numbness in her thighs was instantly replaced with more pain, but she knew that she had precious little time to wallow about. She had to get up. She had to fight.

Gripping the ropes, Carmen used them for support as she made her way back to her feet. She took a stumbling step forward and suppressed a little shriek as she put weight in the wrong place. She’d already given him far too much to smirk about.

More determined than ever, she brought her fists up, stared hard his way and beckoned him on.

Although Carmen had eventually made the harrowing trek to the tethered salvation off to the side, Dasher didn't see it as any semblance of wrestling skill on Carmen's part. An experienced, seasoned, and manly grappler would have formulated a plan of escape on his own and perhaps even reversed the leg-contorting submission to be in his favor. Instead, took Carmen's cowardice in taking the easy out merely as further proof of his chauvinistic beliefs...

Carmen herself perhaps realizing the depths of her own inadequacies as she tugged Dashers' muscular frame along with her. No doubt making her trek a seemingly impossible one before he was urged to relinquish his heel hook submission. Dasher rising back up with brimming confidence in his earlier suspicion. That Carmen was merely a glorified striker with no mind for mat based grappling. Dasher now having not only discovered a weakness in her fighting style to exploit, but now had a weakened limb to target for the foreseeable future.

Dasher wiped his thumb off the side of his nose with a cocky and toothy smile upon seeing Carmen struggle to do something as simple as standing on her own two feet. Fans cheered on her determination in fighting on a bum leg against one of the more proficient grapplers in the game, but Dasher felt no remorse while resuming the match. Only iron determination as he began encircling the ring with Carmen, forcing her to use those weary legs to keep up while even stomping the mat in her direction in several fake-out approaches to play mind games with her. Though when Dasher would finally cautiously approach with his arms extended in front of him, all he would attempt was a sudden side kick to Carmen's weakened leg. The burly grappler attempting them once or twice more if uninterrupted, his offense becoming predictable, but nevertheless efficient...

A hurt limb. A seasoned veteran. A glaring weakness, just waiting to be exploited. Put it all together, and the result was Carmen finding herself in one of the stickiest situations she’d ever been. Her first instinct was to try and hide the injury, not show it, but she quickly saw the folly in that. It might've worked with a less seasoned wrestler, but Dasher would know all too well the exact spot, regardless of her attempts. If she had any doubts on that, they were quickly erased in the following moments.

For a grappler of his size, he has surprisingly swift kicks, and he used them effectively.

The first one came out quick and landed right on her leg, hitting at the precise worst location it could’ve landed. Carmen bit back a shriek and recoiled, hissing through her teeth.

The second was worse. It landed in almost exactly the same spot, compounding the pain from before, and there was no holding back the shriek this time.

The third, though? She wasn’t taking that.

This time when he struck, she hopped back on her good leg to avoid it, then launched forward, shooting her fist out as she flew to nail him with a right cross to the face.

The sadistic smirk on Dasher's broad face wasn't likely to be missed as he continuously, and gleefully he might add, targeted and exploited the glaring hole in Carmen's defenses. The first few shin kicks ringing true and echoing louder throughout the arena with increasing ferocity brought behind them, Dasher's game plan becoming as inherently simple and methodical as it was ruthless. Several more strikes and continued pressure on her aching leg meant that victory would be one more leg submission away, with the idea of hearing the Latina's pained screams before tapping her submission becoming the only way he wanted this match to end.

The lack of genuine remorse and tangible loathing he had generated towards Carmen meant that Dasher would be deriding a tad too much enjoyment from his work, enough to distract him from the flying right cross whacking him directly in his square jawed mouth after one of his shin kicks whiffed completely. The burly grappler's head whipping to the side with a pained groan while taking a studder step back to the brief cheers from the crowd for the underdog striker.

"...tch...Yiyah!!!" After shaking his head to straighten his rattled senses, Dasher tasted the familiar tang of metal that only meant his mouth was bleeding. An infuriating enough notion to send the chauvinistic grappler into an outrage before attempting a strike of his own right into Carmen's cheek, one that if it connected would generate boos from the audience in direct and opposing contrast to the cheers from Carmen's punch.

For all his boasting, Dasher seemed to realize that she wasn’t an opponent he could take lightly. At the very least, he had to give her enough thought to employ a strategy against her, as opposed to just bulldozing his way through the match and picking up a dominant win. It was a compliment in a small way, whether he meant it to be or not. Probably not.

It was fine, though, because she was working with a strategy of her own, one that involved getting Dasher mad and using that to create openings. It had helped her out before, and as the brute came swinging at her with a wide punch, it helped her again.

It was a good punch, once again showing great prowess for a grappler, but Carmen had dodged faster in her time. Even with the aching foot, she had little trouble ducking low and letting it pass just over her head, missing with little space to spare.

