Lorenza Saldano vs. Carmen Rodriguez - ¡Guerra!

Carmen knew there'd be some retaliation for her rally, the only questions were where it would come from and how hard would it be. The answers turned out to be right in her face and hard as hell.

Lorenza's blow crashed into Carmen's face and brought her down to one knee, nearly knocking her flat again - she might have gone down all the way, if she hadn't managed to place her hand down at the crucial moment. Her jawed ached, almost as if was threatening to unhinge. A trickle down her chin from a bleeding lip, blood clogging up her sinuses. All so very pleasant.

But she couldn't go down, not now. It wasn't just her own pride that was at stake, Lorenza's was on the line, too. They were both putting their pride on the line, and Carmen wouldn't let her go home with anything but the best, even if she had to tear herself apart to do it.

Carmen spit out some blood and jerked back around, grabbing Lorenza by the waist as she started to rise. She drove forward, holding on for dear life as she plowed into Lorenza, heading for the locker room doors with reckless abandon.

Lorenza had already broken Carmenâ€s nose, bloodied it. Now, with her retaliatory punch, she managed to split open the Puerto Rican boxerâ€s lip, too. The punch felt good, and Lorenza almost managed to flatten her rival again. But Carmen got back up. Carmen wasnâ€t going to quit, and Lorenza didnâ€t want her to. This match had a long way left to go.

“Ungh!” Lorenza grunted, as Carmen wrapped her arms around Lorenzaâ€s waist and drove her whole weight into the Mexican boxerâ€s body. Lorenza backed up, struggling to keep her feet going as she stumbled backwards. The two of them pushed through the swinging door which led into the locker room before Lorenza would finally lose her balance, tumbling backwards and hitting the back of her head against the bench at the center of one of the many aisles of lockers. “Fuck…fuck,” she hissed, rubbing at her head with one hand. The other would ball into a fist again and try to bash Carmenâ€s face in.

The two went barreling through the doors and Carmen almost immediately regretted it. The cleanup crew had done a bangup job with the main area, but it seemed they never considered the fight might take them in the back, too. The locker room was a mess of cobwebs and rusted, with almost half of the lockers broken and hanging open. Graffiti was strewn all along the walls in dozens of crazy shapes, many of which Carmen could barely see since there was barely any light, only a few rays slipping in through the dusty windows. To top it all off the floor was wet and getting wetter as rainwater leaked in from the ceiling.

The two of them came crashing down into a puddle, with Lorenza getting the worst of another fall. Carmen thought her head slamming into the bench would have gotten her a bit of a reprieve, but a punch in the face showed her just how wrong she was.

Carmen fell on her back, splashing water on impact. She started to sit back up, when she felt something brush against her shoulder - a broken off locker door, just laying there. Using weapons wasn't her style, but then again, neither was street fighting. It was a day of firsts.

She grabbed hold of the door as she sat up and swung it towards Lorenza's chest, bringing down the harsh metal with a fierce strike.

Lorenza coughed as dust entered her lungs, stirred up by their sudden intrusion into a space that had sat, unused and rotting, for what had to have been years. The AFW cleanup crew had missed this section of the building. It was a pretty major oversight. It was dank and dimly lit in the locker room, with puddles on the floor where rainwater was pooling. They landed hard in one of those, with Lorenza coming down in it on her back and getting thoroughly soaked by the tepid water. “Fuck…” Lorenza groaned.

Her punch managed to connect with Carmenâ€s face, and the brown-haired woman fell off of her, splashing into the puddle beside her. The splash spread water across the front of Lorenzaâ€s clothing, as well. She growled and put her hands down on the dry floor beyond the puddle, trying to lift herself up—into a sitting position at the very least.

Before she could, Carmen brought the locker door down on Lorenzaâ€s chest. That was unexpected, and Lorenza yelped, falling back down onto the floor, her head smacking into the wet tile to further stun her.

Wet, bloody, dirty, with a few broken bones on top of it all. Carmen was going to have a long conversation with her doctor when this was all over. Maybe talk about getting a room reserved at the hospital. If she didn't have an infection from all this shit, she'd be greatly surprised.

The smart thing to do would have been to keep battering Lorenza with the locker door and pummel her into the floor. The smart thing...but not her thing. Using a weapon like this didn't suit her, she'd only done it once so far and she already felt dirty. No, she had her fists. Her feet. Her muscles. They could get the job done.

When Lorenza went down, Carmen went up, scrambling over her body and mounting her legs, straddling her at the sides. She could have tried to pin her down from the chest, but frankly, she just did not have the energy to try. The further away from those fists, the better, and she wanted to work on her midsection some more, anyway.

She brought her fists down with two hammer blows, one from each arm, crashing into Lorenza's sides. Left blow, left ribs. Right blow, right ribs. As if she were pounding nails in tigress' coffin.

Lorenzaâ€s head was spinning, her chest seemed about ready to burst open, and almost every other part of her body was aching after all the abuse Carmen had already heaped upon her over the course of their battle. She wasnâ€t bleeding anywhere yet, surprisingly, but she was sure that she had at least a few broken ribs after getting hit with that rusty locker door.

