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Defeat Does Not Exist (Cobra Kai SI)

Reader mode
Chapter Seven
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    • It was the morning of July 19th, 2016 where I began to catalog my progress, set goals for myself and really start to map out most of what truly lay ahead.

    The first thing I did was start to research things in this world. I remembered Robby finding plenty of information on Kreese while in Juvie using a PC in a computer lab he had there.

    It turned out everything Kreese had told me about all his tournaments were true. The first recorded Karate Championships held by the US Army for US Army officers and enlisted men did include John Kreese as one of the first ever champions from 1967 onward.

    The second thing I started to research was just exactly what the fighting style and kind of competition the All Valley Karate tournament was, what specifically was allowed and what wasn't, because the show and Karate Kid films weren't exactly clear and all the tournaments I had been in were very specific.

    After some digging, I was able to find a detailed rule book of the All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament.

    What I realized was why exactly the karate looked so different than the karate I was used to. In my karate tournaments you at least needed to wear gloves and foot protectors, but everyone sparred in tournaments without so much as light cloth coverings on their knuckles.

    The reason why was simple. The rule book for the All Valley Karate tournament hadn't been updated since the first All Valley tournament was held in 1968. Just like all karate tournaments at the time, no sparring gear of any kind was required or used at all.

    It was an absolute miracle no one ever decided to include gloves, mouthguards, and helmets for sparring. Because bruises, injured knuckles, elbows, shins, forearms, and all sorts of things would happen in this kind of fighting. Oddly, it just didn't.

    The scoring ruleset was useful, and I was able to find specific sources for context and reference in the rulebook specifically. Most of the All Valley Tournament rule book was used from the American Tang Soo Do Association Tournament rules very faithfully actually.

    First, the scoring was clear that all strikes, if scored properly, were worth a single point.

    The second was that you couldn't use open hand techniques to the face. Meaning a very easy score of throwing a knife hand over the top to the head was not allowed.

    Despite how detailed and admittedly fair and realistic the rules were besides no sparring gear, the most important information I deduced was how to build my combination attacks.

    In competitive karate, a 'blitz' or 'combination' attack were just very rapid and sudden forward strikes chained together either applied to taking the initiative on offense, or countering while on defense to interrupt an attack.

    I began to write down a list of combos, similar to the ones I had in boxing.

    Like the one two hook, or the jab jab cross, or the one two one. I could come up with simpler attacks based off the All Valley tournament ruleset, and ultimately they all felt effective.

    Because the All Valley tournament simply didn't allow for enough information merely from the rules the show gave us, I had developed the following strategies.

    First, face and body punches were allowed, which were easily the best ways to score right off the bat or while as a counter. I planned on using my fists to attack more than anyone else probably in the Karate Kid universe until now possibly, all the kicks were flashier in the show and movies so that's what people remembered them by.

    Kicks, like the classic 'pump kick' with the front leg, were probably ineffective unless I would be insanely good and fast with it. You had to be creative and strong with it, not just flicking it out there weakly hoping to get scored on.

    Front kicks were okay as long as they were part of a combo or done as a scissor kick or another attack set it up first.

    The jab punch. Wow. A karate jab punch that was rarely ever seen except in very major fights on occasion. I had started to perfect it in all forms because it was incredibly useful because it was so fast and easy to score with as a first attack.

    Above all I had begun to study Tang Soo Do karate as much as I could online. Finding videos, tips, and techniques as much as I could and surprisingly enough, videos of basic how-tos from the 80s and 90s by people like Bill Superfoot Wallace who had perfected the three point American Tang Soo Do sparring method on a globally competitive scale gave me the best tips, essentials, and combination attacks.

    Most of the fighting style was actually pretty effective on paper, it mostly boiled down to how well a karateka in this style would apply it to real life that made it worthwhile to me in self defense.

    The reactivity, guard or how well a fighter kept his hands up and reacted to blows to the head and chest area, adapdativity, aggression, flexibility, stamina, and strength of a fighter were key to this style.

    Ultimately I didn't see much use for me to study Miyagi-Do for more than one year anyway besides my plans. From what I gathered it could give me extremely good reflexes for counters and even attacks if applied aggressively instead of defensively in a fight.

    Huh. Nevermind then, I'd hold onto it for as long as I could then, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world if I had to walk away from it.

    …

    It was a hot summer afternoon, nice day out, and I decided to do my grandparents a favor while getting some kata practice done at home.

    I waxed on and waxed off all their wildly expensive collectible cars from the 60s to the 80s.

    I was in a tank top and shorts, practicing my standard Miyagi-Do blocks by washing cars when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

    "Hi."

    I turned around, nodding to Demetri. "Hey."

    I made a circle with my fingers and whistled loudly. "Donnie! Come here boy, bring the bucket!"

    The golden retriever held a pail of soapy water in his mouth and laid it down at my feet.

    "That's a good boy. Yes. Good boy."

    I tossed him a biscuit from my pocket and dipped the sponge into the bucket and continued to wax the cars.

    Demetri nodded slightly. "You trained him well."

    "Sure did. He was trained as soon as my grandparents were able to. The Mills family were all dog breeders back in Scotland or whatever." I mumbled.

    "That's pretty cool. I'm just wondering though. Why would you ever wash your own cars instead of just hiring someone to do it for you?" asked Demetri. "Your family is clearly." Demetri nodded towards my house. "Loaded."

    "Well. Here's what's gonna blow your mind. What I'm doing, is actually karate."

    "Karate from chores. Odd." he didn't seem to question it. "Wonder how that works."

    You'd actually learn it at some point.

    "I'd teach you." I said. "But you don't seem like the confrontational type."

    "Yeah I'm more of a hide behind guys with muscle and fighting ability like you kinda person." said Demetri raising his hand slightly.

    I chuckled. "Yeah I figured."

    I was his Miguel and then Robby against Kyler and then Hawk. Huh. Funny how that worked out.

    I drew my phone from my pocket, texting Robby, the newest person in my contacts.

    Hey. No hard feelings about yesterday, maybe know who this is? Everything okay?

    Demetri spoke. "So. Eli just downloaded the new demo for Persona 5 on his Playstation. Wanna go check it out?"

    "Sure." I said, quickly rinsing down the cars with some hose water and then closing the garage door to them.

    After I let Donnie back inside my house I began to walk towards Eli's house, which actually wasn't that far from my own. Only about a thirty minute walk actually, and despite me being fourteen, my grandparents didn't mind me on my own or really care that much anyway.

    I muttered. "My grandparents are making me have a stupid dinner at the LaRussos."

    "Who are the LaRussos?"

    "They're Sam's parents. Sam's the girl who walked up to me and asked to hang out with her, remember?"

    "Right. You're having dinner at a really hot girl's house. And you expect me to feel bad for you?"

    I chuckled. "No Demetri. I don't."

    Robby had just texted me back, which actually surprised me.

    The text was a bit odd.

    Lucas right? I think I need your help.

    …
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Eight
  • Threadmarks
    • I muttered to Demetri. "Hey um. You got a way to make it home right?"

    "Yeah, Eli's mom always gives me a ride. Why?"

    "Nothing, I think I might be busy for a little bit. We can go a few rounds on Eli's Playstation any other day."

    Demetri nodded. "Okay. Everything alright?"

    "Everything's fine. Just get home safe."

    "Thanks." Demetri smiled. "Even though there's only a few more weeks of summer still left. I've started to enjoy them. Glad we started hanging out."

    "Me too man." I smiled back.

    …

    In my bedroom I dialed Robby's number.

    He picked up and I spoke. "Hey Robby. Look I-"

    "Luke? Shit! I gotta talk to you."

    "I'm sorry about beating up your friends. I'm sure we could've just-"

    "What? It's fine listen. I need your help."

    I looked around my bedroom for a second. "That's why I'm calling."

    "Yeah well I need your help like right now."

    "What's going on?"

    "Those two guys you beat up? Their names are Trey and Cruz. And they are, pissed."

    I shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

    "So they know we had a little conversation and I walked away unscathed while they got their faces busted in. And the goddamn cops know about all the shit I helped them lift from your beach club. We got into a pretty nasty argument. I'm at my mom's but I can't go anywhere without seeing them around, they gave me some pretty massive threats and I just ran from then. I can't go to the skatepark, library. Anywhere."

    I frowned. "They know where you live?"

    "We just moved. But I think Trey might have my address from um. Something he might've mailed to me."

    Drugs, molly if I remember correctly. Shit, I forgot what Robby was into dealing at his old highschool at North Hills.

    "Okay man um. Do you have somewhere safe to stay that's not your mom's. Like your aunt's or something?"

    "That's why I'm calling. The only family I have in town isn't helpful I promise."

    I know Robby. I know.

    I sighed. "And you thought I could give you a place to stay?"

    "Well I don't know. I'm fucked here! You're the reason why they're after me. You gotta do something! I think I'm owed something at least."

    I had to agree with him, I basically was the reason why Trey and Cruz blamed Robby for apparently having betrayed them or sold them out to the cops. I did in fact identify Trey and Cruz at the beach club and they told the police. But there was a better alternative.

    "This family of yours. I know we like, just met. But how unhelpful are they?"

    "Really unhelpful."

    "Are they dangerous, to you specifically?"

    "No."

    "Are they criminals?"

    "Somewhat."

    I remembered the record Johnny had by the time the show had started and resisted the urge to laugh.

    "Somewhat? What does somewhat mean?"

    "It doesn't matter. Can you help me or not?"

    "We gotta talk in person for this."

    "Well any minute now my old friends are gonna jump me the second I step outside my house not to mention I don't know what they're gonna do to me. So tomorrow is not my best option."

    I muttered. "Where do you live?"

    "887 Rancho Drive, North Hills. Apartment 17B."

    "Where's your mom?"

    Robby was quiet for a bit.

    "Just not home." he said quietly.

    I had forgotten about that too.

    I checked my watch, I'd get there by seven thirty. "It'll take an hour by bus to go from where I live to your place. Lock the door. Get a baseball bat or some shit and for the love of everything sane. Do. Not. Open. The door. Unless you're sure it's me."

    "Pretty much already doing that but you're right. See you in a bit."

    …

    Shannon Keene's apartment. Never thought I'd be here at all yet really, or so soon.

    I had taken so many buses all over Los Angeles by this point that this wasn't trouble at all. I had walked around Pacoima and some pretty seedy parts of town all by myself even during nighttime so I wasn't bothered by this.

    You kept your head down, talked to no one and stayed alert. You were safe. That's what I learned from Kreese about the places he stayed around, oddly it worked perfectly well.

    I knew my grandparents and especially mom back home in Denver would lose their shit but they never caught me.

    It was nightfall. A pretty quiet night besides some dog barking in the distance of North Hills.

    I knocked on the door of Robby's place.

    "Look man it's me. The person who told you to lock this door."

    Robby quickly opened the door and guided me inside his house.

    He locked the door to his house behind him and yelled at me. "You mind explaining to me what you were thinking today!? Why would you ever just randomly attack two dudes stealing wallets and beat them up instead of. I don't know. Calling the police or not committing a crime?"

    For a juvenile, Robby was still quite the realist I remembered from the show.

    I muttered. "You mind loosening your grip on that baseball bat while you say that?"

    Robby froze. The wooden baseball bat clattered quietly to the ground.

    "You seem awfully helpful for someone who had no issue beating up my friends. It still doesn't make any sense to me."

    "I explained. I've been in your position before."

    "Really?"

    "Well not exactly but I know what it's like to have bad influences on you. To feel like. Doing stuff you shouldn't do is the only thing you can do sometimes."

    Robby crossed his arms. "So. Pity then. And general violence for fun. That's you?"

    "Do you want my help or not man?"

    "I don't have a choice. But yeah. what did you have in mind?"

    I knew Johnny could save my ass right now. How to ease into this.

    "You said you had family."

    "Why did you have to come here then for this. I already told you they're no help."

    "What do you think will help you better long term? Staying secretly in my pool house until my grandparents find out and my ass gets sent back home to Denver? For who knows how long? Or someone who can actually help."

    Robby sighed. "I get you have no reason to take me in. But we gotta do something else besides that and asking my dad for help."

    "Your dad?"

    "My dad isn't exactly a psychopath. But he's pretty awful. He's been arrested like three times last year. I see him once every few months. He wants nothing to do with me."

    "So you barely talk to him."

    Robby shrugged. "And?"

    "Dude. He's an easy way out of this mess."

    "He'll be mad as hell that I asked him for help."

    I spoke calmly. "Well. Have you ever actually reached out to him and asked him for advice or anything?"

    "Look I-" Robby froze again. "No." he said quietly.

    I didn't blame him. He probably either hated him or was too afraid to admit how he felt about Johnny. I would be too honestly.

    "Let's at least hear what he says. Do you know where he lives?"

    Robby glanced around his house for a moment, seeming to think for a moment. "Yeah." he said quietly again. "Southern part of Reseda. Only been there once. He's too broke to move around anywhere else."

    "We don't have all night. Buses stop moving around at eleven and it's how I get around town."

    Robby nodded, clearly he trusted me to some extent to help defend him from Trey and Cruz.

    Two guys with knives though? Martial arts covered weapons training to some extent, but in the real world, it was trickier.

    …

    On the bus ride over towards Johnny's apartment, I spoke to Robby.

    "Look man, I might not be from your part of town. Or even get involved in the kinda shit you do." Robby said nothing as I kept explaining. "But I know what it's like to be neglected."

    "How could you know that by looking at me? We never met."

    "I saw your friends stealing wallets and phones from my beach club. Two assholes older. Bigger than you. Maybe they bullied you into it or used you. It made sense to me. People can be criminals and do bad things. But that doesn't mean they're all bad people. Some people."

    I sighed.

    "Some people just need to be talked to. Because at one point I."

    Shit from my previous life. Technically it didn't even happen in Robby's universe.

    "I just needed to be talked to as well."

    Robby nodded a bit. "That's kinda touching to hear. But you took a massive risk. You went out of your way and acted way beyond how a person in your shoes should. For what?"

    "For doing the right thing. Haven't you ever wanted to do that too?"

    Robby frowned, the bus kept driving slowly towards Reseda. "At one point. Maybe."

    "It's not too late. It's better to be honest sometimes than to hide what's really going on. Maybe I understood because we're the same age. Maybe it was a stupid and pointless risk I took like you said. Maybe I just wanted to beat up your friends for no damn reason and I was just pissed off at them from wanting to steal from me."

    Robby muttered. "As odd as this is. Because it's literally the strangest thing I've ever had happen to me. It does make some sense as to why you could just try to help or whatever. I mean, why risk so much? All three of us jumping you or possibly doing worse? Just to try to kick the asses of two random guys who happened to steal from your beach club?"

    "The more you get to know me. The more it'll make sense."

    "I hope so. You are one completely crazy guy." Robby said, smiling lightly.

    Even though he might've been joking I protested quietly and calmly. "I'm completely sane, just a bit stranger than your average person. Tell me about your dad."

    Robby sighed. "Not much to tell. Name's Johnny. Probably hasn't been sober since. 1990 or something. Works as a handyman of some kind, I don't goddamn know. That's about it."

    "His last name Lawrence?"

    "Yeah. Why?"

    "Huh." I smiled. "Small world. My mom dated some guy named Johnny Lawrence back in high school. It's actually part of the reason why I moved here from Denver."

    Robby laughed in surprise. "No way! That's a nightmare of a coincidence."

    "Tell me about it." I laughed nervously for a second as Robby smiled.

    "Wow. Talk about the odds. But um. What else do you know about my dad?"

    "Supposed to be some sort of huge karate champ in the 80s. My mom's name is Ali Mills. They were a couple at one point."

    "Karate champ? My goddamn dad? Get outta here."

    "It's what she said. Or at least. What I found out."

    Kreese did tell me a lot about him in the weeks and weeks I'd trained under him and gotten to know him.

    "Huh. Well." Robby muttered. "I can't wait to see how freaked out he'll be by all this. As weird as it must be for me, for him. Must be huge."

    "I can imagine."

    He was in love with Ali. Even decades later he admitted he never got over her.

    …

    Robby knocked on the door across the hall from where I knew Miguel Diaz would at one point live.

    Johnny Lawrence answered it. And wow did he look like he'd slept in a ditch drinking for the past thirty years.

    "Robby?" he was a bit surprised to see him and then he looked at me.

    "Hey um. Can we talk?"

    "Who's he?" asked Johnny flicking his head towards me.

    "Someone trustworthy." Robby said. "I know it might not mean much coming from me but. He is."

    I looked away, I smiled at this.

    Johnny cleared his throat. "Um. Sure. Sure yeah come on in."

    We did so. Wow. He really did need to clean up the place like in the first season of the show. Odd to see it with my own eyes.

    "So. Who's your friend?"

    "Luke." Robby said.

    "Luke Schwarber actually." I shook Johnny's hand. "Coincidence of the century. Caught Robby stealing from my beach club." Robby looked at me, clearly shocked that I had decided to spill the entire truth to him. "I beat the asses of two guys with him. And then decided to help him. Out of. Pity. Or. Whatever."

    Johnny glared at Robby. "Stealing? The hell do you need to steal for?"

    "You know what for."

    Johnny frowned. He had a point. Robby basically lived alone all his life, the second season of the show established he lived off Cheerios and expired chips one summer.

    "This might sound odd. But apparently you and my mom might know each other."

    "How so?" asked Johnny.

    "She's Ali Mills."

    Johnny blinked rapidly again. "Excuse me?"

    "Ali Mills? Apparently you two date-"

    "No, I heard you, I just. Yeah. I guess that is the coincidence of the century." Johnny said in disbelief and a strong bit of calm yet noticeable shock. "How can I help you two?"

    "These two guys after me are bad news. I need to stay with you for a bit until everything cools off." said Robby.

    Johnny scoffed. "So? Then track them down and beat their asses again. Apparently you can do it already."

    "Is that really a way to live? Looking over your shoulder not wanting to get stabbed in the back or something? Or knocked over the back of the head and robbed or who knows what else?" I asked.

    "Well fighting doesn't seem to bother either of you two anyway, but. Why not go to the cops?" Johnny asked. "You got loads of solutions here."

    "Would you have believed me if I just randomly decided to show up one night and say I wanted to live with you all of a sudden?" Robby asked blankly.

    Johnny opened his mouth to protest but probably knew he was right. It would be strange, but admittedly stranger than this where Robby did actually need his help.

    "Fine. We'll talk it over with your mom."

    "She's busy." Robby muttered quietly.

    "You mean Shan's? Again?" Johnny sighed. The entire carpet of his apartment was littered with nothing but beer cans and empty bags of Jack Links and other trash. "I can't talk, I guess. But look. We'll figure this out."

    Robby frowned. "This has been the craziest day of my life. I'd like to go the hell to sleep. So I can just forget about it."

    Johnny nodded a bit. "Okay. You can use the room across the hall from mine, I'll dig up a sleeping bag for you. I'll try to reach Shan as soon as we can."

    Robby looked at Johnny and I and walked off, clearly really freaked out by the oddity of today. I didn't blame him, again.

    "And this is the moment where I leave too."

    "Uh uh." Johnny raised his eyebrows. "I need to know what happened."

    "I told you the truth."

    "No. I need to know why the hell Ali's kid coincidentally helps my. Kid. Out of a bad spot. And comes to me."

    "Like I said it's an odd coincidence."

    "Sure but." Johnny muttered quietly, leaning on his kitchen counter. "I haven't heard from or seen Ali in ages. What's going on?"

    "My parents run the best Pediatric offices in downtown Denver. She's a surgeon, and my dad's an oncologist."

    "Why aren't you with them then? Sound like responsible people."

    I used something I knew would click with Johnny after his experiences with Sid.

    "Money isn't everything to be considered present and good parents."

    Johnny seemed to look at me in the same exact way he looked at Miguel in the second episode of the show where I knew he was relating to him for never meeting his father.

    "And now you're in a crappy part of LA fighting random people and talking to her exes. Alright. So you ran off then?"

    "I actually thought about it. I decided to ask my mom to send me here instead."

    "And she accepted? How old are you? Thirteen?"

    "Fourteen thank you."

    "Why?" Johnny asked quietly.

    "She spoils me for whatever I want. This was the one birthday present money couldn't buy."

    "What? Beating up random people and then rescuing their friends from the shitiness of crime? Some birthday present."

    Wow. For being a drunk for decades Johnny did speak with a lot of sense.

    I just looked at him. "I felt like Denver wasn't my home and I needed to start highschool here. I don't feel comfortable sharing the details with you."

    Johnny seemed to respectfully accept this. "Now that I can understand. But helping Robby? That also makes no sense. You jumped his buds from the sound of things. Why spare him?"

    "Do you ever think rationally or with any kindness at all during or after winning a fight?"

    "No. You're not supposed to. Victory means exactly that, it's over. You have to completely win it, as much as you can, and then move on. But that-"

    Kreese had taught him this. Same way he taught me, it was very odd to hear.

    "I guess it makes sense you're not some violent monster. You're just a kid. But on the other hand, going out of your way to help a random person?"

    "I was raised richer than just about anyone I knew. I still live that way. I guess I saw a group of poor kids stealing from people as rich as I was. Saw two of them were bigger and older than the third, decided to take action. Most of my family lives rich but I don't think they know or cares what it's like for those who don't at all."

    My grandparents certainly didn't at least. Not that boy from Reseda they seemed to say to my mom.

    "How did you even kick so much ass? Three dudes who sound tough and from the streets? Stealing wallets and such. And you beat them all on your own?"

    "I know. Karate."

    Johnny looked at me, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Karate?"

    "Yeah."

    "Who taught you karate?"

    I could tell him a neutral dojo I knew like Locust Valley Karate or Topanga Karate and possibly save myself a headache. But I saw no reason to lie to him.

    "Guy named Daniel LaRusso. Friend of my mom's-"

    Johnny scoffed. "Daniel LaRusso. Teaches karate?"

    "He's my neighbor. I asked him for a favor. He taught me."

    "So you know that Miyaggee stuff then. And you were able to use it to beat up two random dudes?"

    I shrugged. "Pretty much. He also taught me to be kind to people, focused, and to use my awareness not your instincts. That's why I saw Robby as clearly a victim of the stealing and the crime I saw as much as I was."

    "Makes more sense then." Johnny looked at me up and down. "As much as I respect a proper ass kicking using karate any day of the week. You are one strange. Goddamn. Kid."

    "I like martial arts and doing the right thing every once in a while. How is that so strange?"

    "It's not. It's just." Johnny frowned, in silent thought from what I saw. "Nothing."

    We stood there in silence for a second. I checked the time on Johnny's stove.

    "Shit." I muttered.

    "What?"

    "It's eleven o'clock already. The last bus back to Encino probably just left."

    Johnny spoke quietly. "You live with your grandparents or something? The Mills right? A small mansion?"

    "Yeah. Why?"

    "I know where that is. I'll give you a ride."

    …

    The red 1991 Firebird smelled so badly of cheap beer and piss that I honestly thought Sam was doing Johnny a favor by smashing it and then Louie for burning it down.