She rose quick and reached up, wrapping her arm around his expansive chest and getting a good hold. Before he could return fire, Carmen put her foot behind his ankle and pushed forward, looking to drop him flat on his back with a standard STO.

For what was simply a battered lip with merely a blotch of blood to show for it, Dasher reacted to it in a much more ferocious manner than to be expected. Primarily from the thought of this harlot daring to to even fathom pulling that off, but also from Carmen's insufferable willpower from what he thought would have been a debilitating enough offensive to have her be easy picking from this moment onward. Instead she continues to defy his muscle-brained conventions by fighting back against her male, and therefore superior, opponent.

Though in his hot-tempered rage, he made a grievous error in attempting to outbox a boxer. The burly grappler playing to Carmen's natural strengths as his fist whiffed completely before he felt an arm around his muscled pecs and an ankle interlocked behind one of his own. Dasher recognizing the setup with widened eyes but was none the faster to stop it as he sent slamming back first into the canvas. The ring visibly shaking from the impact of his massive frame collapsing like that, earning a swelling pop from the crowd for the underdog Latina as Dasher remained splayed out for a few seconds before attempting to twist to his side in a stunned and wincing state.

As Carmen brought Dasher to the mat with all her weight behind the move, she realized she shouldn’t have seen it as all that big of a deal. It was a STO. Just an STO. She basically tripped and dragged him to the mat along with her. Hardly high-impact. Hardly a finishing move.

But, despite that, she still couldn’t help but smile. Dropping this man was immensely satisfying. The crowd seemed to share the sentiment, too, cheering her on, sensing this was her big chance. They wanted her to make the most of her moment, and she was happy to oblidge.

Carmen pushed up off of Dasher’s chest and started to rise, but she didn’t do that for too long. As soon as she got both of her feet on the floor, she jumped straight up and came down on his chest with the point of her knees, looking to hammer him into the mat with the point of her bone.

The actual impact from being swept of his feet wasn't as jarring to Dasher as the fact that he had even been taken down in the first place. Certainly not expecting someone of Carmen's inferior muscle mass and shoddy wrestling technique to bring the burly grappler flat on his back, and yet there he was. Dasher was now dazed and confused with throngs of fans cheering Carmen's takedown with heightened fervor, the audience celebrating any form of offense the Latina underdog could muster.

Dasher grit his teeth and spent the majority of his time on the mat thinking of numerous excuses as to how Carmen merely got lucky in her sudden takedown and nothing more. Time he perhaps should have spent being more aware of his surroundings when a pair of spiking knees were driven into his muscled pecs.

"Hrgh!!...chikushō..." Dasher muttered angrily while sharply jerking to the side with an arm over his tightened chest, his broad muscles absorbing some of the impact, but not enough to prevent him now having trouble catching his breath. Coupled with a sharp pain in his chest that he attempted to cope and power on through as he began rolling to his front in the earlier motions of attempting to get back to his hands and knees

The moment Carmen landed her knee drop, she rolled forward and immediately spun about, getting Dasher back into full view. She could already tell this was the sort of opponent she didn’t want to lose sight of for a single second, that he could punish any and every opening she gave him.

Doing that would require him to be standing, though, and he wasn’t currently doing that. She allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief as she saw him reeling from the blow, clearly needing some time to gather his senses. She had her opening. The only question was what she’d be doing with it.

She popped to her feet and stalked around to his side as he rose, keeping a keen eye on him as he got to his knees. That was when she moved forward and dipped down - one arm went under Dasher’s neck, one arm went through his legs. From there, she rolled forward and executed an Oklahoma Roll, trying to pull him over, drop him on his shoulders, and go for the pin.

It wasn’t likely to work, she knew that, but it all went to a final point: pissing Dasher off.

Wheezing haggardly thanks in large part to having his muscled pecs being spiked down upon, Dasher was still aware he could have been in considerably worse shape had he not instinctively tensed his beefy chest muscles at the exact last second before impact. The benefits of honing his brawny physique ensured that he could weather attacks such as those better than the average wrestler. Though he was still winded and stunned while shoving himself back to his hands and knees before he suddenly felt himself go for a tumbling spin to the side that ended up with his shoulders pinned!!

"1!"

"2!..."

"HNNGH?!" Leveraged on his back while curled up over himself, Dasher's eyes widened when he suddenly overheard what resembled a two count from both the ref and the hyped up fans in the audience joining in. The brawny grappler shooting his legs up to the sky with an extremely muscled assertion as he rolled forward to land on his knees. Dasher raising his head and indeed making good on his name sake by dashing forward with reckless abandon. Seething and feeding off that rage to attempt a burly clothesline to the impudent Latina!!!