Drake Fond vs. Carmen Rodriguez - A Walk On The Wild Side

Match Type: Street Fight
Victory Conditions: Victory by pinfall, submission, or KO. No rules, no disqualifications.

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Who was Drake Fond?

That was the central question going through Carmen’s mind at the moment, as she made her way into a lonely alley in the middle of Kyoto, her footsteps echoing from wall to wall as she went. It was a question she’d been pondering for the past couple of days, since she was setup for this match in the first place - not completely to her choosing, either.

Being fair to management, she had asked for a match, and they’d given her what she demanded, so she had only so much room to complain. She just thought they would put her up against someone with a bigger name. A rematch against Clyde or Dasher, maybe one of the older names coming back, something like that.

Instead, she was given Drake Fond. She didn’t know Drake Fond. She had nothing against Drake Fond, but if she had to pick people to have a match with, he wouldn’t have been among them.

So, there was that. There was also the fact that she’d been set up with him in a Street Fight. That was a match type she’d had more than her fair share of during her time as the 24/7 Champion, and it seemed like management was steering her back in that direction once more.

The job was the job, though, so she showed up like she was supposed to, even coming a few minutes earlier. She was decked out in her wrestling outfit, arms wrapped up, ready to go, cracking her knuckles as she looked up. Sure enough, the AFW’s cameras were in place, set to record every little bit of violence that went on between these walls. This was an exclusive match for the internet, a little something to boost numbers on the Youtube channel. She hoped they enjoyed the show, at least

Knowing Drake would show up any moment, she made her way over to a freshly emptied dumpster near the middle of the alley, doing her best to ignore the smell as she did her stretches. If Drake was anything serious, that stink would be the last thing on her mind in a few moments.

Drake had spent the past two days looking into his opponent, trying to find out as much as he could about her. After scouring the internet, gyms, and even using some of his “colleagues” to try and scrape up dirt on her or her family, there was little Drake could actually use.

He knew about her family lineage of boxers, her Olympic medal, as well as some other odd facts, like her sportsmanship and her “respect for the ring” as his colleague put it. Drake really didn’t care for any of it, mostly looking for something that would ruin Carmen or her brother’s careers, but that something didn’t exist.

The most Drake could get from his research was that Carmen and he were two very different people, almost complete opposites to each other. The fact was compounded when he entered the alley marked on his directions and saw his opponent. Even visually they stood at stark contrast to each other, with Carmen’s sports top, track pants, and binding clashing heavily with Drake’s dark jacket and shirt, both of which had only red highlights to break up the sea of black.  

“You must be Ms. Carmen Roderiguez. A pleasure to meet you in person.” Drake would say with a smile, keeping one hand in his pocket, the other at his side. He made no attempt to approach Carmen, instead he stood a few feet away trying to use his peripheral vision to spot possible weapons discreetly.

“I must say, big fan of your brother’s work. Apparently, he cost me fifty dollars once when he won a match back in Puerto Rico.” The smile from Drake’s face faded a bit but then returned, “Now I’m here about to have a match with his sister, an Olympic gold medalist.”

A slight pause, Drake’s eye stared at Carmen, judging her, evaluating her, devoid of the same friendly tone his voice and smile put on.

“Oh, wait. I’m sorry, I meant an Olympic SILVER medalist.”

So, what were Carmen’s early impression of Drake Fond, the man who came walking into this alleyway with a confident swagger?

The man liked black and red. He had this sleek look, a bit much, odd for a wrestler. While she wouldn’t claim to have the most conventional outfit herself, Drake’s look made Carmen think he was cosplaying someone from one of those cartoons Army was always watching. Slick. Stylized. With an eyepatch, of all things.

She was standing there, waiting for him with her arms folded as he approached, and she didn’t move much. Not at first, not now. The match would start when they wanted it to, as she understood the rules, and she would greatly perfect that to happen when he came to her, not vice versa. For now, they could talk, and she only had one thing to add on after his little attempt to goad her with the silver medal comment.

”Before we begin.” She brought her hand up to give her nose a quick scratch. ”Are you actually blind in one eye, or are you just wearing that patch because you think it looks cool?”