    "So." Johnny drove calmly as he spoke to me. "How's your mom doing?"

    "Fine."

    "Does she. Ever. You know. Talk about me?" he asked slowly.

    "No. I had to pry really hard to figure out who you were. And what the hell happened during her highschool years."

    "Really."

    I nodded.

    "I can see Ali hiding that." admitted Johnny. "But why not just you know. Enjoy a normal summer like a regular kid your age? Playing video games and doing nothing all day? Instead of getting into fights and spending your time helping people from the crappy part of town?"

    I smiled. "Maybe boring kids like that shit. I prefer to learn how to kick some major ass."

    Johnny laughed loudly for a moment. "Hold on. So LaRusso really did teach you how to kick ass?"

    "To a necessary degree." I said.

    "Wow. I um."

    Johnny was probably having a hard time admitting that he didn't like how much he liked me using Miyagi-Do to beat up two guys. Or seeing Miyagi-Do karate as useful outside of a tournament just like Kreese did for Daniel or anyone but Mr. Miyagi.

    "Nothing."

    "What. Thinking of maybe teaching karate too? Maybe become a Sensei?"

    "Hell no, I got bills to pay and I need my current job. But I do need to seriously teach Robby what I should've taught him when he was younger if today's taught me anything. Same thing you were taught, just, completely differently. How to. Properly. Kick ass."

    I think I might've just signed up Robby for Eagle-Fang Karate before it was even a thing. One on one training with his dad, huh.

    For all I knew I might've created either a loyal friend, or the biggest rival I'd have later down the road in my path to martial arts record holding status.

    "I think Robby does deserve that chance. But why not teach him earlier?"

    I knew the answer to this but wanted to hear a bit of it anyway. He told it to Miguel when they got burgers together.

    "Life. Life got in the way. You'll find out one day."

    We started to enter the first boundaries of Encino Hills and my neighborhood.

    "Your mom was a very funny, smart, and nice person. I may not know you very well, but I can see some of that rubbed off pretty well on you."

    "Thanks."

    Johnny braked a stop sign, I knew my house was around the corner.

    He wasn't taking his foot off the brake, he could see the Mills Manor from here.

    I saw the look on his face. Head Games by Foreigner might as well have been blasting in his head.

    "What?"

    Johnny sighed. "I used to pick up your mom from that house. Take her to Golf 'N Stuff, hang out with all our friends from school too sometimes. She was, she was something else."

    "What does that mean?"

    "It means she was a really kind person." Johnny smiled at me a little. "Just like you are. You helped Robby out. As weird as it all was. You still really helped. Helped both of us in a way."

    "I thought you and Robby were on bad terms?"

    "Shit like Robby almost being jumped. Tells me I have to do something at least, not right to let stuff like letting him rob people happen. Things are going to be tough between us. But I hope you and Robby keep in touch."

    "He'll start high school soon with me right?"

    "Yeah."

    "I'm going to West Valley in the fall. Maybe I can see him there?"

    Johnny sighed. "Got a lot to work out. We'll see I guess." Johnny smiled at me again for a second. "A part of me actually doesn't know how to feel that you learned about all this shit and went to LaRusso first. Must be in the same neighborhood as you I guess. But, you're Ali's son. Not mine. You can choose to train with whoever you please."

    "Thanks."

    "I'll see you around kid. Haven't seen someone randomly act as kind as you in a while."

    He offered a fist to bump before I left his Firebird.

    And I gladly bumped it back.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Nine
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Nine: West Valley High School

    …

    Despite a few stumbles, I was convinced I had made the right choices so far after having moved to LA.

    I had spent every single day except for weekends mostly training in both Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai karate.

    It was now the middle of August 2016, I had been training for three months almost daily for three hours a day under Kreese and Daniel.

    The degree of physical conditioning and strength was impressive. Despite only being fourteen and about three months, I felt very fit, very strong, very fast especially with how I struck. I felt effective, prepared, ready.

    Even if Robby had gotten a few months of Eagle-Fang training personally under his father, Johnny, I felt like I would be beyond any karate fighters my age from the Cobra Kai series.

    It was the morning of my first day of high school. I remembered mine from my first day of high school in my previous life.

    Grandpa pulled up in one of the less flashy cars he owned. Because it only cost a hundred grand or something.

    "Good luck on your first day. Daniel's been putting off this dinner as long as he could. Even past the whole summer. We set a day. Next Friday night at 7 PM."

    I scowled. "Really pops?"

    He shrugged. "He might be your karate instructor. But I need to have a proper conversation with the man and catch up with him."

    "Fine." I left the car as quickly as I possibly could.

    The interior of West Valley High was exactly how I remembered from the Cobra Kai Netflix series.

    There were TV screens on a few of the walls, it was a very well kept school all around. Clearly a wealthier high school, but I wasn't one to judge.

    During orientation the week before, I had been given a locker number, combination, and a class schedule.

    I had taken Honors classes everywhere despite wanting to focus on karate. Because my grandparents, and especially my parents back home in Denver basically forced me to.

    I didn't care. I had already passed Honors and AP classes with perfect grades throughout all of high school once. I could do it again, I had most of my knowledge from the five AP tests I had passed already in my head.

    The Binary brothers walked up to me.

    "So. First day huh?" Demetri said.

    "Yup." I muttered. "Can you guys let me know something?"

    "Sure," said Demetri.

    "You know those douchebags following my neighbor, Sam, around all summer?"

    Demetri nodded. "Hard to forget them. Why?"

    Kyler, Rory, Brucks, and the one whose name I never learned nor was interested in learning. The bullies of the first, and third and fourth seasons of the show in Kyler's case.

    "They hassle either of you two. Give you any trouble. Do not tell a teacher. Come right to me."

    Because I didn't want anybody to know I struck first against them.

    Demetri scoffed. "Don't tell a teacher? That's the responsible thing to do. Besides, how do you even know they'll bother anybody?"

    "Bullies are hard to miss. Let's just say I have a pretty strong hunch."

    "And then what are you going to do? Beat them up?" asked Demetri.

    Eli, who tended to rarely talk, chimed in. "It's the first day of school, Lucas. Maybe we should keep an open mind."

    "Yeah. But just in case. Let me know."

    "Are you okay? You seem angry. Are you just looking to pick a fight with anybody?" asked Demetri.

    I finished putting a few of my books away in my locker. "I'm fine."

    "Luke man? Are you sure. Cause-"

    "I said I'm fine." I muttered, closing my locker and leaving.

    I didn't blame them for my crappy mood.

    A dinner at the LaRusso household wasn't a bad idea. I just didn't want to deal with the crapiness of my grandparents' views on karate or anything else. I sure wasn't going to listen to him.

    I wondered how Kreese would feel about them. Probably would tell me to ignore them utterly and keep training with him.

    What really bothered me was the unnerving suspicion that Kyler wasn't a bully yet because he hadn't gained something key. His confidence.

    He already had his group of fellow dumb jocks, I met them over the summer. Now he needed something to make him feel himself better.

    The wrestling team. That was probably the last thing he needed before trying to date the hottest girl in school, Sam, and bully nerds.

    Odd how in 2016 high school was still as cliched and people acted just as stupid as they did in eighties. Wasn't like that when I went to high school in my previous life.

    My first class was Honors Biology with Sam.

    Class was already about to start when I decided to sit next to her.

    After class, Sam tried to make conversation but Moon interrupted her and gave me an easy out to leave for my next class.

    The only other person there I knew was Moon. And oddly, someone I knew would join Cobra Kai later on if he got the chance.

    Dieter. The tall quiet person who was one of the first to join Cobra Kai and never left for the entire show.

    Throughout the day, these people appeared in my classes and in the halls.

    Frank, another one of the mostly background characters in Miyagi-Do. Abe, the Miyagi-Do with the glasses. Edwin, the Cobra Kai who always wore dreadlocks.

    I actually decided to talk to some of them between and during my second and third period classes.

    Edwin was huge into cars. He seemed like a calm regular guy, I got the impression he mainly joined Cobra Kai for sport and conditioning. Not for any crazy karate war as he was only really involved in one fight, the battle at the arcade at Golf 'N Stuff.

    Frank, likewise, was similar. His only interests were tennis and chess, he was a very quiet guy and talked in a very shy voice like Eli did.

    At lunch, I spotted Robby leaving the line of other people getting food from the cafeteria's lunch servers.

    "Hey dude." I said after walking up to him. "Haven't seen you all summer barely."

    "Different parts of town I guess." Robby said.

    I nodded. "Yeah." I said quietly.

    He had a lunch tray. "Where do you wanna sit man?"

    "Uh."

    Frank and Abe were, oddly, sitting with Dieter and Edwin. The oddest of coincidences really, not that big of a school.

    Sam was by the exact same table she sat in during season 1 of Cobra Kai. With Yasmine and Moon by the back wall. She saw me and waved me over.

    "Dude. She's cute, all her friends are firecrackers. We should go sit with them." Robby said in a manner very unlike himself.

    Did an entire summer with his dad, Johnny. Influence his personality? A little, would make sense. But to this degree?

    I noticed how Aisha quietly sat with Demetri and Eli and started walking towards them.

    Robby hissed to me. "Those are the rejects. The hell are you doing?"

    "Rejects?" I asked. "What's wrong with you?"

    "High school's a chain dude. You're rich and athletic, I'm tough. We should sit with the- Hey!"

    Robby was tough. But I never would've imagined he had the self awareness or confidence to admit it openly.

    I sat down next to Aisha. "Wassup guys? This is Robby. We met over the summer."

    "Hi." Aisha said.

    Demetri nodded. "Hey."

    Eli smiled and waved quietly.

    I took out my packed lunch, opening the zip lock bag my steak sandwich was in. "So. How was your guys' first day so far?"

    "Everything was okay. Honors Bio looks like a breeze. AP next year though. Heard it might be tough." Demetri said. "Aisha and I are lab partners. Easy A."

    "Probably." I said as Aisha nodded.

    Robby took something out of his backpack, he was flipping through his notebook when I noticed something stranger.

    "Is that a trapper keeper!?" I laughed.

    Robby was a bit embarrassed. "What?"

    "That has a fighter jet on it. That's." I remembered. "That's awesome."

    Robby raised an eyebrow. "Uh. Thanks?"

    Huh. Never would've guessed.

    I mostly sat back and observed the way Aisha, Demetri, Eli, and Robby talked. Robby it seemed was far less reserved, but couldn't partake in as much conversation with the rest of them. The King of West Valley High attitude Johnny seemed to pass down to Robby during the months they spent together didn't completely overtake his respectful and admittedly generally detached disposition.

    Aisha, Demetri, and Eli were all huge on science, Star Wars, and the latest movies. Robby was clearly feeling left out of it, so I joined in occasionally and talked.

    "You didn't eat the crust of your sandwich," Demetri said, pointing to the ziplock bag I left on my part of the lunch table.

    I shrugged. "I never do."

    "It's not too odd, everyone can have their thing when it comes to food." Robby lightly added. "My mom never liked eating mac and cheese or any sort of cheese type stuff."

    "Really?" I asked.

    Robby shrugged. "Said she just never liked it."

    I realized that about how I ate my sandwiches. I bet Lucas Schwarber last year was fine eating the whole thing. It was something I carried over with me from my previous life like driving skills and the martial arts and boxing training I had.

    "So Luke. You've pretty much trained like a professional athlete all summer anyway." said Aisha as Demetri laughed and Eli and Robby broke light smiles. "Plan on actually using that on a sports team?"

    "I thought about joining the school's soccer team. Maybe wrestling." To embarrass Kyler on a regular basis just for fun. "I'm sticking with what I already do anyway," I said.

    "Right. Karate." Demetri dug his fork into his plastic case of spaghetti.

    Robby raised an eyebrow. "You gotta problem with that?"

    "No. I just don't see the point in always fighting instead of just going to the authorities and the proper channels."

    Robby stood up straighter in his chair. "You gotta take matters into your own hands sometimes."

    "Like breaking people's noses?" scoffed Demetri.

    "Can save more people than it hurts if you're responsible about it. And kick the proper asses where you should." Robby said proudly.

    It was official now. He had become the very first Eagle-Fang student, while I had become the first Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do besides Sam in the latter.

    "So I'm guessing you know karate?" I asked Robby.

    "My dad taught me the basics. You were right, he actually was a karate champ in the eighties."

    I was interested. "So. What did you guys do?"

    Robby sighed. "Weeell. He tossed me into a pool with my arms tied to teach me how to use my legs in a fight. Made me do pushups and run all day. Then he just taught me how to throw punches and kicks and stuff after that."

    "So you could've drowned?" asked Demetri. "Sounds pointless and dangerous."

    "I think a two time karate champ would know his stuff." I said as Robby nodded in agreement. "I found out all about him."

    From Kreese actually, not Daniel.

    Wow. It was surprising how much Miguel and Robby had been trained the same under Johnny.

    …

    As the week went on as that dreaded dinner at the LaRusso's drew nearer day by day.

    In Honors Bio with Sam for a lab we had to run a series of tests to see which kinds of light made plants undergo the most photosynthesis. I already knew it was white light, I had already done this lab in my previous life when I went through high school already and I read the textbook too.

    Dieter and Moon had already found lab partners, so I had to go with Sam.

    "So. Your grandparents have arranged a dinner."

    "Yup. They claimed your dad didn't want to do it for weeks." I said.

    Sam shrugged. "He said he was busy."

    "Honestly I wouldn't want to have dinner with my grandparents either. Hey um. I was wondering if you decided to go back to training with your dad. We could always use a third for katas and fundamentals." I offered.

    "Karate's not for me anymore."

    Really? This did honestly bother me. I couldn't talk as I was currently training under Miyagi-Do to combine it with Cobra Kai for my first All Valley. But Sam was Daniel's daughter.

    "Nail polish and dress shopping more your style?"

    Sam looked at me for a second before she adjusted the lightbulb and switched out another. "What do you mean?"

    "Bet Moon and Yasmine are total fashionistas. Who currently have the emotional depth of a kiddy pool."

    Sam muttered quietly. "They're my friends."

    "I mean. Aisha's your friend too right. But, she doesn't sit with you during your lunch?"

    "Why do you care so much?"

    "I don't. I'm just wondering why after how much Miyagi-Do means to your dad you'd just up and drop it to pursue being popular."

    Sam looked at me in confusion. "I never would've guessed Miyagi-Do taught you how to just insult people."

    "You have a point. That was out of line for me. I just don't like any of your friends."

    "Maybe you should just mind your own business."

    I scribbled data I already knew mostly in my notebook. "Maybe I should." I muttered to myself.

    …

    After lab Sam brushed past me to go to her locker. Being fair with her was tough. But the main reason why I kept finding it tough to just be nice to her wasn't because of what she technically hadn't done yet in a show I had watched.

    It was because Kreese had forced me to be friends with her in order to spy on Daniel. Ironically if the tables were switched, I might've become a spy for Miyagi-Do and hated getting along with any of the Cobra Kais maybe.

    I opened my locker and realized who Sam was talking about.

    It was Robby.

    They talked in a very similar manner to the way in which they did during the last episode of the second season of the show I realized. He leaned on some nearby lockers acting cool and casual, and Sam stood there talking to him, smiling brightly and chatting.

    I was glad to see them getting along. Especially because Johnny had the sense to probably encourage Robby to get a decent haircut.

    I finished discussing some Chem notes and a bit of Doctor Who with Demetri and Aisha before I noticed Eli slowly and quietly getting his books out of his locker.

    "Hey man. Everything okay?"

    Eli nodded, looking over his shoulder at Sam and Robby.

    "What?" I asked.

    Eli shook his head quietly.

    I looked at him. "Wait. LaRusso? Okay. I can respect that. Have you even talked to her?"

    Eli shook his head.

    "She's okay. She's nice but. Her friends are all awful that can be a landmine."

    "It's not the friends you're probably thinking of that I'm worried about." Eli said in his tiny voice.

    Sam laughed at something Robby said.

    I nodded a bit. "Right."

    I was just surprised he developed a crush on Sam first instead of Moon despite going to the same school for so long. For all I knew he liked Sam first but never mentioned it and or got over it after dating Moon.

    "Just go talk to her man." I said. "I personally don't like her that much. But I'm sure you two can get along."

    "I don't think she'll enjoy it very much."

    "Why not?"

    Eli glanced at Robby. "Think she prefers talking to someone with a regular lip."

    "Who told you that?"

    "No one."

    "Eli." I said, firmly. "Who told you?"

    "I can't have you solving my problems for me."

    I could tell Eli was reasonably afraid of me taking matters into my own hands. I remembered him crying as his mom made Counselor Blatt hold a cyberbullying PSA in the cafeteria.

    I sighed. "You're right. If you're not comfortable with it. I can't force it out of you."

    "Just please don't hurt anyone Luke. It's not right."

    "And you thinking a girl like Sam wouldn't be interested in you? That's right?"

    Eli had trouble making eye contact with me. "The way you and Robby talk sometimes. It's aggressive. And I think you two just want to be violent for the sake of violence."

    "Not to beat down bullies."

    "That sounds like an excuse a little. And even if it's not." Eli said. "You can't fix anybody's pain by hurting others more."

    Wow. Hard to believe this would be the next generation of Cobra Kai's Dutch. I got the impression Eli was a Miyagi-Do all along who happened to train with Johnny first.

    "Yeah. Well sometimes you're not given a choice. Regardless. You need to understand that Sam. Could very well be interested in you in return."

    "Look at me." Eli muttered. "I'm a loser. A nerd with a scar on his lip."

    "Today's losers. Are tomorrow's winners."

    "Easy for you to say." said Eli. "You're tall. And well built. Not to mention you're ultra confident. What do I have?"

    The heart of a Miyagi-Do and a great person, and strength and speed of a Hawk.

    "I didn't think I had what it took before taking karate. Sometimes. Being on offense. Is exactly what someone needs to make the right step. To grow into something better."

    "I can't grow out of who I am. Karate can't change that." Eli said, very upset.

    "It won't. But it can still improve-" He was looking away from me and starting to leave. "Hey man-"

    Eli turned around and walked away.

    I saw Kyler wearing a wrestling team jacket chuckling as Eli walked past. Bruck and Rory and the last guy whose name I could never remember was with him.

    They looked satisfied, as if Eli was walking by and they had scored a point in a tournament or something against him. Eli glanced at them for a second, Kyler merely shrugged at this and Eli kept walking.

    It had already happened, Kyler with just a week of wrestling was enough to become a bully. An entire year before the show began, made perfect sense really and that he probably never said anything too.

    I technically had very little evidence. But it was enough for me.

    I glared at them. I was balling my fists and didn't notice how angry I must've looked.

    "Hey." Robby said. "What's wrong?"

    I shook my head. "Nothing." I ran my tongue along my upper teeth. "Everything okay?"

    "Yeah. Yeah yeah um. Sam's a pretty cool chick, we met in Geography."

    I nodded. "Uh huh."

    "Think she might? You know, like me. At some point?"

    Robby shrugged a little.

    "Definitely. But um." I cleared my throat. "Stuff can get in the way sometimes. Girls can be weird, just like guys. We can all be weird."

    "It can't be that weird." Robby scoffed. "Dude. My dad said if there's a hot babe at school. You talk to her before any other guy can. I think it might pay off at some point."

    Striking first. Similar to how Kreese taught almost the same lessons to me just in a very war like tone. To him, Miyagi-Do was like an enemy dojo in a karate war.

    This was so unlike the Robby I knew. How could just an entire summer of Eagle-Fang and living with his dad change him this much? Guess it made sense. Years of neglect and a summer of attention and at his age too, I would definitely try to be like Johnny too.

    He was also well over a younger right now than when he was introduced in the show, a bit more impressionable I guess. I mean, Cobra Kai and Johnny's lessons turned Eli and Miguel into ruthless Cobra Kais by the end of the first season of the show. When in the beginning they couldn't harm a fly.

    "You came across as much more. I don't know. Calm. Standoffish and such when we first met over the summer. No offense."

    "None taken." Robby shrugged. "I had a terrible haircut and hung out with the shadiest kinds of guys." he reached out and patted my chest with the back of his hand. "Thanks man. You got me outta that."

    "Why drop the edgy skater guy vibe?"

    "I don't know. I started to listen to Ratt and Guns and Roses. Rocky. Rocky two. All great. Something my dad said, everything he started to teach me. It all just clicked with me."

    I laughed quietly. "Glad to hear it."

    "My dad also started to say, to never trust a LaRusso? He gave me this um. Really personal story about what karate was like for him back then. Don't want to give you the details man, hope you don't mind."

    I'm pretty sure I already knew all of them anyway.

    "I don't mind."

    "Yeah, he said. Karate's great and all. But LaRusso's karate. Ain't karate at all. At least, it really messed up karate for my dad."

    I laughed again. "Did you happen to catch Sam's last name?"

    "No."

    "It's LaRusso. As in Daniel LaRusso. My Sensei. Remember?"

    Robby's eyes widened for a second. "Oh. I didn't mean-"

    "It's fine."

    "No man. Um. My dad told me about that too. He's not on good terms with him. But, he said you're cool with us for helping me out. And, I'm cool with that too."

    Now this was the Robby I remember.

    "Right."

    Robby chuckled nervously as I gave him a shrug.

    Even though the tournament was about nine months away, I was glad I could have friends on the way.

    As we began to walk out of school together, I noticed something that steadily became more clear. Other than the adults, this one year difference between now and the show meant a decent bit in terms of who everyone was exactly.

    Robby was still a troublemaker and tended to be rather mistrusting and a bit detached from everything. Demetri and Eli were, the Binary Brothers. And Aisha was still really into science, and Sam started to care a lot about popularity.

    However. Not all of them were the same. I was watching how their first year of high school cemented all of this. And seeing it happen honestly did surprise me.

    I was happy to see a friendlier and happier Robby than the angry and heavily closed off miscreant I knew from the show. Johnny had been the influence Robby needed, and it might've been the best choice I've made so far.

    Different, didn't mean worse to me.

    ...
    ...
    ...

    A/N: Glad to see people are enjoying the fanfic. As I mentioned previously, I have completed this book already, all seventeen chapters. Luke has two series, one I've already completed, an an Alternate Universe spawning from the end of this fanfic. I have written all the way up until the first third or so of the second season of Cobra Kai's Netflix series. Anyways, thank you all for reading, I'm hoping I've been able to spread the fun and appreciation for The Karate Kid same as the Cobra Kai series initially made me feel. Thank you very much and stay safe everyone.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • I think you might have made a mistake there it seems like you have posted the same chapter twice.
     
    Beanseh said:
    I think you might have made a mistake there it seems like you have posted the same chapter twice.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yup. It is the same chapter as the second-to-last release.

    For a second I thought OP had gotten lazy and wanted to introduce Robby's mom with the same structure as last chapter, but the more I read?

    Welp, it is an accidental double-post! :p
     
    FTR2017 said:
    Yup. It is the same chapter as the second-to-last release.

    For a second I thought OP had gotten lazy and wanted to introduce Robby's mom with the same structure as last chapter, but the more I read?

