Disclaimer: I blame marathons of Karate Kid movies on TV for making me writing fanfic of it, haha.
Story: Working in the restaurant across from the Cobra Kai dojo, Danielle LaRusso's mom decides to sign her up. Being the only female, Danielle has to learn to deal with overprotective Cobra Kai students and a crush on her sensei.
Set as a genderbent AU of the first Karate Kid movie.
Spoilers: Yeeeessss. Yes, yes, yes. Beware?
Warnings: Age difference, initial racism towards Asians, excessive drinking, some violence and language, PTSD, gender roles and gender expectations, societal expectations…
Pairings: John Kreese/fem!Daniel, one-sided Cobra Kai/fem!Daniel.

White Crane
Chapter Two: She Ain't Havin' It

Danielle moped around the apartment. She had no friends and she had nowhere to go to –she didn't know where to go. It was a new city and she was alone, while her mom went off to work. She tried playing her guitar for a bit, but she only managed an hour of that before her mind wandered back to the fact she had just left everything behind. Not that she had anything back in Jersey. She had been a loner there too, but at least there had been familiar and she knew how to get around and what to do.

Los Angeles was something else though. It was large and bustling with people and noises everywhere. She had never been there before and she didn't know where to go, much less the fact that she was still friendless.

It was warmer too. Even if it was nearing the end of summer, she could tell that California was much warmer than New Jersey. She was sure that –

A loud knock on her door interrupted her and she frowned, heading over to the door to peer through the small eyehole. She saw an unfamiliar teenage boy outside.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Hi! I'm Freddy. You don't know me yet, but I'm one of your neighbors. I heard the new neighbors were moving in today and that there was going to be a teenager my age. There aren't many kids around here, so I thought I'd come say hiya!"

Danielle debated with herself, but she did want to make friends. The guy was overly energetic though, but eh. Beggars can't be choosers.

She opened the door and shyly waved. "Hi, I'm Danielle. I just moved in. Please to meet you."

He blinked before giving a shy smile back. "U-uh, hey there! So I was wondering if you wanted to hang out or something? There's a beach that's nearby that we can go to too, where a few of my other friends will be around."

"Beach?" Danielle perked up. There were beaches in New Jersey, but there she had never really gone to them, especially since she would have been alone.

"Yeah!" Freddy became more energized again. "It might be cold since it's getting late and it's almost not summer, but it should still be nice to hang out there!"

"Okay, sounds like fun," Danielle beamed at him. "Let me just get dress for if it's cold out there. Want to come in?"

"Uh, s-sure!"

She opened the door and let him in, and she hurried to change. Shorts would be alright, maybe? But if it's cold…then some jeans. She could just put on a hoodie and a beanie to keep warm, which she did next, making sure her beanie covered her ears and kept them warm before she tucked in her hair.

She met back up with Freddy and they left her apartment behind, while they talked about themselves on the way to the beach. She noted he had a soccer ball with him, which excited her since it was one of the few things she was good at.

"I love soccer," she told him. "It was one of the few things in P.E. I participated in."

"Really?" Freddy was grinning. "How good are you?"

"Not bad," she thought about it. "I think I'm pretty decent at it."

"Awesome! Maybe you could show me and the guys back on the beach, eh?"

She laughingly agreed just as they finally reached the beach, to where some of his friends were already at. She dimly noted that there was a group of girls hanging out too, though they were all just sitting on some blankets and just listening to music. She went back to paying attention to Freddie as he led her to his friends and introduced her and she greeted them hello back. They decided on starting a pickup game, and she played on Freddie's team.

"Ah, geez, Danielle! Decent? You're great at this!"

Danielle gave a sheepish grin, though she felt giddy at the compliment. She kept playing on, not noticing one of the other girls on the beach had come closer.

"Hi," the blonde-haired girl surprised Danielle. "I'm Ali. I haven't seen you around before…?"

"Ah, I'm Danielle," her eyes widened. "Um, I just moved here actually."

Ali smiled widely. "That's great! We should hang out sometime and maybe I'll even see you at West Valley. You'll be going there, right?"

"That would be nice," Danielle was quickly warming up to the friendly female. "And yeah, I am!"

