The Wrights vs. The Rodriguezes - Family Tensions

All this activity had not gone unnoticed on the Rodriguez side of the ring. Army wasn’t paying James too much attention - the guy wasn’t the big threat here, his ballbuster of a sister was, and even he knew that the key to winning this match laid in neutralizing her in grand fashion.

But when he saw James looking around, thinking, putting some pieces together before he called Jessica over, he started to grind his teeth with worry. They were starting to get on the same page. That was not, in any way, a good thing.

Carmen was still on her back, barely aware of what was going on around her at the moment. She registered that the ring was shaking, as Jessica bounded about. She could hear Army calling out to her, sounding as if he was warning her about...something. What, exactly? She was too stunned to say, but she had the strange feeling she wouldn't be in the dark for much longer.

Sure enough, she learned of the Wrights’ plans in spectacular fashion, as James came flying into view. She had enough time to realize what was about to happen and tense up, but not quite enough to do anything about it. Down he came, crashing into her chest so hard that she bounced up at the impact, only to come down with her arms and legs splayed out beneath him.

"Woo!" The aerial ace was excited. He could not help it. Flying through the air like that was pretty fun, but landing on a tough opponent was even more exciting. Even more so, considering how hard he had been hit in this match. James quickly adjusted so that he could get in a good position for a pin. The purple-haired man grabbed for Carmen's leg. It was pretty nice, all things considered. Maybe, after the match, he could ask her out on a date.

Looking to make sure that her shoulders were down, James lifted up that solid leg of Carmen's. It was high time that this match was over, in his estimation.

Jessica, for her part, did not hop over the ropes. She made a few quick assumptions. One, that the ref would be looking at her and instead would be looking at James and Carmen. Two, Army would try and run over and break the pin. Three, that Jessica would have to intercept him.

The Violent Violet was not looking at her brother. No, she was looking at Carmen's brother. Jessica was ready to go out and meet him should he come traipsing across the ring.

James was going for the pin. Of course he was going for the pin. He was on top of Carmen, she was stunned, that was the sensible thing to do at the moment. The only question was what Army would do about it. His first thought was to charge through the ropes and save her, but there was a problem with that. A roughly six-foot tall problem with purple hair.

A quick glance showed that Jessica was ready and able to intercept. He wasn’t slow - not as slow as most thought - but was he faster than her? Couldn’t say.

”1…!”

And now it didn’t matter. He hesitated, and that hesitation allowed the referee to get in one slap. If he tried now, it wouldn’t work, anyway.

”2…!”

He held his place, gripped the rope tight, teeth ground hard, and…

...Carmen shot her arm straight up, broke the pin with a quarter of a second to go, and Army exhaled.

Jessica's ears were perked up. Even as she was watching Army, she knew that she had to stay aware of that. Hell, that was the whole goal of her coming out tonight. Her knuckles were white as he gripped the ropes. She noticed that her heart was starting to beat a little bit faster when the count of one came. There was no way that he can make it in time now, she thought, so all we need is to get to three...

James, for what it was worth, was riding a little high when the two count came. It would be so nice if he was the actual one who pinned Carmen. Sure, he had not done a lot of the work, but this was worth something to him. He closed his eyes, and waited for a count that never came.

No, the Latina was defiant. James stood up, and took a few steps backwards. He did not dare look at his sister, as she almost assuredly would be very angry at him. He did not really want to look at Carmen, either. In his head, he was doing the right thing by staring at the mat a few feet away from Carmen.

Jessica, for what it was worth, was not particularly mad. She just shook her head, and retreated behind the turnbuckle. At some level, she knew that James was going to get his ass kicked out there, and she would be there when he inevitably needed him. She just hoped that James would come to his senses rather quick.

Carmen had managed to get her shoulders off the canvas in time enough to avoid a three count and lose the match. That was good.

But she was still getting the crap knocked out of her, was hurting all over, and she didn’t have a good plan for getting out of it anytime soon.

On the sidelines, Army was breathing a sigh of relief...or half of one, anyway. It was hard to tell how good of a situation she was in. On one hand, she was down and hurting. On the other, she was down and hurting with James, the lesser of the two Wrights. If there was ever a time to get back on the good foot, this was it.

It definitely helped that James didn’t seem to want to capitalize on his advantage, for whatever reason. It gave her a few second to roll away to the corner adjacent to Jessica, and get back to her feet with the turnbuckle as support. Not the best position, but a definite improvement over laying on her back.

Jessica watched Carmen make it to the corner unmolested. Had Jessica been in the ring, she would have pursued Carmen the same way a shark pursues a bloody seal. Her knuckles went white, because she was gripping the ropes so hard. She turned back to see James just standing there like an idiot, and shook the ropes out of frustration.

The aerial ace started to wake from his torpor, for what it was worth. He looked over at Carmen, then back at his sister, then back at Carmen. It had been a fairly odd 30 seconds, and James felt like a lost little boy in the supermarket, without anyone to really guide him to greater things.