    Welp, it is an accidental double-post! :p
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    It was a complete accident, I made sure to include the actual ninth chapter.
     
    MiyazakiFan18 said:
    It was a complete accident, I made sure to include the actual ninth chapter.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Thanks for the reply, I now read the chapter.

    I noticed that you avoid using commas and use periods instead where a comma would be of better help to your purposes. I hope that this feedback helps in improving your wordsmithing skills. ;)

    Aside from that quirk present from the start, it looks as if the powder keg is being primed with lots of gunpowder and a torch still unlit.

    And speaking of unlit ... it makes me wonder what'd make Eli stop being so civilized in order to cave in a prick's face in with his foot.

    Thanks for the chapter! :)
     
    Chapter Ten
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Ten: Dinner at the LaRussos

    …

    I fixed my collar while riding my bicycle towards the LaRussos. Guess Kreese was right when I met him. I did look like a Jehovah's Witness with the white button up, dark slacks, and bicycle.

    Daniel wanted to talk to me early, I already knew what for before the dinner began.

    He probably saw me on the sidewalk approaching his house because the garage was opened. Encino Hills was a more than safe neighborhood. But leaving a bicycle on the sidewalk kindly hoping no one would steal it was still a bad idea, especially at night.

    I rested my bicycle against the interior of the LaRusso's garage and walked inside closing the garage door for him.

    Daniel was setting up the table for the dinner. "Hey Lucas."

    "Mr. LaRusso." I said quietly.

    "Sam, Anthony, and Amanda all went out on a walk to the park. Apparently, Anthony just won his first soccer tournament."

    "Awesome!"

    "Yeah he. Really appreciates you helping him start playing. I have to admit. It's healthy for him alright."

    I smiled. "Glad to hear it."

    "Sam though." Daniel put a fork down and looked at me. "Says you are being. Very judgemental about her friends at school."

    "I'll admit it. I was very quick to judge over the summer." I said. "But it turns out my instincts are right."

    "How so?"

    Daniel crossed his arms.

    I glanced around the dining room table and then at him. "They're making fun of a kid named Eli. Online or at school. I don't know how."

    "Has he told you that they've done this?"

    I gritted my teeth and sniffed.

    "No."

    "Have you seen it happen?"

    I still couldn't lie to him about this. "No."

    "Then how could you know?"

    I sighed. "It's a very strong hunch. These guys are jerks. Eli was walking away from me after telling me someone told him to be ashamed of his lip. Some of these guys were laughing, Eli looked at them as he walked by them. The main guy just shrugged."

    "Huh. That could lead you in that direction I suppose. But I don't think it's enough."

    I sighed. "I know it's not." I said. "But Mr. LaRusso. I wouldn't be saying anything unless I was sure about it."

    Daniel nodded a bit. "I get that. But she said you mentioned Mr. Miyagi's legacy."

    Should not have said that.

    "And you know how much that means to me." said Daniel.

    "He was like a father to you."

    "For most of my life. He was basically, the only father I ever really had. So please, try to be open minded when it comes to saying things like that."

    I took a deep breath. Because considering the things Daniel did in the first three seasons of the show, he couldn't say very much about being open minded.

    "I am open minded." I said calmly. "I met this bully of yours you said you had. Johnny Lawrence. Great guy."

    "You talked to Johnny Lawrence?"

    "Yeah. I met him over the summer. And his son too, Robby. We go to school together now, he's a nice person."

    Daniel looked like he wanted to say a lot but the doorbell rang.

    "We're not done talking about this."

    …

    My grandparents had turned what was going to be a very awkward dinner, into a very boring and awkward dinner.

    My grandfather, Frank Mills, seemed to want to measure Daniel's wealth and his business. He was acting how I expected my mother, Ali's Mills' father from the original Karate Kid movie would be if Daniel became rich and wanted his grandson to get with Daniel's granddaughter.

    "Didn't that karate nonsense end up with Johnny Lawrence running you down off a cliff from his motorbike and beating you up with his friends one night on Halloween?" asked Grandpa.

    Daniel sighed. "Actually. It ended up with them never bothering me again after I beat every single one of them at a tournament."

    He technically never beat Bobby Brown. He was the one student of Cobra Kai he never defeated in a tournament. He was disqualified for a kick to the knee, but I still think Bobby had a legitimate shot at the title and could've possibly beaten both Daniel and Johnny maybe.

    I still never said anything as Daniel and Grandpa continued their polite argument.

    "Look. Lucas came to me asking for this training. He's growing healthier, more patient, and more honorable. Just the way Mr. Miyagi intended for me." Daniel said.

    He seemed to say this with honesty. But I could tell from the way he looked at me that we had a lot to talk about.

    "Really." Grandpa said blankly.

    "He asked me, Frank." said Daniel. "I don't know what to tell you."

    "Well I know what to tell you. First you try to steal our Ali away from us." My grandmother said, who had stayed quiet up until now. "And now you want to steal our only grandson."

    "Steal!?" Daniel laughed. "You're joking right?"

    "This karate nonsense was over decades ago." Grandpa said. "That's our problem. What danger is posed to Luke?"

    "Bullies." I said. "West Valley has a couple."

    "Look at him!" said Grandpa. "He's very tall and strong for his age. And an entire summer learning your karate. I think it's safe to say no one would be picking fights with him."

    One summer was actually a decent bit of time to learn some of the fundamentals, but not nearly enough to give me the championship I was looking for.

    "Him. And this karate. Has gone on, for long enough." Grandpa said.

    "Begging your pardon, I think Lucas has only started to scratch the surface of Miyagi-Do," said Daniel quietly as I agreed. "I think he's made a good decision training with me."

    As happy as I was that Sam had moved on from liking me for a bit. I had to deal with her dad and her being reasonably mad at me. He seemed to be looking at me every time he complimented me or his teachings, as if he mostly believed it but still had something to say to me.

    "I'd like to." Amanda smoothed her hands out over her napkin, smiling and speaking kindly after clearing her throat. "Weigh in here."

    "Go ahead dear." Grandpa smiled.

    Amanda needed a quick swig from her wine glass, I was sure being called 'dear' angered her.

    "I'd like to ask you something." Amanda said in a very fake nice tone. "I am no fan of this weird karate obsession Daniel has any more than you guys. But who do you think you are coming into our house and questioning my husband?"

    "Well it's our grandson he's decided to fill with all that Miyagee nonsense," said Grandpa.

    "It's Miyagi." Daniel corrected.

    "Exactly. Grandson. He's not your son." Amanda said.

    "He's the son of our only daughter." Grandpa said. "I've only known karate to cause trouble in this town."

    "Ah." Amanda smiled. "I see how it is. You're old."

    Grandpa blinked rapidly, fixing his glasses. "Excuse me?"

    "You're old. Old people do this all the time." said Amanda as Sam laughed quietly and Anthony almost choked on his chicken parmesan in laughter, I patted him on the back to let him air it out. "You have nothing else better to do all day but meddle. So even after Dan made it clear he didn't want to have this dinner with you, you tortured him for it. Just like his mother, there's only one way of doing things for you. Your way."

    "Hold on." Daniel turned to his wife. "My mother?"

    "Grandma's not so bad." Anthony said as Sam gave a shrug.

    Grandpa chuckled. "Well. I guess since I'm so old. You can use all your. Youth. And explain to me why I should let our Luke spend an entire summer, while continuing to do so I might add. Washing your windows, and doing nothing but chores, and basically doing unpaid labor at your dealership for hours every single day on a regular basis."

    "It's part of his training," Daniel said quietly as I nodded.

    "I could sue you for that." Grandpa said. "Would you mind explaining to a courtroom how a fourteen year old boy spent hours in conditions unfit for him, to supposedly learn karate? Or was Lucas apparently. An intern?"

    What an empty threat. I was surprised my own grandfather was acting like this.

    "Huh." Amanda sipped her wine with a mutter. "Old and delusional."

    I hid my smile by drinking some water, Sam and Anthony again looked like they were wanting to laugh at their mother's joke.

    "How could you go from dating angels like our Ali to marrying a woman this insulting?" asked Grandma. "Disgraceful."

    "Disgraceful?" Amanda put her wine glass down and stood up. "Now hold on just a minute. How can you think it's your place to meddle so much in your grandson's affairs?"

    "Ah. Now look who's talking about meddling." Grandma said. "Just like Daniel here. Who's still a troublemaker from Reseda."

    Amanda looked about ready to take off her earrings. "Well I see you take on after your husband for how absolutely brain dead you can be about things you have nothing to do with!"

    "Yeahh! Get her mom!" said Anthony.

    Daniel spoke in surprise. "Amanda!"

    "What?" she asked in surprise, as if Daniel was insulting her by letting her know to cool down.

    Daniel took a quick glance around the table. He quickly wiped his hands with a napkin and muttered. "I need to take a call for work."

    His chair scratched the wooden floor of the kitchen quietly and he left in a hurry.

    I quickly joined him. "Excuse me everyone. Great cooking Mrs. L."

    Amanda smiled. "Thank you sweetie."

    I looked around the table at Sam, Anthony, Amanda, and both my grandparents, I then nodded and left.

    Olivia Mills protested. "Luke-"

    "I'll be right back grandma."

    …

    I found Daniel kneeling and looking over his two trophies in his home dojo.

    "I thought you would've gotten along better with my grandparents." I said.

    Daniel looked at me, muttering quietly. "Well. They never really approved of me and your mom. So. I don't really appreciate them coming here and telling me I'm out of place in wanting to teach you the karate I learned."

    "Yeah."

    Daniel sighed. "I'll be honest. With this summer being over and being able to properly look back on it. It was one of the best summers I had in years."

    "Really?"

    "Karate was a huge part of my life for decades." said Daniel as he stood up and walked towards me. "What I shared with Mr. Miyagi. I'm going to carry it for the rest of my life. And Cobra Kai, was unfortunately a painful reminder of why I needed him in the first place. And I feel you're becoming one in a way. With your temper and your bad and rude attitude with Sam sometimes."

    I nodded. He was right.

    Daniel frowned. "Look Lucas." he said, sounding very honest. "One of the most important things Mr. Miyagi ever taught me. Was to never put passion in front of principle. Because even if you win. You lose."

    Daniel explained further. "Cobra Kai. Is all passion, and no principle. To Cobra Kai. As long as you win. It doesn't matter who suffered, or the cost of anything. Victory. Is the only thing in life that's important to Cobra Kai. Not friendship. Not honor. Nothing but victory."

    "Really?"

    Daniel nodded silently.

    I disagreed on every level. Cobra Kai prided itself on principle. On discipline, strength. You respected yourself to not let people come to you and beat you up.

    Was he right though? I just didn't know yet.

    "I'm glad you told me about this kid, Eli, and Sam's friends. She might get really mad at me for it. But I have to do something or investigate further into what's going on."

    "No. Mr. LaRusso. I can handle it."

    "How?" asked Daniel. "By going to them and choosing to fight? Violence being the first answer? That's the opposite of what I taught you. This guy you met, Johnny Lawrence. You might be right, that he could've changed. But he never apologized, or even acknowledged what he did. And I'm worried he's rubbing off on his son, and on you a bit."

    "Are you sure he never thought about what he did? I mean he bullied you like three decades ago."

    "He gave me the All Valley Championship trophy after I won. And said I was alright. That was the last I ever saw of him for the last thirty two years. Bullying, is one thing. People can change, genuinely apologize and never do it again. And that's fine. What Johnny Lawrence did to me, goes beyond bullying." said Daniel. "What he did. Bordered on attempted murder. Twice."

    I listened calmly.

    "He pushed me off my bicycle and down a huge hill for no reason, I could've broken my neck. And then he beat me up so badly one night that unless Mr. Miyagi did something. Who knows if I had been able to walk away from it. Johnny Lawrence was vicious, violent, and cruel. He tried to break my busted knee with his elbow! In a karate tournament during our final match."

    Daniel sighed. "And that's some of the tamer things Cobra Kai got up to back when it was around. I'm sure his son Robby is a nice kid like you said. And for all I know, Johnny could've moved on and become a different person. Until then and even after, I'm going to keep holding you by the standards Mr. Miyagi held me to. Keep your anger in check. Always."

    Again. He was being completely reasonable, and right.

    "I'm sorry for what I said to Samantha."

    "That's not my point here," said Daniel. "Balance, breathing, and focus. They make for good technique. But. These lessons aren't just about karate." he said with a very strong, emphasized, but respectful tone. "These are lessons, for your entire life. Miyagi-Do, isn't about scoring points. And winning tournaments, looking cool and making damage or making the crowd roar. It creates clarity, and focus. It makes you a more balanced person. That's the real balance. That's the meaning of Miyagi-Do."

    I nodded.

    "Cobra Kai taught the opposite. How to hurt, how to turn all of karate into a competition. How to turn your life into a competition. Johnny Lawrence could be a great person for all I know, but, he was taught the wrong way. Just. Be careful around him and even his son if they've been around each other."

    I saw the problem. The same problem I saw in the show. All the students of Johnny and Daniel sometimes, but not always, got along just great. It was them, that could create conflict. I got along perfectly well with Johnny and Robby, and they both knew I trained with Daniel and Robby trained with Johnny.

    "I will. Okay Mr. LaRusso," I said. "Are you ready to go back to the worst dinner ever?"

    "I've had worse dinners with your grandparents involved. Trust me. One time I got a whole bunch of spaghetti and piping hot tomato sauce all over my chest."

    I laughed. "Really?"

    "Johnny Lawrence forced a kiss on your mom that night. Everyone was laughing at me. I'll tell you the whole story some other time."

    "Robby told me his dad was fine with me learning Miyagi-Do from you. They're training together I think."

    Daniel froze at this. He seemed speechless, in deep thought for almost half a minute.

    Daniel nodded a bit. "Did he? Then I guess I'm fine with Robby learning Johnny's karate."

    "Glad to hear it."

    ...

    ...

    A/N: Hey everyone. Thank you all so much for all the support I've gotten thus far. I appreciate it very much. I already have what the rest of the fic looks like planned out. And I especially am looking forward to writing the rest of the fic too!

    Thank you all again so much for reading and the support. And I'll see you all soon.

    As for the Mills, their sort of heel turn on Daniel would be justified I think. Given the history with Ali and how much they'd disapprove, thinking their grandson's future would be affected by the past. Feel free to let me know.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Eleven
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Eleven: Fear Does Not Exist

    …

    Going to high school in California wasn't that odd for me. I had already done it in my previous life.

    However, going to school with the people would eventually become rival black belt karatekas competing in the All Valley a year from the next was a bit odd but still not too unusual considering where I was.

    Eli and Robby, Robby and Sam, Eli and Sam. All of whom I knew, at one point or another, because of the conflict between Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai, would be enemies.

    I was a lot busier than I thought I would.

    I worked on lists and models my very rich parents and grandparents were willing to buy for me for the Warhammer 40 thousand battles I would build with Eli and Demetri. The Binary Brothers were a whole lot of fun to hang out with.

    My grandparents and parents also spoiled me by letting me get some very nice Lego sets ranging from Star Wars to Architecture. Despite being fourteen, I mostly didn't care, the Binary Brothers would come over, we'd build them together, and then hang out and eat some food together.

    All told, this must've cost my grandparents a decent bit of money considering how much fun it was to have all this. But a deal of sorts was made with Daniel LaRusso.

    As soon as I turned fifteen and still worked at LaRusso Auto as an intern, I could get a work permit and start getting paid for what I did for him.

    I didn't care, I possibly didn't plan on being affiliated with Daniel by that time.

    I had a great deal of options ahead. But I didn't know what was holding me back necessarily on picking Miyagi-Do as August turned into September.

    Despite how much of a violent person the John Kreese I knew from the original Karate Kid films was, I still didn't feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or especially unhappy in the way he treated me and trained me.

    He came across as still very much the same man I knew. But there were parts of him I saw, the very same parts I liked about Daniel LaRusso as a teacher and mentor.

    Kreese knew what he was talking about. He was effective, knowledgeable, and completely honest.

    Not once did Kreese utter a threat to me or condescend. But he didn't respect me as anything more than a student. He was very tough, and had no qualms about sometimes hitting me when not paying attention or punishing me with pushups or jogging laps around the supermarket loading dock where I trained when not being effective enough in obeying his lessons.

    I didn't consider Miyagi-Do my kind of dojo ultimately perhaps, but I wasn't completely sure yet. Despite how much I respect Daniel, despite how much his lessons would balance my life. And I knew Cobra Kai could in another way do the same.

    And it did honestly cause conflict as I knew training in both dojos would push me to choose one at some point. Or I would have to abandon both of them.

    …

    "A month?" I asked in the hallways of West Valley High. "You've waited a month to ask out Sam?"

    "Well she's you know. Popular and attractive and. Easy to talk to." Eli muttered. "And I'm not."

    I didn't really see them share too many conversations, Eli wasn't the most talkative type to anyone except Demetri and I.

    "Alright well go for it. And don't make it sound like a date. Make it sound like you two are just. Seeing what Golf 'N Stuff could be like."

    Eli scrunched his eyebrows together for a second. "Um. Golf 'N Stuff?"

    "Just an idea. Go get 'er man."

    Demetri muttered as Eli crossed the hallway between the lockers. "Why would a guy like Eli and I ever get a girl like Sam LaRusso?"

    Clearly he had no idea that every girl Miguel, Eli, and Demetri had while being nerds and bullied at West Valley would be their girlfriends by the third season of the show.

    "I'm one of you guys and I'm proud of it."

    "You and Robby are way cooler. You're stronger and tougher and. Manlier."

    I chuckled, crossing my arms while leaning against the set of lockers behind me with a knee up. "Look man." I put my hands in the pockets of my jean jacket. "I-"

    I stopped, Eli had frozen in the middle of the hallway, staring at Robby and Sam again.

    No come on man. Just.

    Ouch. Robby looked like he got very politely rejected by Sam when he tried to ask her out. He tried to insist, but Sam made it, respectfully, clear that her mind was made up.

    Robby nodded as he walked over to us. "That was a failure."

    Eli had disappeared in the crowd of people who had walked by.

    One of them, who I knew to be Mia, the girl with the dreadlocks who stayed in Cobra Kai for as long as Tory did, and Charlotte, the blonde Cobra Kai girl who joined the dojo at the same time Kenny Payne did, both walked past.

    "Hey Luke." chortled Charlotte.

    I nodded back respectfully. It was odd how nearly everyone I knew to be an extra or background character in the show were regular people who went to West Valley in my freshman year class.

    "How do you do it man?" asked Robby, looking off after them for a second.

    Huh. I guess living with his father, Johnny, for months would in fact make him perceive girls as more like the supposed babes of the school he always mentioned to Miguel. Robby was still a pretty respectful and nice guy, but he did start to act more and more like Johnny the more I knew him.

    "Dude like you said. You're tough. But just don't act tough. Be yourself."

    "But I am myself."

    "You liked skateboarding and stuff. Why leave it behind?"

    Robby shrugged. "I don't know."

    "Let's go skateboarding sometime." I suggested.

    "Sure."

    Robby smiled and left me alone with Demetri in the hall as I kept leaning on the lockers.

    "Demetri. About Eli. Is anyone bugging him about his lip?"

    Demetri shook his head. "Not that I know of. If Kyler and his guys saw you or Robby coming, they'd look the other way."

    "So they are bothering people?"

    "What are you, the bullying police now? Like I say, always go to a teacher."

    I sighed. "Counselor Blatt is completely ineffective at stopping bullying from the looks of it."

    "If you go looking for a fight. Someone's getting hurt. That's what always happens."

    I nodded with a mutter. "Okay. Thanks Demetri."

    He nodded back slightly.

    A part of me wanted to believe Demetri was right. That there was nothing to get involved with. But if I was wrong, who knows how badly that could affect Eli.

    And the worst part was I could've done something about it.

    …

    Kreese smacked the striking mitts together I had bought for training. "Again." he said.

    A jab to close the distance, a roundhouse, and a final set of punches. I dodged two quick strikes towards my face and body and then a kick Kreese added to imitate three counter attacks, and then I countered back with a shot over the top to the jaw area where Kreese had his mitt raised.

    "Take a rest Schwarber."

    "Yes Sensei."

    I wiped some of the sweat off my brow as I drank some water from a water bottle and Kreese spoke. "Your improvement is considerable. It's been what. Four months? Five?"

    "Let's see." I put the water bottle down on the cement dock where the abandoned supermarket loading bay was. "We started around mid to late May. It's currently mid September. So between four and a half to five months."

    "Hm. You'd have earned your yellow belt already. Well on your way to the next."

    "What were the tests like?"

    Kreese shrugged. "I would do simple things. Some sparring against higher belt students. A few important exercises. And then I would determine if they were ready."

    "So nothing crazy then? Like stopping a burglary, like a guy is stealing someone's purse or wallet on the street and they prevented it?"

    Kreese chuckled. "In that scenario I would actually admit the student in question followed my lessons properly. But no. I conducted all belt examinations personally in the classroom. Merit and skill were what determined belt level. As well as experience."

    "So Johnny Lawrence was your very best student?"

    Kreese spoke quietly. "Bobby Brown was a close second. He was great too."

    "And what was he like?"

    Kreese stood up off the loading bay. "Just focus on the lesson Mr. Schwarber."

    I muttered quietly. "Yes Sensei."

    "Now. I've taught you how to attack, how to counter, how to move around in a fight with your guard tight and your strikes proper. But. I haven't taught you a very important part of Cobra Kai karate."

    I nodded, listening.

    "How to sweep the leg."

    I smiled.

    "In a fight. There is no better counter than sweeping the leg, especially against multiple attackers. You both dodge and attack at the same time with a proper leg sweep. Other styles, view this as a cheaper tactic. Very rare. Most others include some form of trip."

    "So is it tournament legal?"

    "Very." Kreese said casually. "As long as you don't injure any part of the leg or knee. And you follow it up with a proper score within the next few seconds and combat is paused. That's a point. More importantly however, it prepares you for very practical scenarios in self defense."

    I kept listening. "This move can be applied very aggressively and as I said. Is the best counter. Now. Let's say I'm running towards you to grab you, or starting a blitz attack. What do you do?"

    "Strike first. Always."

    "Yes. But how?"

    I understood the lesson. "Sweep the leg."

    "Good."

    Kreese ran towards me and I was forced to try to sweep him on instinct.

    I didn't use the catch and throw, I spun across the asphalt throwing a kick to Kreese's leg, just above his ankle.

    It almost seemed to connect and start to connect and hook around the lower part of his leg to sweep him away, but the next thing I knew he had grabbed me and chucked me away over his knee towards a set of nearby wooden crates.

    And I crashed into them pretty hard.

    I groaned, standing up slowly. "The first hip throw. Good execution Sensei."

    He ignored the compliment. "That was a good attempt." Kreese admitted. "But you need to move faster when you slide into the spin. Here's another execution of sweeping the leg."