"So what are you doing?" Ali pointed at the ball.

"I'm playing soccer with the guys," Danielle held up the ball, before beginning to toss it up and then catch it. She even showed off a bit, using her feet and knees to do some tricks.

"Wow, you're really good," she said impressed, but before she could continue on, there were loud roars of engines and a bunch of boys had driven by the beach before parking their…m-motorbikes? What in the world were those?

Danielle frowned as she watched those boys marched down the hill to the beach, heading towards them. She yelped as the leader, obviously the blond boy in front of them, pushed her aside and confronted Ali.

"So, you're hanging around here, huh?"

"Yeah, so?" Ali said dismissively. "Why do you care, Johnny? We've been broken up for two weeks."

'Johnny' seemed to have puffed up at that, looking agitated. "Which was a mistake on your part!"

Ali snorted. "Your ego is larger than you can handle. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Go away."

Furious, Johnny stormed over to the radio that was playing and shut it off, making Ali get pissed off in turn. Danielle blinked, wondering if she and everyone else had suddenly been dropped in the middle of a lovers spat or something.

"Give me that!" Ali screamed at him.

"No! Not until you agree to talk to me!" Johnny shouted back, holding it threateningly over his head. "Or I'll drop it!"

"You jerk! I said give it back!"

Deciding to interfere, Danielle came closer. "Hey, come on, guys. Let's just cool our heads, alright. Listen, man, put down her radio," Danielle guessed it was Ali's. She was getting mad over it after all.

"Don't interfere!" Johnny snarled at her.

Danielle scowled outright now and stood between them, glaring at him. "Get off your high horse, Mister! You're the one who gatecrashed and interrupted, so put down the radio and butt off!"

Johnny dropped the radio and stomped over to Danielle, who stood up straight and didn't back down. When Johnny tried to get around her to get to Ali, she pushed him roughly and he retaliated by grabbing her arm and twisting it behind her, pushing her down into the sandy ground painfully and pulling a cry out of her. However, as he pushed her down more and his hand reached around her a little more to get a better grip on her while his other hand had her arm, he grabbed something he shouldn't have, at the same time as her beanie came off.

But Danielle was way more focused on his hand on her breast, not even caring or noticing how it had become quiet and still.

"You…you asshole!" she screamed and gained a burst of energy to break out of his suddenly slacked hold, head-butting him backwards and pretty sure she hit him straight in the face. "You freaking pervert!"

"W-what?! N-no! That wasn't…I hadn't!"

But she wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, instead kicking him in the stomach and then sucker punching him in the shoulder. Then she whirled around and began storming out of there, intent on heading home before she could be further embarrassed and pissed off.

She may not know karate (yet, dammit!), but she was pretty damn good at boxing and she also did cardio kickboxing with her mom, thank you very much!

Danielle didn't stop until she was all the way back home and decided to take a shower when she got in. Unfortunately, the water heater wasn't working and she had to endure a cold shower, further giving her a bad mood. After cleaning up and getting dressed, she decided to search out the apartment complex's maintenance man, and found the small place he seemed to work in.

"Hello?" She tried to keep her tone even.

"Yes?" An old Japanese man appeared and looked at her inquisitively.

She gave him a feeble smile. "Um, my apartment's water heater isn't working, so if you could take a look at it when you can?"

"Of course, of course," he gave a friendly smile. "Mr. Miyagi will take a look at it tomorrow."

She gave a more unsure smile, but inwardly shrugged it off. She was also wondering if the man was referring to himself in the third person, but decided not to ask.

"Okay then. I'll see you tomorrow?"

She gave a small wave goodbye and then headed back to the apartment to wait for her mom. Deciding to change into clothes she can sleep in, she slipped off her pants and shirt, and found her San Diego's Chargers jersey and put that on, leaving her legs bare. She'd always been hot-blooded, and her trip out had proven that California's cold temperatures weren't really that cold to her, so she definitely didn't need to pile on the clothes.

Time passed and she played with her guitar a little more, idly even making some beginning pieces to songs, before her mom finally came and she straightened up.

"Hey," her mom said cheerily. "You wouldn't believe the day I had! Whoo boy."

