Una Lección del Maestro

Mako knew she fucked up as soon as she extended her legs towards Carmen. The woman saw what was coming her way, and she quickly dodged to the side. She didn't stop there, though, as the former champ countered with a hard uppercut to the shark's side as she flew past. The blow really stung her rib cage, and soon enough Mako landed awkwardly on her back with a grunt.

Her hands were quickly nursing her side after the graceless landing, looking to ease the pain. But one strike to the ribs, no matter how hard, wasn't going to put her down. Mako would roll onto her belly and onto her knees as she pushed herself up with one hand. Now she understood just how skilled Carmen was after the woman dodged her attack and then countered it so easily.

"Ack...nice punch..." Mako groaned with a smirk. If she managed to get back up on her feet, then the shark would bring up her arms to block anymore strikes. Having failed spectacularly with her last attack, Mako would go on the defensive for now and avoid rushing in recklessly for a third time. For now it'd be better to just take her time and wait for Carmen to make the next move.

It was not a nice landing, and Carmen almost felt bad for making Mako go through with it. The woman had a lot of things going for her - natural talent, great physique, crisp moves. But right away, she was seeing some of the flaws rear their ugly heads - namely, she was aggressive. Too aggressive for her own good. She smelled the blood, and just like her namesake…

So down she went, hard, and Carmen had to fight her own natural instinct of charging right in. This was a spar, not a street fight. Dial it back a bit.

Instead, she hung back and raised her guard, waiting for Mako to stand before she began to move in again. When she did, she came slower, deliberate, took an even pace. No rush. No hurry.

When she was at the edge of her range, Carmen did a quick step in and shot her fist out, throwing a couple of jabs at Mako’s face. Swift and solid, but not too powerful. Just testing Mako’s defenses, seeing how well she was holding up. For now.

Mako was ready when Carmen came at her. The woman threw several jabs aimed for the shark's face, but each was blocked by her arms. Mako was being extra careful not to let a punch get through after the huge misfire that was her drop-kick attempt. Carmen was too dangerous for the shark to keep making mistakes. This time she'd be patient. No matter how much she wanted to go for a big risky attack, the shark kept on bidding her time.

Mako could tell that she was testing out her defenses with all these jabs. So as soon as the former olympian went for a big hit, the shark would try swinging her elbow up to strike the side of Carmen's face. It wouldn't be a hard blow, but the strike would be good enough if it landed. Just a little thing to throw Carmen off her game and to show that the shark was still in this fight.

Test. Assess. Evaluate. Perform.

Carmen dipped into her past and took a cue from her father as she worked with Mako, remembering the way he worked with her back when she was still coming into her own. He’d always had a good eye for pacing, knew when to pull back and when to push forward. That was the unspoken challenge when it came to sparring - it had to be a learning experience.

Thankfully for Carmen, Mako seemed ready and willing to adapt, game for what Carmen was throwing her way. After she was done rattling off the jabs, the former champion moved in again, looking to hit with something more substantive, but Mako’s patience paid off - she was able to launch in and cut her momentum with a sharp elbow, one that cracked Carmen square in the face.

She took a step back, shook it off, smiled for a flash of a second, then retaliated in kind, throwing out a right straight that went for the center of Mako’s face.

Mako was rewarded for her patience as her elbow struck Carmen's face. Stunning her opponent for a brief second before she took a step back and flashed a smirk at the shark. Carmen would then reimburse the elbow strike with a mean right straight that landed on target. The blow could've dropped Mako on her ass, but after coming close to falling on her back, she'd stumble forward and before collapsing onto her opponent's chest.

This was a part of the shark's plan, though, to fake the veteran out. Her daze may have been real, but Mako still knew how to counter. As she used her opponent's body for support, the younger woman would try to surprise Carmen by suddenly jumping up and hooking one arm around her neck. Mako would also look to lock her legs around the Puerto Rican's waist, that ay she could trap her opponent in a standing guillotine lock. The shark didn't bring out this move a lot, but against bigger opponents it was a great tool to wrench the strength out of them.

The next few moments were odd, to say the least. Carmen landed a strong blow, hitting Mako right on the chin, and it was effective - maybe a little too effective. It should’ve hurt, yes, and it was one of Carmen’s better punches, but she didn’t expect to leave Mako - no rookie fighter, herself - reeling like she’d taken a knockout blow. The next thing she knew, the woman was falling forward, stunned, on the verge of collapse.

”What are you-”

It was pointed, if half-finished question, and one she received a swift answer to, as Mako leaped up and wrapped around her like a slithering snake, clamping down hard with the guillotine choke. Sneaky and effective, she had to give the Shark her credit. For the moment, she had a good play here, wrapping Carmen up tight, forcing to work on keeping her balance while she suffered in the hold.

How long that would last, however, depended on a few things.