    Kreese got into his fighting stance and I quickly stood next to him. "From your front stance. You're strong, you're stable. Combat begins. Your opponent comes towards you, or if they don't, regardless, you immediately meet their aggression head on. This is an old combo, Johnny Lawrence always used it. I don't know if I'm still nimble enough to show you how, but here it is."

    Kreese threw a kick with his rear leg to what was an invisible opponent's shin, just below their knee probably from where he aimed it. Then before his right foot settled down, he jumped upward and flicked his left leg forward to snap a round kick to the head.

    A jumping switch kick, first one to their leg to stagger or surprise them, and then the next was the actual score. Very nice attack I had to admit, the timing and the jump was kind of tricky but doable.

    I just realized what he had shown me.

    It was the first point Johnny scored against Daniel in their title match at the 1984 All Valley.

    I said the truth. "That was excellent Sensei."

    He again ignored a compliment. "Now you try."

    I tried it on wooden boxes Kreese strategically stacked. I tried it against Kreese himself who used the striking mitts to catch each kick.

    Then it was another hour of strength conditioning, a bit of practice on hip throws, elbows, basic striking and a bit of sparring. And then it was the end of class already.

    We bowed to each other.

    "You still need to learn how to sweep the leg better. But that takes time."

    "Thank you Sensei." I said.

    …

    In his room at the homeless shelter, Kreese used a small coffee making machine he had in his room to then pour some coffee into two mugs. "Where'd you get that?"

    "Bought it with some of the money you gave me for training you." said Kreese handing a mug to me.

    I sipped it and was surprised. "This is pretty good. Not sugary and sweet at all, but it's well made. And strong."

    "I make coffee the same way I teach my classes." Kreese said with a shrug.

    I smiled. "Cobra Kai coffee."

    Kreese sipped from his mug. "I spent about a year or so in a diner when I was a few years older than you making coffee every morning for my bosses and all the cooks. I don't think I perfected it, but I still think I picked something up."

    The only instance I remember of Kreese making coffee in the show was for Robby the night he spent at the Cobra Kai dojo in the strip mall during the third season. And apparently according to Kreese himself it wasn't that good.

    Maybe he wasn't expecting Robby to like it.

    "You worked in a diner?"

    "My first real job. Had to provide for myself, I was the only person I knew who could look out for me at the time. It was where I found out I could join the Army, make something better of myself."

    I looked over on the wall at the picture of a man with dark hair and a mustache with a knife hand outstretched wearing a white uniform top and black trousers. I realized it was the same picture by the front door of the Cobra Kai dojo in the original Karate Kid film.

    "You said he was your first instructor. That's, Master Kim Sun-Yung of South Korea right?"

    "Grandmaster to be precise after '86 I believe." said Kreese as I sipped my coffee. "During my first few months in the war. I met a Captain by the name of George Turner, I think I mentioned him to you before. Captain Turner trained under Master Kim during the Korean war where he became an officer, learning the original ways of Tang Soo Do."

    A man who betrayed Kreese and founded the ways of No Mercy in him. It was still interesting to me to see him admit who he was years later. Maybe as a lesson in respect for me?

    "So wait. By Grandmaster, you mean he was the head of a martial arts organization?"

    "Not just any. The organization." said Kreese. "He was part of the group of men who invented Tang Soo Do, and then developed it further during the Korean War. Master Kim originally learned karate from the founders of Shotokan and Kyokushin karate. Funakoshi, Oyama. All of them. Then during the Korean war, he continued to develop Tang Soo Do with his comrades and teach it to fellow UN soldiers."

    "One of them was my first instructor, Captain Turner. He taught it to me as part of a specialized unit during 'Nam. Soon after he died, and Terry and I and a few of his other students developed our own methods, we wanted to learn from the source. So, as I mentioned, we spent years training under Master Kim himself and then even managed to train soldiers back in 'Nam too on our own."

    I kept listening. "So this Tang Soo Do. It's the cornerstone of Cobra Kai?"

    "Yes but. This isn't just any Tang Soo Do, it's the original. Master Kim had dozens of influences from all sorts of styles. All sorts of Korean martial arts, the first bits of Taekwondo, and things like boxing, and even Judo, and Shotokan and Kyokushin karate as I said. He rose to be the best of the best in Korea at the time in terms of almost all kinds of fighting."

    "That means Cobra Kai is. Basically a full contact style of martial arts developed from an art that is completely traditional, which themselves were developed through two actual wars of the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Except with face punches and points."

    "Yes," said Kreese simply. "Back in the seventies and eighties, most people didn't really know what Tang Soo Do and all of these styles really meant. So we just started calling all of this karate to make it more understandable. I never respected point fighting at all, neither did Master Kim for that matter." Kreese explained while sipping from his coffee mug. "But. It was the only real way to compete with any of the other schools in the Valley at the time. The level of contact was limited, but we didn't mind."

    I finished the coffee in my mug. "So what was the training like? Under Master Kim I mean?"

    "Almost the exact same way I train you and used to train my students over on Lankershim back in the day. How to use joint locks, grappling, throwing, striking all of that. Everything possibly related to hand to hand combat with an opponent who actually knows how to fight. Then we'd train in the wilderness, breaking stones and bamboo with our bare hands and feet. But above all, Master Kim pushed for decisiveness."

    "Decisiveness? In what way?"

    "Your agency. Your will. Master Kim's training didn't relate just to karate. And mine doesn't either. Strike first, strike hard, no mercy. These are the ways of the fist. But they teach you things beyond that too."

    I listened. "Your tenacity. Your drive, that need to take control of your life. And decide for yourself what you want your life to look like, to really accomplish and do something for yourself. That is the first part of Cobra Kai training."

    Kreese sighed. "Because this kind of training takes so long to master. I spent months under Captain Turner in Vietnam, and over three years in South Korea under Grandmaster Kim Sun Yung. And it took me years to determine what a proper school of karate should look like. The ethics and code of Cobra Kai became it's most important part."

    I nodded a bit as Kreese put his coffee mug down on the nearby windowsill. "I already knew what kind of combat and training I'd teach. What the class would practice. But not the kind of people they'd be. Other styles of karate, Miyagi-Do and Locust Valley, all the mediocre ones, they teach you how to be like them, weak and mediocre."

    I looked at Kreese carefully as he continued. "They teach how to. Do forms. Maybe spar under the impression life is only about scoring points. Just to sit there, and breathe. And hope your problems will solve themselves and wait for life to come to you and present you with problems to solve. Cobra Kai teaches the opposite. It teaches the right way of doing things."

    I nodded again silently.

    "Miyagi-Do karate. Locust Valley and all these dojos that are shells of their former selves. As I keep saying they don't just represent the downfall of karate. They represent the downfall of everything we know into becoming weak. These lessons I teach you, they don't just make you a stronger fighter. Because look at you."

    "What?"

    "You're learning how to sweep the leg. How to strike first and hard. What no mercy means. Kids your age are all coddled and spoiled."

    I looked at Kreese up and down. "My grandparents and parents are doing the same to me. Shower me with gifts. They're rich so, I don't question it."

    "Gifts for what?"

    "Lego sets, they're tiny plastic blocks you build into small buildings and vehicles. Figurines, of space monsters and soldiers."

    Kreese shrugged. "Toys essentially," he said quietly. "For someone who's fourteen who'll become a young man within a few years."

    "Yeah."

    "You like all that?"

    "I mean. Other than Robby. All my friends at school are into that. I like sharing stuff like that with them, it's fun."

    Kreese squinted at me. "So you enjoy being spoiled?"

    "I can't seem to figure out why they're being so nice to me though."

    "I think you do know. You're smarter than that, Schwarber." said Kreese. "What would lead you to believe they would spend so much on trinkets and frivolities for you?"

    "They want something."

    Kreese started to nod.

    "I'm doing really well with the internship and the relationship I'm building with another really powerful and important person. Daniel LaRusso. They want me to be a doctor like my grandfather and both parents are. The grades, the respect. They want me to add it all to the family, an incentive to do what they want."

    Kreese chuckled. "Sometimes. You surprise me with how well you can implement my lessons outside of the classroom."

    "So what. You're saying you actually enjoy spending time with me as a teacher and a mentor?"

    "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't." Kreese said. "I never thought I'd teach anyone anything ever, after 1985. Let alone become a Cobra Kai Sensei again, even to just one student."

    "But I'm fourteen. People think you're think you're my grandfather whenever we're around."

    "Still. I want you to walk away from today with more than just a lesson on taking control of your life by striking first. And how to sweep the leg and what Master Kim was like as a teacher. I want you develop problem solving skills from my training and my lessons." Kreese looked at me. "Most boys in your position would grow softer than melted butter."

    I chuckled quietly. "Spoiled rotten. Living richer than most of the entire populace. With parents and grandparents who all run hospitals and are the most successful kinds of doctors. They want to offer you an easy path to what they consider a successful career."

    "One where I end up working for them. Because they, paid my way through med school or something. It's just a loan in a slightly different way."

    "Exactly." said Kreese. "You're getting it."

    Kreese spoke. "I don't want you to just practice these lessons in the classroom. You apply these lessons for your karate and your life. For how you solve each of your problems. Maybe being a doctor like your entire family would be a good choice for you. Maybe it is what you're best at. But don't do it just because you were told to. You're fourteen, you have years to decide this. Don't be afraid of what you can become on your own merits instead of what's already chosen for you. By your own decisions. Never show fear, be assertive, and you'll succeed at anything."

    I nodded. "Do what you think is best. Be it a painter, or a bricklayer. Or anything. Cobra Kai, is about being assertive. You strike first, and decide what you want to do. And how to do it best. And the rest of what you do, be it a fight, or a test of some sort, or anything you want in life. I promise you. Will be yours."

    Kreese showed me a fist. "That's the best way. The way of the fist is more than a fighting style. It's your life. How to live your life. No fear. No pain. No defeat. No mercy."

    "The way of the fist." I repeated, making a fist and showing him it with a nod.

    "You are physically strong, you're getting even tougher, faster, and much more skilled for your age, you have a gift for fighting, I can't lie. But. It's time for you to shape yourself, with my help. Into a young man. And it's going to take a lot before you've even taken a leap past the first step in even winning your first All Valley."

    "Thank you Sensei."

    I never would've expected this.

    Both Daniel and Kreese giving such sound, honest, and helpful advice. In two completely opposite ways.

    I guess Kreese wasn't wrong. I wasn't afraid of what siding with either him or Daniel could mean. Because so far, they were both very good teachers for karate and great mentors.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Well, the time approaches where he'll have to choose with whom will he stand in every way that matters.

    ...

    Will he embrace Street Fighter's Akuma philosophy, and seek out stronger opponents to clash with and prevail?
     
    Chapter Twelve
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Twelve: The Old Yearbook

    …

    A/N: This song, by e7i, might be really obscure but I feel it is appropriate for the atmosphere and tone for the scene. Only during the "finale" of this fanfic I'll make it clear how important the OSTs are but besides that, enjoy the chapter guys.

    …

    OST: Best Thing - e7i

    …

    "So. Are you good?"

    Robby was resting his hand on his skateboard at the skatepark looking at the halfpipe he knew like the back of his hand.

    Lucas actually looked a bit nervous about trying skateboarding. Even with knee and elbow pads and a helmet. The halfpipe looked much longer and deeper than it really was to him.

    He nodded slowly.

    "Yeah. No fear." Lucas muttered, remembering his training from two karate masters.

    "That's right." Robby grinned widely. "Try to keep up man." he said diving in headfirst.

    Through the halfpipe Robby led Lucas on his skateboard as Lucas tried to follow.

    "Wait, aren't you gonna teach me how to do this?" Lucas asked, trying to stay stable as he went through his first dive.

    "You gotta learn like everyone did. By falling on your ass!"

    "W-Wait! What!?"

    Lucas had slipped and fallen failing to recover from the failed dive through the halfpipe. He groaned a tiny bit from how hard he landed.

    Robby chuckled, nailed it perfectly having done skateboarding for several years. "Like I said. Keep up!"

    Lucas grunted and picked his skateboard back up.

    To even complete the basic halfpipe, Lucas realized he was struggling really hard, even for a first timer.

    Robby pulled a quick kick flip while accelerating down into the halfpipe as Lucas continued to struggle.

    As Robby kept grinning and laughing while showing off and scratching the bottom of his skateboard while switching between one dive and another while Lucas could barely complete one.

    He fell and the skateboard slid away. Again and again for several minutes while Robby was cruising by.

    After over an hour of trying, Lucas had begun to learn the basics.

    How to stand on the board, how to keep his center of balance, how to twist and turn the skateboard properly. How to complete the halfpipe and start to switch to another dive by switching directions.

    Lucas couldn't do any of the tricks like spinning the board or scratching it across the cement barrier of the pipe's edge like Robby could but instead doing the basics.

    "There ya go!" chuckled Robby doing kickflips and all sorts of flashy but controlled moves.

    Lucas started to realize how strong his center of balance had started to become. It was something he didn't realize Miyagi-Do and even Cobra Kai had helped him develop standing sideways on the skateboard.

    Taking a deep breath, Lucas stood on the edge of the pipe before beginning his dive at full speed.

    Halfway through, Lucas was able to manipulate his momentum and center of gravity well enough to flick the board upwards with his feet to complete his first kickflip.

    "Nice!" Robby said as he finished his own dive and was about to start another.

    Lucas tried slipping the bottom of the board at the other end of the half pipe like he watched Robby do with that satisfying and flashy scratch but failed miserably.

    Lucas slipped and fell hard onto the half pipe with a groan.

    Robby saw this and easily was able to halt his dive through the halfpipe as it wasn't anywhere near his full speed.

    Lucas winced as Robby helped him up from the ground. "That was a good attempt. Keep going man."

    "He says keep up..."

    Lucas kept failing it and slipping and sliding at the edges of the halfpipe.

    Until suddenly on one failed attempt when he let go of the board completely on accident, and within seconds he was balancing his entire body on a single hand upside down. His hand was gripping the edge of the half pipe for dear life, and Robby was amazed.

    "Wow! Where'd you learn how to do that?" he asked in surprise.

    A few of the other skateboarders around the skate park were all surprised by this, muttering and pointing.

    Lucas kept balancing his whole body on a single hand upside down, blinking as he continued the first step of the two legged kick with a very advanced one handed handstand. His hair wasn't that long at all but some of it hung upside down from being encased inside his helmet too.

    Robby smiled and chuckled. "Nice." he nodded.

    …

    Robby and I shared sodas after the quick skateboarding lesson we had for an hour or so.

    "So. Fun?"

    I nodded. "Yeah."

    "Sam rejecting me. That was kinda painful man."

    I'd like to tell him she'd actually come around. I was wondering why a younger version of Sam wouldn't like Robby more because in Season Two of the show they end up dating.

    I saw why it happened though.

    Sam and Robby had months to get to know each other much better than just being friends at school for a bit. They bonded and shared much more in the first and second seasons of the show.

    "I told you. Girls can be weird." I said.

    "You doing stuff that cool. No wonder they'd be into you though. A handstand on one hand. So quickly! How'd you learn how to do that?"

    I was actually more interested in them in return about the girls who basically barely had names according to the show. The background characters from the fourth and second seasons who were still around in Cobra Kai, Charlotte and Mia respectively. Had no idea they went to West Valley High during what would've been Eli's freshman year of high school.

    I sipped my soda. "Miyagi-Do Karate."

    "You're serious?" Robby laughed loudly. "Never would've guessed that. My dad says that unless you're being aggressive in a fight and striking, you're not fighting. At least, you're not winning."

    If only you knew that you possibly would've learned it instead of me right here in this skatepark in the same way.

    "You'd be surprised. While there is a strong emphasis on counters and defense. Miyagi-Do does still employ basic karate strikes. The reverse punch, the roundhouse and hook kick. The chop, even a bit of the jab."

    Robby finished his soda and tossed it away in a nearby garbage can. "But you can't strike first. You have to be on defense only right?"

    I took another sip of my soda. "How do you know so much about Miyagi-Do?"

    "How do you think? My dad competed against Miyagi-Do in karate tournaments back in the eighties. Specifically. Your Sensei, Daniel LaRusso."

    "Yeah well. In a real fight. You can't follow exactly what your Sensei says. Things get messy and you have to improvise, adapt."

    Robby smiled a bit. "Yeah. Yeah, that, that's how it is. That's exactly how it is."

    I don't know why I identified more with Robby more than anyone I'd really met so far. I respect both of my teachers, Daniel LaRusso and John Kreese a great deal, at least, a great deal more than I did when I started to train with them.

    But what Robby said during the fourth season of the show during the tournament. That it didn't matter what you called your fighting style as long as it worked, that really clicked with me.

    And I was glad to see he hadn't changed very much. Even though he was about three years younger than he was there, I enjoyed talking to him.

    "Well. I might not have much to do at my place. But I have this old Atari we can use at home."

    I laughed. "Your dad still has a TV to go with one of those?"

    Robby shrugged. "Yeah. So you wanna hang out a bit more?"

    "Why not?"

    I followed him as we went to his house riding on our skateboards.

    …

    I realized the Atari Robby was using was the same Johnny had tried to sell to the Pawn Shop close to where he opened the Cobra Kai dojo in a strip mall.

    It had games like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, we took turns playing, and it was pretty fun.

    Robby sighed. "Hey. Sorry I couldn't find a newer game system for us to use."

    "It's fine. Your Atari might be a little dusty, but it's still a lotta fun."

    I didn't blame him or Johnny. They were rather poor, but I cycled through all the games Johnny had in his old cardboard box as Robby played some Asteroids.

    "The original Dig Dug!" I laughed. "Pole Position. Frogger, Pitfall. Your dad has almost every major classic Atari game ever released. It's awesome."

    Robby shrugged. "They're just old ass games dude. They're cool but you know. Old."

    I didn't know why Robby was ashamed at all of being poor. At least much poorer than I was. It wasn't like in Harry Potter because there the reminder was pretty constant.

    "Your dad won't mind if I look at all this stuff right?"

    Robby shrugged. "Nah. He mentioned something about trying to pawn it all off at some point."

    I kept cycling through the cardboard box full of eighties stuff Johnny had under the old TV in Robby's living room. I guess just like my mom, he never threw it out.

    The karate tournament trophies. And then I found what I was looking for.

    The 1984-1985 West Valley High School Yearbook.

    I found pictures of everyone I knew to be in the original Karate Kid film. Daniel's neighbor, Freddie Fernandez, my own mother Ali Mills and all her friends, Barbara and such. Daniel LaRusso.

    Then Johnny's gang. Bobby, Jimmy, Tommy, Dutch. And then a seventeen to eighteen year old Johnny Lawrence smiling at the camera for his senior photo.

    "What you got there?" Robby asked, still playing Asteroids.

    "A yearbook. Signed by my mom." I said. "In the year 1985. Wow."

    "What she say?"

    "She said. I wish you nothing but good health. God speed. Sincerely, Ali Mills."

    Robby laughed. "That's it? Wow. That sounds like the most polite way to tell someone you won't miss them."

    "Yeah." I said quietly. "Yeah, it does."

    Estranged from his son for almost his entire life. Living as an alcoholic in a poor neighborhood for decades. Johnny was hit the worst from the events of the Karate Kid films.

    But so was John Kreese too I realized.

    The door to the house opened. A slightly better shaven and better dressed Johnny Lawrence walked in. "Hey kid. How was school?" I heard his keys make a small noise when it hit a ceramic bowl.

    "Just fine. Luke was just about to help me on a Bio assignment."

    "Yeah, we made flashcards."

    Johnny looked at me. "Is that my old yearbook?"

    "Uh. Yeah. I found what my mom said. I thought she'd have been nicer to you."

    Despite the year you spent fighting.

    Johnny was quiet, the only sound in the room for a moment was Robby blasting asteroids playing the Atari.

    "I think we need to talk. Considering you're friends of the family now."

    "Oh, okay."

    …

    Cars zoomed past quietly while I sat with Johnny on the parking lot sidewalk of the apartment building where I knew Miguel would move into to become neighbors with Johnny probably in the next summer.

    "You train with LaRusso. And he's passing down all that stuff he learned right?"

    "It's not just stuff. It's lessons. For karate, and for life. The same things you teach Robby I'm sure."

    Johnny nodded slowly. "Right. I'm glad you and Robby are getting along. But while LaRusso could easily have changed in over the past thirty years or whatever. I think it's better if I tell you what exactly makes him untrustworthy."

    I didn't need this conversation. "I think I have a good idea."

    "No. Not until you find out how exactly your mom affected my life. And how LaRusso did too."

    "It's just stuff in high school right?"

    Johnny, surprisingly, did not blow it out of proportion and remained reasonable.

    "Most of it yeah. But it had consequences."

    I listened. "Okay. I'm all ears."

    "Summer before my sophomore year. My buddies and I went to go see a movie. All was calm that night. Until. My friend Dutch, you might've seen him in that yearbook you were looking at. Pisses off some nearby girls sitting ahead of us. And one of them gets really really mad. That was the first time I saw her."

    I had a feeling this story would have similar but very different revelations of who Johnny was and how he felt despite the similar sounding story he was telling.

    "Who?"

    "Your mom kid."

    …

    Cobra Kai OST: Johnny's Story

    …

    "She was incredibly beautiful you know. But she had something else about her. Something you just can't explain. This fire, this energy. I never saw anything like it anywhere else for the rest of my entire life."

    Lucas nodded and Johnny kept explaining.

    "Every belt test I passed, every tournament I won. She was there for me, rooting for me, supporting me. This might've just been some dumb highschool romance I'm sure if you asked anyone. But you have to realize that I was beyond in love with her."

    Images of Johnny striking in lines at the original Cobra Kai Lankershim dojo passed in his head as Kreese yelled and trained them.

    "Aits!"

    "Kiya!"

    "Aits!"

    "Kiya!"

    "She was smart. Funny. Helpful. Supportive. Kind. She was everything." said Johnny. "My buddies at the dojo were all friends with her friends. I was passing my classes, your mom helped. She tutored me, in the same way it sounds like Robby needs your help with classes. These were the best years of my life, back when everything made sense."

    Lucas smiled. "When life was good." he muttered.

    Johnny nodded. "Things were good yeah, spectacular actually. And the day of Ali's birthday I decide to get drunk with the guys. We had been arguing for some time, petty and dumb stuff, you'll know what it's like when you start dating. Ali ends it completely that night, doesn't want to hear a thing about it."

    Lucas kept listening quietly.

    "The whole summer before my senior year she completely shuts me out. I pass my second degree black belt test, the guys and I hadn't done that well in class for a long time. She's not there. I broke three bricks with one hand that day. Didn't shatter any bones or anything, my Sensei approved. And for the first time since we met, she wasn't there in the waiting area."

    Lucas spoke. "So what happened next?"

    "I needed to reconnect with her. To at least be on speaking terms because after two years ending it over something so dumb so quickly. It just wasn't right, it wasn't fair to either of us. I deserved a chance, we both did."

    "Did you get it?"

    "I never did. Because Daniel LaRusso ruined any shot I had."

    Lucas remembered a particular line he saw in the Karate Kid film in another life. One Lucille told her son the moment they arrived at their new apartments.