Danielle gave her an unimpressed stare. "Try my day."

Lucille rolled her eyes. "Oh don't be such a drama queen, Danielle. Tell me all about it then."

And so Danielle did, even including the sort-of fight at the beach.

"That poor boy," Lucille commented, causing Danielle to sputter.

"What? I was the one who was assaulted!"

"Dear, I'm pretty sure that you not only broke his nose, gave a large bruise to his shoulder and his stomach –you are not a light girl, Danielle, or forgiving! –and I'm pretty sure you humiliated him in front of everyone. And accused him of being a pervert."

Danielle grumbled. "Well, he is. And he deserved all that."

Lucille just shook her head. "Well, I'm just glad that nice maintenance man will be coming tomorrow to fix our water heater. I didn't even know it was messed up!"

Danielle made an agreeing noise, flipping through the karate book she'd brought over from New Jersey. Lucille noticed.

"So, my job didn't pan out," Lucille hesitantly started, which made Danielle perk up in interest.

"Does that mean we can go back to Jersey?"

Lucille sighed. "No. Honey, we drove all that freaking way from there to here, resolved and resigned everything back there, and already gotten started on living here. It's not plausible."

Danielle echoed her sigh.

"However, I was able to find a job at the Chinese restaurant across from where I was supposed to work," Lucille tacked on.

Danielle scrunched up her nose. "So you're a waitress instead of a computer programmer. That's…an upgrade," she said sarcastically.

Lucille swatted at her daughter's head. "Shush you! And no, I'm not a waitress. I'm a hostess."

Danielle almost asked if there was a difference, when she shut her mouth at her mom's warning look.

"But I found something that might cheer you up –"

"Doubtful," Danielle said immediately, flipping a page.

"I found a karate center that's willing to take you in."

Danielle pushed away her book and sat up, eyes widening as she looked at her mom in excitement. But then she became skeptical.

"Do we have money for it? Classes are expensive."

Lucille waved her off. "Don't worry about it. The owner and teacher said we can have a bargain price if you agree to come in early and help set up for class and help clean up afterwards. Well, technically he said you could just help clean up after class, but since you'll probably get there early, he mentioned you could help set up and that he'd probably also help you catch up to where everyone else is in class."

"Done," Danielle agreed. What was more chores? She was already stuck cleaning up and taking care of where they lived now, and back when they lived in Jersey, because her mom wasn't around a lot and had to work to make sure everything got paid and they had food on the table. So what if she had to help around somewhere else too? Big deal.

Her mom was hesitating though. "Yeah, he also mentioned that the class was only full of boys at the moment. Are you okay with that?"

Oh. That…that might be a problem?

"No?" she answered, but it sounded too questioning to be taken seriously.

Danielle sighed. Well, it shouldn't be that bad. Right?

Started 1/23/17 – Completed 1/23/17

A/n: So Johnny's going to be ragged on by the others, especially Ali, for a loooong time. Doubtful Danielle's going to let this go easily either~ Didn't plan on having Mr. Miyagi come so soon, but eh. Here he is. Also, I really wanted to finish "The Things I Can Do Without" first before working on this Karate Kid fic, but I got in the mood and I thought maybe it might not be so bad to try to update every once and a while. I might make the pairing include Terry because poor guy's got nothing for him in fandom and I already have a few just Danielle/Kreese fics. Next chapter should have Danielle meeting Kreese and maybe another meeting between her and the Cobra Kai. In any case, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and please remember to review!

Anon Reviews:

1. Guest 1: Yeah, I'll to update more often, though my original plans had been to wait until my other Karate Kid fic was finished.

2. Guest 2: Thanks. I'll updating more now.

3. BLZ: Haha, thanks. I'm not planning on giving up on this (I've already planned out practically most of it), but I had plans on starting this a little later on. I decided to try working on it more now though, since I've been in the mood, and I've been really wanting to work on it anyway.

4. kagome higurashi: Thanks and I will be trying to write more.

5. Guest 3: Look, I'll try to update more –I've got a life, my dad just passed away, and I'm just trying to get in a mood to try to write and update regularly. Be patient please.