Lorenza Saldano vs. Carmen Rodriguez - ¡Guerra!

Carmen just chuckled as she saw Lorenza do the same thing, the two of them practically mirroring each. "You're about as original as a KISS cover band, you know that?"

Carmen's face stayed careful and cautious despite the joke, keeping her eyes locked on the makeshift weapon. Her every movement was slow and deliberate, looking for any moment, just the slightest muscle spasm. Anything. Everything.

The attack came out after a few tense seconds, two heavy jabs heading right for her face. Carmen jumped back, narrowly dodging them, but finding she was suddenly fresh out of breathing room - she'd backed right into a bench press, nowhere to go but forward.

Carmen edged forward and lowered her stance, looking ready to pounce and seeing how Lorenza would react. Stay defensive. Stay smart. Carmen had a faint idea to catch her off guard, but she needed to make some space first.

Lorenza chuckled back at Carmen. “Hey, from where I stand, chica, youâ€re the one whoâ€s copying me. Donâ€t flatter yourself!” She spun the dumbbell in her hand teasingly, letting Carmen watch the cold black metal as it moved.

Lorenzaâ€s feints seemed to succeed in making Carmen jump, as the Puerto Rican boxer retreated backwards, backing up right into the bench press. Lorenza smirked. Her opponent had nowhere to run, now, not as she closed in and sealed off any potential escape to the side Carmen might try for. They were about to collide, and they would see who came out with fewer bumps. If either of them walked away from this conscious.

The brunette came in low, her stance hunched over, defensive, cautious. Lorenza would move slowly, too, but she would not be quite as defensive as her rival. Lorenza would wait, then, moving her fist as fast as she was able, she would throw an uppercut at Carmenâ€s forehead, going for a haymaker with the five-pound dumbbell.

Carmen had to fight her own reflexes as the uppercut came her way. Years of training told her to just block it and counter with a hook, but years of training hadn't prepared her to fight a world-class champion with a metal punch. This wasn't exactly her wheelhouse.

She was too closed in for a good dodge, so Carmen chanced it with a block instead, figuring it was better to take the hit on her arms than her face. She was right, of course, but that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt like hell. Lorenza's iron upper cracked Carmen in the elbow and sent a burning through her entire limb, as bone met metal and bone gave way. She didn't scream at the pain, she howled. throwing back her head as the wail echoed through the room.

Fueled by the rage, she lurched forward and plowed into Lorenza reaching out to grab her and shoot her own barbell into former champion with a hook to the ribs. Having her bones broken was such an exhilarating experience, after all. She had to share the gift

Lorenzaâ€s punch was fast, and, while Carmen did manage to bring her arms up to block it, she would still pay the price. Lorenza felt the awkward way her rivalâ€s arms jolted when they were hit with the dumbbell, and the former world champion knew that bone had once again given way. She had already sprained one of Carmenâ€s arms, and now, she had done much worse. Later that evening, Lorenza would feel bad about doing so much damage to Carmenâ€s body. But it was difficult to feel too guilty when Carmen was doing her best to share every small bit of pain, and was succeeding wholly and completely in that effort.

Carmenâ€s wail surprised Lorenza with its volume, and an even bigger surprise was the brown-haired boxerâ€s sudden recovery, lurching forward and slamming her own dumbbell into Lorenzaâ€s ribs. Already cracked and broken, Lorenzaâ€s ribs would give way again, with more than one snapping apart completely. Lorenza howled and stumbled back, feeling white hot pain searing through her chest and her stomach. It felt like her broken ribs were stabbing into her heart. Even if that wasnâ€t the case, the shattered bones were bad enough!

Hissing, clenching her teeth tightly, Lorenza would abruptly shift her weight and throw herself back towards Carmen. She swung her dumbbell forward, looking to nail Carmen in the jaw with a hard right hook.

The room was so quiet, it was unnerving. Carmen had grown used to always having the din of the crowd in her ear when she fought, that cacophony blasting away with her at every punch. It was weird to have it suddenly gone, like watching a comedy without the laughtrack. Everything just felt...off. Stale.

The silence also meant she could hear things she normally wouldn't hear, like the sound of bones giving after a solid strike. A deeply satisfying noise.

Carmen wanted to press her advantage and nail Lorenza right into the floor, but the tigress was just too quick on the draw. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe she was just too crazy to properly react to the pain, but Carmen just couldn't keep her back, and the hazardous layout made everything tricky.

When Lorenza came at her with a hook, Carmen dared to step into the blow, let it pass by the back of her. She was too close for an effective punch, but she could use a tool she wasn't used to using in a spot like this - her head. She jerked forward, throwing a headbutt at Lorenza's nose.

Lorenza was reasonably certain every rib in her midsection was broken, but she was riding high on adrenaline, on the need to prove herself superior and best Carmen in this increasing violent battle. Carmen was hurting, too. She had multiple shattered ribs and two broken arms. The fact that she was still on her feet was remarkable. Lorenza was starting to wonder just what it would take to put her rival down for good.