    "This is it. This is the end of the line."

    "I try to talk things out with Ali at this little beach party she had with her friends. But LaRusso's there, and he sticks his nose in for no reason. Things were already getting heated, but neither of them had a level head at all."

    "Alright!" the boys at the beach cheered when Johnny shoved Daniel down with the radio.

    "He starts running at me."

    Johnny easily tripped Daniel into the sand twice in a row.

    "And to get him to cool off I show him what I'm made of. Just so he can stop trying to escalate things."

    Johnny round kicked Daniel in the stomach and dropped him onto the sand.

    "But LaRusso kept going. He sucker punches me, and expects me to just walk off and let him get away with it. So I knock him down to let him know it's over, he shouldn't have intervened."

    "Aiya!" Johnny hit Daniel with a backfist to the nose into the sand again.

    "And what about the time you shoved him off a cliff when he was on his bicycle? That was messed up." said Lucas.

    The Cobra Kais had thrown Daniel right down a hill and he went spiraling down it hard, getting pretty hurt in the process.

    Johnny sighed. "Okay that was out of line and pretty messed up yeah. But the rest? LaRusso probably makes it sound to you like I was beating him up every other day. Other than that one time on that hill. Not a cliff. Every time we fought. He started all of it, I ended it. That's just how it happened."

    Daniel turned a water hose on Johnny's head in the bathroom at the Halloween dance.

    "He expects me to ignore. Sucker punches, and dousing me with a water hose. All of it. And the worst part is your mom was on his side completely the entire time. Making me sound like a bully when other than one time, LaRusso was the one starting all of it."

    "And when you forced a kiss on my mom? Or had Mr. LaRusso sit on a blueberry pie?"

    "All of that happened after he had challenged my dojo, before that he was just some punk kid messing with me a few months at a time. You have to understand. My Sensei and I were fed up with LaRusso and his teacher thinking he could do whatever he wanted. So we decided to settle things once and for all."

    "This is it folks! The final match! Daniel LaRusso Miyagee Do Karate, against John Lawrence! Of the Cobra Kai!"

    "I had turned the match around. I tied up the score. It was a tournament for the ages, those were the days man. With the greatest final match you could imagine. And then."

    Johnny Lawrence walked directly into the crane kick.

    …

    I understood. "You lost."

    "What you have to understand here. And I cannot emphasize this more." Johnny repeated. "Anyone, and I mean anyone in my shoes would've done the same. I never intended to bully Daniel as much as he makes it sound like the opposite. And I get it you know, I really do."

    "I was this two time karate champ from the hills." I kept listening. "He was the dirt poor new kid in town from Jersey. Skinny as a stick and had no clue how to fight. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when it all started. But from the beginning I just wanted him to butt out. That's all. And you know why now right?"

    "To get back with my mom. To make up with her at least."

    Johnny nodded. "Every. Chance. I got. To make Ali see reason? She took LaRusso's side without hesitation. As LaRusso kept escalating things, I was trying to end them. He would, torment me at school, knowing that I couldn't fight back until the tournament. He challenged my dojo! What was I supposed to do?"

    "No I get it. You were trying to be fair. But so was Mr. LaRusso."

    "That's why I get your Sensei's perspective too kid," Johnny said as a car zoomed past quietly in the nearby street. "LaRusso's a good teacher to you I'm sure. But he can really be a scheming little scum bag when he wants to. Sometimes, most of the time, for just no reason except because he can."

    This was very true.

    Johnny had no idea that during his future attempts to teach Miguel Cobra Kai and make a living. Daniel tried his very best to ensure Johnny would fail. He went out of his way just to ruin any chances Johnny had in the first season of the show.

    If I had spoken to him supporting Johnny's side at all in this, Daniel probably never would've given me the time of day from how petty he came across in the first season of the show.

    Even Amanda realized how ridiculous he was being.

    "This has really opened my eyes. I knew you had some reason to do all this on some level. But I didn't realize just how much my mom really meant to you." I said. "I have a question though."

    Johnny muttered. "Go ahead."

    "The night of Halloween. Mr. LaRusso said you tried to kill him. And then you tried to snap his leg during the tournament."

    "Yeah." Johnny sighed. "In a way. He's right. I'm not justifying what I did there. But I started training in that type of stuff when I was just a bit younger than you are. I wasn't taught anything else for the past four years of my life at the time. I can't see myself apologizing to LaRusso though anytime soon, because as messed up as I'm sure Halloween and the tournament were for him. All of this is extremely complicated."

    "So what do you want me to do. What was the point of this?"

    "LaRusso has a family right? Robby mentioned he has a daughter."

    A daughter who rejected his attempt to ask her out recently actually.

    "Yeah." I said. "His entire family and I are decent friends, except for Amanda his wife, she's still kind to me."

    "I have no idea the kind of person LaRusso is now after all this time. But for your own sake, watch your back with him. He's a conniver. He's a troublemaker."

    I laughed. "And you weren't? Both LaRusso and my grandparents say you were the town troublemaker since you were old enough to ride a dirtbike."

    The Ace Degenerate.

    "Hey. At least I was honest about all the shit I got up to. LaRusso will spin it into someone else's fault. Always."

    He really was right.

    "Do you want me to learn your karate then or something?"

    "I can't." Johnny shook his head. "It's not right for me to get involved between you two. I know LaRusso is your Sensei. His way, is yours in a way. That's not my business. All I want for you is to know the true history here. You deserve that much."

    Despite watching all four seasons of the Cobra Kai show and the three films, he was right. I knew all this affected him, but especially Ali of all things, I had no idea affected him this much.

    "Thank you Mr. Lawrence."

    "Call me Johnny, kid."
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Thirteen
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Thirteen: Strike First

    ...

    As my first semester of highschool at West Valley High wound on I started to notice a few things about several people.

    The first about John Kreese, specifically the karate he taught me.

    I realized that in my previous life, where all these people were actors and the martial arts they taught actual styles, each had a real reference.

    More specifically, the Cobra Kai Karate taught at Lankershim's Cobra Kai dojo in the original films was a real style.

    It incorporated both Tang Soo Do and who Master Kim Sun-Yung would be, the man in the picture entering the Cobra Kai dojo, the real life Jun Chong.

    Shortly before I woke up one morning as Lucas Schwarber in my previous life, I had watched parts of a documentary about Jun Chong who had existed as Master Kim Sun Yung in this world. His Taekwondo was incredibly similar to the style of karate Cobra Kai fought with in the eighties and the kind I practiced every day of the week except for weekends.

    In the documentary. According to Master Chong himself, who taught ITF Taekwondo combined with several aspects of Judo and boxing just like Kreese's karate, his school outperformed all others in tournaments by a very wide margin just like the Cobra Kai used to in the original films.

    Because he said all Taekwondo schools competed with only kicks, whereas his school used a very strong amount of punching and hand techniques from styles like Kenpo Karate and Tang Soo Do even as well. And that there was a heavy emphasis on sparring, just like in the Cobra Kai dojo too.

    With all this in mind, I tried to find ways to combine my training in Miyagi-Do karate with all I started to learn from Kreese. Typically whenever I trained at home in my garage.

    I used a small wooden bench to practice throwing kicks from a balanced position as if I was back on the fallen tree Daniel made Robby practice all sorts of kicks for hours until he could do them all without falling.

    I made a strong stance to have a good center of balance and technique, and started practicing my kicks.

    I practiced several of the kicks I had learned from Kreese during this sort of balance training using the Miyagi-Do lesson about balance.

    The front kick, meant to land the moment your opponent's guard opened up when throwing a reverse punch with their rear hand, the counter Johnny had landed against an opponent he had during the All Valley tournament in the first Karate Kid film.

    The inside to outside or outside to inside crescent kick, both worked, which meant to make your opponent dodge or block and then instantly get hit in the head with the next kick. Which was the first and only point Dutch landed against Daniel during the tournament.

    Then there were simple strikes like the round kick to the body and to the head. Then I started with the hook kick, lost my balance and fell off a few times, but kept going.

    My weekly routine was actually rather simple and I was pretty busy. Weekdays were the hardest.

    From eight to three I went to school, then three to four thirty I finished homework in the library or just relaxed and sometimes spent time playing Magic the Gathering with Demetri, Eli, and occasionally Aisha when she felt up to it.

    Then I took the bus to Pacoima to train with Kreese in the abandoned supermarket loading dock we used as a classroom for an hour and a half from five to six thirty. After I was finished I took a bus back to Encino to spend about seven o'clock to eight to finish any remaining assignments I had for school.

    From about eight to nine I worked on bonsais, kata, and whatever else Daniel wanted me to do. I trimmed bonsais he had in his home dojo, practiced the basic katas, and then worked on whatever sort of balance or focus drills he wanted me to do, ranging from practicing fundamentals in reverse order from a kata, or doing what he considered light sparring, which was just one step sparring from traditional karate except in a chain of strikes and blocks.

    Kata with a partner basically. I'd seen him do it before under Mr. Miyagi in Okinawa during the second film I didn't judge him.

    At nine thirty to around ten I tended to ride my bike back home to the Mills Manor and go to bed and then do it all over again the next day.

    That was my whole week, Monday to Friday. Then on Saturdays, I usually went on a small fishing trip or hike in the woods with Daniel to both chat and relax together as well as train in Miyagi-Do. And then besides some extra muscle training and catching up on boxing in my garage on Saturdays, Saturdays and Sundays were my only rest days.

    I was surprised to find out there was far more than just hook kicks on a tree and a two legged kick to learn, both of which I was doing pretty well at.

    Doing kata on a small boat on a lake, mirroring Daniel's movements blindfolded having to do the kata from pure memory.

    Blocking strikes from behind a canvas to better predict and block strikes.

    Unless Robby had already done so incredibly well, and Eli to an extent too, I never would've guessed Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do would work so well together.

    In all forms of karate, there were always two results in training you were tested on during competitions as well as belt tests.

    Sparring, or fundamentals and strikes. Or kata, or forms.

    Cobra Kai focused purely on sparring, there weren't any forms in Cobra Kai karate at all. And Miyagi-Do was nearly the opposite, it was purely all the applications of combat outside of real combat.

    My entire semester had been this routine, and it didn't seem to stop anytime soon, and I was actually liking it.

    …

    Gramps was pulling into the parking lot of West Valley High School. "Good luck at school Sonny."

    "Thanks pops." I said quietly.

    It was Friday October 21st. I didn't have much going on today except a dinner or social event at the country club with my grandparents at seven thirty today. Luckily, the LaRussos would be there too, which was a relief because at least I'd actually know someone there, Sam and Daniel.

    Eli would be too, I knew his parents were wealthy but not wealthy enough to be part of the social club.

    I was opening my locker as Robby walked up to me. "Hey man."

    "Hey." I said.

    "I heard Eli's taking Demetri to this dinner thing tonight at the country club. He's going as his guest."

    "Yeah. I don't think it's your kinda place man. It's a suit and tie kind of event. Boring. Dumb. Food's probably not even that good."

    Robby scoffed. "Cause I'm not rich?"

    "No. Cause you're not a boring person."

    "I don't wanna go to have fun. I wanna go cause you know. Sam's there." Robby said quietly.

    I laughed. "Dude. Forget about her."

    "Why?"

    "Because this school is filled with girls. And it's pointless to get hung up on one of them. Trust me, you're better off anyway."

    "And why's that?"

    "Her friends suck. Yasmine and Moon. Are terrible. Same with Kyler, and Brucks, and Rory. They're all trash."

    "Sam's not trash."

    I sighed. "Maybe not." I closed my locker and started walking toward my next class. "But anyway, I already asked my grandparents if I could bring you. And they said no."

    "What?"

    "They're awful sometimes man. Sorry."

    Robby's eyes widened for a second and then he muttered. "It's cool man."

    "Robby look-"

    "I said it's cool. I gotta get to class," he said quietly again.

    Aisha was nearby, getting books out of her locker a bit slowly.

    "Everything okay?"

    Aisha shook her head quietly.

    Yasmine and Moon were pretty close by, Sam conveniently was nowhere to be seen as they had a few of their other friends nearby.

    They were laughing and talking quietly.

    "If they're bothering you you can tell a teacher."

    Aisha spoke quietly. "I already told Counselor Blatt. She's pretty useless."

    "Apparently the school's very concerned with its image and political correctness. Until someone starts bullying someone else."

    "It's easier for you. You don't know what it's like."

    I did though. Just not in high school, and during my previous life before I was Lucas.

    "I might not," I said honestly. "But you can at least tell Sam."

    "You already did right? You knew what they were like and she didn't listen. She just never listens."

    Sam did this during the first season of the show too.

    "Yeah. You going to this country club dinner tonight?"

    "I think everyone's parents are making them go." Aisha looked back at Yasmine with a scowl. "Everyone's parents."

    "Well then for tonight. You can mess with her back if she's bothering you."

    Aisha shook her head. "It's easier for guys. You can just fight each other. Girls aren't allowed to do that."

    If only you knew the number of times girls would fight both at and outside of this school.

    "Says who?"

    "Everyone. I'm already called a cow and Fuglisha by Yasmine. Next thing you know I'll be called an angry bull or something. They always come up with stuff like that."

    I passed on a very fun lesson from Miyagi-Do. "There are always alternatives to fighting."

    "Like?"

    "Like embarrassing her."

    "How do I do that?"

    I smiled at Aisha. "Ehh. Trust me. You'll see."

    …

    The rest of the day was completely uneventful.

    Sam wasn't very talkative in Bio, I didn't mind. We had a test and a lab practical, I knew I aced both.

    During lunch Robby seemed to have moved on from the country club thing, I didn't mind nor bring it up.

    And luckily neither did anyone else.

    As I finished a chicken sandwich I muttered to Eli. "Kyler isn't still giving you shit right?"

    "What's it matter?" asked Eli as Aisha and Demetri talked quietly with Robby about their favorite anime and he mostly kept completely quiet.

    "I'm just wondering."

    "Only sometimes. Yasmine and her people bother me about my lip too."

    "I keep wondering. How the hell can't I see it?"

    Eli frowned and sounded very bitter. "Why do you think? Look at you. They have nothing to make fun of you for."

    "Well, I'm your friend man. I need to look out for you."

    "I can look out for myself."

    "Evidently not."

    Eli sighed. "Do you want to go beat them all up or something?"

    I had been weighing the consequences of doing precisely that for a while. If Miguel could do it with the same time frame of training I had, about five to six months or so, or possibly less, with only Cobra Kai, and I had the same amount of Miyagi-Do too, I could do it for sure.

    The truth was I would earn a ton of points with Kreese, but by proxy lose the same amount with Sam and Daniel.

    Brucks, Kyler, Rory, and their last jock bully friend whose name I couldn't remember had been doing sports all semester. I think Brucks was on the football team or something, Rory did baseball I'm pretty sure and their last friend did either Lacrosse or baseball too.

    These were four guys in admittedly decent shape fighting me all at once if I needed to. More than anything I was itching for a fight. I technically hadn't had one yet since I beat up Trey and Cruz with a very sudden surprise attack at the pier by the beach club.

    "Maybe," I said.

    "Well fighting won't solve anything."

    It could actually solve plenty. My first instinct was to just go fight all of them at once and prove myself to Kreese.

    But Eli had a point. Because I didn't know the extent to Kyler's bullying here.

    First I didn't see it with my own eyes. All I knew was that Kyler made fun of Eli's lip a few times, which was genuinely uncool, but it wasn't the sexual assault he made on Sam nor the rumor about her he spread, nor tormenting Miguel, Eli, and Demetri for months.

    …

    It turned out the country club dinner took place in the exact same dining hall where Johnny had forced a kiss on my mom, Ali, and she proceeded to punch him in the face.

    I knew several people there but it still turned out to be pretty boring.

    Aisha had taken Robby to the country club dinner as a guest, something I had no doubt both of her parents had something to say about since he was a guy. Who despite both being a guy and a girl teenager, admittedly I knew shared no interest in each other though and had gone as friends.

    Sam, Daniel, Amanda, and Anthony were all there. Same with people who I knew would still belong to this country club a year prior to the first season of the show, Armand Zarkarian and his son.

    Kyler Park also belonged and was here, he brought Brucks as a guest. So did Rory who brought along their fourth friend, think I found out his name was AJ, in their group.

    Yasmine and Moon were here, same with Demetri and Eli.

    Eli's parents and mine got along splendidly as the dinner got underway. My grandparents were the type to hide how Jewish the family was out of old Stoic Scottish pride I found that out pretty early on.

    I myself wasn't too observant in Judaism in my previous life, but I never hid it as if these were the 80s and needed to be as classist as them.

    "So." Mr. Moskowitz said. "Lucas. Where did you do your Bar Mitzvot?"

    "Uh. Northern Denver Conservative Congregation." I said, remembering something I wasn't there for. "My dad was more observant than my mother was," I added bitterly. "I still never did things like Youth Group and such."

    My grandfather took a pretty long sip of water nonchalantly.

    "What was your Parshat?"

    Wow come on man, think. Did I use my real one I knew about or the one I apparently had as Lucas?

    "Emor."

    Mr. Moskowitz smiled. "Huh. Glad Eli made a friend like you."

    "Our Ali wasn't too insistent. I'm sure it was Gregory who was more involved." said my grandfather quietly as if he was slightly embarrassed.

    "Oh he was." I said quietly.

    "So your parents met in medical school?" asked Mrs. Moskowitz, who was the same woman I remember calling West Valley High School when Kyler was making fun of him for his lip.

    "Yes."

    "An old partner of our law firm actually worked with representing the Schwarber's practice over in Denver back in the seventies. It's great to finally meet you."

    Never would've guessed.

    "Same here." I said.

    "Must be a great deal of pressure. Several generations of medicine on both sides of the family. And you're the last male." said Mr. Moskowitz.

    "Some of us have to deal with very unique kinds of pressure sometimes."

    Eli frowned, glancing at me shyly while eating his dinner quietly. He knew I implied I wanted to tell everyone that Kyler was bullying him and it wasn't right.

    I'm sure he told his parents or something but he never gave them any specific names.

    "Well. I'm glad you moved to Los Angeles Lucas." Mrs. Moskowitz said. "Welcome."

    "And I'm glad to be here Mrs. Moskowitz."

    I had the same two options for how to handle both Kyler and Yasmine as it was almost November and they hadn't called it quits on either Eli or Aisha.

    Cobra Kai, or striking first. Or Miyagi-Do, defense only.

    I wanted to run it by someone first, or, particularly the person who I knew could make this hell if it all came down on me.

    I finished my dinner quickly and noticed Sam dancing with her father on what could very well be the same wooden dancing platform Johnny and Ali danced on when Daniel got spaghetti all over him.

    "It was a pleasure meeting both of you Mr. and Mrs. Moskowitz." I smiled. "I'm sure you both run the most professional of law firms."

    "Aw. Thank you dear, it was a pleasure to meet you too," said Mrs. Moskowitz.

    I walked over to the dance floor and muttered to Daniel.

    "Uh. Mr. LaRusso, can I cut in for a second?"

    He was just as on board as my grandparents when it came to Sam and I, even though we both knew there was absolutely nothing there.

    "Uh sure. Yeah yeah, go ahead." her father said.

    I took over as Sam's dance partner.

    She knew me pretty well at this point, I knew that she knew that I knew I didn't make random gestures of good faith like this for no reason.

    "What do you want?" asked Sam quietly.

    "I need to call a truce I think."

    "No one's at war Luke." Sam looked up at me with a shrug.

    "Well, your friends at war with mine. Bullying mine. And it's time for them to stop."

    Sam scoffed. "They're not bullying anyone."

    "Aisha and Eli beg to differ. I thought they were your friends too."

    "And if they refuse whatever you're accusing them of, you're going to fight them?"

    I sighed. "No one's fighting anyone. I just wanted to work on a diplomatic approach. I'm sure Kyler and Yasmine just need to be reminded of what they're doing is wrong. Nothing else."

    "Yeah well. I'm not sure I trust your judgment."

    "Then I don't trust yours either Sam." I respectfully raised my hands away and stopped dancing with her and walked back towards her table.

    Aisha had gotten some really nasty comments from the shit Yasmine started about her, and both Eli and Sam suffered a decent bit too under what Kyler did.

    If diplomacy wasn't an option, my only remaining options were hoping Eli's parents could do something, which I seriously doubted, even if they walked over to Kyler's parents.

    That would probably make things worse for all of us.

    I remembered something Kreese taught me.

    "No mercy means finishing your opponent. You struck first, you struck hard. That is it. They cannot retaliate or react, because you finished the fight."

    How to teach both Yasmine and Kyler a lesson without Daniel realizing I had no problems with beating people up.

    I think this plan would work.

    "Mr. LaRusso can we talk?"

    Sam glanced at me.

    "Yeah." Daniel said.

    …

    Outside the dining hall I spoke to him.

    "I really don't want things to escalate to physical violence. That should be a last resort. But I don't see this going any other way."

    "Lucas slow down." said Daniel patiently. "What's going on?"

    "Yasmine and Kyler, are two of Sam's friends. I know for a fact now they've been bullying two friends of mine, Aisha and Eli respectively."

    "And all four of them are here tonight."

    "Exactly."

    Daniel nodded. "Alright. Why don't we sit them all down in a room somewhere and have them hash it out? This country club has some empty rooms, I'm sure we could be allowed to use one."

    "You don't get it. They can easily turn this completely the other way. They're cowards and liars. And the school will never punish them unless Kyler has like beaten them up or something. And even then." I remembered how easily he got away with beating up Miguel on Halloween.

    "So what do you propose?"

    "I need your permission to confront them personally."

    "Of course you can talk to them, Luke. That's fine," said Daniel.

    "No. I mean if they're going to fight me. And I need to trust. That you will attest to the fact, that I was not the aggressor. And for you to back me up if their parents or them retaliate. That I specifically was defending myself."

    Daniel sighed. "They wouldn't attack you if I was nearby."

    "But I want this to end tonight though. They could easily pretend like they were sorry in a dining hall full of their parents and adults. But the moment someone turns their back they could attack me, or make things worse for Eli and Aisha because I stood up for them."

    "So you want my permission to fight them?"

    "Essentially. They're awful people and they're awful to people, but that's one thing. I genuinely believe Kyler and Yasmine could really hurt Aisha and Eli. Physically more so in Eli's case."

    Considering the lengths Kyler went to when it seemed like Sam started to want nothing to do with him.

    Daniel took a deep breath. "I really can't condone violence. That's just not right. But if you do believe that Eli and Aisha are in danger." Daniel winced. "Ach. This is really tricky. I want what's best for everyone here."

    "So do I. All I wanted to do was talk to you first. Before anything happened."

    "Just please be careful."

    "These guys are complete douchebags. And they will not care if they're talked to."

    Daniel sighed. "As my student. You have my support to protect your friends. Mr. Miyagi only really allowed violence if it was absolutely necessary. For that reason, I want you to promise me that you will not fight unless you're defending yourself."

    "I promise."

    Defense takes on many forms though.