“Fucking piruja,” Lorenza growled, shaking her head angrily as she watched her opponent get up and get on top of her, straddling her legs. She lifted her arms up, but right now she was too weak to punch with her usual force. Not that she could reach Carmen even if she were at full strength. The other boxer was sitting on her legs, just inches out of armâ€s reach.

After her foray into the use of weapons in combat, Carmen quickly returned to her old standby: her fists. One crashed into Lorenzaâ€s left side, then the other into Lorenzaâ€s right side. Again and again, cracking more ribs, liquefying Lorenzaâ€s internal organs. With each blow, Lorenza let out a hiss, or a groan, or for some which struck her in more tender spots, a brief, sharp howl.

Lorenza couldnâ€t reach Carmenâ€s body, but she could reach the other womanâ€s arms as they launched fist after fist into her sides. As Carmen threw another left hook, Lorenza would grab that arm with both hands and pull down on it hard, twisting it as she would try to pull Carmen to the side and off of her.

Carmen gritted her teeth and pounded down even harder when Lorenza belted out the curse, eager to pound her under the gym, if that's what it took. "Starting to get sick of you and that mouth of yours, Saldano." Carmen had all sorts of ideas on shutting her up, too - belly punches wouldn't knock her out, but they'd go along way to making her more pliable.

Before Carmen had the chance, though, Lorenza showed more life than she gave her credit. She still had enough energy to grab her arm and twisted on it hard, and Carmen let out shriek as her arm was wrenched. Something snapped in there. She wouldn't know until she got an x-ray, but she could feel the sever in her sinews, and all the sudden her forearm was blazing around the elbow.

Between her pain and Lorenza's sheer gumption, tossing her off and away was easy. She hit the floor and rolled to her feet standing up as quick as she could, finding herself even deeper in the locker room. She could just barely see the outline of toilets, stalls, sinks - they were in the bathroom part of it, now. Lovely.

She rubbed her arm and peered at Lorenza from the shadow. "Had enough yet?"

“And Iâ€m getting real sick of that face of yours, Rodriguez,” Lorenza would shoot back, her voice coming out as a very low, gravelly growl. She had already done her best to erase Carmenâ€s face with her fists, and had made some progress, if the bloody nose and split lip could attest to anything.

She reached forward, grabbed Carmenâ€s arm, and yanked it harshly to the side. She twisted it as she did so, brutally, and thought she felt something snap. Carmenâ€s shriek certainly suggested something had. The yanking was effective, and Lorenza easily pulled Carmen over. The Puerto Rican boxer did not stay on the ground long, and quickly leapt to her feet, backing further into the locker room. Lorenza would haul herself onto her feet as well, groaning as she felt the broken ribs moving in her chest and stomach. She took a couple of steps forward, following Carmen into the darkness. She sniffed. This part of the locker room smelled like shit, and, when she looked around, Lorenza understood why.

She glared back at Carmen, the reflections in her rivalâ€s eyes one of the few things plainly visible in the darkness. “Not yet. You?” she would reply sardonically. The Mexican boxer slowly moved to her left, approaching one of the toilets, and would reach down to grab onto the seat. She pulled up on it hard, and a metallic breaking sound accompanied its breaking off from the bowl. Lorenza would turn back to Carmen with the grimy seat in hand, swinging it in front of her, threatening to bludgeon her rival with it.

Carmen couldn't hold back a little chuckle, one that was cut off as a puff of dust got her cough. She spoke between hacks and wheezes as she retreated into the darkness of the bathroom, her feet slipping through sticky things that she was glad she couldn't see. Needless to say, her decision not to go barefoot for this match was a good one.

"You know me." She stroked her elbow with her arm, massaging the flared spot and feeling the torn muscle. "I could dance all night."

The pain in her arm was starting to fade. It would hurt to move it for a little while, but she could make do, just needed a little time to soothe it. She thought the darkness might have slowed Lorenza down a bit and gotten her that time, but no such luck. She wasn't called the One and Only because she was your average sort of lady after. The Mexican Mauler wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty. Literally. Very much literally.

"Oh, come on, you're not really going to-" Carmen darkened eyes widened in the darkness as she brought her good arm up to block the toilet bowl, groaning as it slapped against her shoulder. The locker door wasn't exactly hygienic, but this was down right revolting. "Seriamente? Seriamente?"

“Letâ€s dance, then,” Lorenza replied with a snort. “Letâ€s dance until we break every single fucking bone in our bodies. So long as my corpse is on top of your corpse, mi hermana.”

It was a dark thing to say, but Lorenza didnâ€t see it that way. She was simply dedicating herself, wholly and completely, to victory, putting everything else aside. Victory at any cost. She was sure that Carmen understood, felt the same way, and expected nothing less.

She broke off the toilet seat and swung it at Carmen. The other boxer blocked it, but the attack seemed to have an effect on it. Lorenza cackled a bit as Carmen seemed incredulous. “Seriamente.” she replied, before swinging the toilet seat at Carmenâ€s face again. “Eat shit, hermana!” Lorenza called out.