She thought her haymaker to the jaw might do it, but, before it could land, Carmen stepped into it, letting the blow graze harmlessly by the back of her head. Lorenza would pull her fist back, leaning back, trying to make enough space to throw a quick jab with the dumbbell at Carmenâ€s face. But Carmen didnâ€t let her have that space. Carmen threw her head forward, slamming her thick skull into Lorenzaâ€s nose. The feature was already broken, but it would now become even more disfigured, and blood continued to pour from the Tigressâ€s nostrils unabated.

Lorenza would growl and would put her fists to work, slamming the dumbbell into Carmenâ€s side with a series of short, rapid jabs, trying to hammer Carmenâ€s ribs and force her to back up.

Carmen croaked out a series of staccato screams as Lorenza pounded away at her ribs with jackhammer force and speed, every blow taking the pain to a new height. She would be coughing up blood soon, on her way to taking serious internal damage. It was time to make some distance between them.

She had to drop the barbell behind Lorenza as she pulled her in, wrapping her arms around the bruiser's waist while the hits kept on coming. As soon as she let go, Carmen committed herself to the plan - fighting her on uneven ground, even for a minute, would be a fatal mistake.

"Up!" Carmen gripped Lorenza tight, clenching her teeth as the blows kept coming to her side, and put her feet down hard into the creaking tiled floor. She jerked back and tried to throw her rival away with a snapping belly-to-belly suplex, not even caring what Lorenza hit or if she'd hit anything. She just wanted her off, and this was the best way to get that done. As far as her pain-wracked mind could process, anyway.

Lorenza managed to retaliate for her own crushed ribs, hammering Carmenâ€s side repeatedly, each punch swift and sure, turning Carmenâ€s ribs into powder and her other insides into jelly. Carmen was screaming—a sure sign that something very serious was going on inside her body; Carmen Rodriguez was not one taken to screaming at small things—but she was not backing away, instead leaning in forward and wrapping her arms around Lorenzaâ€s waist, clinching with the Tijuana Tigress, limiting the effectiveness of Lorenzaâ€s continuing punches.

Carmen then started to lift Lorenza up. The Mexican boxer would groan, trying to hammer Carmenâ€s side hard enough to force her to let go. Lorenzaâ€s other hand would reach up to Carmenâ€s face, clawing at it at first, then forming into a fist and beginning to pound on Carmenâ€s eye and temple. But she couldnâ€t stop Carmen from completing the suplex, and she would come down hard, face first. Not into the floor, but into the side of the bench press which they had been fighting in front of. Lorenza let out a yell that was cut short by her face slamming into the metal, and she would flop to the floor, stunned, the dumbbell falling out of her hand, and a lot more blood pouring from her face. She was very nearly unconscious, and adrenaline was the only thing that was helping to cut through the fog and keep Lorenza awake.

Carmen was honestly startled that she didn't butcher the move. Even though her training was improving, suplexes were still virgin territory. She had trouble mastering the snapping motion and the timing, and she tended to mess them up more times than she pulled them off, hurting herself as much as the person she was hurling. Six times out of ten.

This was one of the four times, though. She pulled it off and sent Lorenza flying, and while she couldn't tell what the Tigress hit, it sounded quite nasty. Good. Carmen would have savored the moment, but the battered remnant of her chest was a bit distracting.

She fell on her back, clutching her chest. She wanted to get up and finish the job, but just moving was proving to be a little difficult by itself, much less seizing the moment. "Hey. Lorenza." She groaned and rolled to her chest, looking up at her. "You still awake?"

Lorenza was in a fog, but she was not quite unconscious. She groaned loudly, her face feeling like it was cracked into a dozen different pieces. That wasnâ€t actually too far off. When Lorenza would blink the blood out of her eyes and look down, she would see a pair of whitish teeth sitting in a pool of red blood underneath her on the floor. She let out an exasperated cry. “Fuck, Rodriguez!” she hissed. Her head was throbbing, and it felt like it was about to explode. Hearing Carmen asking if she was awake, Lorenza would scoot around so that she was facing her rival.

“Sí, sí, Iâ€m awake,” Lorenza would say, feeling air funneling through two small gaps in her teeth. “Look what you did!” She would pick up the teeth and toss the bloody little pellets at her foeâ€s face, laughing morbidly before getting up onto her hands and knees, her whole body feeling like it was about to rebel against her and shut down, perhaps for good. The suplex into the bench press had given Lorenza a cut on her forehead and a busted-up mouth—complete with, if the sensation in Lorenzaâ€s chin was any indication, a cracked jaw—to go with her shattered ribs and liquefied organs.

“What do you think now, hermana? Still want to kiss me?” Lorenza would ask, smiling at her opponent. One of her two front teeth was missing, along with one of her lower canines. “Come here and Iâ€ll give you a real good one…” Lorenza would put her fists up, ready to engage Carmen again, right there on the floor.