    …

    As a waiter came by to hand Yasmine's table their seconds of spaghetti and meatloaf, I pretended I tripped or something to bump the giant serving plate over completely onto Yasmine.

    Several people in the dining hall burst into laughter. Particularly Robby and Aisha at the Robinson's table and even the very quiet and shy Eli.

    "This was designer Schwarber!" cried Yasmine looking like her entire night was ruined as Moon doted over her.

    "It was an accient I swear," I said as honestly as I could as Yasmine's parents seemed convinced by my follow up brown nosing. "Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell. Your new lines of clothes. Absolutely stellar stuff, I can see sponsorships of all sorts happening around the world. Your brand is, incredible. I would never do something like this considering the respect I have for your family."

    "It's alright Lucas." Yasmine's mother said kindly.

    Aisha had already snapped a picture on her phone. Strike back Ms. Robinson, very nice.

    Daniel looked pretty disappointed in me for this, probably in the same way I knew Johnny would disapprove of the sprinkler prank being the new version of the water hose on his head he got.

    Then I made a casual trip to the bathroom.

    …

    Setting up a phone to record what I knew would happen was kind of an invasion of privacy, but I made sure to angle the camera away from stalls and urinals.

    No one needed to pay other than Kyler and his group for what was about to happen.

    I quietly washed my hands as Kyler walked into the bathroom.

    "So how good was she?" I heard Rory ask.

    "She was a'ight. You know how those East Valley chicks are. They get down pretty easy."

    "Total slut wow." laughed Brucks. "Nice Ky."

    Brucks gripped hands and bumped shoulders with Kyler. All four of them were dressed as nicely as I was for the evening.

    "Wassup Schwarber." said Kyler quietly.

    "Not much." I dried my hands.

    "Saw what you did to Yas. That's uncool man." Kyler said.

    "I agree. But she should know what it's like to be messed with. As do you."

    Kyler laughed. "Me? What did I do to you?"

    "You did plenty to Eli. Come on man. Making fun of his lip."

    Brucks shrugged. "Mm. It is pretty ugly though."

    "I mean. Bullying to me is pretty cruel I guess. But it really crosses a line when you make fun of a deformity they can't control."

    "So Fuglisha can walk around like an overstuffed pumpkin is what you're saying?" said Rory. "But Lip can't look like he tried to make out with a blender?"

    I sighed. "You know what. If you want to be bullies go ahead. What do I care? But I swear at one point in life. You all will get what's coming to you."

    "What about what's coming to you?" Kyler said.

    They started to form up a little behind him.

    "Huh?" asked Kyler. "Come on man. You think you're hard or something? For threatening us?"

    "It's not a threat. It's just the truth."

    I had recorded one fight on my phone. I could record another.

    "You four think you're so tough? Fine then. Prove it."

    Kyler was confused. "Huh?"

    "Show me how tough you are." I shrugged. "All of you. One of you. Go ahead."

    I was so confident I could beat them I wouldn't even try my best. I could beat them with purely unmodified Miyagi-Do so long as I didn't make Miguel's mistake from his early few fights and stopped striking until everyone was down.

    Kyler laughed, turning around. "This loser." he scoffed, turning around to laugh and look at Rory before throwing a hook punch.

    …

    Cobra Kai OST: Strike First

    …

    As Kyler had finished throwing his hook punch Lucas had already used a palm heel strike to both shove and hit him back into Rory.

    Brucks and AJ looked at each other for a moment starting to surround Lucas from both sides.

    "Well?" asked Lucas calmly as they weren't making a move yet.

    Brucks and AJ threw wild haymakers at the same time and Lucas blocked both by adapting a single move from a kata.

    He turned around to give his back to AJ momentarily to use a high block both behind and in front of him. Unless Lucas knew he would instantly keep striking, he'd never give his back during a fight, that was a very important rule both Daniel and Kreese had taught him. His fist behind him was pointed upwards and the one in front downard to block both punches at the same time.

    Without a moment's hesitation, Lucas stepped up into a jumping snap front kick directly to Brucks' nose. As Brucks fell, Lucas spun around with a back fist to the head to interrupt the random grab AJ started to use.

    AJ fell grasping his temple as Kyler managed to grab Lucas at close range.

    As Kyler ran towards to wall to smash him into it, Lucas had the reflexes to jump and leap off a bathroom sink and back flip behind Kyler.

    Amazed, Kyler had no time to react before Lucas round kicked him directly above the hip and then punched him to the floor.

    When Rory started to punch Lucas he used a simple Miyagi-Do counter. He used 'wax off' to move Rory's fist aside and create the opening for a counter punch. The reverse punch directly to the body landed strongly, the follow up back kick to the chest landed strongly as well and was enough to drop him and make him hit his head against the bathroom stall behind him.

    Brucks and Kyler got up slowly but managed to attack Lucas at the same time.

    As Lucas' phone recorded the fight from a very well positioned spot in the bathroom, he went to work beating both of them with ease.

    He used very flowing, creative, and adaptive Miyagi-Do Karate. Blocks in multiple directions, single counter attacks, and then that was it.

    A round kick to the head again and a punch to the chest and Bruck and Kyler were out on the ground.

    The fight was over and Lucas didn't have so much as a scratch on him.

    He rubbed his nose slightly fixed his shirt sleeve nonchalantly. "Well, I guess that's that."

    …

    ...

    ...

    A/N: Small correction on this chapter. The character of AJ was incorrectly named as "John" even though Kyler's fourth friend canonically is named "AJ." Just a small fix I had to make.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Some pricks will get salty and become sitcom nemesis for Lucas after this humiliating defeat, lmao.

    Also, lmao at him cozying up to the bitch's parents while embarrasing their daughter while at it! XD
     
    Strike Back
    Lucas shows up these bullies whose really a frog in a well and sitcom Nemesis test dummies for his Yu Tube sensation proof with pure unadulterated Miyagi style beatdown in the Boys bathroom. They'll never live that one down easily either as Lucas succeeded where Miguel didn't follow through on finishing them off previously mentioned in same area.
    Continue on
    Cheers!
     
    Last edited:
    Chapter Fourteen
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Fourteen: Front and Center

    …

    Shortly after I defeat Kyler and his buddies I left the bathroom and my grandparents were already waiting to take me home.

    I had done it. I had beaten them with just Miyagi-Do, now came the hard part.

    Which was dealing with the fallout.

    …

    Daniel had watched the entire video carefully, start to finish, without any edits of mine sitting on the wooden bench he had in his home dojo.

    "Wow." Daniel exhaled quickly. "I expected them to be bullies. But not pure." Daniel trailed.

    "Douchebags?" I asked.

    "Well. I mean." Daniel sighed. "Maybe. Maybe you could say that."

    "Do you believe me now?"

    Daniel sighed, standing up off the bench. "Of course I do. But I'm worried about what the school's gonna say."

    "It happened at a private event at a country club. I have evidence that I didn't attack them." I tapped my phone screen playing the video of the fight.

    "Either way. It'll be a mess for you." said Daniel. "I'm sorry I didn't do more until now. I mean. I basically stood by and let you handle this whole thing. While it was my own daughter who was friends with all these people."

    Sam wasn't to blame. But not Daniel at all for sure.

    "No. You taught me the karate I needed to defend myself and my friends. Thank you." I smiled. "I think you made Mr. Miyagi proud by helping me stop my school's bullies."

    Daniel frowned. "Thanks but. If anyone got hurt. One way or another. He wouldn't be happy. He never liked nor sought violence. You know the saying people who don't know how to fight go out looking for fights?"

    "Yeah?"

    "Mr. Miyagi was the exact opposite. He was a man shorter than your average guy. Not muscular or tough looking at all, very respectful and soft spoken. And he was the greatest karate master and fighter I ever met. While I am glad you were able to settle this, or at least try to. I'm just disappointed violence ended up being the only answer."

    "They'd never punish them otherwise. I had to do something."

    "I know. And that's why I'm going to completely support you on this moving forward."

    …

    On Monday I noticed something.

    People Robby, Aisha, Demetri, or Eli knew either congratulated me or were glad Kyler was put in his place. People who he had bothered or annoyed, which were plenty, were happy with what they heard I did.

    The few people Kyler and Yasmine were friends with, which were only in athletics, weren't too happy with me.

    Members and a few coaches and assistant coaches of the football and baseball teams. They didn't say or do anything except give me a few nasty looks in the halls but they didn't threaten me or anything.

    Because even the jocks of this school probably knew it was a really bad idea to mess with me, even four against one.

    However, the inevitable came, and a staff member of the school took me to Counselor Blatt's office out of my first period.

    …

    Counselor Blatt and a few administrators asked me to wait outside while they reviewed the video of the fight I showed them.

    About fifteen minutes later I was allowed in.

    "Sit." Blatt said.

    She took a deep breath while I sat in the chair in front of her desk.

    "You. Cannot face any serious disciplinary action."

    "And why's that?"

    "Because this morning I received emails from the parents of several students attesting that the behavior of these students you fought against unequivocally. And undeniably proves that it was part of Mr. Parks group of boys."

    I was still confused. "How was this proven?"

    "With this video, just now." said Blatt pointing to her computer screen. "Mr. Park and his friends have been recorded admitting to harassing Mr. Moskowitz and others. And during this video you have clearly shown that you never struck any of them while they were down. In fact you made sure to show that you left with knowledge of this being recorded to show you were acting in self defense."

    Blatt frowned. "Which is what worries me."

    "I'm sorry what?"

    "Because you technically never broke any school rules and never threw the first punch nor seriously injured Mr. Park or his friends. And Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Moskowitz, and Mr. Alexpolous, as well as Mr. LaRusso have all sided with you and proven Mr. Park and the others were in fact the aggressors. The school has their hands tied from punishing you seriously."

    My eyes widened when I got it.

    Blatt or the administration was only useful when someone basically held West Valley High in a PR chokehold and threatened to let go only if they did the right thing.

    "So what's gonna happen?"

    "The most that's going to happen is you'll receive a detention tomorrow afternoon from three thirty to four thirty."

    I refused to take a sigh of relief to show that I respected this woman at all.

    "Okay."

    "Let me make this clear Mr. Schwarber. You are in a very lucky position. The staff is not happy at all that you took matters into your own hands and left what needed to be done out of the ability of the school to handle it."

    So I had to do nothing while useless PSAs were held about cyberbullying and harassment. Right.

    "I'll make sure none of this continues to happen. I won't fight anymore nor make sure there are any more sorts of altercations. But please. Just please, do me one favor. And don't call my grandparents."

    Because I actually was starting to like Miyagi-Do only slightly less than Cobra Kai and they'd probably threaten to fly me back to Denver if they found out I got into a fight.

    "Yeah, that's not really an option here," Blatt said. "However. The school staff does understand the. Unique situation of the support behind you. We'll comply with this favor you've asked for one time. If you understand by proxy that this behavior will not be tolerated under any circumstance moving forward. Self defense, or not."

    I nodded. "Yes Counselor Blatt."

    "Good. You're free to go back to class."

    …

    In the administration office before I left, three different parents were waiting for me and one by one thanked me.

    "I can't thank you enough son." I realized I was shaking hands with Chargers Linebacker Legend, the one and only 'Flash' Robinson. This guy was utterly huge, he was gigantic, built like a mountain and at least six feet tall, no wonder Yasmine had the courage of being a girl as a shield to torment Aisha for so long. "We owe you for what you did for Aisha." he said in a very strong and low voice.

    This guy's hand could probably grip a basketball with ease.

    "Of course Mr. Robinson. And thank you for taking my side."

    "It was our duty as parents." the man I recognized as Demetri's father said. A balding man with round glasses fixed them and spoke while shaking my hand. "You showed commendable courage. Honor. And tact. Just please don't get into a fight over this next time." he said in a tone that exactly matched his son's.

    I laughed, thoroughly reminded of Demetri. "Sure thing Mr. Alexopolous."

    "And when Eli finally was able to speak up about it." Mrs. Moskowitz smiled and put a hand over her chest. "Broke my heart to hear how proud he was of you for doing the right thing."

    I thought he'd be horrified. "Really?"

    "Uh huh." Mrs. Moskowitz shook my hand. "Thank you. Thank you so much for helping."

    …

    Lunch was a different story.

    No one was as cheerful or happy as Miguel. I was no hero, the entire thing was so covered in rumor no one knew what to believe so the cafeteria felt off and strange. A bit muted and a bit less chatty in other areas.

    I sat down at my usual table.

    Eli and Demetri quickly lifted up their lunch trays and left the moment I sat down.

    "Hey come on guys."

    They sat down at an empty table far from where I was, leaving me with Robby and Aisha.

    "What do they have to be mad about?" I asked.

    Aisha looked around the cafeteria as I began to eat. "This doesn't look good Luke."

    "Why?"

    "No one knows if Kyler really did bully anyone or not. I believe you, and so do my parents. But everyone else? All anyone knows is the school let you get off basically scot free and Kyler got beat up."

    I can see how choosing to settle this in a bathroom at a country club instead of a very public cafeteria would change things. There, it was clear Miguel asked Kyler to just leave Sam and people alone and he refused in front of everyone. Here, the only evidence the fight even happened were the bruises Kyler, Brucks, and their friends got, all four of them saying I fought them, and the video I took.

    I still deserved more than that.

    "But Eli told me they were messing with him!" I said. "It's done. They won't bother anyone anymore. I mean, people in my first period were glad Kyler got taught a lesson. Robby, back me up."

    "Look man. I'm glad you kicked a ton of ass using karate. A part of me wishes I was there actually despite just being a hallway away from where it happened," admitted Robby. "But Luke. Demetri and Eli specifically asked you to stay out of it."

    "That's not the right thing to do though. The school was going to do nothing. I wouldn't mind taking a suspension or two if it meant putting Kyler in his place."

    "If you can't respect Eli and Demetri's decision to just leave this alone. Why should we respect what you did?" asked Aisha, quickly joining Eli and Demetri at their table.

    I looked over at Robby. "Well. What are you waiting for? Sure Eli and Sam would be happy with you sitting with them for lunch."

    Robby looked down at his lap for a second while he ate the best lunch I knew Johnny could probably pack for him. Lunchables and Jack Links.

    He looked at me. "I agree with you that what Kyler and Yasmine were doing was messed up of them. But come on man. You could've run it by Eli and Demetri first. It was their problem."

    "I thought you said sometimes you had to take matters into your own hands. That you had to solve problems with karate sometimes."

    "Yeah you solve problems that way. When they're right in your face."

    "I seriously needed Demetri and Eli's permission to teach Kyler a lesson? Your dad is a karate champ who seriously knows what it means to be badass. Why would you disagree knowing what he taught you?"

    "Dude all we know for a fact is that you beat up four dudes in a bathroom. Again, no one really knows what happened. And people do know for a fact that Kyler never, ever talks to you or goes anywhere near you or me."

    "Because he's a coward. If Eli and Demetri stood up and admitted that they were bullied. My name would be cleared."

    "Publicly admit they couldn't do anything for weeks and needed another dude to save them."

    I sighed. "So Aisha's cool then?"

    "It's different for girls in a way. I don't know? But you need to apologize to Demetri and Eli. Soon."

    "Dude, Aisha, Eli, and Demetri's parents came to the school to shake my hand. They sent emails to the school backing up the fact that I was right. What more evidence do I need that I was completely in the right?"

    Robby sighed. "Nobody said you were wrong. And nobody said you were right. All we know. Is that the situation was really tricky. I can't take sides in this. Only the people involved deserve to. Aisha, Eli, Demetri, and in a way even Kyler and his people deserve that."

    "Because they're asshole bullies?"

    "Because they got their asses kicked." Robby chuckled. "I'm happy you're really damn effective with your Miyagee karate."

    "It's Miyagi." I said.

    "Sure." said Robby.

    I looked at him. "Do you think Kyler Park is a bully? Cut and dry pure and simple. Yes or no, do you think so?"

    "I mean maybe?" said Robby. "Eli said he was messed with. But it's not like I saw it happen. Like in the hallways or something or some time after school. And I'm pretty sure you didn't either."

    "How could you know that?"

    "Luke come on. We both know you were itching for a fight."

    "And you're not?"

    Robby shrugged. "I haven't had to use my karate yet. The point of it is to only attack and strike first when you know you have an enemy. Going out to fight and cause havoc for no reason, that's not what my dad taught me."

    Wow. Guess Johnny was still a really good teacher, to his own son of all people.

    "But I knew Kyler was my enemy. He was bullying my friends."

    "Sure. I just um. Think it's a very gray thing to talk about. All things are."

    I could show Robby the video. Or just finish my lunch quietly.

    "Were Trey and Cruz your enemies?"

    "The guys I knew had robbed my beach club and from what I saw were probably the worst kind of influence on you? Sure."

    "I appreciate you helping me out and getting me back in touch with my dad." said Robby. "Truly I am. But not everyone needs you involved in their problems. I think that's the main issue people have with you Luke."

    He had me there. I was a meddler in a way. Miguel was seen as a hero pretty quickly because for a fact people knew Kyler messed with Miguel and others by that point.

    An entire year had passed by that point of Kyler being a complete bully. Stopping it in its tracks had been a double edged sword.

    …

    In the hallway after school between the library and towards where the bicycle racks were, I was sitting down reading something when I saw Kyler walk past with a pretty noticeable bruise on his face.

    "Hey Park."

    He froze, turning around slowly.

    "What do you want?" he asked quietly.

    "For you to just leave people alone. Was that too much to ask?"

    "You could've just led with that yo." Kyler shrugged. "Instead you got up all in my face. Threatened me."

    "It wasn't a threat."

    "You said I'd get what was coming to me. How was I supposed to take that?"

    I sighed. "Okay I could've worded that differently. But I did say at one point in life, not soon. And. What you were doing wasn't cool."

    And I know for a fact you could easily return to being that kind of person the moment you stopped.

    "Is it fun for you? Is that it?"

    "They're pathetic and weak. What's the issue with pointing it out and laughing about it?"

    I scoffed. "So the fact that they're helpless is what makes it fun? Guess that makes sense for a bully. But okay. Do you know what I think? I think the moment you met me that day in the park over summer you realized. That I would have none of you or Yasmine being terrible to people."

    "And what do you want now?"

    "Nothing. Just stop trying to make it seem like what I did was on me in any way. Instead of just protecting my friends."

    "You keep bossing me around with this bruise on my eye. People will think you're the bully now."

    I nodded. "You're right. Which is why as long as you're not sorry for what you did. I'm not either."

    That shut Kyler right up, and then I left.

    I saw Yasmine standing near the bike racks talking to Moon and I walked past her.

    "Schwarber."

    I stopped, looking at her. "What?" I asked.

    Yasmine shifted where she stood, Moon walked away quietly.

    "I thought about what happened. And. I'm sorry."

    "Yeah well. It's not me you should be apologizing to."

    "About that. I don't think Aisha wants to talk to me."

    I frowned at her. "Then maybe she deserves that right."

    "She does," Yasmine admitted quietly. "But look-"

    "It took me humiliating you personally. In front of all of our friends and family. All of them. To realize you messed up. I-"

    "I'm not claiming you were wrong Schwarber," said Yasmine. "Just. Can you talk to her for me?"

    I spoke honestly. "Absolutely not. That's not my place, Aisha needs to decide that for herself."

    "But it is your place to beat up Kyler?"

    "I thought you just said I wasn't wrong," I said to her, gripping my backpack.

    Yasmine shrugged. "Never said you were right either."

    She had me there.

    "But you're just doing it out of guilt. Not empathy. You're sorry, 'cause you got caught."

    "And how would you know that?"

    "I don't have to explain any of this. This is between you and Aisha. I stepped in when she was clearly helpless for months. I'm the only person in this entire school, except for maybe Robby, who you and your crowd are afraid of at all. So I'm done okay? Drop it and I'll leave you all alone, and you leave everyone alone."

    Yasmine crossed her arms, smiling. "Wow. You say all this about courage. But you can't let a person explain themselves or make try to make amends without walking away from it."

    "You can't guilt trip me. I'm immune to that, I'm Jewish."

    "Then you should know that I have just as much right to apologize as much as Aisha does to not forgive."

    "Maybe. But again, that's not my place. I wish you better luck with asking Robby, Demetri, or Eli for this."

    I quickly left towards the bus stop on my bicycle before Yasmine could say another word.

    …

    In the supermarket loading dock, I was smashing wooden crates apart with my foot, practicing sweeping the leg and round and head kicks.

    Then I used the punching dummy we had created out of punching mitts and a strong stack of old wooden pallets.

    "Ais! Ais, ai, aiya!"

    I punched the pallet dummy so hard I burst apart the wood behind the punching mitt we had duct taped onto it.

    "You're learning the lesson well. You're aiming for the person behind your target. But I've noticed something. Front and center Schwarber."

    I walked over to what was 'Fall in' position in the middle of the abandoned supermarket loading bay. I got into Junbi, or ready stance, I made a fist with both hands and punched downward, my jacket making a quiet flicking sound as I stood with my fists in front of my hips.

    "What do you study here?"

    "The way of the fist sir!" I barked.

    "And what is that way!?"

    "Strike first! Strike hard! No mercy, sir!"

    Kreese looked directly into my eyes. "Then. Let's go over your basics. How do you strike first?"

    "There are only two parts to the Cobra bite. The lunge to close the distance or strike when in range, and the bite, the strike itself. There is nothing else Sensei."

    "Is there? So. Does the lunge include a lack of focus?"

    "No Sensei."

    "Does the lunge include anger or emotion?"

    I didn't know how to answer that correctly, so I said nothing.

    "It's a trick question. The truth is, the saying goes, that the best fighter is never angry. Cobra Kai Karate agrees in a very unique way." said Kreese. "In that, if you are angry, or confused, or scared. The strike becomes your emotion, not the other way around. But there is no hesitation. Your emotions do not cloud your technique, they enhance it."

    I looked at Kreese as he paced by me, rubbing his hands and sticking them by his sides as he looked back at me.

    "In the case that you are angry. And you truly wish to harm your opponent. Which is fine of course. You are still composed, focused, and above all. Vigilant. Anger makes you want to take that step forward to making damage. Which is good. Cobra Kai gives you a proper path with which to take that step and the next ones."

    Kreese raised one of the new striking mitts I bought for him. "Try it again."

    He gave me a nod the same way he nodded to Robby when teaching him to start channeling his anger. And the strange part was, I both liked it and found it effective, and it worked.

    And then I started to throw the standard Cobra Bite, or reverse punch.

    I started to throw techniques that were still strong and were meant to whip a person's head back. To throw all of my power into one single, focused blow and then repeat it.

    But I remembered the point of the lesson, to visualize. Then attack. Nothing else.

    Everything that frustrated me today. I let it out, but I did so by channeling it through the strike.

    By staying composed, by not thinking about it at all. I used the correct form when striking, but I added what he told me.

    Kreese was nodding by the end of the lesson after I started adding the roundhouse kick and the backfist.

    "To tap into the fullest potential of skill and effectiveness of how you fight. And who you can be. There can't be anything else. No anger. No emotion. Everything in you, can only be released and expressed in one place and one place only."