It was a genuine question, not meant to mock him.

At least, not completely meant to mock him.

Drakes eye twitched slightly at Carmen’s question. His eye was a sensitive subject to him, but he could understand why people always asked him if he had really lost it or not. Drake was not unaware of his strange fashion sense.

“I’m sorry to say it is the former rather than the latter.” Drake would point to his eye patch, almost as a way to punctuate what he said. “Pulled it out of me when I was three or so.”

Drake would move a few steps closer, deciding his opponent wasn’t going to rush him just yet. He noticed a broken pipe leaned up against the wall and moved closer to it. He still watched Carmen intently, trying to find any shift in weight to either of her legs in case she pounced.

“May I ask you something?” Drake asked, tilting his head slightly, “Do you think less of me as an opponent? Because of my eye?”

Drake would finally lean down to pick up the pipe with his free hand, the other never leaving his pocket. After testing the weight, Drake would eye Carmen, hesitant to initiate the first blow.

He pulled his own eye out.

Carmen tried to keep her credulity from getting too strained upon hearing that. Was he serious? He sounded serious. If it was meant to be a joke, it wasn’t a funny one, but the idea of baby pulling his eye out - by accident, she hoped - was a weird tasting pill to swallow. Maybe it didn’t matter, but even so…

She caught him moving towards the pipe, but she didn’t make a move to stop him and kept her place, even as he picked it up. She was wary, yes, but that didn’t mean she was going to fall into a trap so quick. In her experience, that was the best way to take these hardcore matches - be careful, be smart, don’t take risks that you don’t have to.

His question perked her up, too, meaning more than she was willing to tell him. The last person to ask her a similar question about an eyepatch just so happened to be her girlfriend, and she hadn’t stayed that way long after.

”Do I think less of you as an opponent?” She shrugged. ”It’s not a smart move, and I’m not going to pretend like it is. In other combat sports, you wouldn’t even be allowed to compete professionally. But it’s up to you. Your risk to take.”

“My risk to take?” Drake repeated softly.

Drake pretended to think on those words. Tilting his head, he stood there for a moment silent. Finally, he gave Carmen a warm, practiced smile.

He had found a new angle.

“Thank you for your honesty, Ms. Rodriguez. I very much appreciate it.” He spoke softly, taking his eye off her for the first time since entering the alley, a calculated risk.

“It might be kinda stupid to say this, especially right before we….well, y’know,” Drake gestured with his pipe, “ But to be honest… I don’t like the thought of going blind. In fact, it terrifies me. Walking around your whole life, never knowing what its like to see the world as others do is bad enough. But a world of black? Permanent darkness?” He paused, “I can’t even imagine that.”

Lies.

“And yet it seems like every other day, I go out and start a fight with someone. Swinging and kicking, punching and smashing. It’s odd. Just one stray punch or shard of glass in the wrong spot, and the worlds out like a lightbulb for me.” He said with a snap of his fingers. “Then there’s what happens after. Will the person I was fighting know they blinded me? Would they care? Or would they just keep swinging until I stop moving?” Drake looked back at Carmen, “That is what truly scares me.”

Lies.

“Alone, in a dark world. No friends. No Family.”

Lies!

“If that should happen, I hope the last thing I see…” he said with a smile,

Lies!!

“Is my mother’s face.”

Everything Drake had said, every bit of it was a lie or fabrication meant to play on Carmen’s goodwill and sportsmanship. Her kindness, her mercy, and her pity were all taken into account. The purpose of the made-up heart to heart? To create an opening, no matter how small.

Within moments, Drake would dash forward, tossing the pipe he held at Carmen’s head. The warm smile was gone, replaced with a cruel grin. His hand, now free from his pocket, clutched a handful of sand. Drake himself was closing in, and prepared to give carmen a taste of his point of view.

Great. Drake was crazy. She had a wrestling match against a crazy person, or at least one who was trying his damndest to make her think he was out of it.