Jessica, for better or worse, was ready to be that gentle, guiding hand. "Get over here and tag me in, you fucking idiot!" She stretched out as long as she could as she hollered at her brother. The Violent Violet was leaning over the ropes now, and she knew that her large breasts were dangling in a somewhat provocative manner. She did not care. Jessica was looking over at Carmen, thinking about all the nasty thing that she wanted to do to the Latina.

James dutifully walked over to his corner and tagged Jessica in. The Violent Violet came roaring in over the rope and bounded to a stop. She turned to face Carmen. "You're fucking dead." She threatened.

Wow, Jessica really did have nice tits.

Okay, yes, that wasn’t the most important thing to consider right now, but Army couldn’t quite help himself. It wasn’t like she made any effort to hide them or was in any way shy about showing them off, the way she was dangling over the rope and letting them bounce about. It was almost hypnotic, watching them there…

But not so much that he could ignore the danger of the situation. Carmen had a surprising reprieve in the corner, but Jessica didn’t seem inclined to let it last for much long, as the big, purple, people destroyer came bounding into the ring, landing hard enough to make the ropes tremble. She was buff, she was pissed off, and Carmen was unfortunate enough to be in her warpath.

She was worried. She had good reason to be. But there was no way she was letting Jessica know how much.

”Okay.” Carmen moved off the ropes and fought the aches, raising her fists into tight - if somewhat wobbly -stance. ”Show me.”

Jessica assessed the situation. Carmen was not quite whole yet, but she would very likely get there very quickly unless Jessica forced the issue. The Violet Violet recognized that even standing on the sidelines for a good chunk of the time was not enough to mean that she wasn't tired. The hits she had taken were starting to build up, which was to say absolutely nothing about the tiredness that was starting to slow her down. If Carmen took a swing, Jessica was not sure that she could dodge it or stop it in time. The only thing that seemed like the right course of action to her was to minimize the time that the Latina could swipe at her.

James looked in the far corner. Army was pretty distracted, it looked like, and James knew that causing that was precisely the point of why his little sister chose to wear such an outfit. The guy, as big as he was, did not appear to be that much of a threat at the moment. Just like I'm not, James thought bitterly.

He turned his attention back to his sister just in time to see her move. And dear god, did she move.

Jessica lowered the boom and ran straight at her opponent. It was probably stupid to telegraph her move like that, but Jessica was always just as interested in shows of force as she was in executing her manoeuvres. And this was very much a show of force. She herself was not quite sure if she wanted to tackle Carmen to the mat or ram her into the turnbuckle. Whatever the case was, Jessica had her shoulder down, and she was coming straight at the Latina. Hard.

Jessica was big. Jessica was pissed. There was, more often than not, one thing that big, pissed wrestling women did when they had their opponents cornered: they charged them. Surprise, surprise, that was exactly what the violet beast decided to do.

[color:f26b=#ffoooo]”Look out!” Army gave her a warning, but it was completely unneeded. Since Carmen wasn’t blind, she was perfectly aware of the human-shiped steamroller heading her way at ramming speed. How to deal with it? That was the question. She was hurting, too winded to move out of the way in time, and trying to take Jessica head on would have her end up as roadkill.

She had an idea. Something she used in boxing all the time, but hadn’t whipped out in a wrestling match. Not a good time to experiment, but she had little choice in the matter.

Instead of retreating, Carmen pushed out of the corner and moved straight towards Jessica, appearing - appearing - to throw herself into a head on collision. A poor prospect, one that was coming up in three, two…

At the second before impact, Carmen swung her body out of harm’s way, twisting away from Jessica’s warpath. At the same time, she brought her arm up and threw a hook towards the bruiser’s face, using the torque of her entire body to increase the impact. A check hook. A little trick from her father.

James did not look at Jessica as she thundered across the expanse of white mat. That was very much a known quantity. He could think of few other people who he had spent as much time with as her, for better or worse. What was more or less unknown was the actions of Carmen. His purple eyes focused, and he was holding on to the ropes tightly now. He prayed that he had not spent too long dawdling in the ring. That his sister was going to run right through this woman...

But he recognized that was probably going to be the case.

Jessica did not have such thoughts. The only thing that she could concentrate on now was trying to run so fast that she broke poor Carmen in half. She saw Carmen lower the boom, and thought she had it made. The Violent Violet had sheer momentum on her side, which she hoped that would translate into something just short of an explosion once she collided with her opponent.

But it was not to be. At the last second, Carmen spun out of the way. To make matters worse, a lashing blow slammed into her face right before she crashed into the turnbuckle. She could not say which one was worse, but in the end, it hardly made a difference. The Violent Violet fell to the mat, overwhelmed by the pain in her head.

And for the first time this match, James began to have doubts.