    Kreese tapped my knuckles, much how Daniel did so when teaching me the reverse punch but explained in a much different way. I used Kreese's own words from a scene that didn't even make the final cut of the third season.

    To the man I knew said them to another person.

    "I have to shut out everything else. And just strike."

    That nod he gave me told me everything I needed to know. He treated me with the same degree of respect, or more, as he did when training Robby Keene.

    Kreese explained. "Channeling your anger isn't easy. Johnny Lawrence was the best example of this and he was the greatest Cobra Kai I ever trained, he was unstoppable, precise, he struck as fast and hard as lightning. But he loved your mother. He saw beating LaRusso as the only way to win her back. The moment he lost the match, was when he thought love was a better substitute for what I had taught him."

    I continued to understand the lesson. "It's not anger. It's channeling everything. Into just one strike. Into attacking. Into no mercy."

    "You've understood the lesson well. I'm looking forward to how you can apply it outside the classroom too." Kreese chuckled and checked his watch. "You're doing well for your sixth month. That's class."

    My feet came together, my hands snapped to my sides, and I bowed to Kreese. "Thank you Sensei."

    …

    I sipped from my water bottle while stuffing a few of the striking mitts into my backpack as both it and Kreese sat on the cement loading dock bay.

    "You really had all the fuel necessary for the fire that was the lesson," said Kreese. "Where did it come from?"

    "Does it matter?" I asked quietly.

    Kreese detected how I said this and crossed his arms, laughing quietly by merely exhaling quickly from his nose and smiling for a faint second. "No. It doesn't. But I need to know anyway."

    "I thought striking was the only thing that mattered. There was nothing else. No reason for it. You struck." I zipped up my back pack quickly. "That was it."

    "That's for black belts to fully understand and apply," said Kreese. "Not students of Cobra Kai who've been studying it for only a few months. Like I said, even Johnny Lawrence who I'd trained for years couldn't apply this lesson properly when it mattered the most. During his match with LaRusso."

    "What are you saying?" I asked. "That I'll go out and just get arrested or something for breaking some guy's nose randomly?

    "That's not what I'm saying," said Kreese. "I'm just saying that you typically aren't angry at all. In fact, since the day we started training. You just strike, there's nothing behind it. This anger of yours, it's new. It's good don't get me wrong, with the right training it'll be great even. But it's new I need to know what the source is."

    "And you picked up on all of that by just watching me warm up today?"

    "Of course I did. What's bothering you Schwarber?"

    "Dumb stuff at school. It's all. Stupid drama. None of it matters."

    "It must matter a whole lot to you."

    I looked at him. "Sensei. I did what you taught me and I was punished for it."

    "You did?"

    I spoke. "I need to explain a lot to you."

    I then told him everything that happened these past few weeks between Sam, Eli, Demetri, Aisha, and Kyler and Yasmine's groups of bullies. While making sure to exclude any notion that I trained in Miyagi-Do.

    Kreese was nodding by the end. "Yeah. I'd be frustrated too. But you have to know something."

    "Which is?" I asked.

    "You did nothing wrong. And they want to shame you for it."

    I nodded. "Even LaRusso backed me up. Daniel LaRusso I mean, not his daughter."

    "Even still. The school, all these people. Your own friends. Tried to make you feel ashamed for who you were. And for doing the right thing. It's a miracle the most you got was just a pat on the wrist."

    The first person I'd met besides Daniel to truly accept my actions as just and fair for what was done to Eli and Aisha.

    "And people called Cobra Kai the bullies apparently. According to what you told me about it back in the day."

    Kreese shrugged. "Bullying is a very complex topic. Oftentimes, we can see a bully only. But sometimes, behind it the whole time could just be a person or a victim. It can even be the other way around too."

    "I found that out first hand today, despite how clear it was to me who the victims and the bullies were. I knew it before. Just didn't realize what it would be like up close to handle all of it."

    "But the important thing I want you to know is that you did everything right. These friends of yours. They'll forgive you in time for what you did for them. But for now, they don't understand it. They don't understand what you did."

    I nodded.

    "They don't understand who you are Schwarber. Who you're trying to become. You fought for them and they scorned you for it. You struck your enemies down. Now. If your friends couldn't handle some taunting and name calling. Well. You know how I feel about weakness. But you didn't like that that was happening to your friends. You didn't like it at all, you more than hold that right. To take action on what you think needs to be done or doesn't."

    Kreese smiled and so did I as I looked away slightly. "You didn't want that to keep happening to your friends. So. You took action. You were assertive, and you didn't hesitate, you just struck. That's exactly what I taught you to do, of course no one would understand it. The results are meant to feel messy. They always are. But the lesson sticks with you forever."

    "But no one gets it. Even Robby who trains and lives with Johnny Lawrence, your old top student as you said. He only somewhat gets it. I explained myself perfectly. And it's like no one understands that I did the right thing."

    Kreese nodded slowly.

    "People don't listen to words if you want them to do something. They listen to actions."

    I nodded back. "Yeah."

    "Cobra Kai was built on that. Everyone can say they know how to fight. The problem with most martial arts is that they train under the assumption their sparring partners are complying to not harm them. After all, karate was about the opposite. Knowing how to be ready for a real fight right? So Cobra Kai was all about pressure testing our training to realistic scenarios and hard sparring. But every year at the All Valley. The second we overcame the Vidals. We were so far ahead of the rest of our competition it was hard to consider tournaments as just that anymore. A competition."

    Kreese kept talking. "Outside the dojo." he cleared his throat. "Where I taught, the original location back on Lankershim and Magnolia in North Hollywood. I had this giant and bright Cobra out front, and the words Karate and Strike Like a Cobra everywhere in all capitals or big letters. As well as pictures on the windows of people sparring."

    I nodded again.

    "And you could hear the students kiai'ing from outside the dojo sometimes, and there were all sorts of trophies in the windows and in the entrance, I've showed them to you. All this noise, all these bright colors and fanfare. But inside the dojo. If I couldn't train my students properly or truly prepare them for a real fight. What did all of that matter?"

    I got it. "What anything looks like. Or what it sounds like. Doesn't matter. It's the actions that matter."

    "Yes," said Kreese. "That is the heart of Cobra Kai. Talk is cheap. Underneath everything in this very fragile and as you said, misunderstanding world, the only truth we have are actions. And actions determine victory. Do you understand that Mr. Schwarber?"

    "Yes Sensei. I do." I put my backpack over my shoulders. "I'll see you tomorrow Sensei."

    "Hm." he nodded. "You know a part of me wanted to leave this town just around the time we met this summer."

    "Really?" I was surprised.

    "Maybe I'd come back a few times and visit just for a few old memories. But until I started to train you, there was nothing really left for me here until then. Now I see my place as a teacher is more crucial than ever. Because what happened to you in regard to this Kyler Park kid, is only the beginning."

    I was a bit confused. "The beginning of my training? The beginning of breaking All Valley tournament records?"

    "I mean that it's the beginning of everything for you," said Kreese. "Whoever you will become. The person you will want to be. My lessons will follow you and help shape that."

    Kreese looked very pensive for a moment.

    "In the twelve months you've had since we met to prepare you for your first All Valley, I've broken it into three four month parts. You've passed the first. Which was teaching you the basics, and giving you good discipline and awareness. This second part is very important. Where I start really improving your technique and making it all more advanced. Then, the third part in the four months leading up to the All Valley are especially crucial."

    I listened carefully.

    "In that time frame. I will have to essentially double your training and my efforts to make you Cobra Kai. However, to enter the All Valley, you have to at least have a black belt. It has always been my belief that one year is not enough time to master any martial art that means anything, least of all Cobra Kai. But I will make sure you're ready to prove that your way. Is the right way, in the greatest stage possible to show it. So I'll make sure you're ready."

    I nodded. "Yes Sensei."

    "You're dismissed Schwarber."

    I bowed and then left the loading dock.

    ...

    ...

    Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading.

    Now a quick message to the guest reviewer Anon, as I can't send PMs to guests I have to post this quick question here.

    I'd like to thank you very much for very loyal, consistent and helpful comments. But I'm wondering if you've seen the Karate Kid trilogy and the Cobra Kai Netflix series? If so, I'd like to know if I've portrayed all the characters accurately and faithfully as well as if the story and plot are faithful as well.

    If you haven't, I politely request you watch them, because not only are they of rather high quality, but it is pretty crucial for this fic.

    I was hoping to keep things realistic with how the fellow high school students of West Valley would react to Lucas beating up known bullies. I don't think they'd be ungrateful nor unhappy, but surprised that he went with violence first. That was the main takeaway I wanted, because Lucas didn't try to report them to any teachers, he just went right for violence:

    He struck first.

    That was the main objective of this chapter, hopefully I kept that realistic with all of the characters in this universe.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • I only watched the film when very young and forgot about it, thus I'm taking everything you're writing here as close to the source as I can find.

    As for Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy? Well, it is Luke's bloodthirstiness that blinded him to another venue of attack for the bullies in question:

    Social manipulation.

    Sure, tell the teachers first--and more importantly, let them know you informed them about their actions.

    The moment they decided to 'teach you a lesson'? Well, the phrase 'fuck around and find out' comes to mind. Especially if it is recorded that they sought reprisal for Luke being a snitch and that they'll be beating him black and blue for tattling.

    Afterward? Well, spread the recording--shame them by publicly showing how they all lost against the 'snitch'.

    I do find it incredibly weird that he decided to approach the 'weaklings' just for their 'canon' portrayals, when his very own actions derailed their choices that'd lead them to follow said 'canon' portrayals.

    The two nerds are salty that they had a friend willing to go to bat for them and were bottom bitches about it in the process? Fuck them and their 'pretensions' of knowing their place and not wanting trouble.

    Now? The bullies are doing exactly that--the 'social manipulation' to portray him as the bully, which is exactly as bullies are wont to do.

    I look forward to him flipping the board over and smacking them over the head with it--useless Blatt included.
     
    Chapter Fifteen
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter Fifteen: Legacies

    …

    In the days following the complete defeat of Kyler, I kept my eye on him for any retaliation. But it didn't happen.

    Things were still tenser than ever with Sam, I don't think she openly accused Kyler of any bullying but I had succeeded in making her ask questions.

    Regardless, I didn't care anymore about her or talked at all really. She and I both got different lab partners and that was the last I saw of her mostly for days.

    As with most people I identified as being background characters I could interact with and talk to, one of them was actually the first person attractive to me in any way, Charlotte.

    She had that very pretty blonde look I knew Yasmine had, but none of that nasty superficiality and bullying attitude at all.

    I knew her character only received a name at all by coincidence in the credits of the show or on the actor or actress' social media in real life back when I lived outside of this world. She had joined Cobra Kai around the same time Kenny Payne did in the show, and had no role in the plot at all besides being yet another named extra.

    However, her actress, Phoebe French, was kind enough to appear on a few interviews with Youtubers in the same way the actor for Shawn Payne did as well. Weird to consider all these people I knew as well, people now playing fictional characters I interacted with on a daily basis.

    I mostly got used to it after the first month, every time I really thought about it, it surprised me.

    But I was still building on how exactly to talk to Charlotte. Because for all the attention I got earlier this semester, that sort of died down upon fighting Kyler, I honestly wasn't the best when it came to relationships in general, least of all romantic ones of any sort.

    …

    In the library after school I spotted Kyler and Brucks walking past, chatting loudly.

    "What?" Demetri asked.

    Both Binary Brothers weren't on the best terms with me so we were taking the resumption of our friendship slowly.

    "I'm sorry about the fight. Really I am." I said.

    Demetri grumbled. "Honestly who's gonna mess with you now that you're the toughest kid in school? Whatever Luke."

    "I'm the toughest kid in school?"

    "Yeah." said Demetri. "Not even Robby Keene's as tough as you are. You both ride skateboards around sometimes. Makes me wonder why you bother hanging out with us."

    "I think our social groups are a little limited now that I've pretty much pissed off every major athletic group in school."

    "Why would the basketball team be mad at you?" Demetri wondered.

    "Let me guess," I said quietly. "I showed I had no problem putting top football, wrestling, and baseball players out of commission for about a week no sweat. They're probably wondering if I'll be the bully police as you say and go around doing the same or whatever."

    Demetri scoffed, taking a few more notes from his History textbook. "Wouldn't be surprised honestly."

    "How many times do I have to say I'm sorry."

    "It's fine Lucas," said Eli shyly. "Really. It is."

    I looked around and saw Charlotte reading in front of a nearby book case.

    "What?" Demetri asked.

    I shook my head.

    "Nothing."

    Demetri shrugged. "I'd wish you good luck. But with your level of looks, confidence, money, and general level of strength and muscle I'd say you'd be fine."

    Sometimes Demetri resembled Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory so much that sometimes it was pathetic.

    "It's not like that man. Not anymore anyway."

    "Beating up the school's top bullies no one really knew were bullies can do that."

    I put my book for English, A Separate Peace, down and walked towards her.

    Charlotte didn't see me approaching.

    "Hi," I said quietly.

    Charlotte saw me, closing her book. "Hi."

    "We have the same English teacher, right? O'Shaughnessy?"

    "Yeah I see you leave his room a few times after fourth," she said lightly.

    I cleared my throat. "This is a. Bad way to start a conversation. But through rumor or otherwise. Would you happen to know my name?" I smiled weakly.

    Charlotte smiled lightly, stifling a laugh. "Yeah. You're Lucas Schwarber. The sports team menace. Some of the other girls on my tennis team mentioned you. Not that, girls have anything to be afraid of." she said awkwardly.

    "I mean. The whole spaghetti thing was kinda out of line for me." I admitted.

    "Well. No, Yas deserved that. Half the people I know from cheer say she really got put in her place for that."

    I was enjoying the decision to talk to her more and more.

    I was a bit surprised. "You do cheer and tennis?"

    "I just am friends with people on cheer, but I did consider trying out. I knew Yasmine from our middle school. She was cool, until she joined the cheer squad. I don't know what happened afterward, we stopped talking."

    "People change when they. Join a sports team? I don't know." I said quietly. "Anyway. Um. What's your name?"

    Because it was weird to admit I already knew it from a place I myself never would've imagined knowing.

    "Charlotte." she shook my hand. "Friends call me Char. Char, Charlotte. Doesn't matter to me."

    "Well." I put my hands in my jeans pockets. "I didn't realize I was a menace."

    "Yeah…" Charlotte said. "Most freshmen aren't known to beat up four guys on their own. Fights rarely happen in general here I've noticed. But I don't know, I didn't mean it like that."

    "It's cool. Speaking of menaces, this reading list huh? What a snore."

    "I know right. I actually like books, it's just the ones we got I'm gonna have to Sparknote."

    I nodded. "PE. English. Some classes seem pretty useless. Separate Peace is a total drag, god. I couldn't get past the second paragraph."

    "I know!" Charlotte laughed quietly as we were still in a library. "I can't stand English either."

    "Besides this mess with Kyler. I was expecting these really dumb cliques to pop up. And for high school here to be. Terrible in a way."

    Charlotte shrugged. "So did I. I had an old middle school teacher who made it seem like it'd be a living hell. It's just not."

    "My friends still seem to think these really weird outdated concepts like popularity and me. Apparently being the toughest kid in school are you know. The norm."

    Charlotte winced, gripping her arm. "You kinda are no offense. That does happen when you walk away from fighting four guys fine and they're all beat up."

    "Why does everyone think that's such an odd thing?"

    "Gee. Maybe because it only seems to happen in the movies?"

    I laughed.

    I really liked talking to her.

    Charlotte checked her phone. "I um. I gotta go. But can you do something for me?"

    "Sure."

    "Can you hand me that book on the top shelf? That one."

    I read the title aloud after I helped her. "A Traditional Guide to Creole Peoples and Culture?"

    "It's for a project. I think you might get it next unit. Which History teacher do you have?"

    "Er. Old guy, tends to wear a hat. Milton."

    "Milton. Yeah, I think it'll come up for you. You gotta make a presentation on your heritage and culture or something. The books a requirement for a source."

    I smiled. "Guess I'll have trouble finding books on Scottish dog breeding. It's an old family thing for the Mills. And um, it's cool to hear you're Creole."

    "Oh, I myself am not Creole. My parents adopted me, they're mostly Creole and Native American."

    "That, that's awesome. See ya round."

    I walked back to my table where Robby was sitting with us tucking his headphones into his backpack.

    "Very nice Luke." Robby nodded slightly.

    "What?"

    "She's in my History class. Blonde. Ridiculously cute." Robby smiled with a wink making an 'okay' sign. "Indeed. Niiice."

    As time went on I realized just how much of his father Robby absorbed from Johnny.

    Demetri said nothing as Eli broke a smile.

    "What are we talking about? What's so nice?" Aisha said putting her backpack down and sitting in the empty spot next to Robby.

    "Luke's got a thing for that blonde girl we sit with in Ilanova's class." said Robby.

    "Oh, she's nice," Aisha said.

    "That's what I keep saying." Robby nodded again. "Niiiiice."

    Aisha lightly slapped his elbow as Eli actually started to laugh which was a very rare thing and Demetri finally showed any interest outside of his homework unless specifically interrupted to do so by laughing.

    I took a long sigh. "I hate you guys."

    "We're all you got since you got Kyler and Yasmine and all their friends either afraid of or mad at you. Both in most cases." Robby said.

    I muttered back to him. "Alright dude. And what groups have you branched out to?"

    "None. I mean. None of the clubs or teams are for me." said Robby. "My dad said all that's for nerds."

    "You do everything your dad tells you?" I wondered.

    "Well no. But he is the authority of this school. Prom king, karate champ."

    "Yeah maybe thirty years ago. Back when fights at beach parties and the VHS was the hottest thing out."

    "Your mom was the queen apparently. According to my dad. Sorry if that sounds weird man."

    Demetri and Eli were pretty lost and then Aisha chimed in. "Their parents used to date in the eighties." They then both nodded.

    I assumed Robby told her. A bit surprising really.

    "His Sensei is the guy who went out with his mom that started this whole. Thing," said Robby.

    "What's a Sensei?" asked Eli quietly.

    "It's a karate instructor," I said before checking my phone for the time.

    One of the two aforementioned Senseis I would actually be late with. Unless I left immediately to the bus stop I would miss it and show up late to class with Kreese for the first time ever.

    "Alright." I said picking up my backpack. "I gotta go guys."

    Robby nodded as everyone muttered their goodbyes for the day.

    …

    I approached the supermarket loading dock where we trained and saw Kreese holding a duffel bag which was a bit strange.

    "Sensei, what's going on?"

    "Today's class is a field trip."

    "A field trip where?"

    "To your first fight."

    "I told you I already had my first fight. I beat up four bullies on my own, if that's not my first fight I don't know what is."

    "Four completely untrained kids your age aren't what I'd call a first fight. We'll make it there in time if we hurry."

    "But where is this?"

    "If we hurry. We go." Kreese said. "Or are you questioning my orders Schwarber?"

    "No Sensei."

    …

    On the bus ride towards wherever it was we were going I spoke. "So where is this? What is this?"

    "It's called semi contact kickboxing. It's point sparring but actually useful to developing good fighting ethics."

    "So then why am I competing in the All Valley in May? Why does Cobra Kai take the All Valley so seriously?"

    "Because martial arts have evolved greatly since back in the day. In the eighties, karate was everything. Boxing and kickboxing were around for sure, but all the kids of all ages respect and wanted to learn karate. Now, it's all these new styles."

    I sighed. "But I just know karate."

    "Exactly. My karate. Which I think can survive in this new environment." said Kreese. "I've taught you good fundamentals. Good striking form, a good guard, and given you good reflexes. This is the best kind of place to test this."

    "But again, I beat up four guys. Everyone at school's called me the toughest kid in school this whole week."

    Kreese sighed. "Does anyone at your school train in any sort of kickboxing or boxing?"

    "Not that I know of."

    "Then you beat up four idiots who thought numbers and size meant everything in a fight. You fought creatively enough to win when outnumbered. But it's not enough. You need to face someone with actual training, in a genuinely competitive environment. This tournament will really help your training. It's the right kind of energy and sportsmanship."

    "But won't people recognize you and I? I thought our training was supposed to be a secret?"

    "Do you know anyone in Valencia?"

    "I know people who could know people in Valencia. Because of the internet anyone can know where I've been in under a few hours." I remembered that Kreese wasn't as out of touch as Johnny but he was still pretty old. "Plus if we're going to some kickboxing tournament wouldn't people recognize you? You said tournaments are the one place you could get recognized."

    "We'll be fine. This might only be a twenty to thirty minute drive for most, but this is a muted and subtle tournament. Not the kind you're thinking. It'll all be fine, trust me."

    I nodded. "Okay Sensei. I trust you."

    …

    He was right. I wasn't expecting it to be a very large yet low key kind of place.

    It was in some sort of huge garage or storage area. It clearly wasn't any sort of underground fighting ring of any kind, all the referees and officials had a uniform of a simple white shirt and black slacks or jeans.

    Kreese and I walked up to the main plastic table.

    "Hi there. Can I help you?" the guy with dreadlocks there asked.

    "Yeah we're here to compete." Kreese said.

    "Okay." he handed us a sheet of paper and a clipboard. "All the paperworks there. The rulesets are attached. Have you ever competed in IKF competitions before?"

    Before I could say the honest no, Kreese spoke.

    "I used to compete in the old IKF, back when it was still SCKC." Kreese said. "I know the rules."

    "Well they haven't changed much sir." said the official. "Take a seat and as soon as you're registered we'll see if you can line up a fight for you."

    I sat down with Kreese. "I didn't know you used to compete in kickboxing."

    "Only back in the seventies before I opened the dojo. Three point style fighting was useful for a time for the Cobras. But I knew at some point they'd want to move on to bigger and better things. Sure karate was globally competitive at the time, but this was really the next step. It never came around because I had to close the dojo before I got the chance."

    "So this will help me with my training for the All Valley?"

    "Immensely. Possibly more than anything I could really come up with in regular training. A few solid rounds in the ring will really improve your stuff. Here."

    He handed me the clipboard and pen as I read the paper.

    IKF PKB Amateur Valencia Championships

    Friday, November 18th 2016

    "This seems way beyond karate. Why bother with the All Valley if this is what Cobra Kai was meant for?"

    "Because it's ultimately the same thing just with much more limited contact and only three un-continous points. And this league completely fell apart from lack of memberships and competition during '75 so I had to move on. This is points sparring but continuous. Punches and kicks to the head, chest, and legs are all scored differently. The match does not stop when a point lands."

    "Oh so like a Taekwondo match. The classic style."

    Kreese shrugged. "Somewhat. This is semi contact instead of no contact or full contact. It helps competitors appreciate both a real fight as well as the sportsmanship and training conditions of a spar. You won't be tapping each other or playing tag around the ring, but you won't be bashing each other to bits either."

    "Would Cobra Kai compete in stuff like this if the dojo reopened?"

    "No. This is a mostly one time thing to keep you sharp our dojo is still completely about karate, this is just a smaller part of that, a training exercise of sorts. After this, I expect you to return to full on training for the All Valley. You only have a couple months before it starts anyway."