Mako was thrilled to have successfully locked in the guillotine choke. This allowed her to keep Carmen right where she wanted her as she wrenched the life out of the woman. She must have caught her opponent opponent by surprise by acting more hurt than she was. Of course the strike had hurt, but Mako had received worse and stayed standing.

"Heh, I've gotcha now..." Mako would say with a smirk as she tried to lean back and add some more pressure on Carmen's neck. It would also make it even harder for her to stand, and if she fell over like the shark wanted, then the hold would be much more difficult to escape from.

"So...mind if I ask you a question while we're like this? I've been wondering this for a while now actually..." Mako would ask in a strangely casual tone considering their position. She thought about asking for some advice, but their was a personal question that the shark wanted to ask first. Partly because she wanted to know, and also because she thought it'd get a funny reaction out of Carmen.

"You dating anyone?" Mako would ask before slightly loosening her grip so the woman could speak. Not so much so that Carmen could escape easily, though, because her legs were still around the woman's waist with a vice-like grip. Mako was thinking she should've asked this while they were still drinking tea. It would've been hilarious if Carmen had spit out her drink as a result.

There was promise, here. If Carmen’s arms weren’t so occupied just trying to hold Mako up alleviate the pressure, she might have even applauded. Mako’s hold was a good one - simple, yes, but in Carmen’s opinion, those were always the best to go for, if you were going to do a submission in the first place. Easy to lock in, but effective, the Guillotine Choke was a challenge move to survive. Particularly if you had to divide your attention, which Mako wisely made her do. Again, smart.

Carmen had been struggling in the hold when Mako asked her question, unknowingly hitting a bit of a sore spot. Her love life had been sporadic for the past few years, to put in the most PG way possible. Mako couldn’t have known that, true, but even so, Carmen did not appreciate the less-than-subtle reminder.

Regardless of the source, she could use it. Steeling herself, she spread her legs wide and maintained a solid base, giving her a good foundation for what she had planned next.

”Stay. Focused.”

That was the sole bit of advice Carmen gave before she went into action. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, then surged forward, driving towards the nearest corner at full speed and ramming Mako’s back into the turnbuckle. If that wasn’t enough to dislodge her, she’d pull back and do it again. And again. Until her opponent let go or gave her a good reason to stop.

Mako realized she must have hit a touchy subject or something after asking about the woman's love life. Most of the time she'd managed to fluster or throw opponent's off their game, but this time it just seemed to hit a nerve. Whatever Carmen's love life was like, Mako had a feeling it wasn't going smoothly, and decided it was best not to dig any deeper while maintaining the hold.

"Ok, no worries. I can do this all..." Mako would start to say before the woman charged forward with the shark in her arms. "What the...Oh fu-ACK!!!" she'd shout out after being driven into the corner turnbuckles with a loud thud. She was pretty stubborn about keeping the hold locked in, though, and didn't let go of it just yet. Mako was tough enough to withstand one impact. Sadly for her, Carmen was pretty stubborn herself. Enough so that she'd to keep trying to knock the shark off her.

Soon she would pull back and crush Mako back against the corner once again. This time the impact broke the grip she had on Carmen's neck. Then, after the third time she was smashed against the corner, Mako's legs would release the hold they had on the woman's waist and she'd slide down to the bottom of the corner.

This left Mako groaning in a seated position as she rested against the turnbuckles. Her back was in pain after being repeatedly smashed against the corner, which left the shark in a bad position as she remained somewhat stunned.

So far, Mako seemed to have an impressive toolkit at her disposal. She was young, but seemed to be skilled beyond her years, showing more experience than any other student Valley had ever worked with. Good fundamentals, all backed up by an impressive body. While Carmen wasn’t a fan of the MMA/kickboxing craze that was taking over wrestling at the moment, she’d be remiss not to admit Mako wasn’t a paragon of it.

She had the goods on offense, too, managing to hold on quite well as Carmen rammed her against the turnbuckle, staying on longer than most would’ve been able to. She hated to admit it, but this was all coming a lot closer than she’d originally intended, dangerously close to knocking her out. A reminder that she couldn’t afford to take Mako for granted - she was a wrestler, a real threat, someone with a fairly decent record to back her up. Quite a few people online had pegged her as a future champ, and it wasn’t hard to see why.

So, serious. More serious.

She took a moment to catch her breath as Mako lounged in the corner, only needing a moment to decide what her next move was. Instead of drilling into her foe right away, Carmen dashed across the ring towards the opposite corner, covering the distance in a flash, only stopping when she turned around and hit the corner with her back.

That ground her momentum to a halt, but she regained it soon enough when she bolted out of that corner and came roaring back to Mako. With extreme velocity, she closed the distance, leaped up, tucked her legs in, and threw her body full force into Mako’s chest, hitting her with the double knees.