She supposed this was overdo, really - she’d had plenty of matches, but they were all against people who were relatively sane. Some of them were annoying and jerks, sure, but none of them struck her as being true headcases. Drake, on the other hand, struck her as more than a little off his axis with this speech of his, coming out of nowhere with his feelings.

Would she feel bad if she blinded him? To an extent, the same she would’ve felt for injuring any opponent. But that didn’t mean she was going to hold back or do him any favors. She tried to be professional, and that meant giving it her all. If he didn’t have the goods, he shouldn’t have come.

It might have all been a ploy, anyway, because Drake kicked things off in the next moment, closing in rapidly. Carmen brought her guard up, snapped it into place and ducked quick, letting the pipe’s swing past overhead, narrowly avoiding a blow that wouldn’t put her on the ground in a heartbeat. No question about where they stood now, at least.

She rose back up quick, took a short step to the side, and demonstrated exactly why she thought fighting with a bad eye was isn’t his best interest - she threw a right hook, target his head at the blind spot. The worst punch to take was the one that you couldn’t see coming, and having only half a field of vision opened up far too many opportunities for that.

The pipe soared over Carmen’s head and smashed against the brick walls of the alley.  Drake didn’t care, it served its purpose. Drake earned a few extra steps closer because of that throw, and learned Carmen apparently wasn’t the slow, lumbering type.

Face to face fighting, even when dirty was not Drakes preferred method of fighting. Usually, he preferred to let others do his dirty work for him or blackmail his opponents to submission before a fight. The only reason he was doing it now was because he had a good idea on what would transpire.

Drake knew Carmen was a professional and would likely try to counter his little stunt he just pulled. Coupled with the knowledge that she was a boxer and that everyone Drake has ever brawled with went for his blind eye made it easy for him to guess where to defend himself.

Of course, Drake still had the blind spot. He raised his arm protectively against his temple just in time to block the punch aimed at his head. The punch sent a shock of pain through his arm and caused him to lose his balance a bit.

Drake would try to follow through with his plan, and toss the handful of sand in Carmen’s face, attempting to blind her. Drake didn’t expect his upset balance though, and his throw went in an arc. It was impossible for all the grains to hit their mark now, but Drake only needed a few to blind his opponent.

What was Carmen learning about Drake now? Well, while she suspected he had a few mental problems, it was becoming clear that none of them were making his fighting style anymore sluggish, and that he was still pretty capable of maintaining some skill.

She wasn’t expecting him to block the punch to his blindspot. She definitely wasn’t expecting him to block it so well. While it was far from her best shot, she’d packed it with no inconsiderable amount of power, enough that many of her opponents would’ve been hit regardless of the block they put up. He, however, managed to not only get his arm up in time, but succeeded in mitigating a good chunk of her force. Not bad.

He wavered, he stumbled, he was knocked askew, but Drake was still able to bring it all back together and keep his feet on solid ground. Up. Stable. Retaliating. Carmen attempted to move in, hoping to intercept, when her eyes registered something towards her face, and then-

”What-” Carmen shrieked in a mix of surprise and rage as her eyes flared up with stinging pain. Sand. He’d thrown sand in her face, blinding her, and now she was left wide open. While he was brandishing a metal pipe, no less. Not good things.

Knowing she needed to make some space, Carmen was quick to back up with her arms up in a tight defense, protecting her skull above all else. She tried to force an eye open so she could at least get a good reason on his location before the pain came.

A quick scream from Carmen notified Drake that his plan had worked. His opponent was blind, confused, and wide open. Drake had made the perfect fighting conditions for himself, and he intended to press his advantage.

The pipe Drake had thrown was more than a couple of feet away. After a quick decision he decided to abandon it for now, thinking it would cost him precious moments that Carmen could use to clear her eyes. Instead he cautiously chased Carmen, throwing a flurry of punches at her defense, some strong, some just subtle jabs, all of them leading up to something bigger.

“You never answered my question, Ms. Rodriguez.”  Drake began in between strikes, his tone flat, “Do YOU think less of me as an opponent because of my eye?”

Whether she answered or not, Drake would try to send a sharp kick towards Carmen’s abdomen, looking to knock the air out of the boxer.