    It was Saturday May 13th of next year.

    I signed everything I needed to on the sheet as I spoke to him. "We have the rest of November. December, January, and then February, March, and April to get ready."

    "You'll be training so hard in the preceding three months before the tournament today will look like a tray of cupcakes." said Kreese. "I promise you that."

    I handed the finished papers to the official who spoke after checking his notebook, open nearby on his table.

    "You're in luck. We have only one person in your category signed up for a match. Typically juniors divisions are thirteen to fourteen and fifteen to seventeen, but you two are the only teenagers competing at all today you have to spar. He's fifteen, record's one and one, around your size and weight class, should make for good work." he said.

    I nodded. "Looking forward to it."

    Kreese walked over to the fight schedule which was quickly updated about two minutes later by the man.

    "I just forgot something."

    "What?"

    "You're just fourteen. They always have the kids fight first at these things. We only have half an hour to warm you up."

    I was surprised. "Is that enough?"

    "Plenty actually."

    Kreese had managed to buy me a mouthguard and sparring helmet and used the mitts we had to warm me up. "Remember. This is semi contact, you can land your hits properly. Just don't over do it or you'll be taken out."

    "That's even if I can land a knockout." I mumbled, starting to throw some punches on the pads. "How'd you even find out about this?" I said through my mouthguard.

    "Found a computer at a local library. Just don't worry."

    I made sure to keep my chin tucked in tight and my shoulder high when throwing my jab on the mitts. Not telegraphing my front kick, and going over everything I needed to know for my match as Kreese spoke.

    …

    Lucas and his opponent entered the ring, Kreese standing just behind where Lucas was on his corner.

    "Again kid. This is a free spar with plenty of punches to the head. You're not used to it, but you'll be fine. Points just happen to be involved."

    The announcer spoke as there was only one referee and Lucas' opponent was a curly haired teenager slightly taller and more muscular than him. Both of them had their shirts off wearing boxing trunks and were wearing both foot and shin protectors, gloves, and a mouthguard and helmet.

    "Fighting from Cabrero's Muay Thai! His record one one, Liam Borges!"

    The crowd of nearly twenty five people all sitting in plastic chairs around the single ring used for the entire competition applauded lightly.

    "And fighting unaffiliated. His record nothing nothing, Lucas Schwarber!"

    The crowd applauded slightly less.

    "Okay gentlemen. Come here, touch gloves."

    The same official who had helped Kreese and Lucas sign up for the tournament was the one refereeing the match.

    Lucas and Liam did so and tapped their gloves together and the referee spoke. "These are two one minute and a half rounds with a third for a tiebreaker if necessary. Do not stop fighting unless I direct you to do so. Ready?"

    Both nodded.

    "To your corners!"

    Liam walked to his corner, Liam bouncing.

    "And!"

    The bell rang.

    "Fight!"

    Lucas and Liam walked towards each other.

    Lucas was mostly nervous, a little wary of being hit in the face for the first time in his life. The crowd wasn't even that massive nor were there too many lights. But he still kept his guard tight and circle his opponent, not throwing anything significant.

    Liam came right at him and started throwing very strong yet controlled punches to the head and body, finishing it off with a perfectly landing round kick to Lucas' ribs that hit him in the left side of the chest.

    That started to wake him up, and Lucas started to jab.

    He timed a huge right hand landing on his opponents chest and then simple front kick to the temple which was blocked.

    They circled each other again, as Liam started to jab, Lucas circled around for a split and cut an angle, throwing a backfist to raise his opponents guard and expose his body and another strong kick.

    He stepped up into a lead side kick which landed just above Liam's hip, staggering him.

    Kreese nodded silently in approval.

    The round continued and the only significant blows either of them landed were Lucas with a perfectly timed left lead hook to the liver and Liam with a punches to the head and body and a single kicks to the leg.

    As everything except punches to the head counted as two points instead of one, Lucas had to get very creative with how he chained his shots together.

    Being checked with a knee when throwing a round kick to either the body or the head hurt very badly and Lucas learned it the hard way. As well as leaving his hands down, chin up, or elbows out, to get hit in the head or body. But he started to find ways to counter certain attacks and combinations.

    A straight right followed up instantly with a round kick was easily parried and dodged, but the moment of space created the second a new angle was created had to be followed up instantly with either a punch of a kick of his own. Other counters followed similar timing of creating a new quick space after dodging when an opponent attacked and filling it instantly when counter attacking and throwing a strike in return to score.

    Lucas didn't realize it but exactly what Kreese intended was working.

    He was getting less afraid of being hit in the face with direct punches or kicks. He read the ring more, timed his shots better. Even though it wasn't full contact, the semi contact aspect helped him appreciate the simple method of hitting and not being hit more.

    However, it wasn't enough. His opponent was far more experienced and despite it being hard fought throughout, his opponent ultimately scored clearly better.

    The bell was rung quickly and the referee separated Lucas from Liam the moment he started to jab. "Stop!" he said.

    A young woman was handed a slip of paper from one of the referees and spoke. "Round goes to Borges!"

    Lucas panted quietly as Kreese took out his mouthguard, gave him his water and spoke. "You're doing great kid."

    "I'm losing."

    "Cobra Kai doesn't believe in defeat for a reason. Because you're learning to adapt to a losing situation that's the point." Lucas spat out the water in a bucket Kreese offered. "Then you come out a winner."

    Kreese spoke.

    "You need to work on your counters more. This is how you'll land and how you'll win this match. Fight more aggressively, now that you've gotten a handle for his jab and how a match like this works. You make the come back. Score those points back Mr. Schwarber."

    "Yes Sensei."

    A pair of plastic sticks were banged together loudly to announce the round was about to begin.

    "Just stop thinking about it and go. All your training, all your reflexes and technique are already there."

    The bell rang for the second round.

    Lucas did exactly as Kreese asked.

    He read his opponent's attacks and acted accordingly.

    Lucas threw way more jabs and more front kicks to lead into follow up punches and knees and other kicks.

    The moment his opponents foot began to lift off the ground and throw a front snap kick Lucas had almost jumped forward and already planted his front leg hard on the mat to control yet hit his opponent as hard as he could within the rules directly in the jaw.

    Lucas threw a jab to invite a counter, a round kick, that Lucas instantly counted with his own counter, a right hand straight to the body.

    He landed straight punches with his lead hand, his left, and his right hand to both the head and body, as both counters and part of combination attacks.

    Lucas started to land his kicks more, even a few knees a bit, and was timing his blocks and defense far better than in the first round.

    Liam was still scoring hits well, but not as much as Lucas.

    Then the next thing Lucas knew the second round ended and almost instantly the quickest judges decision he'd ever seen was announced.

    "Round goes to Schwarber!"

    Lucas walked back over to Kreese who was crossing his arms smugly without so much as a grin or a nod of acknowledgment.

    The referee muttered to Lucas. "You get an extra thirty seconds to prepare for this last round."

    "Okay." he muttered back while panting slightly.

    "What did I say?"

    "That fear does not exist."

    Kreese shrugged. "You know what to do for this last round."

    …

    During the last round, Lucas hadn't evolved completely at all, but it was clear to Kreese that he had grown from the previous two rounds.

    There was no flinching or freezing up from his part. Any strikes coming his way, punches, kicks, knees, he merely adapted to and reacted appropriately.

    He countered, dodged, or blocked them. He used the ring, he struck, he scored.

    Liam was still a kickboxer through and through and didn't make it easy at all, but fought a losing match.

    He had begun to turn it around nearing the end of the last half of the fight until Lucas used the only legal sweep the Semi Contact Kickboxing match allowed, a trip using the front part of his foot to hook onto his opponent's lead leg and sweep him off the mat as he kicked.

    Lucas' first instinct was to finish his opponent and score with a punch to the head or body, but managed to keep his contact under control as he had the entire match having thoroughly abided by the rules since learning them.

    Liam stood up and they two continued to spar for almost ten seconds when the round rang.

    …

    I panted quietly wearing a simple black tanktop I had brought with me for training with Kreese today instead of competing in this points kickboxing match surprisingly.

    Borges was wearing a shirt too and we both stood with one of our hands held by a ref standing on either side of him.

    "Ladies and gentlemen after three rounds of kickboxing." said the announcer as the audience listened in silence. "We give you the judge's decision. The first round was scored decisively for Liam Borges, the second, split for Lucas Schwarber. And."

    The announced fixed his tie as he spoke. "By split decision. Your new thirteen to fourteen and fifteen to seventeen year old Southern California IKF, PKB, PIR, and PMT Division winner."

    He paused.

    "Lucaaaass Schwarber!"

    I watched as Borges applauded respectfully, showing great sportsmanship as a green and white trophy was handed to me.

    The small crowd applauded.

    I smiled back and nodded and shook Borges' hand as an official gave Borges a medal.

    "That was great man. Good work." we tapped hand wrapped fists I said. "Great fight."

    "You too. Where'd you learn that?" he asked.

    I looked at Kreese for a second. I hesitated to say karate, because it really was just kickboxing and boxing applied in a traditional karate style of training as I'd proven in our bout.

    "Just an old school kickboxing club. You've probably never heard of it."

    He nodded. "A'ight. Good shit."

    "Yeah good stuff man."

    …

    I looked at the trophy I was given. "Smaller than I would've expected."

    "It isn't an All Valley trophy I promise you that." Kreese chuckled. "Karate's the sport that's fallen off. All the others just grew."

    "Tell me about it. But why was that tournament we just went to so tiny?"

    "Like I said. This form of competition got so unpopular in its old league it actually got disbanded a few months before I opened Cobra Kai. It used to be called the Semi Contact Kickboxing Club, only had twenty eight members during its peak. Great men, great fighters, all of them retired, moved elsewhere, or passed away."

    "Any of them still live in LA?"

    Kreese shook his head. "No. That's why I was sure neither of us would get recognized. And, the reason why I helped join a semi contact club was for the same reason you just learned."

    "It's the only way for what I learned to be applied in an environment against other trained fighters outside of huge championships like the All Valley."

    "How do you feel?"

    "Pain does not exist." I muttered quietly.

    Thankfully too. I was glad I took so many headshots today to numb the pain I felt in my knees, shins, and especially my ribs and chest. I'm sure I gave out as well as I took, better by the trophy in my hands. But for a semi contact tournament, it only really meant you couldn't apply enough force behind a blow to knock out an opponent.

    Everything else was fair game so long as it was in legal scoring areas above the belt.

    "And what do you think?"

    "This was good. But I preferred the All Valley we saw earlier this year. Sure there were more people, but I think it's a lot faster. Lower volume of strikes, but different. I like both overall really."

    "Good. Because this was the most you'll see of point kickboxing for a long time, this was just a training exercise. Because the moment your winter break starts, your real training begins."

    "How so?"

    "In the months leading up to a tournament. I had the class do the reasonably hardest training I could. First cardio, then strength training, then sparring and fundamentals. The class would train at least two hours a day every weekday for weeks until the tournament began. Then they actually competed."

    I laughed. "Miracle the Vidals actually gave you any trouble at all considering you trained your class so well. Sounds like a lot of training."

    "When I said pain does not exist." Kreese looked over at me slowly from his bus seat next to me. "Did you think I was joking?"

    "No Sensei."

    "Good. This trophy." Kreese nodded towards the new Point Muay Thai. "Needs to be the first of many. Your opponent fought well today. And he fought hard. As did you. You need to start fighting better, and harder. And keep up these trophies. You can never stop winning enough, that is Cobra Kai."

    "Yes Sensei."

    And for the first time since I met him, Kreese patted my shoulder and completely acknowledged what I had done.

    "You are becoming Cobra Kai. You are becoming a student I can be proud of." he admitted quietly.

    I smiled. "Thank you Sensei."

    "But just don't think I'll repeat it."

    "Sure."

    …

    Shortly before nightfall I waxed cars on and off in the LaRusso's driveway. They had two.

    Daniel had his own car, and Amanda had a family car, which was strange since I was sure they could have a third for a family car and give Amanda her own.

    I whistled him up. "Donnie! Bring the bucket boy, come on."

    He did so like always.

    "Yes, good boy yes. Who likes the head pats? Now fetch the soap."

    Donnie's tail wagged and the golden retriever quickly retrieved the can of wax I needed.

    "Yes." he adored the chin scratch and the head pat. "Yes! Good boy." I said before tossing him a biscuit he caught out of the air.

    He panted quietly and sat next to where I stood before I continued, attached by leash to a clip on my belt even though I knew I ran the risk of being thrown around suddenly if he saw a squirrel or something.

    "I thought your internship only meant you had to clean cars in dad's lot."

    I smiled at him for a quick second. "Oh. Hey Anthony. No, I'm just practicing my fundamentals and kata." I said, knowing how crucial my reflexes Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai both gave me for counters after today especially.

    "This. Is karate?" asked Anthony. "Where are the punches and kicks? And dad's weird hop kick thing?"

    "I don't plan on ever learning the crane kick." I said. "Miyagi-Do karate teaches you that life is not what it seems. Balance is everything. Life starts in the breath."

    "What does that mean?"

    "That doing cardio is absolutely great for you in a fight," I said. "And um. To take life one step at a time. And everything becomes clearer."

    Anthony sipped his cold drink. "But it just looks like you're doing chores."

    "And it looks like you. Have really gotten in shape."

    "Yeah um. Soccer helped. You did actually thanks."

    "No problem Anth." I tapped his shoulder quickly. "Speaking of which. You're on your way to becoming a fellow soccer champ. Which means. You'll get attention from more of the ladies."

    "Which ladies? I haven't met any interested in me." Anthony said dryly.

    He hadn't met Lia yet then.

    "Trust me. At some point it'll happen."

    "You speaking from experience?"

    I shrugged. "More or less. Thing is. You're out on a date one night. Or some guy happened to be jealous of you." Like Kenny the Cobra Kai, who you also haven't met yet. "You might need to know how to defend yourself."

    "And washing cars helps?"

    "It's called wax on wax off. And it helps you to not get hit in the face by a punch."

    "But that still doesn't look like karate."

    "Do the blueprints for a car look like a car? No. Kata includes the basic techniques involved in karate. The reverse punch, several kicks, almost every block."

    Anthony was still confused. "Then why practice kata? Why not just practice the techniques themselves?"

    "Because Miyagi-Do kata is about more than just the techniques. Miyagi-Do is about balance in all aspects of life, and the kata specifically teaches things you need in life. Clarity, a neutral and calm perspective. And if all you care about is striking to win."

    I stayed silent realizing that was nearly the opposite of all I used it for until now.

    "Or to hurt. Then you've missed the point of karate entirely."

    "So then what is karate supposed to be about?"

    "Whatever you want it to be. As long as it's for self defense."

    Anthony shrugged. "Okay. Nice to know." He said before leaving.

    A few minutes later before I left I finished the last coat of wax on Amanda's car.

    I saw my own reflection in how shiny the car was. And I thought of the pride, honor, and respect both Daniel and Kreese had in me.

    And how conflicted that made me feel. But I was interrupted.

    "You gonna sic your dog on me or something?"

    I didn't look at her. "Trust me. Donnie'd never hurt a fly."

    "Just like you wouldn't?"

    I folded the towel I used to get rid of any sticky or messy debris in particular I found. "First time all week you talk to me Sam. And it's to aggravate me."

    "You attacked my friends!"

    "Yasmine instantly regretted what she did to Aisha. And Eli and Aisha won't be bullied anymore."

    "Is that why you spoke condescendingly to her the first chance you got?"

    I sighed. "That was out of line for me. But I was right that it's up to Aisha to decide how to feel."

    "You know what? I'm sick of this. You use the karate my dad gave you to become the toughest kid in school. Some people even think you're some sort of hero." said Sam. "But all you did was beat up four people in a bathroom and got away with it scot free. Doesn't that bother you?"

    "I didn't want violence to be the first answer."

    "Which is why you baited Kyler into fighting you?"

    I couldn't look at her. "I'm sorry Sam."

    "You are?"

    "But you don't get to talk to me like I'm some sort of monster."

    Sam scoffed. "Why not?"

    I knelt to put the finishing touches on her mom's car. "Because it's not fair. I don't consider you to be awful. So don't treat me that way either."

    "So if Kyler did that to your friends you wouldn't be mad?"

    "Sam I go to school every single day with Aisha and Eli. We're pretty good friends. And I have to ask myself if they're getting hate mail and being called awful things no one should online. Started by things your friends did and said."

    I realized the root of all this.

    Sam never had undergone the cyberbullying she had on Cobra Kai here. She didn't know what it was like for them.

    I frowned. "But you know what? It's all my fault. It's my fault I stood up to Kyler and Yasmine. My fault for having to use karate for its purpose. Self defense. My friends are part of who I am, of myself. Myself was attacked the moment Eli and Aisha were bullied despite being genuinely kind people."

    I laughed. "Look at you Sam. You have a great house, tons of friends and will own your own car one day. One kid from out of town comes in and learns karate from your dad. And you automatically assume he's a monster for having to beat up one of your friends with it. Yasmine felt guilty, and your first assumption is that I'm in the wrong."

    I walked past Sam mumbling. "If I'm so much of a burden to you and to this family. Fine. You won't have to see me at anywhere but school."

    …

    Cobra Kai OST: Bonsai Lessons

    …

    I spent the last half hour before sunset practicing kata on the place I often sought to seek balance. Donnie laid down and waited patiently outside the LaRusso's home dojo on the patio to not get dog hair anywhere.

    Kata cleared my head. It made me forget about everything. It made me feel centered and clear.

    Donnie stood up instantly off the floor and panted as Daniel rubbed the top of his head and walked in. "Hey Lucas."

    I stopped doing the third kata he had taught me, Saifa Kata, combined with a few moves from Sanchin.

    "Mr. LaRusso." I said.

    "I heard. About what happened with Sam. And being called, the toughest kid at your school apparently."

    I nodded. "Yeah."

    "And I heard particularly about what you just told Sam. Look, you don't have to guilt Sam into-"

    "It wasn't guilt Mr. LaRusso," I said honestly. "It was the truth. I'm done."

    "What?"

    "I have nothing to gain by fighting with her. It's clear she and her friends have no patience with me. And being here adds horrible distress to your family. I'll go."

    "No." said Daniel quickly walking up to me. "No no no. Lucas, there's no horrible distress."

    The truth is that there was. But it wasn't Daniel's family or Sam, or even him.

    It was me.

    For months now I've learned that Daniel was almost exactly the same man I knew from the Cobra Kai show and Karate Kid series.

    He was a patient, kind, and forgiving man. He was very flawed, but ultimately, and always, meant well and stuck to his principles.

    Mr. Miyagi would've been proud when he forgave Miguel. And forgave Johnny in a way. And saw how responsible he was for everything that happened by the end of the show's fourth season.

    He had been honest, respectful, and helpful. He gave very good and clear advice, and it was applicable and helpful from day to day.

    But I learned something else. Something I never thought possible.

    Daniel saw how thoughtful and resentful I looked. "What is it?"

    I couldn't say.

    Because John Kreese, a man Daniel only knew as an abusive, violent, and murderous monster was as much a mentor and father figure to me as he was.

    "Lucas. Talk to me please."

    "Do you regret having taught me Miyagi-Do?"

    Because it tore me apart to be able to see both you and a person who was the reason you even needed karate in the first place as good teachers.

    "Of course not. I'm proud of what you've done actually, I helped show your school that what you did was justice."

    "Because Mr. Miyagi never saw violence as justice right?"

    Daniel walked past his picture on the wall of the home dojo and sighed. "No. He didn't. But Mr. Miyagi understood something much more important than that."

    "What?"

    "Balance," Daniel said. "Peace. Safety. Mr. Miyagi only wanted to teach me karate because I was in danger. From Cobra Kai. From enemies he had made." Daniel frowned down at his own feet. "From even myself at one point."

    He had just referenced the problems he'd encountered throughout all three films. And it hit me how this wasn't a movie character. I again realized this often.

    That this was a very very real person. Someone I trusted and respected a great deal.

    "But Mr. Miyagi knew what he was passing down to me was a huge part of his life. He told me very personal things. Taught me very personal lessons. And he'd only find it right I helped another person find balance and pass on that torch."

    Daniel smiled. "This home dojo we practice in often. I was going to make it a storage room. Forget this entire part of my life even existed. Because wow, Amanda and I really needed it at one point. But you know what? I'm glad it came back. Because it showed me how necessary what I had learned was."

    He continued to explain. "It's more than Miyagi-Do karate what Mr. Miyagi taught me. He taught me how to be a better person. How to live a better life. The same way you're doing."

    I sighed. "I'm not too sure about that."

    "Lucas. You're fourteen years old and you got into your first fight. These things happen."

    But I didn't. I sided with and bonded to a man he'd never believe I thought as human, honest, helpful, and mentor-like as he was.

    The fact that I came to realize Kreese deserved as much of my respect and attention as a person, caused me so much guilt I could barely look at this home dojo. Of Mr. Miyagi's picture, all the Miyagi artifacts everywhere, and Daniel's trophies.

    Or even at Daniel himself.

    "I'm sorry Mr. LaRusso. But I just can't do this."

    "Yes! You can. You understand these lessons better than my own children-"

    "I don't," I said quickly, surprising Daniel. "Sam and Anthony aren't perfect. But Miyagi-Do. Miyagi-Do isn't me."

    "Lucas, your mother was part of the reason I learned Miyagi-Do. She was one of the only three people I knew who helped me compete when I won that trophy over there. And one day if you want. Your own kids can learn it too. Mr. Miyagi was willing to fight five kids one night on Halloween just to save me. What makes you think he'd be ashamed of you beating up four other bullies using the same karate?"

    That wasn't why I was so ashamed.

    "All the kata and these lessons have helped me a lot, to feel better, to feel like myself. But I just feel really awful and awkward about all this." I looked around Daniel's home dojo again. "But I can't help feel out of place. Like I don't belong."

    Because I literally did not belong here in a way.

    "I understand," Daniel said after placing a hand on my shoulder. "I'll want to be your teacher for as long as you need. It's up to you. It always is."

    He smiled lightly and gave me a nod before leaving the dojo.

    I glanced at Mr. Miyagi's picture before I left. And thought about the legacies of his karate and the other kind I learned.

    Because I think I was the only person who'd ever want to honor both him and the founder of its rival martial art, Tang Soo Do, that helped create Cobra Kai Karate, Kim Sun-Yung.

    I'd bow to both their pictures. And learn both of their karate. I found there was much to learn and much to respect in both styles and in what both men passed on.

    But the truth was, that it'd never happen for much longer than May of next year. Because their students, my two Senseis, all had too much history.

    I'd tough this really strange and horrible guilt of balancing two completely different kinds of karate taught by polar opposite teachers out for another few months. But, at the All Valley tournament, I'd make my decision.

    I took a deep breath. I learned one of the most important lessons in Miyagi-Do in my first few months.

    I'd need a clear head to make that choice. This guilt was natural.

    Right?

    ...
    ...
    ...
     
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